Page 79 of Stone Cold Touch

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, turning to Stacey. “No glasses. Actually dressed today as though his mom didn’t lay his clothes out for him, and you’re staring at him as if you want to make little bespectacled babies with him.”

Stacey’s cheeks turned bright red, but she giggled. “Maybe I am.”

“Oh.” Roth’s eyes widened. “Dirty.”

Other than the making-babies comment, Roth was rather subdued in class. He didn’t turn around to annoy me or lean back in his chair so that his arms rested on my table.

It was...different.

As always, Bambi got antsy during class and started creating an invisible map on my body. By the time class was over, I couldn’t wait to get out. The bell rang and our sub flipped on the lights.

“Remember,” he said, running a hand over his head and clasping the back of his neck as he glanced down at his planner. “There’s a pop quiz on the schedule—”

The muffled shriek cut him off, and he turned to the closed door. Then louder screams, shrill and horrified screams, roared from the hallway outside the classroom. As a whole, we rose to our feet, shifting nervously.

Roth started for the door as the screams intensified.

“What’s going on?” Stacey whispered.

“I think we all should stay in the classroom,” Mr. Tucker said, trying to intercept Roth, but he was fast and half the class was following him. “We don’t know who’s out there! Come on. Everyone! Back in your seats.”

It was impossible.

There was a minor congestion at the door, and then we all spilled out into the packed hallway, Stacey clutching the back of my sweater. The hall had quieted to the point one could hear a grasshopper sneeze, and somehow that was worse than the screams.

I pushed through the crowds, spying Roth’s back. His shoulders were unnaturally stiff. I broke through and he looked over his shoulder at me, shaking his head. My gaze drifted beyond him to the almost circular clearing amid the throng of students, an emptiness broken by two dull-gray legs slowly swaying back and forth.

“Oh my God,” Stacey whispered.

Dragging my gaze up, my hand rose to my chest. At first, it was as though my mind refused to recognize what it was seeing, but the image didn’t go away. It didn’t change.

In the middle of the hallway, hanging from a light fixture with the red-and-gold school banner wrapped around his neck, was Gerald Young.

20

With the police and the trauma, school closed early for the day.

My call to Zayne woke him up, but the moment I told him what happened, he was up and out of the house. No more than twenty minutes after the officials started dismissing students, I found myself sitting in a small booth at a bakery down the street with ZayneandRoth.

We weren’t the only people there from school. Eva and Gareth were also there. They sat at a bistro table, under a framed picture of baked bread. Gareth was hunched over a cup he held in his pale hands, his shoulders slimmer than I remembered and his hair a greasy mess.

Gareth looked strung out to the max, but I knew better than to interfere again.

I broke my cookie in half, but for once, there was nothing about the sugary goodness that called to me. I barely knew Gerald, having only seen him for the first time in my life yesterday, but it was like with the member of the Church of God’s Children. Seeing death was never easy, no matter the relationship or lack thereof to someone.

“Maybe Gerald did kill himself,” Zayne said, drawing my attention to the problem at hand. “As sad as that is, maybe it’s that simple.”

Roth toyed with the lid to his hot chocolate. For some reason the idea of a demon—the Crown Prince of Hell—drinking hot chocolate brought a wry grin to my lips. “I don’t know. Why would he do that, especially in the middle of the hallway? That’s a Hell of a way to go out.”

“But you really didn’t know him. Neither did Layla.” The boys were actually having a civilized conversation. “You both spoke to him once.”

“Twice actually,” I said, breaking another small chunk off my cookie. “He stopped me on the way to class today, thanking me for not telling the Wardens about him.”

“That doesn’t sound like something someone would do before hanging himself with the school banner,” Roth pointed out as he leaned back in the booth. He threw one arm over the back. “Why be grateful Layla didn’t put his life in danger if he was about to take his own life anyway?”

“Did he say anything else?”

I nodded. “He mentioned the coven in Bethesda and told me to be careful.” I brushed the crumbs off my hands. “He said something along the lines of not liking the answers we’d find to our questions. It was almost as if he knew something, but was too scared to say it.”

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