Boundless (Unearthly, #3)(38)

I take a deep breath. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He looks up. “You don’t want to be friends.”

I try to meet his eyes. “No. I don’t.”

For once I’m glad he can’t read my mind the way Christian does. He’d see how much I think about him, how I dream about him, how even after all this time apart my heart still aches to see him, touch him, hear his voice. He’d see that we can’t be friends. He’d see that every minute I’m with him I want his arms around me. I remember his lips on mine. I’ll never, never, be able to see him as a friend.

It’s better this way, I repeat to myself. It’s better this way. It’s better this way. He has to live his life, and I have to live mine.

His jaw tightens. “All right,” he says. “I get it. We’re done. You’re moving on.”

Yes, I need to say to him. But I can’t make my lips form the word.

He nods, flexes his hands like he wants his cowboy hat to put on now, but he doesn’t have it. “I should go,” he says. “I have chores to do back at the ranch.”

He moves to the end of the aisle, then stops. There’s something else he wants to tell me. My breath hitches in my throat.

“Have a nice life, Clara,” he says. “You deserve to be happy.”

My hands clench into fists as I watch him walk away.

So do you, I think. So do you.





9


BACK, BACK, YOU FIEND


“You’re distracted, Clara,” Dad says. “You need to focus.”

I lower my part of the broom, panting. My shoulder smarts from where Christian just whacked me. We’ve been sparring in my backyard in Jackson in ankle-deep snow for the past half hour, and so far it’s been pretty even. I hit him; he hits me. Although that last hit was a doozy.

Christian looks at me with guilt in his gold-flecked eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine. We agreed not to pull our punches, and I left you an opening, so you should go for it.” I rotate my arm in its socket, wince, then roll my head from side to side, stretching. “Can we take a break for a minute? I could use a breather.”

Dad frowns. “We don’t have time for that. You must practice.”

This is our fifth training session together—me, Dad, and Christian—and every time Dad seems more tense, like we’re not making enough progress. He’s been working us like crazy all week, but winter break is almost over, and we won’t have as much free time to train once we go back to school. We should have moved on from brooms and mops by now. We should be wielding the real deal.

“I thought there’s no such thing as time for you.” I’m trying not to whine. “Come on. I need hot chocolate. My feet are freezing.”

Dad sighs, then strides across the yard to stand between Christian and me. He puts a hand on the back of my neck right under the hairline, then does the same to Christian. I don’t have time to ask what he’s doing before I feel a jolt in my stomach and the world dissolves into a bright white light, and when it fades we’re standing on a beach. It looks like the set of a deserted-island movie, all perfect white sand and blue water, nobody around but a few curious seagulls.

“Holy crap, Dad,” I gasp. “Try warning us next time.”

“Now,” he says, clapping his hands together. “Again.”

We take off our boots and socks, strip off our jackets, and toss them down on the sand. Dad stands on the water’s edge a ways off and crosses his arms to watch us. I lift my broom and approach Christian, who drops into a defensive posture. Sand squishes between my toes.

“So,” Christian says, like we’re having a laid-back conversation instead of trying to beat each other to a pulp. “How’s Angela?”

“She’s all right. She’s speaking to me again, at least.” I thrust. He parries. “I had dinner at her house a couple nights ago, and we talked some. At least she gave me the version of the story she wants everyone to believe.” He swings; I block. “She’s going to be in my lit class this quarter—did I tell you? We’re reading Dante. That should be a barrel of laughs.”

“I saw her in the square yesterday, eating a double-decker ice cream cone in twenty-degree weather,” Christian says. “She gave me guff just like her normal old self. Only … bigger.”

“Oh, come on, she’s not that big. You can hardly tell.”

“What is she now, like six months along?”

I see an opening and take a whack at his leg, but he moves too fast. I stumble past him and whip around barely in time to deflect a blow meant for my hip. I push him away.

“That depends on which story you believe.” I wipe at a strand of hair that’s sticking to my face. “If Pierce is the father, that would make her like four months, tops. But she told me that she’s due in March, which would make her six. The math doesn’t add up. Six months means she got pregnant in Italy. So the baby has to be Phen’s.”

“But she won’t admit that Phen’s the father, not even to you?” Christian asks.

“No way—she says it’s Pierce. She even told Pierce that he’s the father, which means that he is now completely freaked out. He’s offered to help, but Angela won’t let him do anything for her. He’s a decent guy. Too bad he’s not the father.”