Page 11 of Of Saints & Savagery
“You said—”
“I said I don’t take cash payments,” he says, holding up a hand, like he can’t bear to hear me repeat his words now that he knows what I thought he meant by them.
I remember then that Annabel Lee said he doesn’t take sexual favors. Maybe I chose the wrong guys, because I can’t imagine my guys wanting anything else from a girl. I’m no better—I can’t think of anything else I have to offer that Nate Swift would want.
“Right,” I mutter. “Could you see if there are any hidden cameras in my room?”
“Sure.”
“They put them there,” I say. “Will they hurt you if you remove them?”
Nate actually laughs, though it’s as quiet and understated as his smile. “No,” he says. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“You sure about that?” I ask, a bit skeptical at the thought of this fairly insubstantial boy fighting off even one of the hard-bodied guys who have laid claim to me.
He smiles, that mysterious little grin again. “I know all their secrets.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It would be, if I didn’t know how to trigger the release of certain information at key events such as my death. So, now you know all about me. What about you, Mercy Soules? Why are you spying in the windows of Sinners Tower?”
“I got curious.”
“About what?”
“About them,” I say, gesturing vaguely at the gabled roof and arched doorway. “I’ve heard so many things, but I’ve never actually talked to them.”
Just knocked a few of their teeth loose.
“No one is here now but me,” Nate says. “When school starts back, you can satisfy your curiosity at their Sinners Bash. The security is top-of-the-line.” He pushes his glasses up and gives me a goofy grin, and I decide I like him, despite our rocky start. There’s something both endearing and unsettling about him, the combination of elements that should be at odds with each other but somehow coexist in him—awkward yet cocky, earnest yet secretive, able to afford thousand-dollar shoes but not noticing that one of them is untied.
“What are you doing on campus during break anyway?” I ask. “It’s New Years Eve. Don’t you have parties to go to or something?”
“Don’t you?”
“Touche,”I say, laughing uncomfortably. “So… Want to come over and spend a thrilling evening searching my room for hidden cameras? Or is that weird? That’s weird, right? On New Years Eve? That’s lame. Never mind.”
“Weird is my favorite kind of evening,” he says, with that ghost of a smile that carries just a hint of sadness. “Lead the way, O’ Merciless One.”
My heart stops, but I decide it’s just a coincidence. There is no way this rumpled-chic geek knows anything about an underground fight club on the seedy side of town.
four
The Heathen
“It’s really coming down out there, isn’t it?” Dad asks as we enter the church foyer, everyone stomping their boots and unfurling their umbrellas like colorful birds folding in their plumage.
I glance back to see who he’s talking to and find the Delacroixs behind us. My back stiffens, but my parents don’t notice.
“Sure is,” Mr. Delacroix says, his arm circling his wife’s waist automatically, like he doesn’t even notice the possessive gesture.
I notice.
I wonder if it’s because Mom is the same age as his wife, and he’s thinking he better keep her close because she’s a total MILF. I wonder if Dad’s thinking the same, if he feels shame about that, since he once coached this guy’s football team. Or if he’s trying to remember when he stopped holding onto Mom that way, if it was when Eternity disappeared or before that. I wonder if he’s thinking that losing a daughter can’t be the only reason she stopped leaning into him like an unconscious habit, as automatic as blindly patting the nightstand for his glasses when he wakes up in the morning. After all, the Delacroixs have their own experience with unruly daughters vanishing like vapors, leaving nothing but the wraiths of memory in their wake.
At least my parents didn’t voluntarily send Eternity away.
Mrs. Delacroix gives me her Sunday School Teacher smile, the same sweet one that makes her the natural choice for most boys—and half the girls—to have as their first crush, longbefore they have a name for such a feeling. She probably loses half her patients when they fall in love with her.
