Hollowed (19 page)

"
You shine brilliantly in your own light, Briar. Do not try to veil yourself in someone else
'
s.
You are strong enough to handle anything that is thrown at you.
"
He kisses the tip of my nose, his smile making the corners of his eyes crinkle.
"
That is all.
"

I don
'
t know what to s
ay to that, but
his words mak
e me warm and sad all at once.
I pull back, ducking my head but smiling all the same.
"
Come on,
"
I say.
"
Let
'
s go find Oliver.
"

Outside, Mother Nature is getting cranky. It smells like rain, which is going to make searching oodles of fun. Cole takes off in one direction. I don
'
t know what trail he
'
s following, but the fact he
'
s ventured out of his room tells me
how much he's
worried. That in of itself makes
me
worry more. Daniel and I start at the corner we left Oliver last night and work our way in the directions he might have gone.

Hours later, we
'
ve talked to at least fifty people and don
'
t hav
e a single lead. Even Daniel is getting
frustrated when, finally, a sixty-something-year-old lady at a portable coffee trailer squints at the wrinkled photo Daniel
ha
s been carting around
,
and recognition dawns on her face.

"
Yeah,
"
she spits. To Daniel, because he
'
s done most of the talking. People keep eyeing me like I have the plague.
"
He ran down this way last night after some girl. Knocked over a few of my customers along the way.
"

We exchange glances.
"
Girl with blonde hair?
"
I ask, gesturing length.
"
About to here?
"

"
Didn
'
t get a good look, but sounds about right. They came around that corner and took off down that way.
"
She points us in the right direction, looking annoyed that we wasted her time and didn
'
t buy a cup of coffee. Smells gross anyway.

Daniel is alert to everything and everyone around us.
"
What is this direction?
"

"
Uh...
H
ouses, a few shopping centers. There
'
s a huge cemetery on the corner of Broadway.
"

A frown creases his brow. He catches me by the elbow and we step into the narrow space between two buildings. Without a word, he shoves Oliver
'
s photo into my hand and starts stripping out of his shirt.
"
Keep watch, please.
"

Face burning, I spin away and stare out at the street, making sure no one happens by.
"
What are you doing?
"

He doesn
'
t answer, but I hear the rustle of fabric as he undresses. A moment later, a cold and wet nose presses against my palm, and Algonquin-the-wolf is staring up at me.

On one hand, I like having Da
niel to talk to, on the other,
I
'
ve seen what doggy Daniel can do to a vampire with those teeth if someone gets in our way. He moves away from me, abandoning the clothing Oliver bought him on the ground.

"
You know they have a leash law here,
"
I say, but he
'
s already slipping back out onto the street. Not much choice but to follow or be left behind.

He draws more than a little attention. I keep my hand on his scruff, in-step alongside him, and that seems to deter anyone from bringing up that I
'
m letting a monster of a wolf-dog run around unleashed. Either that, or no one wants to approach the creepy girl with the huge animal.

Algonquin
lowers
his nose to the ground, lifts it to the sky and back again. Close to the cemetery, his ears prick straight up and he pauses, breathing in deep. Catching the scent of something that I can only hope is Oliver.

Without warning he yanks out of my grip, darting across a parking lot and the street to the cemetery entrance. By the time I reach him, he
'
s pawing at the wrought iron gates, muzzle shoved between the bars.

"
It
'
s a historic cemetery,
"
I say, peering inside once I catch up.
"
They close early on the weekends.
"
I would know because I
'
ve been here before. Plenty of times with Sherry, once with Noah. Algonquin looks up at me almost expectantly like I have some magical way to get us in.

Sighing, I glance around to make sure no one
'
s paying us any attention before gesturing for him to follow. We slip around to the far back of the
grounds
. The high walls don
'
t get any shorter, but there
'
s a spot where the bricks are cracked and crumbling and makes scaling the wall doable. Perfect for me, but,
"
You
'
re gonna have to turn back if you want to—
"

He isn
'
t listening. Algonquin backs up a good twenty feet, eyeing the wall.

"
Dude, no way. Don
'
t even.
"

He crouches slightly, legs poised.

"
Daniel.
"

And gives himself a running start before leaping. In my head, this ends badly. I
envision
him slamming right into the wall and sliding down it in some stupid, cartoonish fashion.

But Algonquin catches the top of the wall and continues right on over to the other side, out of sight.

Huh.

I remember how easily Oliver cleared the river at the park and wonder if I
'
m capable of that kind of thing, too. I could jump it, couldn
'
t I?

Yeah. L
et
'
s just stick to climbing.

Algonquin is waiting when I drop to the other side, my fingers sore and a hole in the knee of my jeans.

"
Great. We
'
re here. Now what?
"
A little hard to think that Oliver
'
s been hiding out in a cemetery since last night, but if it
'
s a start, it
'
s better than nothing. And if that blonde bitch led him here and hurt him, we
'
re going to have
words
.

The sky is red and thick with clouds overhead. This kind of overcast means it
'
s going to get dark a lot quicker than usual, and the light is fading fast. Algonquin starts sniffing around again, picking his way through the maze of graves.

It
'
s an old cemetery, so there aren
'
t many boring slabs of cement serving as markers. Instead there are towering statues and aged headstones, crypts and family burial plots, lined with naked rose bushes that
'
ll bloom come spring. Thick covers of trees cast gloomy shadows over everything. Beautiful in the day, creepy as hell in the waning light.

We follow the perimeter, Algonquin searching for signs of Oliver, me keeping an eye out for any maintenance-type-guys that might be lingering after hours. A bird rustles in the branches overhead, makes Algonquin stop, ears prick up, flatten again before continuing to slink along.

After a moment, he makes a sharp turn and takes off down a narrow path, leaving me in the dust. I don
'
t want to yell after him in case we aren
'
t alone.
Algonquin
disappears around a bend, obscured by trees and shrubbery at the end of the long path. A path that feels familiar, what with the looming angel statue off to one side and the marble tomb straight ahead
...

It takes me a minute. Everything looks so much different in the dark, but the trees give it away. Willows
in neat lines on
either side of the trail, their branches forming a perfect archway. I stop beneath them, tipping my head back.

Oh. Yeah
.
I see it now. Were it a few hours earlier, shafts of sunlight would
be peaking
through, dust particles glinting
in the air
.

Eight months ago, Noah and I had our first official date here. Sure, we had gone out a few times together, but neither of us had yet uttered the
"
D
"
word. Proof of how perfect he was? That he asked me where I wanted to go and didn
'
t bat an eye when I said,
"
The cemetery.
"

We ate soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chips in front of the tomb up ahead. Quieter, less crowded than any park would have been, and the scenery couldn
'
t be beat. Afterward, we wandered the grounds for hours.

But it was here, under these willows
, that we were walking
hand-in-hand, when his phone rang. Work. It was always work. Normally, he
'
d give me an apologetic smile and slip out of the room to take the call. Sometimes he
'
d have to
leave shortly after that, but—
that time, Noah drew out his phone and silenced it without so much as
glancing
to see who it was.

"
Don
'
t you need to answer that
...
?
"

"
No.
"
He slipped the cell back into his pocket.
"
I told them I was unavailable today.
"

My heart fluttered as he gave me one of those sunny Noah smiles I
'
d come to absolutely adore.
"
Lucky me.
"
I knew it was stupid to expect a guy I
'
d seen a handful of times to drop his big, important work life just for me. Even if I had no idea what that work-life was. 
"
What
'
s the special occasion?
"

Noah shrugged, draping an arm around my shoulders.
"
Our f
irst date. Like...
date
-date.
"

"
The other times weren
'
t dates?
"

"
Well, sure. I guess.
"
He paused, thoughtful.
"
But not like
real
ones. We never called them dates.
"

I tried not to smile.
"
So what makes this a
date
-date? Are you expecting to get lucky at the end of the night?
"
The fact that Noah had never made it a point to so much as kiss me, let alone go farther, always seemed weird. Maybe because I
'
d heard all the horror stories from Ruby about boys she kicked to the curb because they couldn
'
t keep their hands off her. Noah was nothing like any of them. For awhile, I
'
d almost wondered if he wasn
'
t interested in me, or girls at all. The first time he even tried to hold my hand was pretty exciting.

But if he thought it was a
date
, then I figured I could throw the not-interested theory out the window.

"
I
'
m lucky right now,
"
he said, grinning in a way that suggested he thought he was oh-so smooth and charming. I let him have that one.

"
Touché, D
'
angelo. Touché.
"
I leaned into him.
"
You
'
re being awfully sweet. I take it that means you aren
'
t staying long this time.
"