She burst out laughing then, leaning closer. “I wonder what the principal would have said about that. Can you imagine the other kids brushing our ashes off the swings?” She bumped her shoulder playfully against his. “We were kinda morbid when we were little, weren’t we?”

“Better than being zombified forever in the ground, I guess.” He grinned down at her, and Violet’s mouth went dry. Even when he was saying things like “zombified” he could make her stomach do flips with just a simple glance. He changed the subject then. “Are you excited about tomorrow?”

Violet’s gaze narrowed, but she wasn’t really upset with him. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

He shrugged, leaning closer, and she could feel his eyes settling on her lips, making them tingle in anticipation. “Because we’ll be seniors tomorrow. Because it’s our last year of high school. Aren’t we supposed to be excited?”

“I suppose,” she said, not really caring about the words coming from her mouth. She inhaled his breath, which was even with hers.

“But you’re not?”

She studied his eyes, the flecks of gold and green and brown, pieced together like intricate bits of cut glass in a mosaic. She looked at his lashes, too long and thick for a boy’s. And at his pupils, which grew larger as she drew nearer. “I didn’t say that.” Then she smiled. “But, no. Not really, I guess.”

“Is that why you aren’t at Claire’s for the big back-to-school barbeque? I hear everyone who’s anyone is there.” His tone was mocking, but he wore the same concerned expression she’d seen on her mother’s face just that morning.

Like she was broken.

“I’m okay, Jay. I promise.”

He reached up and traced his thumb along one of the bruise-colored circles beneath her eyes. “The imprint?” he asked.

She nodded, but all she could think about was the feel of his touch.

“Have you slept at all?” His voice was lower, his mouth closer now.

Again, she nodded.

His hand cupped her cheek, cradling it. “They miss you, you know?” He didn’t have to say who . . . she knew he meant Chelsea and Claire and Jules. It had been a long, strange summer as she’d tried to adjust to this new life of hers—the one that was never silent.

“I miss them too,” she admitted. “I just . . .” She faltered, trying to come up with the right words and thinking it might be easier if Jay wasn’t so close. If she wasn’t staring into his beautiful eyes and breathing his tempting breath. “They act like, I don’t know, like everything’s the same as it’s always been, but I feel like a stranger now. And whenever I’m with them, I feel like a liar too. They know I was abducted, but I can’t tell them why. And every time Chelsea asks where I’ve been, and who I’m with, I have to make up some excuse so she doesn’t know I’ve been at the Center. It’s like I’m living two different lives.” She nestled her face into the curve of his hand. “I don’t know who to be.”

His mouth quirked up into a sideways grin, and he reached for her, pulling her against him, and she could feel him shaking his head against the top of hers. “You’re insane, you know that?” But his words were anything but critical. He drew back, watching her with the same amusement she’d heard in his voice. “You don’t have to be anyone, Vi. Just you. They miss you.”

She smiled back at him. He was right, of course . . . he always was. And when he said it like that, so simply, it made perfect sense. Who was she kidding? Things had happened to her, things that had changed her to some degree—she’d be lying if she said she’d come out of the abduction unscathed. And it wasn’t just the imprint that haunted her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t the same girl she’d always been, did it?

Hadn’t her friends tried to convince her of that very thing when they’d shown up at her house day after day? Hadn’t they called and texted and cajoled her to come out with them, even after she’d turned them down time and time again?

Wasn’t it Chelsea who’d finally worn her down by showing up every morning for a week, until Violet had had no choice but to agree to go to the lake with them?

And she’d had fun. She’d felt like her old self again, even if it was only for a day.

“We can still make it to Claire’s if you want.”

She shook her head.

“What would you rather be doing then?” he asked, his voice low and filled with meaning.

“If you have to ask . . .” Violet’s words trailed away.

Jay’s lips were on hers then. And that tingling of anticipation shot through her entire body, filling her with currents of pleasure that made her toes curl. She leaned into him, not thinking that her parents could look out the window any minute, or that they were kissing in front of a graveyard filled with dead animals, or that she should be getting ready for the first day of her senior year.

She thought of nothing but Jay. Nothing but his lips on her lips.

Nothing but the fact that everything was better when they were alone.

THE ROAD TO HELL

HIS FINGERS ACHED, AND HIS ENTIRE BODY WAS drenched with sweat, soaking his shirt all the way through. He was unable to stand still so he paced across the length of the stage, and then back again, clutching his guitar as he waited for the others to finish talking.

About him. To decide his fate once and for all. But it didn’t matter, he knew he’d nailed it.