"What are these?" he said, pointing at the series of raised scarred lines across my skin.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed my arm away. I'd allowed my defenses down for a moment and I'd been caught. "Nothing."

"Don't give me that. I'm not stupid."

"Then you know what they are," I muttered, my cheeks flaring hot with shame. My body had stiffened, my arm drawn back into my body, but he reached out and pulled me back into the position we'd been in before, and kissed the top of my head.

"You should never hurt yourself, Icy. Why would you do this?"

His fingertips lightly traced the fading scars on my forearm. For once, I made no attempt to pull away or cover the scars up.

I answered his question with a question. "Why do you put yourself in danger by riding upside down on a motorbike at G.o.d-knows what speed?"

"It vents my frustrations," he said, a half-smile playing on his lips.

"Then I guess we do harmful things for exactly the same reason."

"You vent your frustration at something?"

I wanted to tell him then, tell him exactly what I was and the problems I struggled with. The words danced on my tongue, desperate to burst from my lips. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand to see the horror in his eyes, and to have him push me away and run from the room.

He must know something is different about you, a little voice spoke in my head. You ripped the throat out of a grown man who was three times your size. He knows a normal girl wouldn't be able to do such a thing.

So why hadn't he asked me? Why hadn't he even mentioned what I did?

Chapter.

16.

No dreams came to me that night.

I knew without opening my eyes that Riley was no longer beside me. I didn't blame him for leaving, though that didn't change the pang of longing inside me, or the dip of disappointment in the pit of my stomach. I understood he would want to slip off campus under the cover of darkness.

Just as I instinctively knew Riley was gone, I also sensed Brooke was back in her bed. Did she know where she'd been the previous night? Had she been to a party, or had she been doing something far more odious?

I'd woken more refreshed than I'd done for ages. Was my clear head down to the lack of dreams, or perhaps the blood I'd consumed the previous night, or even Riley? I thought all three things were intimately connected, that one would not have happened without the other, so I guessed it was probably all three.

My emotions were torn. I'd killed a man last night-a horrific and unthinkable thing to do. And yet, here I was, encased within a happy little bubble that was Riley. The scent of him on my bedclothes, in my hair, on my skin. I hugged myself with happiness.

Still, it was madness, surely, to be filled with such crazy joy at the simple thought of a boy-a dark, strange, possibly dangerous boy-when I had become a killer myself.

I needed to get to cla.s.s, though I wondered how I would ever concentrate on lectures with so many thoughts and questions going through my head. Riley had not had the chance to explain his reaction to Brooke's name last night, but I was sure she was connected to whatever was going down in Sage Springs. Plus, Flynn knew something about the pools, which made me think he was also involved. Why had he taken me there in the first place? Had he been trying to tell me something, show me something, perhaps, but then had been scared off by the reaction of the pools? How could a body of water even respond to something a person said or even thought? It was crazy to think such a thing was a possibility, but I'd felt something when I'd been pushing Jordy's body beneath the gla.s.s-like surface. Something ... else.

It all revolved around the pools. Whatever was building in town was going to culminate there, and I was sure both Brooke and Flynn were involved, together with the carny guys. I just wished I had the inkling of an idea about what it was exactly. I wasn't used to not knowing things.

There was only one person I'd met who, apart from when I'd managed to upset her, I'd gotten no bad vibes from. I wasn't sure she'd even talk to me, but she'd recognized the necklace, and I was certain she knew the symbol, the same symbol I'd seen drawn on Brooke's body. I had questions and I needed answers.

Leaving Brooke huddled beneath the covers of her bed, I grabbed my wash bag and clothes, took a quick shower, and headed to cla.s.s. I kept my head down, but my eyes peeled for anything suspicious. I half expected the police to reappear, slap cuffs around my wrists, and arrest me for the murder of Jordy Whateverhisnamewas.

But everyone acted as if the world had continued as normal while mine had tilted so far on its axis I worried I would fall off.

Laurel wasn't in my first cla.s.s, but I caught sight of her hurrying down the corridor between cla.s.ses, her dark hair falling from the twist she wore as she pushed her gla.s.ses higher up her nose.

"Laurel!" I called.

She hesitated, but didn't stop walking. It was the tiniest motion, but enough for me to know she'd heard me. My heart dropped with sadness. I'd hoped we'd be able to be friends, but she didn't even want to talk to me. I couldn't say I blamed her.

Even though she didn't want to talk to me, that didn't mean I still didn't need to talk to her.

"Laurel!" I called again, louder this time, causing other students to glance my way. I took after her, pushing past people, ignoring their mocking stares. "Hey, Laurel. Wait up a minute."

She glanced over her shoulder and slowed with a resigned sigh. "I can't talk. I'm busy."

"Please. Just a few minutes. I'm sorry if things I've done have made you p.i.s.sed at me, but this is really important."

She shook her head. "Sorry, I can't. I've been told ..."

Laurel slammed her mouth shut and abruptly turned from me and started to walk again.

I stared after her retreating back. "Told what?"

No way was I going to give up this easily. I chased after her, grabbed her arm and pulled her back around. "Told what?" I repeated.

She glared at me. "Told not to speak to you."

Something caught my eye. Where her sleeve had ridden up, on her inner wrist was the tattoo of the same symbol-the circle with a star in the middle-that seemed to be haunting me.

"Right," I said, resolutely. "You're going to answer some questions, whether you like it or not."

"What about cla.s.s?"

"Screw cla.s.s. We'll call this a study break."

I kept my hand on her arm. My strength meant she wouldn't be able to break free. With my head down, I marched her down the hall, out of the building, and toward my car.

Feeling a little brutal, but at my wits' end, I opened the pa.s.senger door and pushed her in. Laurel didn't fight back, which surprised me. Did she feel the need to talk as much as I did? Perhaps this was her way of telling whoever was lording it over her that she'd been forced into a conversation.

I walked around the other side and climbed in behind the wheel before twisting to face her. "Right. Spill it. Something bad is going to happen in town, and I know it's connected with that symbol you have tattooed on your wrist. And who the h.e.l.l told you not to speak to me?"

Sarcasm filled her response. "Enough questions, already?"

I had managed to cram in a few. "Okay, first thing first, who told you not to speak to me?"

She glanced away as though embarra.s.sed she'd allowed someone else to tell her what to do. "The rest of my circle. They know there's something different about you. They just can't pinpoint exactly what."

"Circle? Like circle of friends?" I wasn't sure she had that many.

But she shook her head and lifted her eyes, focusing on me. "No, circle of witches. Like a coven."

"Witches?"

She shrugged. "I don't expect you to believe me, but you asked what was going on, so I've told you. Do what you want with it."

I thought back to the conversation I'd had with Flynn about how all the names of the places in Sage Springs were linked to the town's history, and how the founders of the town had all been into their herbal medicine. I already knew magic was involved here, from the symbols, to the pools, to the dreams I'd been having since I got here. The existence of a coven didn't surprise me, though Laurel's involvement did.

"I believe you. Is that what the symbol is for, the one with the star and the circle? Magic?"

"Yes. We are the points of the star, and the circle binds us. We're all descendents of the original founders of the town, and it's our job to watch over Sage Springs. Make sure it stays safe."

"But it isn't going to stay safe," I said, my tone suddenly urgent. "Something bad is going to happen."

She narrowed her eyes. "How do you know that? Is it like how you knew about the accident at the carnival? I told you the truth, now it's your turn."

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I pondered the idea for a moment and decided against it. The partial truth would have to do.

"I see things that haven't happened yet," I admitted. "And some things that have happened already."

"Wow. You're a precog?"

"A what?"

"A precognitive. Someone who can see the future."

"Well, yeah. I guess that's what I am then." I wasn't planning on filling her in on the and I'm half vampire' part.

"And you think something bad is going to happen?"

I nodded. "I know it is. I've been seeing it ever since I got here."

She chewed on her lower lip.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know if it's connected, but in about eighteen hours there will be a Disruptive Convergence."

"A what?"

"There will be an exceptional alignment of planets in our solar system. The moon and three other planets will be aligned in such a way that it will cause a great shift in the earth's energy from one of peace to war."

I couldn't help my laugh of disbelief. "This is supposed to be a peaceful world?"

"Yes, compared to what the world would be like in a warlike cycle. The way the planets align mean that the earth's dark energies can be tapped into. This isn't just a warlike cycle, it's also known as the h.e.l.l' cycle."

"That doesn't sound good."

"You can say that again."

"But why Sage Springs?"

"There's a place in the forest that's special-"

"The pools," I interrupted. "I've seen them."

Laurel widened her eyes at me. "You have?"

"Yeah, a couple of times now."

"Oh...kay," she said slowly, as if taking this new piece of information in. "Well, the pools in the forest act as portals between our world and the afterlife. Flynn is supposed to protect them, but since the mining has come so close, he's struggled."

"Flynn?" I said. "Why Flynn?"

"Flynn Matthews is an Elemental."

"A what?" I was starting to feel like a parrot squawking out the same two words over and over.

"An Elemental," she restated. "They're powerful witches who can control the elements."

"You've got to be kidding." I'd come across witchcraft before, but not this particular kind. Trust my luck to have decided to make my home in a town full of G.o.d-d.a.m.ned witches. "So can he control all elements?" The thought of this was so powerful, it was terrifying.

But Laurel shook her head. "No. Each Elemental has a specific element they can control. For Flynn, it's water."

"Which is why he's such a strong swimmer," I said, piecing things together.

"That definitely helps. But when the planets align, they have an effect on the water-"

"Like the moon and the tide?" I offered.

She smiled. "Exactly. So the water is displaced, and this makes it easier for the afterlife to pa.s.s through into our world."

Was that where the body had ended up, I wondered, together with my clothes? In the afterlife? Riley had said that things didn't come back once they'd entered the pools, but what if they did? What if at a particular time, when the planets were aligned, they were able to come back?

I didn't mention either Jordy's body or my bloodied clothes to Laurel. Instead, I said, "And this is what creates the h.e.l.l cycle?"

She nodded, but this time her expression was grim. "Yep. The h.e.l.l cycle."

"But what have the carnival people got to do with all of this?"