Revelations (5 page)

“Like there was any other choice,” Marcus said, grabbing her into a hard hug that quickly transi-tioned into a long,
sweet kiss.

The microphone squealed again, and the principal loudly cleared his throat. “There’s a little thing called the
spotlight dance that’s supposed to be happening,” he reminded them.

Marcus reluctantly released Rae. Well, almostreleased her. He kept her hand in his and led her over to the spot of
perfect white light in the middle of the dance floor. A song began to play. Rae knew it, it was one of her favorites, but
she couldn’t come up with the name. Her brain was incapable of that kind of thinking. It was incapable of coming up
with any words at all. Because she wasn’t just inside a moonbeam. She
was
a moonbeam.

It sounded ridiculous, ridiculous and totally cheesy. But her body felt like it was made of glimmering light. She was
weightless, insubstantial, unable to feel her feet on the floor. Unable even to feel Marcus’s arms around her. Floating.

Flying. Free of the earth. She closed her eyes, wanting to hold on to the sensation as long as she could.

Anthony hesitated outside the doors of the gym. The lights were dim inside, and pretty much everyone was in the
butt-groping hanging-all-over-each-other stage instead of actually dancing.
Get in there,
he told himself.
You have to

tell Rae what’s going on, so stop screwing around and get the hell in there.

The slow song playing segued into another slow song, but Marcus and Rae didn’t move apart. They’d danced
every dance since Anthony showed up. Obviously if he was going to talk to her, he wasgoing to have to go up and
interrupt them. Yeah, go on up, like a total loser.

Anthony forced himself to step into the gym. Little flakes of glittering confetti crunched under his shoes.
I’ll

probably be picking the crap off myself for weeks,
he thought as he came to a stop next to the punchand-cookie
table that a couple of parents were supervising. Punch and cookies. Man,
so
not a Fillmore High kind of dance. He
took a cup of punch from the closest prep-school-mom type, wondering if she could tell that he belonged here
about as much as a chicken in a clown suit.

Doesn’t matter. How can you even be thinking about bull like that?
Anthony asked himself.
You’re supposed to be

warning Rae, and you’re getting all knotted up about whether you fit in okay at a freakin’ moon crap dance. Very

nice, Fascinelli.

He took a gulp of his punch, his eyes automatically tracking Rae and Marcus. Marcus’s hands were threaded
through Rae’s curly hair. God, Anthony loved the way her hair felt, so fantastically soft, and thick, and smelling like-He slammed his punch down on the table. The contents sloshed over the sides, and the mom gave him a
disapproving look.
Don’t know any better,
Anthony felt like telling her.
I used to go toFillmore.

Okay, now do it. No hesitation,
he told himself. And he elbowed his way onto the dance floor and directly over to
Rae and Marcus. Neither of them noticed him. Rae’s eyes were closed, her head resting on Marcus’s chest. Marcus’s
eyes were closed, too. He’d moved his hands down to Rae’s waist, and now his cheek was pressed against the top
of Rae’s head. The guy was way too friggin’ tall.

Anthony gave a little cough. Got no reaction. He could probably drag in a wrecking ball and bring the building
down around them without getting a reaction. Rae… she looked so peaceful. Like there was no place she’d rather
be.

“Salkow,” Anthony said loudly. He reached out and poked Marcus on the shoulder. Reluctantly Marcus lifted his
head and opened his eyes.

“Fascinelli, you came,” Marcus exclaimed. Rae’s eyes snapped open at Anthony’s name, and she broke away from
Marcus, stumbling on her high heels.

“Yeah, I decided to come,” Anthony answered, feeling the back of his neck flushing. Any second now his pits
would start pumping juice.

“Rae and I won Moonbeam King and Queen, even without your vote,” Marcus said, looping his arm around Rae,
his hand coming to rest way too close to her breast. Well, not that close. Butstill.

“Uh, good, great,” Anthony managed to get out when he realized they were both waiting for some kind of
humanoid response from him. “I was wondering, do you think I could maybe dance with the queen?”

Now that, that was subhuman. Extremely. But Marcus just smiled. “How can I say no, after you helped me get Rae
back? But only one dance, okay? That’s all the time away from her I can stand.” He winked at Rae, then let her go
and headed toward the guys’ bathroom.

“Thanks for asking
me,
” Rae muttered as Anthony took a step toward her.

He jerked to a stop. What? Did she not want him to touch her?
Moron, she made it completely clear this morning

that she doesn’t even want to
talk
to you.

“Forget it,” Rae said. She stepped up to him and lightly rested her hands on his shoulders. With those heels on,
she was actually slightly taller than him, but her eyes were still fixed on his.
What’s she thinking?
he wondered.
She

keeps staring. What is she thinking?

“Uh, you’re not actually dancing,” Rae finally told him. He could feel her warm breath against his face as she
spoke.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Anthony carefully put his hands on her waist, touching as lightly as he could, and started
swaying to the music. Not that the music was easy to hear. Anthony’s heart was pounding way too loud for the band
to compete with. “I went to Aiden Matthews’s after practice,” he blurted.

“What?” Rae demanded, her eyes as hard as blue steel. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because-” He so did not want to tell her this. But it had to be done. “Because I went by your locker after school,
and there was a message on it.”

Rae’s body stiffened. “From who?” she bit out.

“I don’t know,” Anthony answered. “It was just one word painted on the door. Unclean.” He rushed on, not wanting
to give her a lot of time to think about the word. “I thought maybe Aiden would know who might still be wanting to
threaten you.”

“Unclean,” Rae repeated, her voice strained. “Painted on my locker?”

Anthony instinctively tightened his grip around her. “I cleaned it off,” he said. “It’s gone. But Rae, whoever did that-

”

“It’s not really a threat,” she jumped in. “I mean, unclean, what does that even mean, anyway?”

Anthony frowned. Rae had to take this seriously. How could she not? “I don’t know,” he admitted. “That’s one of
the things I was going to ask Aiden. But when I showed up, he was gone. Moved out. No forwarding address. It’s
interesting that he made the move right after he yanked the government guys off you.”

Rae’s hands tightened into fists, bunching up his shirt under her fingers. “And it’s supposed to be my fault,
Anthony? God, maybe he wanted a bigger place. Maybe he moved in with his girlfriend.”

“Maybe,” Anthony answered. But he couldn’t back off this, no matter how much she wanted him to. “But with the
timing thing, maybe not. I came over here because I think you need to be extra careful until we figure out what
Aiden’s deal is. Somebody is still trying to scare you. At
least
scare you. And without Aiden to put a stop-”

“Look, I know the government goons are always going to be watching me. That’s a given. I’m sure the locker thing
was just a little reminder of that,” Rae shot back. “Maybe they even suspect that I told you the truth about them.

That’s something they definitely wouldn’t want. So maybe they decided to do something small. Like I said, just to
remind me to stay in line. That’s fine-I plan on forgetting about this whole thing, anyway.”

“I’m not so sure,” Anthony began. “Maybe it is a little warning from the government guys. But it seems pretty lame
for them, don’t you think? Painting on a locker-would that really be their style?”

“The agency guys are the only ones who could be responsible,” Rae insisted. “There’s definitely not anyone else
interested in me that way. They probably… they probably wanted to send me a message in a way that would look
basically normal. Paint on a locker-that’s normal in a high school.” Rae pulled away from him. “And you know what?

It’s not anything you have to worry about anymore.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Marcus is waiting for me.”

“Rae, you-”

She cut him off again. “Have a nice life, Anthony.” The words were like the blows of a baseball bat to the back of
his head. It took him a moment to realize that she’d turned around and was walking away from him.

Anthony stared after her, unable to move. It wasn’t like he’d wanted her to be terrified. But Rae pretending that
everything was okay was dangerous. It could even be deadly.

Marcus reached across the seat and gently pulleda piece of shiny confetti out of Rae’s hair. “For your scrapbook,”

he said as he handed it to her.

“Huh?” Rae asked. “Oh, yeah, my scrapbook.” She’d totally forgotten about it. How bizarre was that? Less than a
year ago the scrapbook had been like some kind of religious artifact. It had mementos from every date they’d been
on. It even had the wrapper from the straw he’d been using the first time he talked to her in the caf. Rae grabbed her
purse off the floor, getting no thoughts through her wax-coated fingertips, and put the confetti in the little inside
pocket.

“Did you have fun tonight?” Marcus asked.

“Of course. Yeah. It was fabulous,” Rae answered. And it had been. Until Anthony showed up. After that, hard as
she tried, Rae’d never been able to completely relax.
Forget what he said,
she ordered herself for the millionth time.

He was being a drama queen. Don’t let him spoil your first real back-together night with Marcus. This is the best

part, remember?
She’d always loved sitting with Marcus, parked on her quiet street. She felt the closest to him then,
like the car was their own private little world.

Rae took Marcus’s face in her hands. Slowly, slowly, trying to savor every detail, she lowered her lips to his and
kissed him. He tasted like lime punchand breath mints.
Not exactly the best combo,
she thought.

This is not a taste test,
she told herself. She kissed him again, just his top lip. Then gave equal attention to his
bottom lip-she loved his bottom lip, the way it was just a little bit fuller than the top.

Marcus gave a sound that was half groan and half whimper.
He’s really getting into this,
she realized. And she…

she was, too. Kissing Marcus was always amazing. It’s just that they’d been kissing so much at the dance, so it
made sense that this kissing wasn’t quite as exciting as usual. It was like she was on kissing overload. Her senses
were numbed out from too much use.

Except when you danced with Anthony.
The thought zipped through her head like an annoying fly. But she
couldn’t deny that it was true. Just the feel of Anthony’s hands on her waist had lit up every nerve in her body. And
her veins had felt like they were shooting electricity instead of blood.

Just a freak physical response,
she decided.
It’s not about Anthony, it’s just about… about…

This is not the time for thinking,
Rae told herself. She slid her arms around Marcus’s neck, then kissed him again,
her lips open against his.

God, that minty lime taste was icky. That’s whyshe wasn’t responding the way she had to Anthony. It would be
impossible while tasting that combo. Marcus had probably popped the mints for the parked-in-the-car make-out
session. He was trying to be thoughtful. But yuck.

Rae buried her head against Marcus’s chest. Yeah, that was better. Warm. Comfy. She could fall asleep right here.

That was how right it felt to be cuddled up with Marcus.

Marcus kissed the top of her head. Then her forehead. Then he leaned down far enough to kiss her nose. The lips
would be next. Rae didn’t want to offend him by seeming lukewarm. Better to make a break for it. She’d kiss him
triple next time she saw him, when that taste was gone.

“I should go in. My dad’s still kind of in overpro-tective mode,” Rae said.

Marcus frowned. “Okay, I guess I can let you go,” he teased, tracing the line of her jaw with his fingers.

“Thanks for-thanks for tonight,” Rae said quickly. She leaned over and gave Marcus a fast kiss on the cheek, then
got out of the car before he had the chance to coax her into a few more minutes.

“Keys, keys, need keys,” she muttered as she crossed the front lawn, listening to the sound of Marcus’s car taking
off down the street. She stoodon the porch, digging through her purse, feeling for the cool metal. As she took a step
closer to the front door, the automatic porch light came on and she finally found the keys.

“Got them.” She pulled her key ring free and went to unlock the door.