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I’ll be outside.”
    Christian’s eyes moved to mine. “Sorry. He’s a jerk.”
    “I don’t care.” I gathered our garbage with Christian’s help. My breath caught when his hand brushed mine.
    “Still, he didn’t have to be rude. I’ll say something to him,” he said.
    I stood up, holding the tray. “Please don’t. I really don’t care.” I moved to empty the garbage, but Christian took the tray from me.
    “I’ll get that,” he said.
    “Let’s go, Llona,” May called from the door. “I have to stop by the library before next period.”
    “I’m coming.” I glanced one more time at Christian. With one clean jerk of his arm, all the garbage fell into the trash bin. He was different from the other students. But good different or bad different? And did I really want to find out?
    Outside, we moved to our separate cars.
    “See you around,” he called. He flashed me the kind of smile that probably made most girls swoon. For me, however, it did nothing but make my stomach flutter once. But that was more than I’d ever experienced with anyone else.

W HEN THE DAY FINALLY ENDED I COULDN’T WAIT TO GET HOME , but when I walked through the front door of our house, I almost turned back. Everything was a wreck—the same as it had been that morning. I marched back to Jake’s bedroom and cracked open the door. Jake was asleep, lying diagonal across the bed wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday and maybe even the day before.
    White static from the television projected ghostly images into the cluttered room. Jake’s clothes carpeted the floor, and I wondered if he had anything clean to wear. I closed the door hard and walked back to my bedroom.
    Jake’s spirit died the day we buried my dad. In a way, my dad, his older brother by ten years, had been like a father to him. From what I’d been told, their mother (and my grandmother, whom I’d never met) worked as a waitress in a Vegas casino. She worked hard but played hard too. She played men as often as she played slot machines. My dad and Jake didn’t share the same father, but you’d never know, as close as they were.
    My father and mother married when they were both twenty, and they had me shortly after. I was five when Jake moved in with us on his fourteenth birthday. To me, Jake had always been an older brother, not an uncle.
    When my mother died shortly after, it was Jake who was there for me. He practically raised me while my father was off trying to avenge her death. So when my dad died it only seemed right to choose Jake to be my guardian.
    The only other option was my aunt Sophie, my mom’s sister. She had offered, but she also wanted me to move to New York to attend Lucent Academy, where she served on the board. I wasn’t ready for that. Attending Lucent would’ve been like an announcement to the world, and maybe myself, that I was different. No, I chose to stay with Jake. Jake was safe—depressed—but still safe.
    I closed my bedroom door and cranked the music. Because I hadn’t heard a thing in math class, I opened my book and began to read over the lesson, which looked like it was written in hieroglyphics. I hated math, but I had to get a good grade. I’d been left with plenty of money, but I didn’t want to spend a dime of it on college. I figured if there were people out there who’d give me money for an education, then I was going to try and get it.
    I rolled onto my stomach thinking a different position would help me retain more information. My gaze moved to the inexplicably rising hair on my arm. Weird. Then my heart began to pound. I tried to swallow, but it got stuck in my throat as if I was trying to jam an orange down my trachea.
    Instinctively, I looked toward my window. I couldn’t see anything beyond the darkness, but all my Auran senses told me I was being watched. Stop it! I closed my eyes and shook my head. No one is out there. But to be sure, I stood up and looked outside.
    There was just enough light from