As if in slow motion, I turn around.
The sight of him strikes me harder than I expect. My pulse picks up an erratic, dangerous rhythm; goose bumps come alive on my skin. Impossibly, my heart beats harder, my chest compressing. I feel a terrible tremble in my hands and I close them into fists, then lose two full seconds looking into his eyes, tearing away only to lose another three to the study of his features.
The blood rushes from my head.
“No,” I whisper.
In response, James almost smiles. “I’ll try not to take that personally.”
I sink back against the truck, finally relinquishing a measure of control. I need to lean against something, brace myself against something. I’m unmoored, as always, by the potent force of his presence. There’s something electric about James’s spirit, the effect heightened by the high contrasts he carries. The staggering build of him tempered by the warmth in his eyes; the harsh cut of his face softened by the freckles dusted across his nose.
Everything about him is both playful and brutal.
A raindrop unhitches from his hair and I watch, mesmerized, as it wends its way down his cheek, surrenderingto the soft curve of his mouth. My eyes linger there too long, heat rising up inside me, steaming my cold head. In stillness his beauty is alarming enough, but he’s most terrifying when he moves. When he laughs and looks around, when he walks across a room—
When he makes direct eye contact.
Even now, here, as the rain shatters around us, James is looking at me with unyielding amusement, his head canted in silent challenge.
“You have cat ears,” he says.
I try to speak. My lips part.
I manage only to exhale.
He reaches out slowly, softly touching the small, pointed ear attached to my hood. “I have so many questions,” he says, looking me over as if we have time. As if we’re not drowning.
As if I’m not being hunted.
You’d never know a storm was raging, that a security alert had been issued throughout the city, that lightning had begun to flash all around us. A different version of me might’ve underestimated him once, might’ve thought I could catch him off guard, disarm him in an instant.
I know better now than to believe anything about James is casual.
I feel myself growing only more frantic as he studies me, his eyes lingering along the lines of my body as he takes in the too-small fit of the costume I’m wearing. I’d grabbed it from the party supply store to replace the stolen teacher’s clothes. I changed several times upon exiting the prison, discarding outfits on principle.
My last attempt was a bit reckless.
The poorly sewn sleeves are a little too short, the rough seams of the shoulders just a little too tight. I’d reached quickly for what I’d thought was a simple, all-black outfit. And I know the moment James spots the tail, because he makes a choked sound, somewhere between delight and disbelief.
“I thought it was a ninja costume,” I whisper.
Now he laughs out loud.
He throws his head back and laughs with his entire body, the sound all but lost in the storm, and I watch him helplessly, with growing desperation.
Help, I want to scream.
James has an effect on me I never knew was possible; an effect I don’t even know how to name—
My instincts want to sleep when he’s nearby.
My brain tries to shut down its defenses. My nervous system begins to quiet. My bones unclench; my eyelids feel heavy; exhaustion overtakes me.
The fight simply leaves my body.
I’d been relieved, days and days ago, by the idea that I’d never see him again. I’d been certain I’d never feel this kind of weakness again. Never be this close to him again. Never glimpse this smile again.
And now—
