All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(45)

“He’ll tell me one way or another.”

Becca opened her mouth to say something, but her phone rang. “It’s Austin,” she said, glancing at the screen.

“He’s downstairs. I gotta go. See if Hailey will talk to you.”

Becca frowned, but I grabbed the box of booze and ran out without waiting for an answer. As I’d expected, Austin’s Charger sat in the driveway. When I slid into the passenger seat, my heart melted. Not a slow drip, but like ice flashing to steam. This boy, good God. He’d done something with his hair, and somehow it looked just as messy and swirly as before, but in a more mature way. He wore a flower-print button-down and jeans and Timberlands that looked brand new. He even smelled amazing—not something I could put my finger on, but maybe cedar and something almost like tobacco.

“Nice sweater,” he said with a smile.

“Thanks. You look nice. I mean, hot.”

He leaned over and kissed me, and then I forgot all about how he looked.

“No chance you’ll let this go, right?” he asked. “I’ll go, honest, but . . .”

“It’ll be ok.” I squeezed his hand. “You see them at school every day.”

He didn’t answer, but I could see it in his eyes: it wasn’t the same, and we both knew it. But he put the charger in reverse, and my heart just about broke and kept on breaking when I realized he wasn’t doing it for himself, he was doing it for me. We didn’t speak on the drive to Kaden’s house, but I held Austin’s hand, and it was dry and cool and steady the whole way.

Kaden’s house—his parents’ house—was nice. Nice like Austin’s house, nice in a way that most of the houses weren’t in Vehpese. Becca’s house was in the nice part of town, but it was old. Kaden’s house had huge windows and lantern-style exterior lights and a slate walkway. It looked like money would come shooting out the chimney at any minute. Even in the car I could hear the music pounding inside, and shadows moved against the bright backdrop of the windows.

When Austin and I got out of the car, I grabbed the box of booze. Austin put his arm around me and started us up the walk to the door. “Come on,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be a show. We don’t have to do anything in front of these guys that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I know you’re not from here, so I guess you don’t understand. It is a show, Vie. That’s the whole point. And I’ve got to be as big and bold about it as I can, or they’ll tear me apart like coyote on a sick deer.”

That was all he said, delivered in a voice as cold and flat and dark as the slate, and I thought: he said me, not us, me. But his arm was warm and his grip was gentle as he pressed me against him. We crossed the last few feet to the door, and the world started to feel slippery, like I was standing on ice and gravity was going to plant me on my ass whether I wanted to move or not. The night sky dropped until it was squeezing me flat and there wasn’t any breath left. This was a trick. It was a trap. They were going to beat the shit out of Austin, or out of me, or out of both of us. They were going to kill us. They were— Austin pushed the door open, and guided us inside. A burst of sweaty heat and dance music washed over us. We could still run, head back into the cold and quiet. But Kaden was lounging on a flight of stairs in the foyer, a bottle of beer glistening with condensation in one hand, his other hand resting on the hip of a girl I’d seen at school but didn’t know. A little past the foyer, the house opened up into an enormous living room, where it looked like just about every kid from school was dancing and drinking and shouting at the top of their lungs.

When Kaden saw us, a tiny jolt ran through him, like someone had hooked him up to a D-cell battery and he wanted to bolt upright. He managed to smother the movement, though, and in the next instant he looked like this was an everyday thing, seeing his best friend walk in with his arm around another dude.

“Austin,” he called with a grin. “Vie. Come on in. Grab a beer.”

That, as far as I was concerned, was about as good an idea as anyone had ever had. I tugged on Austin, trying to guide him deeper into the house. I had half a thought of sliding away from him, standing casually side by side, but his arm around my shoulder tightened.

“Hi, Kaden. Hi, Temple Mae.” Austin sounded normal, even casual. I risked a glance at his face. He was smiling. And it didn’t look fake or strained. It was an honest-to-God Austin Miller original. “Beer? I think Vie brought something better.”

“Yeah?” Kaden sprang to his feet. Poking through the box, he whistled. “God, how’d you get this stuff? It must have cost a fortune.”

“Not really,” I said.

Kaden looked at me and whistled. “You sure you want to put this stuff out?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Come on. A lot of people are going to want to see you.”

“When you put it that way,” I said, but Austin squeezed my arm and I trailed off. The girl—Austin had called her Temple Mae—looked familiar. She lingered on the staircase as Kaden led us deeper into the house, and when I glanced back, she dropped her eyes. That helped me to remember. She was the girl who had been staring at Austin and me yesterday after school. In fact, she was the girl who had been staring at us so hard that she walked right into the door, fell flat on her ass, and gave herself a bloody nose. At the time, I’d thought she was a freshman. She looked young. Really young. But right now, in the lowered lights and with the music pounding and with makeup, really good makeup, she could have passed for anywhere between sixteen and twenty. She was pretty, but not in a conventional way: her mouth was a hard slash, and her eyes had a feline tilt, a quirkiness to them. Those slight differences, though, made her exactly the kind of girl that Kaden would like. Part of me wanted to confront her about her behavior the day before, but Kaden led us around the corner, and the party crashed over me like a breaker in the ocean.