Til Death

Chapter Thirty

Selena

Sparks, Fireworks, and Emotional Collisions

On the bus, I sat in the furthest corner of the last row. A dull ache thumped behind my eyes. The breeze from the open window ruffled my wild hair and cooled my flushed cheeks. It didn’t bring the comfort I needed. I pressed my temple against the glass and half-listened to Dillan and Kyle discussing comic books, of all things.

What had happened today didn’t make any sense. I was with Penny at the Presidential Trail. We’d locked arms. We’d walked together. When she darted into the forest, I went after her, but the deeper I got the farther she pulled away from me until she completely disappeared. Then Dillan and I were attacked by needles. I told him Gramps taught me to suck out the poison from his wound, but actually, the voice in my head instructed me on what to do. I acted before thinking. Then Dillan used his sword to heal his wound. I was more confused now than ever. What was happening with my life?

Kyle was no help when I asked him about Penny during the program. He kept telling me to shut up because he didn’t want to miss anything from the documentary about the construction of Mt. Rushmore. Dillan had little to add. He and Kyle had gone on ahead when Penny suggested we’d take it slow. So really, I’d been the only one with her. My head reeled into a dead end.

I bit down hard and shut my eyes, listening to my breathing. Huffs. Puffs. And deep sighs. My foot tapped on the seat in front of me.

I didn’t want to think anymore.

…

At Newcastle High’s parking lot, our class listened to Mr. Sloan’s final announcements before filing out of the bus. Each step I took felt like a ton—a pound for every question swirling inside me. Once we were all on the pavement, Kyle started for his Prius.

“Hitch a ride home?” he asked me over his shoulder.

His offer stopped my mindless progress so abruptly that Dillan rammed into me. I stumbled a step and mumbled a vague apology to him, which he didn’t respond to.

“I’ll take her,” he said from behind me.

Kyle fished out his keys and unlocked his car. “With Mr. Sloan?”

I looked over my shoulder and caught Dillan’s grin. “I have my own ride.”

The casual exchange flew over my head. For the first time in my life, I was truly angry with Kyle. He was hiding things. Possibly things that could get me killed. What kind of a friend did that?

Not willing to take his crap anymore, I had two choices: walk to the diner and wait for Grams’s shift to end or catch a ride with Dillan. I was exhausted, so there was only one choice.

“You have a car?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Just got it back yesterday actually.”

My so-called best friend frowned before he said, “Fine, take her home. Call you later?”

I didn’t answer him. The sadness in his eyes mirrored my own. His lips disappeared into a thin line, like he kept what he wanted to say prisoner. After today, I didn’t have the strength to fix what was broken between us. I needed time. I turned away from him and let Dillan take my backpack. I followed him to the other end of the parking lot.

“What do you mean just got it back?” I asked, trying to keep up with Dillan’s ground-eating strides.

“I left it in Budapest when I was…sent here. It takes a while to bring a car overseas.”

I accepted his explanation with a slight shrug.

Taken unaware, my heart sputtered the second a dark gray Mustang with black racing stripes running from its hood to its rear came into view. Now I understood why he’d bring that car anywhere. Hell, I’d never let that car out of my sight if I owned it.

“That’s a…” My voice broke.

Dillan stopped by the driver’s side and took out his keys from his back pocket. “A ‘68 Shelby GT500,” he said casually. In short, a very, very nice, classic muscle car. If a vehicle could be a person, the GT would be Dillan all the way—all hard lines and handsome finish.

He opened the door and threw his bag and mine into the back seat. “It’s fine to come near the car, you know. It won’t bite.”

I shut my mouth and took tentative steps toward the car. I grew up with Gramps talking nonstop about this car. He’d dreamed about a ‘68 Shelby GT500 since before I was born. He said he just needed to get lucky at the junkyard and he’d devote everything to restore it. Gramps’s fantasy car—in all its gleaming glory—sat patiently in a high school parking lot. It looked so out of place among the trucks. But that was what Dillan was. He seemed out of place in this little town I called home.

He opened the door for me with an impassive expression. Oh, but he couldn’t fool me. I knew very well that he gloated inside. He had the right to. I’d be gloating aloud if I were him. I slid into the plush black leather seat and ran my hands over every surface I could touch after buckling my seatbelt. Awe, like a slow burning fuse, spread all over my body. My fingertips sizzled. It was one thing to hear Gramps talk and completely another to actually sit inside the fantasy.

“Should I give you two some time alone?”

“What?”

His smile gave me unexpected quivers. “Stop molesting my car.”

“I wasn’t—”

The engine roared to life with a twist of his wrist.

Pummeling my annoyance into submission, I focused on the sweet ride. “Is this a GT500KR?”

“Yup.” He nodded. “Under the hood is a 428 cubic-inch fully restored Cobra Jet V8.” He shifted to third gear when we reached the edge of town.

“That’s 335 horsepower,” I purred. In garage speak it meant the car was a beast on the road. I sighed. “The universe is so cruel.”

He took his eyes off the road for a second to look at me. “You know your cars.”

“I really don’t. This is the only one I know about because Gramps is a mechanic. He knows his cars. And we happen to be sitting in one he’s been dreaming about since forever.” I ran my hand over the dashboard. “How did you get a car like this?”

“Long story short, I had nothing else to do in Italy a couple of years ago—”

“What, no scary things to kill?”

“After seeing the sights, I found this baby in a scrapyard and started putting it together to pass the time.”

“Everything on the Internet about you, is it true?”

“Nothing like a fake life to hide the real one.” He snorted.

I shook my head in disbelief. “Yup, the universe is cruel.”

“Stop saying that.”

“What are you…sixteen?”

“Seventeen,” he corrected.

“Right.” I suppressed a grin. Knew he was older. “I’m turning seventeen in November. Only months apart and already you’ve experienced more than I have.”

“You make experience sound dirty.” He chuckled. “You’re not going to mention that Taylor Swift thing again are you?”

“There’s that.” I ticked off points on my fingers. “You belong to a famous family. You look the way you do. You can handle a sword like nobody’s business. You’re smart. And you own an awesome car.”

“If you continue, I’m going to think you like me.”

A roaring blush exploded on my face. “I’m not finished.”

“There’s more?”

“I’m just glad you’re a jerk and your arrogance is annoying.” I faced him and smiled, my teeth showing. “Those are your only redeeming qualities.”

He laughed so hard at my sarcasm he almost drove us off the road. My stomach flipped many times over. I still couldn’t believe such a sexy sound came from a mouth that could say the meanest things. Despite what his laugh did, I stayed on topic.

“I’m sure half the people in Newcastle wish they had your life.”

The laughter stopped.

I glanced back at him. “What’s with the quiet?”

A muscle jumped on his jaw. “You don’t know anything about my life,” he said. Then he looked at me with piercing sapphire eyes. It almost hurt to stare into them. “You know what they say happens when you assume. You make an ass of you and me.”

I swallowed the prickly lump in my throat. “Why so defensive?”

“I’m not defensive.” He sighed, loosening his grip on the steering wheel. “I just don’t wish my life on anyone else. I’m compassionate that way.”

The corner of his mouth curled up as we pulled onto the road leading to the farmhouse. He shifted moods from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. I was beginning to see that he said mean and snarky things as a defense mechanism.

“Why didn’t you want Kyle to drive you home?” he asked after another couple seconds of stiff silence between us. “I thought you were besties.”

I wanted to kick him for being so perceptive. “Don’t say ‘besties.’ It sounds weird coming from you.”

He leveled a pointed stare at me.

“Kyle’s been lying to me,” I said plainly. “We’ve been best friends for so long, and this is the first time he’s ever lied to me.”

“That you know of.”

“Excuse me?”

“Fun fact about life, Selena: everyone lies.”

Anger wrapped my stomach in prickly brambles. “I don’t know what kind of a life an Illumenari lives, but around here, friends don’t lie to friends.”

“Even if it means protecting each other?”

“Even then.”

“Then you’re naïve.”

My mouth opened, but my anger blocked my comeback. He had a point, even if I refused to accept it. My friends didn’t lie to me just like I didn’t…my heart twisted. I’d kept my vision a secret. I didn’t tell Kyle about the puppets or what happened today with the needles. I lied by omission. My righteous indignation crashed, landing as a pile of rocks in the pit of my stomach. Again with the stones in my glass house. Frustration blurred my vision. I had no right to judge.

“Shit. Are you seriously crying?” He pulled over onto the side of the road and turned off the engine. “I’m sorry, Selena. It was a jerk thing to say.”

“You’re always a jerk.” I used the heel of my hand to wipe away the tears that refused to stay in my eyes.

“Shit. Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.”

“You’re the weak-against-tears type, huh?” My voice hitched. Still, the tears came.

“Occupational hazard.” He hauled me into a fierce hug, sending the now familiar electric current all over my body.

About fifteen minutes later, tears dry, I led the way to the front door of the farmhouse. It was dark inside. No one was home yet. Being alone didn’t bother me as much as Dillan staring at me like I was a crystal swan about to shatter. After my mini breakdown, he kept asking how I felt. So un-Dillan like.

It was the truth. I really did feel better. After all that crying, my head cleared and I saw the Kyle situation in a new light. We needed to talk. The sooner the better. If I wanted him to be honest with me, I had to tell him everything.

The quiet of the prairies magnified our footsteps on the wooden porch. I turned to take my bag from Dillan, but he had already lowered it to the floor. I studied it like it was a UFO, with some curiosity mixed with a little fear. And then, I lifted my eyes to his face. A mistake. I’d been making a lot of those lately. The striking cerulean his eyes became took my breath away. Who knew blue eyes could have so many shades?

“Dillan?” I hated that my voice trembled when I said his name.

“Shhh,” he said, and with a hand on my hip, pinned me against the screen door.

I stared at his gorgeously serious face. “Dillan, what are you doing?”

“What I should have done at Valley View,” he said.

Slowly, like the moon rising, he bent his head and kissed me. First, a tentative touch, then a second, and when I thought he wouldn’t fully commit to the kiss, his lips claimed mine possessively. Forget fireworks on the Fourth of July. The electricity that sparked every time we touched gathered on our lips and exploded. The second his tongue touched mine, the contact felt like Pop Rocks in my mouth. I couldn’t get enough of it. Heat and energy flowed from his lips to mine. Just when I thought he’d pull away, he tilted his head and nibbled at the corner of my mouth until he reached the center of my bottom lip. He parted them with his tongue. But, when I let him in, he stopped, resting the tip between my upper lip and teeth. In one experienced move, he traced the sensitive valley. It curled my toes. Only at my gasp did he go all the way in again.

Dillan didn’t just kiss. He slow danced. We moved in sync. I wanted to lose myself in him. In his touch. Right then the world seemed like such a perfect place. He had one strong arm around my waist while his other hand gripped the back of my neck. I slid my fingers up his chest and into his hair, linking them behind his neck. I couldn’t get close enough. I wanted to drown in his fire. His clean scent enveloped me completely, replacing my worries with hunger. My only concerns became taste, smell, touch. But when I reeled my senses from the abyss, I pushed him back while leaning heavily against the screen door.

“What?”

I sighed, scrunching my nose. “We can’t do this.”

He tilted his head in confusion. “This?”

Gesturing between us, I said, “You and me and the kissing.”

“You don’t like the kissing?”

“Oh, no. I like the kissing. The kissing is good.” I bit my lower lip. “I mean, I just got out of a relationship.”

“Okay.” He pulled back a little farther. “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”

Unable to take the cold caused by the growing distance between us, I grabbed his shirt front and pulled him back to me. He went willingly, a devilish grin on his face. “Maybe five more minutes.”