Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

My homework didn't require much thought. I was glad for that. Tossing and turning from feverish dreams had left me even more exhausted than when I had passed out.

The rain stopped, but during breakfast, with me still bleary-eyed, Toivo insisted we take the truck to school. I hated traveling by motor vehicle, and I didn't know how he or any demon could stand it. The chemicals in the cured leather interior were enough to make me swear off all cars forever.

When we climbed down the porch steps, I found Yuuhi leaning against the rain-speckled truck bed, backpack hanging from his shoulder, fingers tucked in his pockets.

He looked awful.

His skin had turn a jaundiced shade of yellow, his eyes bloodshot and ringed in puffy bags, his hair untamed, and his clothes so simple and understated that I was sure someone had exchanged him with a poor excuse of a doppelganger.

He was wearing a sweater. While the clouds might have broken up and allowed the air to cool, it didn't warrant a sweater.

Toivo regarded him with sympathetic 'if you won't tell then I won't ask' as he climbed into the driver's seat.

I, on the other hand, had no such honor. I stepped right up to him and asked, "What the hell happened to—" But then I smelled it. Vampire venom. It was sickeningly sweet, like pure maple syrup, and it permeated from his flesh as if he had doused himself in it.

That was strange.

Why would a vampire feed on him?

He ticked his head to the cabin as Toivo revved the engine. No smile, no banter or teasing. Nothing. "Get in."

This wasn't Yuuhi at all.

The doppelganger left me itchy and ruffled, and sitting between he and Toivo on the way to school made the tiny cabin more cramped and the air thin in my lungs.

No one said a word. I'd spoken very little since waking up anyway, so my lips felt pasted together. Toivo had sensed my aloofness when we had readied for the day, but he hadn't decided to pick on it. I could barely manage to look at him, and eye contact at all was out of the question. I couldn't reconcile my guilt of knowing when he didn't, when he needed to—when I had been honest with Jason and I couldn't be honest with him.

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell Toivo everything, but Rajy had pleaded with me not to. He had begged me. And I couldn't digest the pit in my stomach as I remembered Rajy wrapping his hands around mine and looking up at me, afraid to lose me like he'd lost Solara.

I didn't want to be Solara.

Things would get ugly soon, and although I couldn't begin to fathom what would happen, I had to be here for when it did.

I had to be.

During English class, Jason regarded me with more distance than ever. He didn't so much as glance my direction. He sat at his desk, textbook out and opened to the designated page, his head resting in his folded arms. He slept through the entire class, and if the professor noticed, she didn't think it worth the trouble to make a big deal out of it.

Yuuhi's hand held a pen poised over his notebook as the professor lectured, but he was so far away from the classroom that he didn't realize me watching him sitting perfectly statuesque.

Toivo had taken his seat next to The Blonde again despite how he had retrieved his own book. She continued to swoon over him, and as the class progressed, his rigidity of the morning eased. The cool disposition wore off, and she even lured a smile out of him toward the end of the class. I hated her for it.