Dark Kiss

“You said you’d help me,” he said. “Did you mean it?”

Bishop wanted me to lead him to the column of bright light that he said he couldn’t see. And I was going to do it because … well, I didn’t really know why, but I was going to do it anyway.

I let out a shaky breath. “Okay, fine. Follow me.”

He let go of my hand as we walked, and the chill I’d felt before began to set in again.

“It’s already fading,” Bishop said, his expression tense.

“What? The light?”

“No, my sanity. So we’d better make this quick.”

“But you feel okay when you touch me?”

He looked disturbed. “Yes.”

“Fine. Then, here.” I held out my hand to him, and when he entwined his fingers with mine again, I was filled by that incredible, blissful heat—and, thankfully, no disturbing vision this time.

He smiled at me. “Much better.”

My face heated up right along with the rest of my body.

I’d been certain the light was coming from the movie theater. Instead, it led us to an alley behind a fast-food restaurant. When we turned the corner, the light disappeared as if someone had flicked off a switch. Weird.

At the end of the short alley, a tall kid with dark blond hair rummaged noisily through an overflowing Dumpster. He looked about the same age as Bishop. I grimaced as he put something in his mouth and started chewing. It looked like a half-eaten hamburger.

Um, gross.

Bishop had stopped in place and was staring at the kid with an expression on his face I couldn’t put a name to. Confusion, doubt and something else. Something bleak.

“Everything okay?” I asked him.

His shoulders tensed and he looked at me. “It will be.”

“Well, good. I assume you know that kid?”

“Don’t worry about him.” He leaned over and looked deep into my eyes. He took my other hand in his, as well. A breath caught in my chest.

“Okay, I won’t worry,” I said.

“I really don’t understand this.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

“You saw the searchlight when I couldn’t.” He frowned, as if trying to make sense of it all. “You were sent to help me when I needed it most—when I’d nearly given up hope. Thank you.”

I couldn’t help but grin at how dramatic he was being. “You’re very welcome.”

His expression turned tense, and he let me go so suddenly that I nearly lost my balance. It helped break me out of my current daze.

“It’s strange. I thought for a second that you—” His dark brows drew together before he shook his head.

“You thought for a second … what?”

“Something bad. But it’s nothing.” He turned to look at the Dumpster-diving kid before returning his gaze to mine. “You need to go now, Samantha.”

I inhaled sharply. “What?”

He took a step back as if forcing himself to put some space between us. “I need to talk to him alone.”

The distance between us helped to clear my head a little. “But—”

“Just go. And forget you ever met me.”

It felt like I’d just been punched in the gut, and it took me a moment to catch my breath. The cold splash of a raindrop hit my face.

He wanted me to forget I’d met him. But I kind of thought that we …

That we what? Had a connection because a good-looking but kind of crazy guy had called me beautiful? Because he’d said I was special?

My second bee sting of the weekend hurt like hell.

“Fine.” My chest ached. “I guess you should grab your friend before he finds a dead rat to nibble on.”

There was a sliver of regret in his blue eyes—or maybe that was just wishful thinking. He’d gotten what he needed from me and now he was giving me the brush-off. “Goodbye, Samantha.”

“Whatever.” I swallowed hard, then turned and walked away, forcing myself not to look back.

But even as I left the alley, my steps slowed.

Was he some milk-carton missing kid? Did he need professional help to deal with his mental issues? And who was the garbage-eating boy in the alley Bishop had needed a beam of light in order to find? I couldn’t just walk away and forget all about this without having any of my questions answered. Even if he didn’t want me around, I had to find out what was going on.

Ignoring the sharp needles of cold rain, I returned to the small alley and peered around the corner. The boys were close enough for me to hear them.

The other kid finally noticed Bishop and abandoned his secondhand meal, dropping the remains of the burger to the dirty, wet ground. “Who are you?”

Bishop didn’t speak right away. He cleared his throat first. “You don’t know me?”

“No, should I?”

“My name’s Bishop,” he said evenly. “I’m here to help you.”

The other boy eyed Bishop warily. “How are you going to help me?”

“Do you remember who you are? Do you remember anything at all?”

The boy ran a hand through his dirty blond hair, now damp from the rain, his expression tight and uncertain. “I woke up three days ago in a park north of here with no idea how I got there.”

“I know how.”

Relief flooded the kid’s expression. “Yeah? And you can help me?”

Another moment of hesitation. “That’s my job. Come closer.”

Bishop’s voice sounded stronger now, no babbling or disjointed thoughts like before. His shoulders were broad and he stood straight and tall, his back to me, the rain soaking through his T-shirt, darkening it.

The boy moved away from the Dumpster to stand in front of Bishop. They were the same height and build.

“Show me your back,” Bishop instructed.

“My back?”

“Please, it’ll only take a moment. I can’t make any more mistakes, even if I’m absolutely sure who you are.”

The blond kid looked bewildered as he turned and pulled up his shirt. It was fully dark now, and the only light came from a single security lamp on a post against the gray brick wall, but I could still see enough. On either side of his spine was a detailed tattoo of wings, so large that it extended down past the waistband of his pants. I squinted a little and noted that the wings were outlined and shaded in black.

It was trendy for some kids to get a wing tattoo—especially the guys on McCarthy’s football team, the Ravens. But they usually got it on their arms.

My rational mind wanted me to believe it was just a big version of the Ravens tattoo. However, these wings weren’t feathery like a bird’s. They were more webbed and … batlike.

Another shiver raced through me and my teeth began to chatter. My hair was now drenched from the icy-cold rain.

“I’ve seen enough,” Bishop said.

The boy lowered his shirt. Just like Bishop, he wasn’t wearing a coat despite the chill in the air and the falling rain.

“So now what?” the boy asked.

“Now you need to be brave.”

The boy’s attention shifted to the gold-bladed knife Bishop pulled from a sheath on his back that I hadn’t noticed before. “What are you going to do with that?”

“What I was sent here to do,” Bishop said. “My mission.” He plunged the knife into the boy’s chest.

chapter 4

A scream tore from my throat. “No! What are you doing?”

Bishop sent a fierce glare over his shoulder at me. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

I ran toward the boy and grabbed hold of his arm as he staggered backward. A flash of lightning forked across the sky followed by a crack of thunder, and the rain came down even harder.

“You … You’re a—” The boy clutched at me, his eyes widening with pain and shock. I looked with horror at the blood soaking through his dirty white shirt as the boy’s grip on me grew painfully tight. “A gray.”

“What?”

But then he slipped out of my grasp, dropped to his knees and, with a last hiss of breath, fell face forward onto the pavement.

“Oh, my God! You killed him!” I could barely breathe. My entire body began to tremble. I’d never seen anyone murdered before. Not in real life.

Bishop grabbed me and slammed me up against the brick wall. I shrieked as he pressed the sharp golden knife against my throat.

“A gray,” he growled, and there was nothing remotely confused in his fierce expression anymore. He looked like he wanted to slit my throat right here and now. “I wasn’t sure before … but you are one of them.”

“Let go of me!” I wanted to struggle, but I couldn’t move much for fear that the knife would cut me. His body pressed against mine, effortlessly pinning me. His short hair was now slicked to his forehead from the rain and his eyes glowed—literally glowed—with blue light. Before, I’d found his eyes beautiful, but now they were absolutely terrifying.

And suddenly, I remembered seeing those eyes before—in my dream, the one I’d had when I passed out at Crave. The dream where he’d let me fall into the horrible darkness.

Something slid behind his gaze, past the fierceness. It looked like bitter disappointment. “How many souls have you devoured since you were turned?”

Tears burned my eyes and I tried to press back against the wall so I wouldn’t have to be so close to him. The knife at my neck made it difficult to speak or breathe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You’ve been kissed. Your soul is lost. You’re one of them now.”

Kissed.

The bitter taste of bile rose in my throat as I remembered the cold sensation when Stephen had kissed me. At the time it had felt like riding a roller coaster in the winter. Exhilarating and thrilling. It hadn’t been a normal kiss. I’d known it then, but I’d tried to pretend it never happened at all. Even though it had.

I should warn you, it’s a very dangerous kiss, Stephen had told me. It will change your life forever.

Bishop looked pained and the knife eased off a fraction. “I don’t understand why you helped me—why you could help me. They told me grays would be completely controlled by their insatiable hunger. But when you touched me—”

Oh, I’d touch him, all right.

I drove my knee up between his legs as hard as I could. He gasped and let go of me. I didn’t think twice before running away. I ran as far and as fast as I could through the maze of alleys and backstreets we’d taken to get there, before looking over my shoulder. My vision was blurred by tears and rain, but I could see that he wasn’t chasing me.

Bishop was insane. A killer. And I’d led him directly to his victim.

I stopped the first police cruiser I saw and ran to the driver’s side. “There’s been a murder!”

I quickly took the cop back to the alley, but by the time we got there it was empty. Completely empty. The cop looked at me skeptically as I craned my neck, looking for any sign of what had happened here. I knew it was the right alley. The half-eaten hamburger was still lying on the ground in a puddle.

“It happened only a few minutes ago. Please, you have to believe me!”

My insistence seemed to get through to him and he started to take me seriously. He asked me questions about what I’d seen and where I’d been tonight. He told me that there had been a few missing persons cases recently and that I should be careful.

I didn’t read the papers or watch the news, so I’d had no idea. If I had, I never would have walked home alone with my head in the clouds, stopping to help out a good-looking kid on the street. Bishop could be the reason behind these disappearances.

“I’ll come back tomorrow morning to check the alley again,” the cop told me. “Even with the rain, a murder like you’re describing would leave blood evidence behind, but I don’t see any here.” He paused. “Is there any chance this was your imagination? You said you’d gone to see a horror movie earlier, right?”

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but then closed it. He was right. If I said that I’d witnessed a murder, but there was no body, no blood, only minutes after the crime had taken place, then what was he supposed to think?

What was I supposed to think?

He drove me home in his cruiser and told me again not to worry about anything, that the police were on top of it. He assured me that the city was safe and that he was quite sure I’d just been imagining things. I nodded, my brain spinning as I felt sick to my core. He walked me to my front door and waited till I unlocked it and went inside before he went back to his cruiser and drove away. I was soaked to the skin from the rain and shaking from cold and fear.

My mother had a business dinner with her real-estate associates that she’d said would keep her out until at least midnight. I didn’t often want to spend a lot of time with her—we were so different that we had practically nothing in common anymore—but I desperately wished she was home right now.

I wanted to call Carly and tell her everything. I even went so far as to get my phone out of my bag, but the screen flickered and went out as I scrolled through the numbers. Dead battery. I swore under my breath. Before I went for the landline, I had second thoughts. I had no proof that what I’d seen was even real. I didn’t think Bishop had had enough time to pick up the body and carry it away with no trace.

But I’d seen it. I had. I wasn’t going crazy.

I glanced out the narrow window at the side of the front door, past the blind, to make sure I hadn’t been followed.

Grays are controlled by their insatiable hunger.

A sob caught in my chest. I didn’t even know what a gray was, other than a drab color. All I knew was that I was hungry all the time. And I knew, down deep, that it wasn’t just for food.

The blond kid’s face haunted me. He’d looked so alone and confused. I’d seen the hope in his eyes when he thought Bishop was going to help him. Instead, Bishop had stabbed him in the heart.

And then they’d both disappeared.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t stop shaking, I managed to eat three slices of cold pizza before I went to bed. My stomach didn’t seem to care as much as my brain did that I’d been a witness to murder.

I couldn’t get to sleep, staring up at my stucco ceiling and finding scary images of monsters hidden there. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out my thoughts, but what I’d seen in the alley filled my head like a nonstop horror movie marathon. I normally loved horror movies; they were my escape. But they weren’t nearly as much fun when you experienced them in real life.

When I finally fell asleep, I had another dream about Bishop. This time I could see him clearly as he approached me on the street, his hand held out toward me as if he wanted to touch me.

I cringed away from him. “Leave me alone!”

His face was strained and haunted. “You know I can’t do that. Not anymore.”

I realized I had a knife—Bishop’s knife—clutched in my hand. “Stay away from me or I’ll do it! I’ll kill you!”

Despite my warning, he still drew closer as if he couldn’t help himself.

I didn’t remember stabbing him, but I must have, because the very next moment, he fell to his knees and touched the hilt of the knife sticking out of his chest with shaking hands.

His intense blue eyes locked with mine. “They can’t have you—promise me, Samantha. You won’t let them have you.”

When he fell heavily to his side, the light from his eyes extinguished, and he didn’t move again. A cry rose in my throat. Suddenly I wanted to touch him, to heal him. I wanted to make it all better again, make everything go away, but it was too late.

Shadows began to creep toward me from every direction. As they moved over Bishop’s body, he disappeared as if he’d never been there in the first place.

“You must come with us now, Samantha,” the voices said as the shadows drew closer and closer.

Icy hands gripped me, stripping away any warmth left inside me and leaving only fear behind.

“You’re one of us now. You’ll always be one of us.”

“No!” When I tried to fight them, they began to rip me apart. But instead of blood, darkness spilled from inside me.

I forced myself awake with a blood-curdling scream.

My mother thundered down the hallway and yanked open my bedroom door.

“What’s wrong?” Her face was pale, her normally perfect blond hair a mess. She pulled her bathrobe tighter around her. Dark circles cut under her pale blue eyes. She suffered from insomnia and usually got only a few hours of sleep a night. A screaming daughter didn’t exactly help matters.

I looked at her from my tangle of light pink bedsheets. “Bad dream. Really bad dream.”

“A bad dream? That’s all it was? I thought you were being murdered in here.”

I flinched at her choice of words, wanting to tell her everything but knowing she wouldn’t believe a word I said. Why would she? I barely believed it myself. “Sorry I woke you.”

She leaned her forehead against the edge of the door. “Better now?”

“I’ll survive.”

“Warm milk helps me sometimes. Do you want some?”

“No, thanks.” Just the thought of it turned my stomach. My new hunger didn’t seem to extend toward heated dairy products.

Whenever I’d had a nightmare as a kid, she’d come into my room and read me a story until I got sleepy again. I remembered one in particular about a bunny who got lost in the forest and had to rely on the kindness of strangers—even those who might normally eat him for dinner—to help lead him home. Luckily it had a happy ending. Not all wolves had an appetite for cute bunnies.

For a moment, I had the urge to ask her to read me that story, but I held my tongue. I wasn’t a little kid anymore.

“You scared me,” she said groggily, rubbing her eyes. “But I’m glad nothing’s wrong. Try to get some sleep. Brand-new week starting. Hopefully it’ll be a good one.”

As she left, she kept my door open a crack. It wasn’t as big of a comforting gesture as reading me a bedtime story about rabbits and wolves becoming friends with each other, but it was better than nothing.

I had an old teddy bear named Fritz that had been relegated to the rocking chair in the corner of my room next to my packed bookcase. He was missing an eye, and his left arm was partially detached. I grabbed him and pulled him into bed with me, clutching him to my chest. But whatever comfort he’d given me when I was younger, he failed to deliver tonight.

An hour later, I gave up on sleep. I grabbed my laptop from the floor next to my bed and went to the website for the Trinity Chronicle, searching for the latest news to see if anyone had reported any stabbings or murders. There was nothing. Between this and the dismissive “it was just your imagination” reaction I’d gotten from the cop, it was like it never happened.

But it had.

I read up on recent disappearances, but none seemed related to what had happened tonight. Trinity was a big city with a million residents. Bad things happened year-round to people young and old, male and female, beautiful and ugly. It didn’t seem to matter who or when or why.

I propped my pillows behind me and gathered my thick duvet closer so I wouldn’t feel so cold. Then I did a Google search for gray, but that didn’t give me anything useful. I mean, it was just a color, that was all. But that was what the blond kid had called me. That was what had made Bishop freak out and look at me like I was a monster, when really it was the other way around. He was the monster.

For a moment, I’d thought he was so much more.

I closed the computer, swearing to put him and everything I’d seen and experienced completely out of my mind.

Yeah, right. Like that was even possible.

Monday morning loomed painfully bright and early. I wanted to stay home and hide, but I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I forced myself to get up and get ready for school. My mother had already left for work by the time I came downstairs. I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast—and more toast—none of which made a single dent in my hunger.

When I went to the bathroom to get ready, the full-length mirror on the back of the door showed that I looked exactly the same as I ever had—short, skinny, with long, wild dark hair that I pulled back into a ponytail to keep off my face. A smear of peach-colored lip gloss and a swipe of black mascara was the sum total of my beauty regimen for a regular school day. Same as always.

But something had changed. People at McCarthy High were looking at me differently.

I tried to ignore the curious looks and outright stares I got as I made my way into the school. Maybe they were staring at me because I looked like someone who’d hung out with a gorgeous but crazy blue-eyed murderer last night. A murderer who’d disappeared into thin air along with his victim, making me question my sanity and my own damn eyes.

Or, more likely, the news of what happened with Stephen and me at Crave on Friday night had gone viral. Likely Jordan was spreading the rumor that I was a slut, blowing everything out of proportion to make my life even more difficult than it already was.

“Excuse me, Ms. Day,” Mr. Saunders, my English teacher, said near the end of first period. His thick glasses made him look like a disapproving owl peering down at me from a tree branch. “Are you paying attention to me this morning?”

I straightened in my seat, flattening my palms against the cool surface of my desk, and tried to pull myself out of my thoughts. “Of course I am.”

“Then what did I just say?”

I felt everyone watching me, waiting to see if I’d make a fool out of myself.

“You said—” I gulped and scanned the blackboard for a clue “—something about Macbeth?”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“A statement. Definitely a statement.”

“Since that’s the play we’re discussing this week, I think it’s a given that I’m talking about it. But what precisely did I just say?”

The walls felt as if they were closing in on me and I suddenly had trouble breathing. I had a very strong urge to get out of there and I didn’t have time to explain why. I’d face the consequences later.

I grabbed my leather bag and books before getting up from my seat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Saunders. I—I’m not feeling so good.”

“Ms. Day?” He watched with surprise as I left my desk and escaped from the room without another word.

The harder I tried to think about something else, the more the memories of last night clutched me like a giant, monstrous hand. I needed some fresh air. First, I hurried to my locker to drop off my books.

“Hey, what happened in there?” Colin had followed me from class. He held his dog-eared copy of Macbeth and his binder casually at his side. “You okay?”

I shoved my books into my locker and closed it, twirling the dial on the lock. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

I crossed my arms to try to warm up. Colin wore short sleeves, which made me think that I was the only one with a temperature problem today. “You left class just to check on me?”

“Well, yeah. Of course I did. I told Saunders I wanted to make sure you’re okay. He seemed concerned, so he didn’t have a problem with it. You’re lucky he likes you.”

No one else had come after me. I didn’t have too many other friends in that class. I didn’t have too many other friends period. “You’re so sweet.”

I could have sworn his cheeks flushed a little. But it was true. He was sweet. Except for his inability to deal with parties without drinking and then making ridiculously bad choices involving stupid, vain cheerleaders, he was basically the perfect guy.

“Listen, Samantha—” He raised his gaze from the scuffed floor to look at me. “I know Carly and I didn’t end on good terms. Seeing her trying to avoid me last night wasn’t fun.”

I tensed at the mention of their breakup. “That’s an understatement.”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead and looked down at his feet again. “And I know you’re her friend—”

“Best friend.”