The Complete Hush, Hush Saga Read online

  All the knots in my body seemed to come undone. My eyes moved out of focus. Jules’s face was like an Impressionist painting—blurred around the edges, lacking detail. Blood drained from my head, and I felt myself start to slip off the chair. I’d felt this way enough times before to know I needed iron. Soon.

  He slapped my cheek again. “Focus. Who am I talking about?”

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t push my voice above a whisper.

  “Do you know why he can’t be hurt? Because he doesn’t have a human body. His body lacks physical sensation. If I locked him up and tortured him, it wouldn’t do any good. He can’t feel. Not an ounce of pain. Surely you’ve got a guess by now? You’ve been spending a lot of time with this person. Why so silent, Nora? Can’t figure it out?”

  A trickle of sweat crept down my back.

  “Every year at the start of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, he takes control of my body. Two whole weeks. That’s how long I forfeit control. No freedom, no choice. I don’t get the luxury of escaping during those two weeks, loaning my body out, then coming back when it’s all over. Then I might be able to convince myself it wasn’t really happening. No. I’m still in there, a prisoner inside my own body, living every moment of it,” he said in a grinding tone. “Do you know what that feels like? Do you?” he shouted.

  I kept my mouth shut, knowing that to talk would be dangerous. Jules laughed, a rush of air through his teeth. It sounded more sinister than anything I’d ever heard.

  He said, “I swore an oath allowing him to take possession of my body during Cheshvan. I was sixteen years old.” He shrugged, but it was a rigid movement. “He tricked me into the oath by torturing me. After, he told me I wasn’t human. Can you believe it? Not human. He told me my mother, a human, slept with a fallen angel.” He grinned odiously, sweat sprinkling his forehead. “Did I mention I inherited a few traits from my father? Just like him, I’m a deceiver. I make you see lies. I make you hear voices.”

  Just like this. Can you hear me, Nora? Are you frightened yet?

  He tapped my forehead. “What’s going on in there, Nora? Awfully quiet.”

  Jules was Chauncey. He was Nephilim. I remembered my birth-mark, and what Dabria had told me. Jules and I shared the same blood. In my veins was the blood of a monster. I shut my eyes, and a tear slid out.

  “Remember the night we first met? I jumped in front of the car you were driving. It was dark and there was fog. You were already on edge, which made it that much easier to deceive you. I enjoyed scaring you. That first night gave me a taste for it.”

  “I would have noticed it was you,” I whispered. “There aren’t many people as tall as you.”

  “You’re not listening. I can make you see whatever I want. Do you really think I’d overlook a detail as condemning as my height? You saw what I wanted you to see. You saw a nondescript man in a black ski mask.”

  I sat there, feeling a tiny crack in my terror. I wasn’t crazy. Jules was behind all of it. He was the crazy one. He could create mind games because his father was a fallen angel and he’d inherited the power. “You didn’t really ransack my bedroom,” I said. “ You just made me think you did. That’s why it was still in order when the police arrived.”

  He applauded slowly and deliberately. “Do you want to know the best part? You could have blocked me out. I couldn’t have touched your mind without your permission. I reached in, and you never resisted. You were weak. You were easy.”

  It all made sense, and instead of feeling a brief moment of relief, I realized how susceptible I was. I was stripped wide open. There was nothing stopping Jules from sucking me into his mind games, unless I learned to block him out.

  “Imagine yourself in my place,” said Jules. “Your body violated year after year. Imagine a hatred so hard, nothing but revenge will cure it. Imagine expending large sums of energy and resources to keep a close eye on the object of your revenge, waiting patiently for the moment when fate presented you an opportunity not just to get even, but to tip the scales in your favor.” His eyes locked on mine. “You’re that opportunity. If I hurt you, I hurt Patch.”

  “You’re overestimating my value to Patch,” I said, cold sweat breaking out along my hairline.

  “I’ve been keeping a close eye on Patch for centuries. Last summer he made his first trip to your house, though you didn’t notice. He followed you shopping a few times. Every now and then, he made a special trip out of his way to find you. Then he enrolled at your school. I couldn’t help but ask myself, what was so special about you? I made an effort to find out. I’ve been watching you for a while now.”

  Nothing short of dread gripped me. Right then, I knew it was never my dad’s presence I’d felt, following me like a phantom guardian. It was Jules. I felt the same ice-cold, unearthly presence now, only amplified a hundred times.

  “I didn’t want to draw Patch’s suspicion and backed off,” he continued. “That’s when Elliot stepped forward, and it didn’t take him long to tell me what I’d already guessed. Patch is in love with you.”

  It all clicked into place. Jules hadn’t been sick the night he disappeared into the men’s room at Delphic. And he hadn’t been sick the night we went to the Borderline. All along it was the simple fact that he had to remain invisible to Patch. The moment Patch saw him, it would all be over. Patch would know Jules—Chauncey— was up to something. Elliot was Jules’s eyes and ears, feeding information back to him.

  “The plan was to kill you on the camping trip, but Elliot failed to convince you to come,” Jules said. “Earlier today, I followed you out of Blind Joe’s and shot you. Imagine my surprise when I found I’d killed a bag lady dressed in your coat. But it all worked out.” His tone relaxed. “Here we are.”

  I shifted in my seat, and the scalpel slid deeper into my jeans. If I wasn’t careful, it would slip out of reach. If Jules forced me to stand, it might slide all the way down my pant leg. And that would be the end of that.

  “Let me guess what you’re thinking,” said Jules, rising to his feet and sauntering to the front of the room. “You’re starting to wish you’d never met Patch. You wish he’d never fallen in love with you. Go on. Laugh at the position he’s put you in. Laugh at your own bad choice.”

  Hearing Jules talk about Patch’s love filled me with irrational hope.

  I fumbled the scalpel out of my jeans and jumped from my seat. “Don’t come near me! I’ll stab you. I swear I will!”

  Jules made a guttural sound and flung his arm across the counter at the front of the room. Glass beakers shattered against the chalkboard, papers fluttering down. He strode toward me. In a panic, I brought the scalpel up as hard as I could. It met his palm, slicing through skin.

  Jules hissed and drew back.

  Not waiting, I plunged the scalpel down into his thigh.

  Jules gaped at the metal protruding from his leg. He jerked it out using both hands, his face contorting in pain. He opened his hands, and the scalpel fell with a clatter.

  He took a faltering step toward me.

  I shrieked and dodged away, but my hip clipped the edge of a table; I lost my footing and tumbled down. The scalpel lay several feet away.

  Jules flipped me on my stomach and straddled me from behind. He pressed my face into the floor, crushing my nose and muffling my screams.

  “Valiant attempt,” he grunted. “But that won’t kill me. I’m Nephilim. I’m immortal.”

  I grabbed for the scalpel, digging my toes into the floor to stretch those last, vital inches. My fingers fumbled over it. I was so close, and then Jules was dragging me back.

  I brought my heel up hard between his legs; he groaned and went limp off to one side. I scrambled to my feet, but Jules rolled to the door, kneeling between me and it.

  His hair hung in his eyes. Beads of sweat trickled down his face. His mouth was lopsided, one half curled up in pain.

  Every muscle in my body was coiled, ready to spring into action.

  “Good luck trying
to escape,” he said with a cynical smile that seemed to require a lot of effort. “You’ll see what I mean.” Then he sank to the ground.

  CHAPTER

  29

  I HAD NO IDEA WHERE VEE WAS. THE OBVIOUS THOUGHT came to me to think like Jules—where would I hold Vee hostage if I were him?

  He wants to make it hard to escape and hard to be found, I reasoned.

  I brought up a mental blueprint of the building, narrowing my attention to the upper levels. Chances were, Vee was on the third floor, the highest in the school—except for a small fourth floor, which was more of an attic than anything else. A narrow staircase accessible only from the third floor led up to it. There were two bungalow-style classrooms at the top: AP Spanish and the eZine lab.

  Vee was in the eZine lab. Just like that, I knew it.

  Moving as quickly as I could through the darkness, I felt my way up two flights of stairs. After some trial and error, I found the narrow staircase leading to the eZine lab. At the top, I pushed on the door.

  “Vee?” I called softly.

  She let out a small moan.

  “It’s me,” I said, taking each step with care as I maneuvered up an aisle of desks, not wanting to knock over a chair and alert Jules to my location. “Are you hurt? We need to get out of here.” I found her huddled at the front of the room, hugging her knees to her chest.

  “Jules hit me over the head,” she said, her voice rising. “I think I passed out. Now I can’t see. I can’t see anything!”

  “Listen to me. Jules cut the electricity and the shades are drawn. It’s just the darkness. Hold my hand. We have to get downstairs right now.”

  “I think he damaged something. My head is throbbing. I really think I’m blind!”

  “You’re not blind,” I whispered, giving her a small shake. “I can’t see either. We have to feel our way downstairs. We’re going to leave through the exit by the athletics office.”

  “He’s got chains on all the doors.”

  A moment of rigid silence dropped between us. I remembered Jules wishing me luck escaping, and now I knew why. A perceptible chill rippled from my heart through the rest of my body. “Not the door I came in,” I said at last. “The far east door is unlocked.”

  “It must be the only one. I was with him when he chained the others. He said that way nobody would be tempted to go outside while we played hide-and-seek. He said outside was out-of-bounds.”

  “If the east door is the only one left unlocked, he’ll try to block it. He’ll wait for us to come to him. But we’re not going to. We’re going out a window,” I said, devising a plan off the top of my head. “On the opposite end of the building—this end. Do you have your cell?”

  “Jules took it.”

  “When we get outside, we have to split up. If Jules chases us, he’ll have to choose one of us to follow. The other will get help.” I already knew who he’d choose. Jules had no use for Vee, except to lure me here tonight. “Run as hard as you can and get to a phone. Call the police. Tell them Elliot is in the library.”

  “Alive?” Vee asked, her voice trembling.

  “I don’t know.”

  We stood huddled together, and I felt her pull her shirt up and wipe her eyes. “This is all my fault.”

  “This is Jules’s fault.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “We’re going to be fine,” I said, attempting to sound optimistic. “I stabbed Jules in the leg with a scalpel. He’s bleeding heavily. Maybe he’ll give up chasing us and go get medical attention.”

  A sob escaped Vee. We both knew I was lying. Jules’s desire for revenge outweighed his wound. It outweighed everything.

  Vee and I crept down the stairs, keeping tight to the walls, until we were back on the main floor.

  “This way,” I whispered in her ear, holding her hand as we speed-walked down the hall, heading farther west.

  We hadn’t walked very far when a guttural sound, not quite laughter, rolled out of the tunnel of darkness ahead.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” Jules said. There was no face attached to his voice.

  “Run,” I told Vee, squeezing her hand. “He wants me. Call the police. Run!”

  Vee dropped my hand and ran. Her footsteps faded depress-ingly fast. I wondered briefly if Patch was still in the building, but it was more of a side thought. Most of my concentration went into not passing out. Because once again, I found myself all alone with Jules.

  “It will take the police at least twenty minutes to respond,” Jules told me, the tap of his shoes drawing closer. “I don’t need twenty minutes.”

  I turned and ran. Jules broke into a run behind me.

  Fumbling my hands over the walls, I turned right at the first intersection and raced down a perpendicular hall. Forced to rely on the walls to guide me, my hands slapped over the sharp edges of lockers and doorjambs, nicking my skin. I made another right, running as fast as I could for the double doors of the gymnasium.

  The only thought pounding through my head was that if I could get to my gym locker in time, I could lock myself inside it. The girls’ locker room was wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with oversize lockers. It would take Jules time to break into each one individually. If I was lucky, the police would arrive before he found me.

  I flung myself into the gym and ran for the attached girls’ locker room. As soon as I pushed on the door handle, I felt a spike of cold terror. The door was locked. I rattled the handle again, but it didn’t give. Spinning around, I searched frantically for another exit, but I was trapped in the gym. I fell back against the door, squeezed my eyes shut to stave off fainting, and listened to my breath hitch up.

  When I reopened my eyes, Jules was walking into the haze of moonlight trickling through the skylights. He’d knotted his shirt around his thigh; a stain of blood seeped through the fabric. He was left in a white undershirt and chinos. A gun was tucked into the waistband of his pants.

  “Please let me go,” I whispered.

  “Vee told me something interesting about you. You’re afraid of heights.” He lifted his gaze to the rafters high above the gym. A smile split his face.

  The stagnant air was sodden with the smells of sweat and wood varnish. The heat had been turned off for spring break and the temperature was icy. Shadows stretched back and forth across the polished floor as the moonlight broke through the clouds. Jules stood with his back to the bleachers, and I saw Patch move behind him.

  “Did you attack Marcie Millar?” I asked Jules, ordering myself not to react and give Patch away.

  “Elliot told me there’s bad blood between the two of you. I didn’t like the idea of someone else having the pleasure of tormenting my girl.”

  “And my bedroom window? Did you spy on me while I was sleeping?”

  “Nothing personal.”

  Jules stiffened. He stepped forward suddenly and jerked on my wrist, spinning me around in front of him. I felt what I feared was the gun press into the nape of my neck. “Take off your hat,” Jules ordered Patch. “I want to see the expression on your face when I kill her. You’re helpless to save her. As helpless as I was to do anything about the oath I swore to you.”

  Patch took a couple of steps closer. He moved easily, but I sensed his tightly reined caution. The gun probed deeper, and I winced.

  “Take another step and this will be her last breath,” Jules warned.

  Patch glanced at the distance between us, calculating how quickly he could cover it. Jules saw it too.

  “Don’t try it,” he said.

  “You’re not going to shoot her, Chauncey.”

  “No?” Jules squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked, and I opened my mouth to scream, but all that came out was a tremulous sob.

  “Revolver,” Jules explained. “The other five chambers are loaded.”

  Ready to use those boxing moves you’re always bragging about? Patch said to my mind.

  My pulse was all over the place, my legs barely holding me up. “W-wha
t?” I stammered.

  Without warning, a rush of power coursed into me. The foreign force expanded to fill me. My body was completely vulnerable to Patch, all my strength and freedom forfeited as he took possession of me.

  Before I had time to realize just how much this loss of control terrified me, a crushing pain spiked through my hand, and I realized Patch was using my fist to punch Jules. The gun was knocked loose; it skidded across the gym floor out of reach.

  Patch commanded my hands to slam Jules backward against the bleachers. Jules tripped, falling into them.

  The next thing I knew, my hands were closing on Jules’s throat, flinging his head back against the bleachers with a loud crack! I held him there, pressing my fingers into his neck. His eyes widened, then bulged. He was trying to speak, moving his lips unintelligibly, but Patch didn’t let up.

  I won’t be able to stay inside you much longer, Patch spoke to my thoughts. It’s not Cheshvan and I’m not allowed. As soon as I’m cast out, run. Do you understand? Run as fast as you can. Chauncey will be too weak and stunned to get inside your head. Run and don’t stop.

  A high humming sound whined through me, and I felt my body peeling away from Patch’s.

  The vessels in Jules’s neck jumped out and his head drooped to one side. Come on, I heard Patch urge him. Pass out . . . pass out . . .

  But it was too late. Patch vanished from inside me. He was gone so suddenly, I was left dizzy.

  My hands were in my control again, and they sprang away from Jules’s neck on impulse. He gasped for air and blinked up at me. Patch was on the floor a few feet away, unmoving.

  I remembered what Patch had said and sprinted across the gym. I flung myself against the door, expecting to sail into the hall. Instead it was like hitting a wall. I shoved the push bar, knowing the door was unlocked. Five minutes ago I’d come through it. I hurled all my weight against the door. It didn’t open.