“I’m feeling the sudden urge to keep running,” I muttered. And not stop until I’d put a lot of ground between me and Dante. I wasn’t in the mood to follow up last night’s conversation. Likewise, I wasn’t in the mood for Vee to play matchmaker. She was too aggravatingly good at it.
“Too late. We’ve been made.” Vee whipped her arm over her head like a helicopter propeller.
Sure enough, Scott and Dante leaned back against the Barracuda, shaking their heads and grinning at us.
“You stalking me, Grey?” Scott hollered.
“He’s all yours,” I told Vee. “I’m going to finish running.”
“What about Dante? He’ll feel like the third wheel,” she said.
“It’ll be good for him, trust me.”
“Where’s the fire, Grey?” Scott called out, and to my dismay, he and Dante started jogging over.
“I’m training,” I shot back. “I’m thinking about . . . trying out for track.”
“Track doesn’t start until spring,” Vee reminded me.
Hang it all.
“Uh-oh, heart rate’s dropping,” I yelled at Scott. And on that note, I took off running in the opposite direction.
I heard Scott on the trail behind me. A minute later, he snagged the strap of my tank top, tugging on it playfully. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
I turned to face him. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like you and Vee came over to see me under the pretense of running.”
I gave his shoulder a congratulatory pat. “Good work, ace.”
“So why are you running away? And why does Vee smell like a perfume factory?”
I stayed quiet, letting him figure it out.
“Ah,” he said at last.
I spread my hands. “My work here is done.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure I’m ready to hang out with Vee all day. She’s pretty . . . intense.”
Before I could give him the sage advice, “Fake it till you make it,” Dante pulled up beside me.
“A word with you?” he asked.
“Oh boy,” I said under my breath.
“That’s my cue to go,” Scott said, and to my discouragement, he trotted away, leaving me alone with Dante.
“Can you run and talk at the same time?” I asked Dante, thinking I’d prefer not to have to look him in the eye while he rehashed his thoughts on our jury-rigged relationship. Plus, it spoke volumes about just how into this conversation I was.
By way of answer, Dante picked up his pace, jogging beside me.
“Glad to see you out running,” he said.
“And why’s that?” I panted, shoving some loose hairs off my sweat-soaked face. “You get a thrill out of seeing me a complete mess?”
“That, and it’s good training for what I have in store for you.”
“You have something in store for me? Why do I get the feeling I don’t want to hear more?”
“You may be Nephilim now, Nora, but you’re at a disadvantage. Unlike naturally conceived Nephilim, you don’t have the advantage of extreme height, and you aren’t as physically powerful.”
“I’m a lot stronger than you think,” I argued.
“Stronger than you were. But not as strong as a female Nephil. You have the same body you did when you were human, and while it was adequate back then, it’s not enough to compete now. Your frame is too slender. Compared to me, you’re abysmally short. And your muscle tone is pathetic.”
“Now that’s flattery.”
“I could tell you what I think you want to hear, instead of what you need to hear, but would I really be your friend then?”
“Why do you think you need to tell me any of this?”
“You’re not prepared to fight. You don’t stand a chance against a fallen angel. It’s as simple as that.”
“I’m confused. Why do I need to fight? I thought I made it clear repeatedly yesterday that there isn’t going to be a war. I’m leading the Nephilim to peace.” And keeping the archangels off my back. Patch and I had decided unequivocally that enraged Nephilim made a better enemy than the all-powerful archangels. It was evident that Dante wanted to go into battle, but we disagreed. And as leader of the Nephilim army, the decision was ultimately mine. I felt like Dante was undermining me, and I didn’t like it one bit.
He stopped, catching me by the wrist so he could look straight at me. “You can’t control everything that happens from here on out,” he said quietly, and a chill of foreboding slipped through me like I’d swallowed an ice cube. “I know you think I’ve got it out for you, but I promised Hank I’d look after you. I’ll tell you one thing. If war breaks out, or even a riot, you won’t make it. Not in your current state. If something happens to you and you’re unable to lead the army, you’ll have broken your oath, and you know what that means.”
Oh, I knew what it meant, all right. Jumping into my own grave. And dragging my mom in behind me.
“I want to teach you enough skills to get by, as a precaution,” Dante said. “That’s all I’m suggesting.”
I swallowed. “You think if I train with you, I can get to the point where I’ll be strong enough to handle myself.” Against fallen angels, sure. But what about the archangels? I’d promised to halt the rebellion. Training for battle wasn’t aligned with that goal.
“I think it’s worth a shot.”
The idea of war turned my stomach into a bundle of knots, but I didn’t want to show fear in front of Dante. He already thought I couldn’t handle myself. “So which is it? Are you my pseudo boyfriend or my personal trainer?”
His mouth twitched. “Both.”
Chapter 3
WHEN VEE DROPPED ME OFF AFTER RUNNING, there were two missed calls on my cell phone. The first was from Marcie Millar, my sometimes arch-nemesis and, as fate would have it, my half sister by blood, but not by love. I’d spent the past seventeen years having no knowledge that the girl who stole my chocolate milk in elementary school and adhered feminine pads to my school locker in junior high shared my DNA. Marcie had figured out the truth first, and flung it in my face. We had an unspoken contract not to discuss our relationship publicly, and for the most part, the knowledge hadn’t changed us any. Marcie was still a spoiled anorexic airhead, and I still spent a good portion of my waking hours watching my back, wondering what humiliation scheme she’d lau F7 lnch at me next.
Marcie hadn’t left a message, and I couldn’t guess what she’d want from me, so I moved to the next missed call. Unknown number. The voice mail consisted of controlled breathing, low and masculine, but no actual words. Maybe Dante, maybe Patch. Maybe Pepper Friberg. My personal number was listed, and with a little investigative spirit, Pepper could have tracked it down. Not the most reassuring of thoughts.
I hauled out my piggy bank from under my bed, removed the rubber cheat plug, and shook out seventy-five dollars. Dante was picking me up at five tomorrow morning for wind sprints and weight lifting, and after one disgusted glance at my current tennis shoes, he’d remarked, “Those won’t make it through a day of training.” So here I was, using my allowance to buy cross-trainers.
I didn’t think the threat of war was as serious as Dante had made it sound, especially since Patch and I secretly had plans to pull the Nephilim out of the doomed uprising, but his words on my size, speed, and agility had struck a chord. I was smaller than every other Nephil I knew. Unlike them, I had been born into a human body—average weight, average muscle tone, average in every single aspect—and it had taken a blood transfusion and the swearing of a Changeover Vow to turn me into a Nephil. I was one of them in theory, but not in practice. I didn’t want the discrepancy to paint a target on my back, but a little voice at the back of my mind whispered it might.
And I had to do whatever it took to stay in power.
“Why do we have to start so early?” should have been my first question to Dante, but I suspected I knew the answer. The world’s fastest humans would appear as though out for a leisurely stroll if racing beside Nephilim. At top speed, I suspected that Nephilim in their prime could run upward of fifty miles per hour. If Dante and I were seen using that speed on the high school track, it would draw a lot of unwanted attention. But in the predawn hours of Monday morning most humans were fast asleep, giving Dante and me the perfect opportunity to have a worry-free workout.
I tucked the money in my pocket and headed downstairs. “I’ll be back in a few hours!” I called to my mom.
“Pot roast comes out at six, so don’t be late,” she returned from the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later I strolled through the doors of Pete’s Locker Room and headed toward the shoe department. I tried on a few pairs of cross-trainers, settling on a pair from the clearance rack. Dante might have my Monday morning—a day off school, due to a district-wide teacher in-service day—but I wasn’t going to give him the sum total of my allowance, too.
I paid for the shoes and checked the time on my cell. Not even four yet. As a precaution, Patch and I had agreed to keep calls in public to a minimum, but a hasty look both ways down the sidewalk outside confirmed I was alone. I dug the untraceable phone Patch had given me out of my handbag and dialed his number.
“I have a free couple of hours,” I told him, walking toward my car, which was parked on the next block. “There’s a very private, very secluded barn in Lookout Hill Park behind the carousel. I could be there in fifteen minutes.”
I heard the smile in his voice. “You want me bad.”
“I need an endorphin boost.”
“And making out in an abandoned barn with me will give you one?”
“No, it will probably put me in an endorphin coma, and I’m more than happy to test the theory. I’m leaving Pete’s Locker Room now. If the stoplights are in my favor, I might even make it in ten—”
I didn’t get to finish. A cloth bag dropped over my head, and I was wrestled into a bear hug from behind. In my surprise, I dropped the cell phone. I screamed and tried to swing my arms free, but the hands shoving me forward and into the street were too strong. I heard a large vehicle rumble down the street, then come to a screeching halt beside me.
A door opened, and I was thrust inside.
The air inside the van held the tang of sweat masked by lemon air freshener. The heat was cranked up to high, blasting through vents at the front, making me sweat. Maybe that was the intent.
“What’s going on? What do you want?” I demanded angrily. The full weight of what was going on hadn’t hit yet, leaving me more outraged than frightened. No answer came, but I heard the steady breathing of two nearby individuals. Those two, plus the driver, meant three of them. Against one of me.
My arms had been twisted behind my back, pinned together by what felt like a tow chain. My ankles were secured by a similar heavy-duty chain. I was stretched out on my stomach, the bag still over my head, my nose pushed into the roomy floor of the van. I tried to rock onto my side but felt as though my shoulder joint would tear from its socket. I screamed out in frustration and received a swift kick in the thigh.