Page 44 of The Luminaries
Winnie suddenly understands what the twins mean about him being in his own head. She also suddenly understands why it’s so appealing, and never has Winnie been more aware of how much Jay has changed in the last four years. The thirteen-year-old boy she used to love is well and truly gone. And the twelve-year-old girl that she used to be—the girl who had put whipped cream on his nose and spiders in his backpack—she’s gone too.
Maybe it’s the music, rattling inside her like a nightmare. Maybe it’s Jay, undeniably gorgeous even as he tucks inside himself, a secret message that she used to know but now can’t read at all—and couldneverdraw… Or maybe it’s the noise and the pain in her muscles and the fact that this time tomorrow night, she’ll be back in the forest trying to stay alive. No matter the cause, she finds tears welling in her eyes and a banshee-sized grief ballooning behind her rib cage.
She shouldn’t have come here. She should have stayed outside in the cold that smelled of french fries and burgers.
She swipes at her eyes, ready to flee for the back door, when Jay spots her. It’s the first time he has broken his focus from the floor, and he snaps his eyes to her with a violent tension. Like his hunter senses have caught someone here who doesn’t belong.
His gray gaze—shadowy in this light—latches on to her face. His lips part. His shoulders rise. He looks like he might attack at any moment, leaving the stage and coming for her with the full power of his hunter speed.
It should be terrifying, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s just embarrassing. Winnie doesn’t think he can see the tears on her cheeks, but he has caught her sneaking in. Watching him like one of his countless fans.
So she does what any sensible person would do: she ducks away and runs.
CHAPTER24
Winnie doesn’t sleep that night, though she tries. Her mind is too full, her muscles too sore, her skin too puffy and bruised. She might know how to fall properly, but her body has lost all the conditioning of actually being hit by another person.
This time, when the thoughts start rampaging, she forces herself to get up and try sketching.Just a droll hand,she tells herself.Just a few bones, a few lines.It has always calmed her before. She opens a pad, picks up a 0.5-tip black pen, and begins with a soft line for the thumb…
Her fingers shake. She loses the smooth curve almost instantly.
Worse, when she closes her eyes to try to imagine all the carpal bones near the thumb, she only sees the banshee instead. Green. Glimmering.Devastatingin its hideousness and beauty. The air reeks of ancient blood. Winnie’s eyes, inexplicably, start to burn.
No.She drops the pen. She can’t do this.No.In seconds, she has crawled back into bed, burrowed deep beneath her sunflower covers.
Her desk light stays on the entire night.
Early the next morning, Winnie drags herself to the Sunday estate. Every pump of her legs on the family bike makes her want to cry a little. Classes are about the same: everything is a slog. She’s too tired to even care when Erica stares at her in the hall or Marcus sits by her in Luminary history and brags about their blood relation. Or even when Coach Rosa makes her run the obstacle course, and specifically hop the tirestwice.There is a pit of dread rumbling in Winnie’s belly that she cannot evade. It bleeds wider with every hour that passes. Until the end of Sunday training finally comes, at noon, and she drags herself to the bike rack out front.
Where Jay is waiting.
He smells like weed. It pisses Winnie off immediately.
“Hey.” He pushes off her bike, which he’d been leaning against all cool-as-you-please, as if he hadn’t just skipped all of Sunday training to get high. “Thought you might want a ride.”
“No,” she lies, even as her muscles shriek,Yes, you do!
He frowns. “Okay. Well, do you not want to go to the forest? I need to show you where that safe spot is.”
Winnie pushes him aside to reach her bike chain. Hereallystinks of weed, which, fine. If that’s what he wants to do instead of school, fine. It’s his choice. Whatever. “I don’t have time to go to the forest,” she says. “Can’t you just tell me where it is?”
His frown deepens. “Sure. Though it won’t take long, and I think it would be safest if you saw—”
“We’re not allowed in the forest.” She slings her chain off. It smacks against her forearm.Ow.
“Sure, but we went in yesterday.” He dips his head to try to look at her. “Is something wrong?”
Yes,she wants to scream.Everything is wrong.But she doesn’t. It would only lead to questions and questions and more questions. Instead, she skewers him with a glare. “You took me to a fringe spot yesterday. I assume this special spot of yours is in the heart of it all, right? Where a bazillion sensors might notice us?”
“Sure.” He shrugs, the frown melting slightly. “But people go into the forest all the time. Mostly to party, but sometimes just to make out.”
Winnie pauses, fingers grabbing for her handlebars, as an absolutelyunwelcome image bubbles up in her mind.Jay making out in the forest. Jay making out withherin the forest, that color in his cheeks and intensity in his movements.
Heat explodes onto her face. She wrenches her bike off the rack. The front tire hits the pavement with a rattly bounce.
“Well, I guessyou’rethe expert on forest make-outs.” Winnie can’t believe such words have blurted from her mouth. She also can’t believe that she is still imagining what it would be like to kiss him, surrounded by forest gray and the remnants of winter.
Jay laughs softly. “I do not go into the forest to make out, Winnie. There are better places for that.”
