If he’s a student here then was he trying to hurt me by the wharf? It didn’t make any sense. What if he wasn’t following me at all?
What if I just thought he was?
What if Dr. Troy was right? What if it was a coincidence?
I knew for a fact I’d seen him outside that brick house and then walking down to that liquor store, but now I was wondering how much I’d actually seen after that. What if he went in that store and didn’t follow me at all? Maybe that’s why I saw him with the bags talking to the police.
What if there was someone else following me and I just assumed it was him?
But then a tiny voice in the back of my mind said, what if no one was following you at all? My eyes latched on to his profile and I was helpless to look away. I just wanted to drink him in. That night on the wharf I’d been terrified beyond recognition, yet I felt no fear now. I felt a lot of things that I definitely did not understand but it wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anything close to fear.
He glanced over his shoulder and our eyes met once again, if only for a moment.
A fire exploded in my chest and I gasped for air.
“Damn, girl. That beautiful bastard is eyeing you.”
Gigi leaned into my peripheral vision. “Do you know him?”
I shook my head. “W-who i-i-is h-he?”
Savannah leaned closer. “Zachariah Martin. Moved here at the beginning of the school year.”
“I’ve yet to hear his voice even once,” Gigi grumbled. “I bet it’s hot. I hope it’s hot. I’m still upset David Beckham’s voice isn’t. It’s just not right when the face and the voice don’t match in hotness.”
“Preach.” Savannah sighed.
I didn’t understand. It all had felt so real, but watching him now as he sat at a table full of other high school boys it didn’t make sense. Even if he had followed me, he hadn’t actually tried to grab me or hurt me. He hadn’t even approached me. And why would he have a sword? I was going to have to talk to Dr. Troy about it this afternoon when I went for our talk. She’d help me make sense of this. Because I was confused.
He turned and our eyes met once more. Except he didn’t look away this time. Those eyes of burning sunshine locked on me and my body melted. I licked my lips and his eyes tracked the movement before he looked away again. Heat exploded in my cheeks. I tucked my hair behind my ears with shaky fingers. Do you remember me? I stared at him, willing him to hear the confusion in my thoughts. I felt an overwhelming pull toward him, like I needed to be by his side. Which made no sense.
Just look at me one more time.
Chapter Nine
Riah
I felt her eyes on my back.
It was a torture far worse than the purgatory of three centuries in the shadows just watching her. Somehow knowing she was finally seeing me was mine own personal brand of hell.
Because I dared not go near her.
No matter how much I wanted to go to her, to wrap her in my arms and squeeze her tight, I could not. After three-hundred-twenty-seven years, the waiting was over. This was it. This was the endgame. The final stretch. The light at the end of the tunnel. All my centuries of patience could not be destroyed by one lavender-eyed gaze. Something happened to me whenever mine own eyes met hers, it was like a forest burning to ashes in seconds. She felt like drowning, like gasping for air. Every distraction that pulled my gaze away was the hand dragging me out of the water. Yet I burned to look again.
I was going to have to remain cloaked as much as possible. At least that way she would not see me, and I may pray to have some semblance of control and composure…and a heart still whole at the end of this.
“Yo, Riah, you gonna eat that?”
I turned to the boy beside me and arched one eyebrow.
He turned his hat backwards then pointed to the tray of food before me. “I’m still wicked hungry, bruh, and you haven’t touched it.”
I pushed the tray over to him and my stomach turned. I could not eat, Saraphina’s presence turned my body inside out and upside down.
Back in August, when The Coven’s presence forced me to leave her side and retreat, Prince Thorne had sent me here to Salem to prepare for her arrival. It had nearly killed me to be away from her. To not know if she was safe and well. The distraction of the students at this high school had served me well enough at the time…but now, their antics faded into the background, to a place detached from my wavelength.
I glanced around the table at them as they laughed in all their ridiculousness. They were children. With mere seventeen years of life, they were babies. I’d never begrudged them their youth or innocence until this moment, but it was not fair to hold their humanness against them. It was just hard to relate to them. I was born at the height of the Hundred Years’ War against Lilith, in a time of darkness and bloodshed. I was their age when Prince Thorne gave my sword to me…and over six centuries later I was still haunted by the things I’d done with it.
Humans did not know their luck.
And for that, I envied them…a little.
I glanced over my shoulder until mine eyes found her. I wondered, not for the first time, what was in her heart. Did she remember me from before? Did she long for the life she was robbed of? Did she regret the favor she gave for The Coven and then paid heavily for? I would never forgive myself for my part in her misery and that was my driving need to ensure her happiness in the future. I would see her get back what was taken, as much as possible.
And after three centuries of waiting and planning…the time was finally here.
Chapter Ten
Saffie
“I feel like I’m playing that game Carmen San Diego, there’s got to be clues for us to follow and figure out who you are.” Savannah spun around to face me while walking backwards down the hall. “I mean, we’ll do some serious digging for your name online and I’m sure the cops are doing the same…but is there anything else?”
Gigi turned to me with a bounce in her step. “Did you empty your pockets?”
“Um…” I glanced around the hall, scanning every face in the crowd for him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and it was driving me crazy. I had bigger things to worry about. “I was wearing a dress that only had one small pocket and it was empty.”
Savannah frowned. “A dress?”
He wasn’t anywhere in sight. I needed to see him again. I needed to talk to him. To see if it felt the same as at lunch. To see if it was just an unexpected pretty face or if that magnet would still try to draw me near him. It was like this ringing sound in my ears, I needed to know. He was probably only looking at me because I was staring at him like a crazy person. And I felt like a crazy person. Somewhere deep in my subconscious my memory thrived on. It lurked in the shadows of my mind just enough to haunt my thoughts.
And the problem was, he was the first thing I encountered when I woke up. The first person I saw. I needed answers, I just wasn’t sure how to get them. I couldn’t even figure out how to tell my new friends about it.
I shook myself and shrugged. “Yeah. It was sleeveless and pretty short.”
“In December? In Salem, Massachusetts.” Savannah wrinkled her nose. “No, I smell something fishy there. But we’ll circle back to that later. What else were you wearing?”