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  After everything he’d been through, Luke had every right to be suspicious and distrust my motives. That didn’t mean I had to like having the guy I was at least halfway in love with pointing a gun at me and looking at me like I was some kind of disgusting creature he’d just as soon kill. Never mind that he was right. I couldn’t have told you exactly why I’d shown up on his doorstep, only it hadn’t been to check on him.

  “I’m not like Piper,” I tried. “I haven’t changed that much. I may be Nightstruck, but I’m still me.”

  “The Becket I knew wouldn’t strut around in a fur coat, and she wouldn’t act like some Peeping Tom looking in my windows. Get out of here. I’m serious.”

  His words didn’t exactly hurt, but they didn’t make me feel good, either. “Stop pounding your chest like some gorilla. We both know I’ll leave when I feel like leaving and not a moment before.” I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him my best stubborn glare. I noticed his arms were starting to quiver just a little from the strain of holding that gun pointed at me for so long. It wasn’t that heavy, so I figured the quivering meant he was holding on to it way too hard. Either that, or he was freezing from standing at the open window.

  I don’t know what I’d been hoping to accomplish by coming to Luke’s house. Maybe I’d been hoping for nothing more than a quick stolen peek. If it was more than that, I obviously wasn’t going to get it, but I was far too contrary to leave just because Luke told me to. Also, the fact that Luke had opened the window and was still standing there talking to me told me there was at least part of him that wasn’t in so much of a hurry to get rid of me.

  Luke shook his head and lowered the gun. There were too many shadows for me to get a good look at his expression, but I knew it wasn’t a happy one. He had loved Piper, and he had at least liked me a lot, and now both of us were lost to him. I imagined that felt pretty crappy. Maybe his defenses were already well on their way to weakening enough to become Nightstruck. If I could just push him a little further, maybe he could be like me, no longer burdened with grief or pain.

  For the first time, I understood why Piper had worked so hard to bring me over. How could I feel this free and not want to share that feeling with those I cared about?

  “It really isn’t so bad, being Nightstruck,” I said. “I haven’t turned into some psycho killer or anything. I’m not about to forgive Piper for how she went about showing me the light, so to speak, but I see now that it really was the best thing for me.”

  The gun rose again, and I realized belatedly that bringing up the girlfriend I had murdered in cold blood had been just a tad insensitive.

  “You come near me or my mom or my cousin, and I swear I will shoot you. I’m not going to let you hurt them.”

  Once again I put my hands up in a gesture of harmlessness. “I would never do that, Luke. I told you, I haven’t changed the way Piper did. I want you to come out and join me, but I would never hurt anyone to make that happen.” Luke’s mom had taken me in when my dad had died, and I still felt grateful for her kindness. Just as I felt grateful for the kindness of Luke’s cousin, Marlene, who had made cheering me up her personal mission over Thanksgiving, and who had revealed that Luke had always had a secret crush on me—just like I’d had on him. Maybe if the two of us hadn’t been too chicken to admit we liked each other, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.

  “I don’t believe you,” Luke said flatly. “If I had any sense, I’d shoot you now and put us both out of our misery.”

  There was a hoarse, scratchy sound to his voice that worried me. Everyone has their breaking point, and it sounded like Luke was getting close to his. Was it possible he would pull that trigger after all? I never would have thought myself capable of shooting my best friend, but when I’d thought she was a danger to everyone else I cared about, I’d killed her just the same. If Luke was having those same thoughts …

  Arguing with Luke wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and since I couldn’t honestly say why I’d come to his house in the first place, there was no good reason not to make a strategic retreat.

  “Take good care of Bob,” I said as I began backing away. “And tell your mom I’m really grateful for everything she did for me. I’m sorry I ran off like I did. You both deserved better from me, but it was the only way I could see to keep you safe from Piper.”

  I don’t know if Luke would have answered me or not, because I turned and ran for the nearest corner as fast as I could.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised to find Aleric waiting there for me, lurking in the shadows.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For the next several nights, I contented myself hanging out with Aleric. There was no point in mooning over Luke, after all. He clearly wanted nothing to do with me. Like everything else, he was a part of my past, best left behind. At least that was what I tried to tell myself.

  “Do you ever miss your past life?” I asked a young Nightstruck named Shelley one night. We were having another impromptu party in the square, and she was trying to teach me how to dance—futilely. I looked like a mannequin undergoing electric shock therapy as I tried to copy her graceful, sinuous moves. But at least I wasn’t self-conscious about it. If someone didn’t like the way I danced, screw them!

  Shelley looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Are you kidding me? My life was shit. What is there to miss?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Weren’t there any people…?” I let the question trail off. I hadn’t met a Nightstruck yet who showed any signs of sentimentality. Piper had seemed to miss me when she’d been Nightstruck—that was why she claimed she was working so hard to get me to join her—but I think she missed me like a child missed its favorite toy. It wasn’t sentiment so much as possessiveness.

  “People suck,” Shelley said. “The minute you care about someone, they stab you in the back. It’s so much better and easier not to give a damn.” She grinned at me. “If I could snap my fingers and put you back where you were, would you want me to?”

  “No way,” I said with a shudder. I missed Luke, and I didn’t think I was just being a possessive baby, but I didn’t come close to missing him enough to go back to my old life.

  “So forget about it and let’s dance!”

  I tried to take her advice. I had never admitted it to anyone before, but I actually kind of love to dance. I’m just so bad at it that I was ordinarily too uncomfortable to do it much in public. It felt great not to care what anyone thought, to just let myself do whatever I felt like and not worry if I looked clumsy. Especially once I got a little alcohol in me. I was more careful with my intake this time, enjoying the nice, mild buzz that still left me feeling in control of myself.

  What’s not to love about partying all night long? When dawn came along, I was nearly giddy with the joy of dancing, and my last thought was I couldn’t wait for night to fall so I could do it all again.

  And we did do it all again, the next night and the night after that. Aleric danced and flirted with me, always trying to get me to drink more than I wanted. When we danced together, his hands were always on me, and my pulse always sped with something other than pure exertion. I kept thinking that any moment now we were going to have ourselves a world-class make-out session. One that might well end with our clothes coming off.

  There was no question what my body wanted, and most of my mind was completely on board with that. I was a modern woman, and thanks to being Nightstruck I had no inhibitions. If I wanted to throw myself into Aleric’s arms and start kissing him senseless, there was no reason not to do it. But something kept holding me back. Maybe the same something that kept him from making the first move himself.

  So here’s the thing: I spent my every waking hour with Aleric, and he was seriously hot and sexy, but when you came right down to it, I wasn’t sure I really trusted him. The night when he’d taken me “home” before dawn had made it clear how much power Aleric had over me, and just because he didn’t make a habit of exercising that power didn’t m
ean he wouldn’t. It was by his choice that I had become Nightstruck, and I didn’t think he was spending so much time with me only because he was so into me he couldn’t resist. His constant presence sometimes made him feel more like a stalker or a prison guard than a fun date, and that somewhat lessened his appeal.

  Every other Nightstruck I had met obeyed Aleric’s orders without question. I couldn’t help remembering our first night together, when Aleric had sent several Nightstruck straight to their deaths so we could get into the shop where I’d gotten my coat. They’d screamed for help when the shop’s tentacles got hold of them, but they’d nonetheless walked right up and let themselves be taken.

  Did Aleric have that same kind of power over me? If he told me to jump off a bridge, would I do it? I felt like I had free will, but maybe that was just an illusion, one Aleric was giving me for his own purposes.

  On our third consecutive night of partying in the square, I kept a careful watch on Aleric, waiting for him to be distracted. It happened at least once a night. The Nightstruck all seemed to find Aleric alluring, and whenever a particularly pretty girl came into his orbit, he took notice. Maybe he was trying to make me jealous, but I didn’t think so. The Nightstruck viewpoint was that you could have whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it—and that included people. There would be no such thing as exclusivity, even if I did decide to take another step with Aleric.

  It took a couple of hours, but eventually Aleric was properly distracted and I slipped away from the party. I wanted to see if Aleric would let me go or if he would come after me the moment he realized I was missing. I had to know just how much freedom I had.

  I went to Luke’s, of course. Where else would I go when everyone else who really mattered to me was either dead or trapped outside the quarantine the government had imposed on the city?

  As before, it was Bob who noticed me first. He greeted me with a chorus of barks and snarls and bared teeth, keeping it up until Luke dragged him away and, by the sound of it, shut him into another room.

  I was prepared for Luke to greet me at gunpoint this time, but I still felt a little pang when I saw the muzzle of that gun pointed at me. I put my hands up and stood still as Luke took one hand off the gun to open the window.

  “I thought I told you to get out of here,” Luke said, putting his second hand back on the gun. He had the shooter’s stance down, and if I didn’t know he’d never held a gun until recently, I’d have thought he was an experienced shooter.

  “I’ll go away in a few minutes,” I promised him. “Maybe less than that, depending on how Aleric reacts when he finds I’m gone.” I had no doubt he could find me, just as I had no doubt he would be pissed that I’d slipped away. The question was how pissed, and what would he do about it?

  “So you’re hanging out with Aleric these days?” Luke made a face ugly enough to see even in the dim light.

  “I don’t have a whole lot of choice. He rarely lets me out of his sight. I don’t know why he’s being so clingy, but every once in a while I need a breath of fresh air. I’m sorry to bother you, but … I don’t know where else to go.”

  Luke looked perplexed. I knew I wasn’t acting like a typical Nightstruck, and I hoped that would help convince him that I wasn’t like the rest of them. I decided to press my advantage.

  “Thanks for taking care of Bob,” I said, giving him a tremulous smile. “And thank your mom for me, too. It’s really nice of her to let him stay when she’s allergic.”

  The gun was steadily lowering, though I felt sure he was ready to take aim again at the slightest provocation.

  “I didn’t think the Nightstruck were capable of being grateful,” Luke said. “I’ve certainly never heard of one saying thank you for anything.”

  “I told you I haven’t changed as much as Piper did. I still feel like me—only better.”

  “So do you feel bad about your dad being dead?”

  “Yes,” I lied easily. Though in a way it wasn’t that much of a lie. When I thought about my dad—like now, for instance—I felt a mild twinge. Nothing strong enough to call grief, or even sadness, but it was something. Of course being Nightstruck meant I rarely let thoughts of my dad enter my head, and when they did, it was easy to chase them away again. Very different from how it had been before, when unpleasant thoughts had stuck to me like gum in my hair.

  “Uh-huh. You sound real torn up about it.”

  The gun was pointing at the ground now, so I let my hands lower slowly to my sides. I kept them splayed open and slightly away from my body so Luke could see I wasn’t reaching for a weapon.

  “I’m not in unbearable mortal pain anymore,” I said. “Are you really going to tell me that’s a bad thing?”

  “Yeah, Becket, I am. When someone you love dies, it’s supposed to hurt. It sucks, but it’s part of being human.”

  “So are you sobbing into your pillow every night because Piper’s dead? Assuming you really did love her, which I think you did.”

  Luke frowned at me. “She’s not dead. She lost a lot of blood, and it was touch and go for a while, but the doctors say she’s out of the woods now.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I stood there staring like a moron. I’d been sure I’d killed her, sure there was no way she could survive when I was forced to run away and leave her bleeding out in the middle of Rittenhouse Square. I waited for a giddy rush of joy and relief, but it didn’t come. I should have been ecstatic to discover I hadn’t actually murdered my best friend in cold blood, and yet I felt nothing but surprise.

  “If you could see your face right now,” Luke said, “you’d understand that you’ve changed a lot more than you think.”

  Right. Luke had been expecting to see that joy and relief I should have felt, and I hadn’t thought to fake it. It was too late to put on a show now—he’d never believe me. So I was honest with him instead.

  “I know I’ve changed,” I admitted. “All I’m saying is that I’m not going to go around killing people just to get my way. I still have a moral compass.” Although that compass no longer pointed toward true north. “Have you seen Piper since…?”

  “Since you shot her?” Luke finished for me with a noticeable edge in his voice.

  “I shot her because I thought she was going to hurt you and your mom and the rest of your family just to get to me. It was the lesser of two evils.”

  “You shot her and left her for dead!”

  Call me crazy, but I was detecting some hard feelings here. I suppose it was only natural, but it was also completely unfair. “I was pretty sure I was going to be the one who got killed in the end, but I went after her anyway because it was the only way to protect you and your mom. How about giving me a little credit for risking my life for you?”

  Luke shook his head at me. “The real Becket would never ask me to thank her for almost murdering my girlfriend.”

  A spike of jealousy came out of nowhere, surprising me. “Don’t you mean ex-girlfriend? Or are you the kind of guy who makes out with your girlfriend’s best friend while you’re still dating?”

  I could see from the flare of anger in his eyes that I’d put my foot in it. Nothing like trying to win a guy over by calling him a cheater. Though of course that begged the question of why I was trying to win Luke over. He was out of my reach, and even if I never set a foot wrong and recited beautiful love poetry till I turned blue in the face, he would never be interested in me now.

  “If I had any sense,” Luke growled, brandishing the gun once more, “I’d shoot you just like you shot Piper. Maybe that would bring you back to yourself like it did Piper.”

  I held up my hands in alarm and took a hasty step backward. “Don’t do it,” I warned. “I don’t know how I would have lived with myself if I hadn’t become Nightstruck, and that option isn’t open to you.” Plus going back to my old self was about as appealing as diving into a pool of acid. Why would I put myself through that kind of pain if I didn’t have to?

  There was a breathless momen
t when I almost thought he was really going to do it. There was a pit of cold fire in the middle of my belly. At first, I thought that meant I was afraid, but as the cold heat spread through me and my body began to hum with it, I realized it wasn’t fear; it was fury.

  How dare this self-righteous asshole threaten to kill me? He had no right to be angry with me, not when I’d risked my life for him, not when everything I was now was a direct result of trying to protect him and his family. He should be getting down on his goddamn knees and thanking me.

  I stared down the muzzle of that gun and found that I wasn’t a bit afraid. I didn’t know the limits of Aleric’s magic, but it seemed possible he’d be able to save me even if I got shot. He hadn’t saved Piper, but then again he hadn’t cared about Piper—and Piper wasn’t the one who’d given him his spark of life.

  I took a step toward that window. I’m not sure what I was planning to do. Even without a gun in the mix, I couldn’t have hurt Luke if I tried. He was a big, powerful, athletic guy, and I was no ninja warrior. But the rage in my gut propelled me forward, demanded I take action. Make Luke see what a mistake it was to insult me and be so ungrateful.

  Luke pointed the gun at the pavement a few feet to my left and pulled the trigger.

  The shot was a shocking boom in the quiet of the night. Chips of pavement flew up, a couple of them pattering against the leg of my jeans. In the window, Luke was panting, his eyes too wide as if he was as surprised as I was. Bob started barking again, as did several other dogs in the neighborhood, but these days no one was about to peek out their windows to see what was happening.

  “Don’t come any closer, Becket,” Luke said. There was a grim set to his jaw, and though I had a feeling he’d frightened himself by shooting, he looked ready to do it again if he needed to. “I won’t point at the street next time.”

  Rage still pounded in my veins, still urged me to teach Luke the kind of lesson he would never forget. It was a palpable force inside me, and it took all my willpower not to lunge forward and take my chances.