Boundless (Unearthly, #3)(37)

“Where’s your brother now, Clara?” he calls after me. “Does he know about his proud lineage?”

“Don’t talk about my brother. Leave him alone. I swear—”

“You don’t have to swear, dear. I have no interest in the boy. But then, like I said, there are others who’d find his parentage fascinating.”

I think he’s trying to blackmail me. I stop.

“What do you want?” I glare at him over my shoulder.

“I want you to tell me a story.”

He’s crazy. I throw my hands up in frustration and stalk off through the snow.

“All right,” he says, chuckling. “Another time.”

I know without having to look back that he’s turned into a bird.

“Caw,” he says to me, mocking, testing me.

Crazy freaking angels! I’m suddenly so mad I’m on the edge of tears. I kick at the snow under my feet, uncover a patch of wet, black earth, pine needles, rotting leaves, dead grass, bits of gravel. I bend and pick up a small stone, smooth and dark, like it belongs at the bottom of a river somewhere. I turn it over in my hand.

“Caw,” says Samjeeza the crow.

I hurl the rock at him.

It’s a good throw, the kind that would get me on Stanford’s women’s softball team in a heartbeat. It’s more than human, that throw. It cuts through the air like a bullet, over the fence and straight at the meddlesome Black Wing. My aim is true.

But it doesn’t hit him.

The rock shoots past the branch, which is now empty, and falls silently into the snow on the forest floor. I’m alone again.

For now.

I’m looking forward to building a great big fire in the living room fireplace, making something to eat for Billy and me, and maybe putting up some Christmas decorations, calling Wendy to see if she wants to go to a movie or something. I need some normal time. But first I stop at the grocery store.

Which is where, in the middle of the baking aisle, I run into Tucker.

“Hi,” I breathe. I curse my stupid heart for how it leaps when I see him standing there in a white tee and holey jeans, holding a basket with green apples, a lemon, a package of butter, and a bag of white sugar in it. His mom must be making a pie.

He looks at me for a minute as if deciding whether or not to bother talking to me. “You’re awful dressed up,” he says finally, taking in my coat and the black dress and the knee-high black boots, the way my hair is done up in a loose chignon at the crown of my head. His mouth twists into a mocking smile. “Let me guess: you’re magically teleporting to some fancy Stanford party, and you lost your way?”

“I came from a funeral,” I say tightly. “At Aspen Hill.”

Right away his face sobers. “Whose?”

“Walter Prescott’s.”

He nods. “I heard about that. A stroke, wasn’t it?”

I don’t answer.

“Or not a stroke,” he surmises. “He was one of your people.”

My people. Nice. I start to walk away, because that’s the wise thing to do—just leave, don’t engage with him—but then I stop, turn back. I can’t help myself. “Don’t do that,” I say.

“Don’t do what?”

“I know you’re mad at me, and I understand why you would be, I get it, I do, but you don’t have to be like that. You’re like the kindest, sweetest, most decent guy that I know. Don’t be a jerk because of me.”

He looks at the floor, swallows hard. “Clara …”

“I’m sorry, Tuck. I know that might not be worth much, me saying it. But I’m sorry. For all of it.” I turn to walk away. “I’ll stay out of your way.”

“You didn’t call,” he says before I can flee.

I blink up at him, startled. “What?”

“This summer. When you got back from Italy, before you went to California. You were home for two weeks, right? And you didn’t call. Not once,” he says with accusation in his voice.

That’s what he picks to be mad about?

“I wanted to,” I say, which is true. Every day I thought about calling him. “I was busy,” I say, which is a lie.

He scoffs, but the anger fades from his face, becomes a kind of resigned frustration. “We could have hung out some, before you had to go.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur again, because I don’t know what else to say.

“It’s just that … I thought maybe we could be …” His throat works for a minute before he gets the word out. “Friends.”

Tucker Avery wants to be my friend.

He looks so vulnerable right now, staring at his boots, his ears slightly red under his tan, his shoulders tight. I want to reach over and put my hand on his arm. I want to smile and say, Sure. Let’s be friends. I would love to be your friend.

But I have to be strong. I have to remember why we broke up in the first place: so that he could have a life where he wouldn’t be attacked by a fallen angel at the end of a date, where he could kiss his girlfriend without her literally lighting up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July, where he wouldn’t be constantly kept in the dark. He needs someone normal. Someone who will age when he ages. Someone he can protect the way a man protects his woman, and not the other way around. Someone not me. I mean, five minutes ago I was being blackmailed by a Black Wing, for heaven’s sake. I’m being hunted by a fallen angel who means to “collect” me. I’m going to have to fight. Possibly die.