His fingers came away tipped with blood.
Something shifted in the Wildwood tree and Andrew surged to his feet, his heart flinging itself frantically against his ribs.
But only Thomas dropped from its branches, his expression strained and his mouth at an angle that looked almost angry.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
SEVEN
Andrew didn’t know how he was meant to react. He’d never been one to break rules—at least not alone—but obviously he’d come because of Thomas. As he tried to get his heartbeat back under control, he looked at his hand. Only damp soil clung to his fingertips. No blood. Of course there was no blood, what the hell was he thinking?
Andrew swallowed. “I was looking for you?” He hated that it came out as a question.
Thomas left the darkening shade of the oak, his sketchbook dangling from his hand, charcoal smudged near his mouth. It was painful how Andrew noticed Thomas’s mouth like that. The dying afternoon light turned the tips of his auburn curls to simmering fire and oh, there was a wildness about him, this boy made of angular frowns and thorny words. He was brilliant and terrible and unmanageable.
Thomas’s odd flash of anger faded, and guilt ghosted across his eyes. He picked his way across the mottled roots toward Andrew. His foot slipped once, and he flung out both arms to steady himself, sketchbook pages flapping in his grip. When he leaped off the last root and landed unsteadily, Andrew couldn’t help the compulsion to snatch the front of Thomas’s shirt and ground them both.
But it was Thomas who took Andrew by the shoulder andpropelled him away from the oak. His grip was careful, as if Andrew was a fragile thing, easily hurt, especially out here, away from school walls and protective fences.
Thomas’s breath came too fast. “Don’t do this again, all right? Don’t come out here.”
“You shouldn’t be here, either,” Andrew said. “Usually you want me to break rules with you.”
A strange hollowness stole over Thomas’s face. “Let’s just go back.”
“What were you even doing?”
“Nothing.”
They fell into step as they walked toward the fence. Thomas still had fingers hooked in Andrew’s shirt as if he was the one dragging Andrew away from bad decisions.
“What happened today?” Andrew said. “Why did the police keep you for so long?”
Thomas didn’t answer. Light drained from the sky and the ground turned uneven and treacherous in the shadows. Andrew kept waiting to see puddles of stagnant blood, but there was nothing. He’d truly imagined it. But it felt like something was watching them leave, hungry eyes marking their footfalls and tracing the shapes of their shoulder blades. He almost thought he heard the hiss of flesh scraping against tree bark, and thick, congested breathing. A furtive glance over his shoulder showed only the forest watching their retreat with empty eyes.
By the time they reached the fence, both were sweaty and breathing quicker. The forest had left green smudges on Thomas’s white school shirt, and he looked unruly, collar popped and trousers muddied. It would be hard to hide where he’d been.
“Climb.” Thomas’s voice had a brittle edge to it.
Andrew obeyed. He deserved answers, though. Even if he had no stubbornness of his own, he could pretend he had some of Dove’s.
He waited till they’d run back across the athletic fields and into the rose gardens before he spoke again. The windows glowed with soft warm light, and the dinner bell must have sounded. There would be a head count. Marks against names if they didn’t show.
But Andrew couldn’t let this pass.
He stopped walking.
Thomas ducked under a wicker arch of vines before realizing Andrew wasn’t following. He spun back to see Andrew planted with arms folded, his mouth in the tight angle he’d seen on Dove.
The way Thomas looked at him was half despair, half frustration.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Andrew said.
Thomas checked the garden, but there was no one out here except them. Though Andrew couldn’t shake that feeling from the forest—the feeling of being watched by something not yet fed.
Thomas sighed, walked back, and leaned against the low garden wall. “My parents are officially starring in a missing persons case.”
“Okay,” Andrew said.
