Crescendo h-2 Read online

  I flicked my gaze to where I’d last seen Patch. Our eyes met. His hand was stiff, cupped at the back of his neck, as if he’d been lost in deep thought and had frozen at the sight of me kissing Scott.

  This is what it feels like, I thought at him.

  Only, I didn’t feel any better after thinking it. I felt sad and low and dissatisfied. I wasn’t the kind of person who played games or relied on dirty tricks to console myself or boost my self-esteem. But there was still a certain raw pain burning inside me, and because of it, I let Scott guide me down the hall.

  Using his foot, Scott nudged open the bedroom door. He killed the lights, and soft shadows settled around us. I glanced at the small twin mattress on the bottom bunk, then at the window. The window was cracked. In a panic-induced moment, I actually imagined myself slipping through the crack and disappearing into the night. Probably a sign that what I was about to do was a huge mistake. Was I really going through with this just to make a point? Was this how I wanted to show Patch the magnitude of my anger and hurt? What did it say about me?

  Scott took me by the shoulders and kissed me harder. I mentally flipped through my options. I could tell Scott I was feeling sick. I could tell him I’d changed my mind. I could simply tell him no….

  Scott shucked off his shirt and tossed it aside.

  “Uh—,” I began. I looked around once more for an escape, noting that the bedroom door must have opened, because a shadow blotted out the light spilling in from the hall. The shadow stepped inside and closed the door, and I felt my jaw go slack.

  Patch tossed Scott’s shirt at him, catching him in the face.

  “What the—,” Scott demanded, yanking the shirt over his head and rolling it down to cover himself.

  “Fly’s down,” Patch told him.

  Scott yanked on his zipper. “What are you doing? You can’t come in here. I’m busy. And this is my room!”

  “Are you insane?” I told Patch, blood rising in my cheeks.

  Patch sliced his eyes toward me. “You don’t want to be here. Not with him.”

  “You don’t get to make that call!”

  Scott brushed past me. “Let me take care of him.”

  He made it another two feet before Patch shoved his fist into Scott’s jaw with a sickening crunch.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled at Patch. “Did you break his jaw?”

  “Unnuh!” Scott moaned, clutching the lower half of his face.

  “I didn’t break his jaw, but if he lays a hand on you, it will be the first of many things to break,” Patch said.

  “Out!” I ordered Patch, thrusting a finger at the door.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Scott growled at Patch, opening and closing his jaw, making sure it still worked.

  But instead of taking the cue to leave, Patch crossed to Scott in three steps. He flung him around to face the wall. Scott tried to get his bearings, but Patch slammed him against the wall again, disorienting him further. “Touch her,” he said in Scott’s ear, his voice low and threatening, “and it’ll be the biggest regret of your life.”

  Before leaving, Patch flicked his eyes once in my direction. “He’s not worth it.” He paused. “And neither am I.”

  I opened my mouth but didn’t have an argument. I wasn’t here because I wanted to be. I was here to shove it in Patch’s face. I knew it, and he knew it.

  Scott rolled around, slouching against the wall. “I could’ve taken him if I wasn’t wasted,” he said, massaging the lower half of his face. “Who the hell does he think he is? I don’t even know him. You know him?”

  Scott obviously didn’t recognize Patch from the Z, but there had been a lot of people there that night. I couldn’t expect Scott to remember every face. “I’m sorry about that,” I said, gesturing at the door Patch had just exited through. “Are you okay?”

  He smiled slowly. “Never been better.” That said with a welt-like bruise blooming across his jaw.

  “He was out of control.”

  “Best way to be,” he drawled, using the back of his hand to wipe a ribbon of blood from the crack of his mouth.

  “I should go,” I said. “I’ll bring the Mustang back after school tomorrow.” I wondered how I was supposed to walk out of here, past Patch, and maintain any level of self-dignity. I might as well stroll up to him and admit he was right: I’d only followed Scott back here to hurt him.

  Scott crooked his finger under my shirt, holding me in place. “Don’t go, Nora. Not yet.”

  I unhooked his finger. “Scott—”

  “Tell me if I’m going too far,” he said, tugging his shirt up over his head for the second time. His pale skin glowed in the dark. He’d clearly been spending a lot of time in the weight room, and it showed in the lines of muscle branching down his arms.

  “You’re going too far,” I said.

  “That didn’t sound convincing.” He swept my hair off my neck and nuzzled his face in the curve.

  “I’m not interested in you this way,” I said, putting my hands between us. I was tired, and a headache was buzzing between my ears. I was ashamed of myself and wanted to go home and sleep and sleep until I forgot this night.

  “How do you know? You’ve never tried me this way.”

  I flipped on the light switch, flooding the room with light. Scott threw a hand over his eyes and staggered back a step.

  “I’m leaving—,” I began, then broke off as my eyes fixed on a patch of skin high on Scott’s chest, halfway between his nipple and collarbone. The skin was warped and shiny. Somewhere deep in my brain, I made the connection that this must be the branding mark Scott had been given when he swore allegiance to the Nephilim blood society, but it felt like a hazy afterthought, dull in comparison to what had really arrested my attention. The brand was in the shape of a clenched fist. It was identical, down to the exact shape and size, to the raised stamp on the iron ring from the envelope.

  With a hand still flung over his eyes, Scott groaned and reached for the bedpost to steady himself.

  “What’s that mark on your skin?” I asked, my mouth gone dry.

  Scott looked momentarily startled, then slid his hand down to cover the mark. “Some friends and I were horsing around one night. It’s nothing serious. It’s only a scar.”

  He had the audacity to lie about it? “You gave me the envelope.” When he didn’t answer, I added more fiercely, “The boardwalk. The bakery. The envelope with the iron ring.” The room felt eerily isolated, detached from the throbbing bass out in the living room. In an instant, I no longer felt safe trapped back here with Scott.

  Scott’s eyes narrowed and he squinted at me through the light, which still seemed to hurt his eyes. “What are you talking about?” His tone was wary, hostile, muddled.

  “You think this act is funny? I know you gave me the ring.”

  “The—ring?”

  “The ring that made that mark on your chest!”

  He shook his head once, hard, as if to shake off his stupor. Then his arm lashed out, shoving me up against the wall. “How do you know about the ring?”

  “You’re hurting me,” I said with venom, but I was shivering with fear. I realized that Scott wasn’t pretending. Unless he was a much better actor than I imagined, he genuinely didn’t know about the envelope. But he did know about the ring.

  “What did he look like?” He fisted my camisole and shook me. “The guy who gave you the ring—what did he look like?”

  “Get your hands off me,” I ordered, pushing back. But Scott weighed a lot more than me, and his feet stayed planted, his body trapping me against the wall. “I didn’t see him. He had it delivered.”

  “Does he know where I am? Does he know I’m in Coldwater?”

  “He?” I snapped back. “Who is he? What’s going on?”

  “Why did he give you the ring?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Why don’t you tell me?”

  He shuddered hard against the raging panic that
seemed to grip him. “What do you know?”

  I kept my eyes nailed to Scott’s, but my throat was clenched so hard it hurt to breathe. “The ring was in the envelope with a note that said the Black Hand killed my dad. And that the ring belonged to him.” I licked my lips. “Are you the Black Hand?”

  Scott’s expression still held deep distrust; his eyes darted back and forth, judging whether or not he believed me. “Forget we had this conversation, if you know what’s good for you.”

  I tried to yank my arm free, but he was still holding on.

  “Get out,” he said. “And stay away from me.” This time he let go, giving me a shove in the direction of the door.

  I stopped at the door. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. “Not until you tell me about the Black Hand.”

  I thought Scott might throw an even more violent rage, but he merely nailed me with a look he might give a dog if he caught it squatting on his lawn. He scooped up his T-shirt and made like he was going to stretch it back over his frame, then his mouth curled into a threatening smile. He threw the shirt on the bed. He loosened his belt, yanked down his zipper, and stepped out of his shorts, leaving him standing in nothing but fitted cotton boxers. He was going for the shock factor, clearly trying to intimidate me into leaving. He’d done a pretty good job of convincing me, but I wasn’t going to let him get rid of me that easily.

  I said, “You have the Black Hand’s ring branded on your skin. Don’t expect me to believe you know nothing about it, including how it got there.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “The minute I walk out of here, I’m calling the police. If you won’t talk to me, maybe you’d like to talk to them. Maybe they’ve seen the branding before. I can tell just by looking at it that it isn’t good.” My voice was calm, but my underarms were damp. What a stupid and risky thing to say. What if Scott didn’t allow me to leave? I obviously knew enough about the Black Hand to upset him. Did he think I knew too much? What if he killed me, then threw my body in a Dumpster? My mom didn’t know where I was, and everyone who’d seen me enter Scott’s apartment was wasted. Would anyone remember having seen me tomorrow?

  I was so busy panicking, I hadn’t noticed Scott had taken a seat on his bed. His face was bent into his hands. His back was quivering, and I realized he was crying silently, great, convulsive sobs. At first I thought he was faking, that this was some kind of trap, but the choked sounds low in his chest were real. He was drunk, emotionally unhinged, and I didn’t know how stable that made him. I held still, afraid one slight movement might cause him to snap.

  “I racked up a lot of gambling debt in Portland,” he said, his voice scratchy with desperation and exhaustion. “The manager at the pool hall was breathing down my neck, demanding the money, and I had to watch my back anytime I left the house. I was living in fear, knowing one day he’d find me, and I’d be lucky to get off with broken kneecaps.

  “One night on my way home from work, I was jumped from behind, dragged into a warehouse, and tied to a folding table. It was too dark to see the guy, but I figured the manager had sent him. I told him I’d pay him whatever he wanted if he’d let me go, but he laughed and said he wasn’t after my money—in fact, he’d already settled my debts. Before I could figure out if it was his idea of a joke, he said he was the Black Hand, and the last thing he needed was more money.

  “He had a Zippo, and he held the flame against the ring on his left hand, heating it. I was sweating bullets. I told him I’d do whatever he wanted—just get me off the table. He ripped open my shirt and ground the ring into my chest. My skin was on fire, and I was yelling at the top of my lungs. He snapped my finger, broke the bone, and told me if I didn’t shut up, he’d move down the line until he broke all ten. He told me he’d given me his mark.” Scott’s voice had dropped to a rasp. “I wet my pants. Right there on the table. He scared the hell out of me. I’ll do whatever it takes to never see him again. That’s why we moved back to Coldwater. I’d stopped going to school and was hiding out at the gym all day, bulking up in case he came looking for me. If he found me, this time I was going to be ready.” Cutting off there, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

  I didn’t know if I could trust him. Patch had made it clear he didn’t, but Scott was shaking. His complexion was pasty, misted with sweat, and he plowed his hands through his hair, letting go of a long, wavering breath. Could he make up a story like that? All the details meshed with everything I already knew about Scott. He had a gambling addiction. He’d worked nights in Portland at a convenience store. He’d moved back to Coldwater to escape his past. He had the branding mark on his chest, proof someone had put it there. Could he sit two feet away and lie to me about what he’d gone through?

  “What did he look like?” I asked. “The Black Hand.”

  He shook his head. “It was dark. He was tall, that’s all I remember.”

  I groped for some way to connect Scott and my dad—both of whom were linked to the Black Hand. Scott had been tracked down by the Black Hand after running up debt. In exchange for paying off Scott’s debt, the Black Hand had branded him. Had my dad gone through the same thing? Had his murder not been as random as the police originally guessed? Had the Black Hand paid off a debt my dad owed, then killed him when my dad refused to be branded? No. I wasn’t buying it. My dad didn’t gamble, and he didn’t rack up debt. He was an accountant. He knew the value of money. Nothing about his situation tied him to Scott. There had to be something else.

  “Did the Black Hand say anything else?” I asked.

  “I try not to remember anything about that night.” He reached under his mattress and pulled out a plastic ashtray and a pack of cigarettes. He lit up, exhaling smoke slowly, and closed his eyes.

  My mind kept rebounding to the same three questions. Had the Black Hand really killed my dad? Who was he? Where could I find him?

  And then a new question. Was the Black Hand the leader of the Nephilim blood society? If he was the one branding Nephilim, it made sense. Only a leader, or someone with a lot of authority, would be in charge of actively recruiting members to fight back against fallen angels.

  “Did he say why he gave you his mark?” I asked. Clearly the branding was to mark members of the blood society, but maybe there was more. Something only its Nephilim members knew.

  Scott shook his head, taking another drag.

  “He didn’t give you any reason?”

  “No,” Scott snapped.

  “Has he come looking for you since that night?”

  “No.” I could tell by the wild look in his eyes that he was scared he wouldn’t always be able to say as much.

  I thought back to the Z. To the red-shirted Nephil. Did he have the same brand as Scott? I was almost certain he did. It only made sense that all members had the same mark. Which meant there were others like Scott and the Nephil at the Z. Members every where, recruited by force, but disjointed from any real strength or purpose because they were kept in the dark. What was the Black Hand waiting for? Why was he holding off uniting his members? To keep fallen angels from finding out what he was up to?

  Was this why my dad was murdered? Because of something that had to do with the blood society?

  “Have you ever seen the Black Hand’s brand on anyone else?” I knew I was in danger of pushing too hard, but I needed to determine just how much Scott knew.

  Scott didn’t answer. He was crumpled on the bed, passed out. His mouth was agape, and his breath smelled strongly of alcohol and smoke.

  I shook him gently. “Scott? What can you tell me about the society?” I slapped his cheeks gently. “Scott, wake up. Did the Black Hand tell you that you’re Nephilim? Did he tell you what it means?”

  But he had crashed into a deep, inebriated sleep.

  I ground out his cigarette, pulled a sheet up to his shoulders, and let myself out.

  CHAPTER 15

  I WAS DEEP IN A DREAM WHEN THE PHONE SHRILLED. I stuck an arm out sideways, swept my hand over the ni
ght-stand, and located my cell phone. “Hello?” I said, wiping drool from the rim of my mouth.

  “Have you checked the Weather Channel yet?” Vee asked.

  “What?” I mumbled. I tried to blink my eyes open, but they were still rolled back in the dream. “What time is it?”

  “Blue skies, sizzling temps, zero wind. We are so going to Old Orchard Beach after class. I’m packing boogie boards in the Neon right now.” She belted out the first stanza to “Summer Nights” from Grease. I cringed and pulled the phone away from my ear.

  I rubbed sleep out of my eyes and watched the numbers on the clock seesaw into focus. That couldn’t possibly be a six at the front … could it?

  “Should I wear a hot pink bandeau, or a metallic gold bikini? The thing about the bikini is, I probably need a tan before I wear it. Gold will make my skin look even more washed out. Maybe I’ll wear pink this time, get a base tan, and—”

  “Why does my clock say six twenty-five?” I demanded, trying to wade through the haze of sleep long enough to push some volume into my voice.

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “Vee!”

  “Yeesh. Angry much?”

  I slammed the phone down and snuggled deeper under the covers. The home phone started ringing downstairs in the kitchen. I folded my pillow over my head. The answering machine picked up, but Vee wasn’t that easy to get rid of. She redialed. Again and again.

  I speed-dialed her cell. “What?”

  “Gold or pink? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. It’s just … Rixon’s going to be there, and this is the first time he’ll see me in a swimsuit.”

  “Back up. The plan is for all three of us to go together? I’m not going all the way out to Old Orchard Beach to be the third wheel!”

  “And I’m not going to let you sit home all afternoon with your sour face on.”

  “I don’t have a sour face.”

  “Yes, you do. And you’re wearing it right now.”

  “This is my annoyed face. You woke me up at six in the morning!”