Crush Read online

  And I can’t help but wonder exactly what it is inside me that’s making me feel this way. Sure, there’ve been times before when I heard a voice, warning me of danger, telling me what to do in situations where I was completely out of my depth. Situations that I’d never before imagined being in.

  Back then, I’d been so sure that the voice was just random thoughts, things picked up on subconsciously that my conscious mind hadn’t quite registered until that moment. But now I wonder, could it be my gargoyle voice? Flint mentioned once that his dragon was sentient, that it had thoughts separate from his human form. Is it the same with gargoyles?

  Out of nowhere, an irrational anger wells up inside me. At the gargoyle inside me. At Lia and Hudson. At fate itself for orchestrating everything that’s brought us to this point.

  I open my mouth to say I don’t know what—something, anything that might explain to him the weird feelings rioting inside me—but he shakes his head before I can get so much as a word out.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not—”

  “It is,” he answers firmly. “You’ve been back all of four hours. Why don’t you cut yourself some slack?”

  Before I can say anything else, the chimes go off again.

  Seconds later, students in purple-and-black uniforms flood the common areas. They give us a wide berth—Jaxon’s with me, so of course they do—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t staring at us. Aren’t whispering behind their hands as they pass by, gawking at the two of us like we’re mannequins on display.

  Jaxon reluctantly pulls away. “What’s your next class?” he asks as he drops my hand.

  “Art. I was going to run up to my room and change so I could take the trail outside.”

  “Good.” He steps back, his dark eyes filled with understanding. “Let me know when you do plan on taking the shortcut. You shouldn’t have to do that alone. At least not the first time.”

  I start to tell him it’s no big deal but stop myself. Because it is a big deal.

  And because I don’t want to go down there alone right now, don’t want to walk by the doorway that leads to the place where I almost became an actual human sacrifice, courtesy of the murderous Lia and her even more murderous boyfriend, Hudson.

  So instead of protesting, I just say, “Thank you,” and stretch up on my tippy-toes to give Jaxon a kiss on the cheek.

  A huge screech sounds from several feet away that startles us apart.

  “AHHHHHH! GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!”

  Because I’d know that screech anywhere, I shoot Jaxon a rueful smile and take a couple of steps back, right before my cousin, Macy, slams straight into my side.

  She wraps her arms around me like a limpet and practically jumps up and down as she squeals, “You’re really here! I wouldn’t let myself believe it until I saw you! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  Jaxon winks at me and mouths, Text me later, before moving back into the passing horde.

  I nod as I turn to embrace Macy, even going so far as to do the up-and-down tippy-toe/jump thing with her. And as she wraps me in a giant hug, I can’t help but be grateful for her. Can’t help but think just how much I’ve missed her, even though I didn’t know it until right this second.

  “How are you? Are you okay? How are you feeling? You look good. What class do you have right now? Can you skip it? I’ve got about a gallon of Cherry Garcia ice cream squirreled away in my dad’s freezer—I’ve been stockpiling it for weeks, just waiting for you to come back!”

  She pulls away and grins at me, then leans back in and hugs me again even more enthusiastically. “I’m so glad you’re back, Grace. I’ve missed you so much!”

  “I’ve missed you, too, Mace,” I say as she finally lets me go. And because I have no idea which of her eight million questions/comments to start with, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “You changed your hair.”

  “What? Oh yeah.” She grins at me as she runs a hand through her short pink pixie cut. “I did it a few weeks ago when I was missing you. Kind of an homage, you know?”

  Of course it’s an homage, because she still thinks hot pink is my favorite color… “It looks fabulous,” I tell her. Because it does. And because she’s pretty much the greatest cousin and friend a girl could ever wish for.

  “So what class do you have next?” she asks, tugging me across the foyer toward the staircase. “Because I think you should blow it off and come hang in the room with me.”

  “Don’t you have a class now, too?”

  “Yes, but it’s just a review for the midterm on Friday.” She waves a hand in the air. “I can skip it to hang with my favorite cousin.”

  “Yeah, but your favorite cousin has art right now, and I don’t think I should skip it. I need to find out if there’s something I can do to make up for everything I missed.” I eye her ruefully. “I am not prepared to repeat my senior year.”

  “If you ask me, you shouldn’t have to make up anything. I mean, hello. Saving the world should get you straight A’s, like, forever.”

  I laugh, because it’s impossible not to when Macy is on a roll. And she is very definitely on a roll right now. “I wouldn’t exactly call it saving the world.”

  “You got rid of Hudson, didn’t you? It’s close enough.”

  My stomach tightens. That’s the thing. I don’t know if I got rid of Hudson or not. I don’t know if he’s dead or off plotting his next act of world domination or trapped somewhere in between the two. And until I do know, I feel really shady letting anyone think I did something that might have helped “save the world.”

  For all I know, I made everything worse.

  “I have no idea where Hudson is right now,” I confess eventually.

  Her gaze widens, but she catches herself and plasters a smile back on her face. “He’s not here, and that’s good enough for me.” She hugs me again, a little less enthusiastically this time. “So what do you say? Cherry Garcia in the room?”

  I glance at the new phone Jaxon gave me, note that I only have about fifteen minutes to make it to art at this point. And I do want to go, despite how tempting it is to crash in our room and have Macy fill me in on everything that’s happened.

  “How about we compromise?” I say, shoving my phone back into my pocket. “I go to art, you go to your last class, and we meet back in the room at five for ice cream?”

  She quirks one brow at me. “You’re going to show up, right? You’re not going to blow me off for the resident vampire in chief?”

  I burst out laughing all over again, because of course I do. How can I not when Macy is at her ridiculous best? “I’m going to tell Jaxon you called him that.”

  “Go ahead.” She rolls her eyes. “Just make sure you do it after Cherry Garcia. I have so much to catch you up on! Plus, I want to hear all about what it’s like to be a gargoyle!”

  I sigh. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Oh, right. Dad told me you were having memory issues.” Her face falls, but her frown lasts only a few seconds before she shrugs it off. “Fine, you can tell me all about what it was like to be reunited with your mate.” Her eyes take on a dreamy cast. “You’re so lucky to have found Jaxon so young. Most of us have to wait much longer.”

  Mate. The word goes off like a gong inside me, reverberating into every corner of my being. I haven’t actually thought about it since I’ve been back. But now that Macy has brought it up, I have about a million questions surrounding it. I mean, I know Jaxon is my mate, but it’s always been a really abstract thing. I’d just learned the term before I became a gargoyle and hadn’t really had time to think about it before I ended up frozen in stone.

  Because the idea of being so far behind the curve makes me uncomfortable, I decide to ignore the word—and my feelings about it—until I actually have time to talk to Macy and Jaxon. Or at least time to run to the library
and look it up myself.

  “I’ve got to go,” I tell Macy, and this time, I’m the one to hug her. “I’m going to be late for art as it is.”

  “Okay, fine.” Her answering hug is as enthusiastic as always. “But I will be in the room—with ice cream—at exactly four fifty-nine. I expect you to be there.”

  “Scout’s honor.” I hold my hand up in what I think is a close facsimile of the three-fingered pledge.

  Macy isn’t impressed, though. She just shakes her head and laughs. “Don’t let Jaxon talk you into any shenanigans between now and then.”

  “Shenanigans?” I repeat, because just when I think Macy can’t get more ridiculous—and fabulous—she does something to change my mind.

  “You know exactly what I mean.” She lifts her brows up and down suggestively. “But if you want, I can spell it out for you in the middle of the foyer here. You shouldn’t let Jaxon take you up to his tower to have his—”

  “Okay, I got it!” I tell her as my cheeks burn.

  But she said the last loud enough to be heard halfway to Jaxon’s tower, and as a result, there are a whole lot of snickers going on around us. “Art. I’m going to art. Now.”

  But as I make my way to my room to change and then hustle out the side door into the frigid March air, I can’t help but wonder if Jaxon’s even going to try to “shenanigan” me again. And what about my gargoyle is so against it.

  15

  Let’s All Play Find

  the Homicidal

  Maniac

  Art goes really well—Dr. MacCleary waives the first two assignments of the semester and gets me right to work on my third—a painting that reflects who I am inside. And since art has always been the thing that helps me figure out the world, it’s definitely an assignment I can get behind.

  Normally, I’d spend a bunch of time planning out the composition and light source, but after an hour of sketching a bunch of nonsensical nothingness, I decide, Screw it. I pick up a brush and spend the last half an hour of class giving my subconscious free reign on the canvas. What it comes up with—for now—is a swirling dark-blue background that looks a lot like if Van Gogh and Kandinsky had a baby.

  Not my usual style, but then neither is dating a vampire and turning into a gargoyle, so…I’m just going to go with it.

  At one point, I need to wait and let some of the colors dry a bit, so I grab my laptop from my backpack and log in to my wireless-provider account and activate my new phone. Minutes later, dozens of texts flood my screen.

  I frantically begin scrolling through the texts from Heather that start with “How’re you doing?” then move on to more concerned texts to a final, sad, “I hope you haven’t texted back cuz you’re so busy loving your new school. Just know I’m here if you ever need a friend. And I’d love a ping just to know you’re alive.”

  I am officially the worst friend ever. My hands are shaking a little as I finally send a much-needed text to Heather.

  Me: OMG I am soooooooo sorry.

  Me: Long story. Lost my phone and Alaska shuts down in the winter

  Me: Jut got a new one and I’m so sorry. FaceTime this week?

  I don’t know what more I can say other than, The shitty friend award clearly goes to me. I hate that I can’t tell her the truth, but I hate the idea of losing her even more. I just hope she texts back when she sees my message.

  I put my phone in my backpack and return to my painting, which I think is the beginning of a room or something.

  Other than that, art is completely uneventful—and so is the walk back to my dorm room. Thankfully. I mean, yeah, people are still staring at me, but sometime in the last hour and a half, I’ve decided to take the screw-it approach to more than just my art. So when I pass a group of witches who don’t even bother to lower their voices as they talk about me—proof that mean girls really do exist everywhere—I just smile and blow them a kiss.

  What do I have to be embarrassed about anyway?

  I make it back to my dorm room by 4:31 and figure I’ll have ten minutes to start my “Find the Homicidal Maniac” to-do list before Macy gets back, but the second I open the door to our room, I get showered with a spray of confetti.

  I shake off the colorful pieces of paper as I close the door behind me, but I’m smart enough to know I’m going to be pulling it out of my curls for the rest of the night—maybe even longer. And still, I can’t help grinning at Macy, who is already dressed in a purple tank top and her favorite pair of pajama pants—tie-dyed rainbow, of course. She’s cleared off her desk and covered it with a spare sheet (also rainbow), before setting up a smorgasbord of ice cream, Skittles, and Dr Peppers with licorice straws.

  “I figured, if we were going to celebrate your return, we were going to do it in style,” she tells me with a wink, right before she hits play on her phone and Harry Styles’s “Watermelon Sugar” fills the room.

  “Dance!” she shouts, and I do, because Macy can get me to do all kinds of things I would never do for anyone else. Plus, the song reminds me so much of my first night at Katmere that I can’t resist. It’s wild to think that was almost four months ago. Wilder still that it somehow feels so much longer and also way shorter than that.

  When the song finally finishes, I kick off my shoes and collapse on my bed.

  “Um, I don’t think so. It’s facial time—I have these new masks I’m dying to try out,” Macy says as she grabs my hand and tries to drag me off the bed. When I refuse to budge, she sighs and walks over to the bathroom sink. Then adds over her shoulder, “Come on. One of us was solid stone for nearly four months.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask as a horrible thought occurs to me. “Does being a gargoyle do something to your skin?”

  Macy lowers the array of sheet masks she’s been studying like they’re a map to the Holy Grail. “What makes you think that?”

  “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of Gothic cathedrals in my time. Gargoyles aren’t exactly the prettiest creatures.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t look like a monster.” If possible, she seems even more confused.

  “How would you know? I probably have horns and claws and who knows what else.” I shudder at the thought—and at the knowledge that Jaxon saw me like that.

  “You do have horns, but they’re adorable.”

  I sit straight up. “Wait. You saw me?”

  I don’t know why, but I’m a little appalled at that revelation. I mean, did they just leave me on display in the middle of the hallway or something? My breath catches as another horrible thought comes to mind. Does every mean girl in the school have a picture of me on their phone?

  “Of course I saw you. You’ve been in a back room of the library for months, and before that you were in my dad’s office.”

  My shoulders sag in relief. Oh, right. That makes a lot more sense.

  I tell myself not to ask, that it doesn’t matter. But in the end, curiosity gets the best of me and I can’t help myself. “What did I look like?”

  “What do you mean? You looked like a gar—” She stops, her eyes narrowing in indignation. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me neither Jaxon nor my dad showed you what you look like as a gargoyle?”

  “Of course they didn’t show me. How could they when I’m…” I hold up my hands and swivel them around in a demonstration that I’m human and not stone.

  “Seriously?” She rolls her eyes. “Do you think I didn’t take at least a dozen pics of you? My badass gargoyle cousin? Give me a break.”

  “Hold on. You actually took pictures of me?”

  “Of course I did. You’re, like, the coolest creature in existence. Why wouldn’t I?” She reaches for her phone. “Want to see?”

  My stomach flutters a little, butterflies waking up for a reason that has nothing to do with Jaxon or Katmere Academy and everything to do with what might possibly be in that picture. I
know I shouldn’t get upset about what I look like when it’s so not important in the grand scheme of things. But I can’t help it. I apparently have horns.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”

  I close my eyes and reach for the phone.

  As I do, I take a deep breath, hold it for the count of five, and blow it out slowly.

  Then I take another breath and do the same thing.

  When I’m finally ready for whatever monstrosity is going to be waiting for me—or as ready as I can be—I open my eyes and stare at my picture.

  16

  Nothing Wrong with

  Being a Little

  Horny

  My heart explodes the second I see the picture Macy selected because—holy shit—I really am a gargoyle. I think, up until right now, there was a tiny part of me that didn’t believe it.

  But there I am, in all my gargoyle glory.

  And while I am still totally freaked out by this revelation, even I have to admit, I’m nowhere near as hideous as I was afraid I would be.

  Thank God.

  In fact, as it turns out, me as a gargoyle doesn’t look like much of a monster at all. In fact, I look an awful lot like…me. Same long curly hair. Same pointy little chin. Even the same big boobs and ridiculously short stature. It’s me…just made of light-gray stone.

  I mean, yeah, there are a few additions. Like the short horns at the top of my head that curl back just a little. The giant kick-ass wings that are almost as big as I am. The relatively short claws at the ends of my fingers.

  But—and believe me, I look closely—there is not a tail. Thank you, universe.

  I can deal with the horns. Not happily, but I can deal with them, as long as I don’t also have to deal with a tail.

  Macy gives me a minute, several minutes actually, before she finally says, “See, you look amazing. Total badass.”