Dark Kiss

My stomach growled.

Correction: the weird high school girl who liked zombie movies and was suddenly ready to eat her way through the city. Then again, I’d always been too skinny. “A” didn’t only describe the grades I was striving for, but my bra size, as well. Eating eight thousand calories a day would definitely solve that little problem. Pun intended.

Something smelled delicious. My skin tingled and my mouth watered. I closed my eyes and inhaled, seeking the new scent past the salty, greasy odor of popcorn that surrounded us.

Carly groaned. “I can’t deal with him right now. I’ll just wait over here, okay?”

“What?” I opened my eyes as she wandered toward a movie magazine rack near the concession stand. In her rush to get away, she banged against the island that held the napkins and plastic straws.

“Hope she didn’t leave because of me,” a familiar voice said.

Oh.

“How did you guess?” I turned my head to see Colin Richards, Carly’s ex-boyfriend, standing a few feet away.

Colin sat behind me in English and we’d forged a bit of a friendship since the semester started last month, which was awkward considering how much Carly hated his guts. He’d cheated on her at a pool party this summer and, understandably, she’d been crushed by the betrayal. Colin tended to do crazy stuff when he was drunk. One of the crazy things he’d done was Julie Travis, who’d allegedly had her eye on Colin’s broad shoulders, cropped sandy-blond hair and wicked sense of humor since they’d been in elementary school together. However, once he’d sobered up, Colin had realized his mistake, tried to make up with Carly and failed spectacularly. Carly was a lot like me in that way—she didn’t get over being hurt easily. She put on a good front, but I knew she was still heartbroken.

“New haircut?” Colin asked.

I touched my dark hair, twisting a long piece around my index finger. “Not lately.”

“It looks nice.” When he smiled, my gaze was drawn to his mouth. I’d never noticed what nice lips Colin had. Carly had told me many times that he was an amazing kisser. As far as I knew—and, believe me, I would have been told otherwise—that’s as far as they’d ever gone together.

I moved a little closer to him. “Are you wearing a new cologne?”

He shrugged. “Just soap.”

I pulled myself out of my sudden daze to glance over my shoulder at Carly, who was currently out of earshot. However, she was still giving me the eye. The eye that asked, Why are you smelling my ex-boyfriend?

I cleared my throat. “I need to go. Uh, I’ll see you in class tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded. “Bright and early.”

I turned and walked over to Carly. She put down the magazine she’d been pretending to read. Her cheeks were flushed, which told me she was upset but trying to control her emotions.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry.” She sent a sneer in the direction of Colin, who’d rejoined his friends on the other side of the theater. “The fact that he’s still breathing isn’t your fault.”

“He really wants you to forgive him.”

“Did he say that?”

“Well, not just now, but it’s implied.”

Her lips thinned. “When he dies, I promise to put flowers on his grave. How’s that?”

“It’s a start.”

I wasn’t certain if Carly was still upset because she really loved Colin or if it was something else. Personally I think what had happened stung so much because he was the first guy to pursue a relationship with her. She tended to hide a bit, feeling fat—which she totally wasn’t—and not thinking she was good enough to catch a hot guy. I knew at least two other guys who’d be happy to ask her out if she’d give them half a chance. Instead, she wallowed. Which was fine, since I was a bit of a wallower myself.

Carly grimaced, her gaze locked on something over my shoulder. “Brace yourself for impact. Jordan’s on her way over here and she looks pissed.”

I tensed up.

Jordan Fitzpatrick and I had been friends for three whole weeks in ninth grade drama class, until we’d started to like the same boy—one who hadn’t liked me in return and had proven this by laughing in my face when he learned about my feelings. He hadn’t liked Jordan, either, so she blamed me for the rejection. She’d then decided that she hated me. Because that made sense.

She’d just exited a neighboring theater with some of her equally unpleasant friends and was headed our way.

Nearly six feet tall with flame-red hair and a few scattered freckles on her nose, Jordan was easily the most beautiful girl in school. I knew from our short friendship that she wanted to be a model. A top model, of course, following in her mother’s footsteps. Her mom currently starred in a soap opera down in Los Angeles, and Jordan had stayed here in Trinity with her father to finish school.

She’d been pursuing the modeling goal every waking moment that she wasn’t at school, and so far she’d failed miserably at it. Just because you were gorgeous and tall didn’t mean you were also photogenic.

Did I mention she hated me?

“I heard what you did at Crave on Friday night, you slut,” she snapped.

“Great to see you, too, Jordan,” I said.

“Julie said you were throwing yourself at him.”

My stomach sank, but I tried to look confused. “Throwing myself at who?”

Her green eyes narrowed. “My boyfriend.”

“Stephen Keyes is not your boyfriend,” Carly interjected. “Not anymore.”

Jordan’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

Oh, crap. I’d totally forgotten the rumors that Jordan and Stephen had dated over the summer.

Carly might not have a great deal of self-confidence when it came to standing up for herself, but when it involved protecting me, she did a great impression of a cute blonde pit bull. “From what I’ve heard, he dumped you last week, right? Sounds like he wanted to start seeing other people. And, FYI, Sam didn’t throw herself at him—he approached her. So if you want to blame anyone for your object of lust’s lips wandering elsewhere, it would be Stephen himself.”

Jordan ignored Carly like she was a mildly annoying insect and focused on me. I could see the confusion in her eyes. “I guess I don’t understand why Stephen would want to be anywhere near a nobody like you.” Her words were sharp as glass as she twisted them into me.

In the answering silence, my stomach growled again. Loudly.

Jordan’s expression soured further. “You’re disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, you’re—”

“Go to hell, klepto.” She spun around and walked away.

The klepto crack was a familiar insult from her, but it still made me flinch as if she’d slapped me. She’d been at the mall the day I’d been caught and had witnessed my humiliation firsthand.

“What a bitch!” Carly exclaimed. “Just ignore her.”

“I’ll try.” My face felt hot. It sucked to have the subject of the kiss—and my shoplifting embarrassment—brought up by someone I really didn’t like.

“She’s welcome to Stephen, anyway. But I don’t think he’s interested in dating redheaded giraffes anymore.”

I snorted. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

“Give me a minute. I’m sure I can think of a better insult.”

Jordan had succeeded in knocking my relatively decent mood right out of me. “I think I’m going to head home. Don’t worry about driving me. I need some fresh air.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Besides, I have to make myself a sandwich. Maybe ten. I’m starving.”

“If you don’t gain any weight with this new diet of yours, I’m going to be mad. I hate being cursed with a slow metabolism.” She placed her hands on her curvy hips. “Fine, you go pig out and I’ll see you tomorrow. And, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Forget about what Jordan said. She’s a troll who’s just looking to get a reaction out of you to give her pathetic little life meaning. And forget about Stephen, too. Seriously. It doesn’t matter how hot he is. If he can’t appreciate how amazing you are, then who needs a loser like him?”

I shook my head and finally managed a real smile. “What would I do without you?”

She grinned back at me. “That is an excellent question.”

Even when Carly was dealing with her own romantic woes, she still did everything she could to make me feel better about mine. It definitely helped to have that kind of support in my corner.

My stomach grumbled again as I headed for home. I didn’t know why I was so hungry now. But I had the strangest feeling that a sandwich wasn’t going to help me very much.

.

chapter 3

McCarthy High was a mile east of the movie theater and I lived a few blocks north of the school. While there were still plenty of shops and businesses in this area, it didn’t have the same cold, gray cement look of downtown. Here there were tall oak trees that were turning gorgeous fall colors and well-manicured lawns, still green, lining the side streets.

I’d lived in Trinity, New York, all my life. After my parents’ separation, my mother and I had stayed in the same house I grew up in. She hadn’t worked when they were married, but since the split, she’d gotten her real-estate license and started a job that quickly took over her life. She loved it, or at least she spent so many hours at it that she should love it. I practically felt like an orphan.

A distant rumble of thunder reminded me that a rainstorm had been forecast for tonight. I wanted to get home before it arrived, so I picked up my pace for a couple of blocks.

Then something slowed me to a stop.

A boy sat with his back pressed against the front of an office supply shop, the closed sign in the window just above his head. His long legs lay straight across the sidewalk in front of me. His hands covered his face. I eyed a couple of people as they passed by, but they didn’t even glance in his direction.

Typical. Everyone minded their own business in this neighborhood. Especially when it came to someone who looked like he might be a street kid. This boy wore ripped jeans, scuffed black boots and a plain blue T-shirt. No coat. I drew my own black trench tighter around me to help block out the chill.

Just after my parents separated and my father moved away, I’d reacted by running away from home after a huge fight with my mother. I’d been sick of her ignoring me and I’d wanted to make a statement, make her appreciate having her only child around a bit more than she seemed to. Even though I’d known that the world didn’t revolve around me, I’d figured that her world should. At least, a little.

I’d lived in the heart of downtown for three days, a couple of miles from here. Early on my second day, some street kids had found me sitting on the sidewalk, crying my eyes out as I felt lost and sorry for myself. They’d taken me under their protection and brought me to a local mission, where I’d eaten a hot meal. That night, they’d let me sleep in the basement of an abandoned house they’d found on the west side of the city. Then they’d told me I should go home, since putting up with a mother like mine was way better than anything they had to deal with. Also, after my frantic mother had contacted the police and filed a missing persons report on me, it was only a matter of time before I would have been found. Still, I was on the streets long enough for bad things to have happened if I’d been on my own the whole time.

I’d never seen them again, but I’d never forgotten what they’d done for me. If I could help somebody like that to pay it forward, then I would give it my best shot.

“Hey,” I said to the boy on the sidewalk. “Are you okay?”

When I didn’t get a response, I leaned over and tapped the kid lightly on his shoulder. I hated to think he might be hurt. “Can you hear me?”

A streetlamp nearby picked that moment to flicker on, and he finally pulled his hands away from his face. He blinked long lashes a few shades darker than his mahogany-colored hair. The most incredible eyes met mine—a cobalt-blue so intense it felt as if he could see right through me to the other side. My breath caught. He was the most gorgeous boy I’d ever seen in my life—and he seemed familiar to me, but I had no idea why.

He was older than I’d first thought. My age, maybe a year older.

His brows drew together. “Who are you?”

“I’m Samantha. Samantha Day. Do you need help? Are you hurt?”

He gazed into my eyes as if hypnotized by what he saw there. I gazed back, unable to look away from him. “I don’t know what to do. My—my head. It’s not working right ever since I fell. My thoughts are all jumbled together.” He grimaced as if he were in pain.

Concern swept through me. “You fell? Did you hit your head?”

“My head?”

I fished in my black leather bag for my phone. “If you want me to call somebody for you, I can totally do that.”

“I can’t find them.” There was pain in his voice, but I wasn’t sure if it was emotional or physical. Either way, my chest tightened at the sound of it. “I’ve been searching night and day. It’s my fault. All my fault. I’m going to fail and all will be lost. Everything and everyone. Forever and ever.”

He said he’d fallen, but I wasn’t so sure about that. If I was placing a bet, I’d say this was either a mental thing or a drug thing.

I studied him. Maybe I’d seen his picture in the newspaper or on TV as his parents searched for him out on the streets, and that was why he seemed so familiar.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Bishop.”

“Okay. Is that your first name or your last name?”

“It’s—just Bishop.”

“You have only one name?” Unless he was a rock star or a chess piece, it was another sign that he was having trouble thinking straight.

“Right—only Bishop. Nothing else now.” The expression on his handsome face was one of deep confusion. “When I volunteered for this, they told me I would be a great leader. They said there might be difficulties, but they thought I could handle whatever happened. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. I thought I’d go back to normal when I arrived. But this—this is not normal.” He looked angry about “this,” whatever it meant. He frowned and rubbed his temples. “Who are you?”

I felt an irresistible urge to help this boy, if I could. “I told you already. I’m Samantha. So you’re looking for somebody? Is it somebody from your family—your mom or dad? Is there anyone I can call to come pick you up?”

He pushed himself up from the sidewalk. He was easily a foot taller than me, although I was pretty short at five-two and currently wearing flats. His unexpected physical presence overwhelmed me for a moment and I took a shaky step back from him. The T-shirt he wore fit tight across his chest like it was a couple of sizes too small, but he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. I felt uneasy now that he was towering over me rather than sprawled on the sidewalk, and yet I didn’t turn away from him. Those eyes—they seemed to hold me in place. And he smelled so incredible—spicy and sweet—I couldn’t even describe it properly. His very presence seemed to sink into my senses.

“Samantha,” he repeated.

A strangely pleasant shiver slid down my spine. He cocked his head as he continued to study me with those vivid blue eyes. There was a coldness to his appearance, to the hard lines of his face, but I couldn’t look away.

I shifted back again as he drew closer to me. “What are you looking at?”

He held my gaze. “You’re … beautiful.”

“Uh … th-thanks?” My face flushed at his words and I cleared my throat. “Maybe I should just leave you alone. You look, um, sturdy enough now.” To say the least. I felt an urge to move even closer to him, but there wasn’t any reason for me to feel that way. Confusing emotions battled inside me. He might be in distress, but I wasn’t going to put myself in harm’s way. “But you really should call your parents and tell them you’re okay. They’re probably worried about you. There’s a mission on Peterson Avenue. They can help you if you go there.”

The chill in the air had gotten worse now that it was dark out. I began to move past him, feeling it time to exit stage left. Besides, my strange hunger seemed to be getting worse by the minute. I needed to eat something soon. Even if it didn’t really help, at least it would take the edge off whatever was wrong with me.

“Samantha, wait.”

I froze and slowly turned back to the boy who’d just called me beautiful. Not something I heard every day, that was for sure. Maybe that was why it knocked me off balance so much, especially given my recent difficulties with the last guy who’d showed a fleeting interest in me.

I didn’t move as he approached me again. He smelled warm and clean—I guess he hadn’t been on the streets that long. He smelled good … really good.

Bishop’s expression clouded and he rubbed his temples again. “It’s like a million images are hitting me all at once. Even more now that you’re here with me. All I know is … it’s running out. I have only four more days to find the others before they’re lost to me. But … there’s no one. Nowhere. Maybe I’m alone. Maybe they’re not here. But they’re supposed to be, and I’m supposed to be able to find them.”

My heart pounded hard and fast. It had done something similar with Stephen the other night, speeding up at the idea of spending time with him. But this was different—it felt different. And it wasn’t just because Bishop was a very cute, if disturbed, boy whose path had crossed mine. There was something about him—something I couldn’t place. So familiar. So compelling. Bishop was strange and babbling, but I felt drawn to him like nothing I’d experienced before. I tried to tell myself he was just a troubled kid I’d found on the sidewalk, not someone I should ever be attracted to.

I need to walk away. Right now.

But I didn’t.

“Are you high?” It was a guess, probably a good one. I needed a reason for his odd behavior, to label it so this would make some kind of sense to me.

He looked up at the dark sky. “High, yes. I need to be high above the city. That might help me find them.”

I looked up. There were no stars tonight. The heavy clouds were threatening rain. A bright beam of light shone up above the tall buildings, back in the direction of the movie theater.

“Above the city?” I asked, following his gaze.

He shook his head. “I can’t fly here. None of us can. And it hurts so much—I can’t explain it properly because I can’t think properly. I’m damaged.” He raked a hand through his dark, messy hair. “Why is it like this for me? I hate feeling this way, but I can’t snap out of it and get control. There has to be another way.”

He leaned back against the store window, slouching as if it was difficult for him to remain standing. Concern gnawed at my gut.

I didn’t want to feel responsible for this guy, but I did anyway. I liked to think I wasn’t like the other coldhearted people around here—I refused to let myself be like that. I couldn’t sidestep someone just because they were in trouble and saying crazy stuff.

I let out a shaky breath. “It’s going to be okay, Bishop. I’ll help you.”

He looked at me with surprise. “You will?”

“Of course.” I reached for his hand.

The moment I touched him, a strong crackle of electricity coursed up my arm.

I gasped.

And then a vision slammed into me like I’d just been flattened by a truck.

A city in darkness, melting and draining away like water in a bathtub—falling into a dark hole in the center of everything. People, thousands and thousands of them, trying to run away but getting pulled into the vortex. There was no escape.

Bishop was there trying to help. To save everyone, including me. I reached for his hand as he yelled my name, but he was swept away from me before I could touch him.

Then it was all over.

Where there had once been a city, there was nothing but darkness.

The horrifying image left me shaking and gasping.

Bishop looked down with shock at my hand in his before I pulled away from him. Thunder rumbled in the skies above us.

“No, wait.” He grabbed my hand again.

“Did you see that?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“See what?” He frowned. “I didn’t see anything. But when you touch me … I can suddenly think clearly for the first time in days.”

I stared at him, finding it hard to catch my breath. The strange vision—had it been my imagination? I was shaking so hard that I could barely form words. “You’re crazy.”

His expression held deep surprise. “Not anymore.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“But it’s still true.” There was way more clarity in his gaze now. “I don’t understand how you’re able to do this, but—do you feel it, too?”

“What?”

“We have a connection. The moment I saw you … I don’t know what it is. Maybe you were sent to help me. Maybe they knew I needed you to find me. That has to be it.”

The sharp edges of the disturbing vision had softened in my mind like they were nothing more than a remembered dream. Now holding Bishop’s hand felt … good. Too good. Touching him had chased his confusion away—although that made absolutely no sense. I suddenly realized it had chased my chill away, too. Warmth slid slowly up my arm and through the rest of me. Yet, despite this newfound heat, his touch still made me shiver.

I looked down at my hand in his but didn’t pull it away this time.

“Maybe I’ll be able to find the others now,” Bishop said.

“What others?” My voice sounded hoarse. “Your family?”

“No. The others. They’re … supposed to help me.”

“You’re still holding my hand.”

He raised his blue eyes to mine, and a smile played on his lips for the first time—a really amazing smile that made my heart skip a beat. “You have no idea how good this feels for me.”

I had to admit, it felt pretty good for me, too. Dangerously good.

“I don’t know what you are or where you came from,” Bishop said, “but thank you.”

I felt dazed. “What I am?”

He nodded. “To make me feel this way you must be very special … and you don’t even realize it, do you?”

I almost laughed at that, but what came out sounded like a nervous hiccup. “Trust me, I’m not special. But you do seem better. Not sure I can take the credit for it, though.”

“You have no idea what I’ve been through since I got here. I’m not used to making mistakes, but now it feels like that’s all I do. I hope it’ll be better now.”

He had been horribly confused. And now, suddenly—because he was touching me?—that confusion was gone. It didn’t make any sense.

“Who are you looking for?” I asked.

His expression grew pained again, and he craned his neck as he looked up into the sky. “I was told there would be columns of light—searchlights—to help lead my way, but I can’t find any. They were to be my guide and I’m lost without them.”

I glanced back in the direction of the movie theater. “Uh … you don’t happen to mean something like that column of light, do you?”

His brows drew together. “I don’t see anything.”

I frowned and thumbed in the light’s direction. “You can’t see that bright beam of light over there?”

“No. But …” He hesitated and gave me a hard, skeptical look. “But you can?”

“I don’t know how anyone could miss it. I thought it was coming from the movie theater.”

“Samantha …” Again, as he said my name, I felt that strange shiver course through me. “If you can really see the light, you need to show me where it leads.”

I remembered the story about Carly and the hive of bees. She’d been stung ten times and the doctor said she was very lucky it hadn’t been worse than that. If it were me, I wouldn’t ever have eaten honey again because of that painful memory. But not Carly. She still loved honey. Then again, Carly’s always been a little bit crazy.

I remembered Stephen walking away Friday night at Crave, leaving me standing there all alone. That had been my first painful bee sting in a long time, and a recent one, too. I was still recovering from it.