Adam returned to the room with some snacks and drinks in hand. He closed the door behind him.
"Sorry it's a little messy in here," he said. "I tried to clean it up, but . . ."
"It's perfect just like this," Cassie said.
He joined her on the bed, and she had the sudden urge to start rubbing his shoulders, to kiss his face and his neck
- to forget all about the awful storm on the beach.
Adam's breathing slowed, and Cassie could sense he was thinking the same thing. He swept his fingers suggestively across her thigh.
"You look beautiful tonight," he said. "But I've been worried about you. What happened today?" His hand slid from her thigh up to her hipbone, which was his favorite place to touch her.
Cassie took a deep breath and sat up. "I went for a walk on the beach, and I ran into Nick," she said. Cassie paused to read Adam's expression, but his face remained neutral.
"And I was glad to see him," she continued, "because you know I've been trying to repair my friendship with him any way I can. But we'd just got to talking when the sky turned black and this awful storm started. We knew immediately by the looks of it that it was something supernatural."
"The hunters," Adam said.
Cassie nodded. "We couldn't get away fast enough.
Lightning bolts were flying straight for us. One would have . . ."
Cassie felt herself get choked up. She struggled to swallow down the knot that had formed in her throat. "Nick risked his life to save me, Adam. I would have been hit if he hadn't acted so quickly to push me out of the way." Lines formed on Adam's forehead, but he stared straight down at the bedspread.
"He proved himself a real friend in that moment," Cassie said. "To both of us. Don't you think?"
Adam continued looking down for a moment before raising his eyes to meet hers. "Yes, you're right," he said, and then shifted uncomfortably.
Cassie could see by the way he tightened his jaw that he was bothered it was Nick who had saved her, but he would never say that. "I wish I'd been there, but I'm glad you're okay." Adam took her hands and massaged them in his own. He brought them to his lips and kissed them. "I don't know what I would have done if you'd been hurt." He kissed the inside of her wrist and up her forearm.
Cassie knew where this was leading. As difficult as it was, she forced herself to remove her arm from his grasp.
"There's more," she said. "I talked to my mom. Really talked to her."
Adam refocused his attention and sat up straight. "And?"
"She told me about my father. You know he wasn't all bad, Adam. She really loved him."
Adam seemed unsure of how to react. Black John was always a touchy subject between them.
"I know how that sounds," Cassie said. "But try to imagine it. Being in love with someone the way we are, truly in love, and then losing that person to the dark side." Adam shook his head. "I don't want to imagine that."
"Neither do I, so think about how awful it must have been for my poor mother." Cassie could feel her emotions getting the best of her, and she fought the urge to start crying.
Adam reached for her hands again. "I can hardly think of anything worse," he said. "But it's good that you can understand it now. I'm glad you had this breakthrough with your mom."
Cassie let her eyes wander around Adam's room. For some reason it was difficult to look at him just then. Instead, she focused on the poster taped to his wall, of some band she'd never heard of.
"I'm sure your father was easy to fall in love with," Adam said. "He was a charismatic man, a natural leader. Your mother's smart - she wouldn't have been with him otherwise. It wasn't her fault, what happened." Sometimes Adam knew just what to say. It was a subtle shift in Cassie's mind, but all of a sudden she felt at ease. If Adam didn't blame her mother, in a way that meant he didn't blame Cassie either. She locked eyes with his and reached for him.
"The important thing is that you're okay," Adam said, allowing himself to be drawn in. "And that we're together." Cassie lay back, and Adam curled up next to her, pulling her close. She loved him so much, it almost ached. She felt she could never get enough of him.
Adam kissed her passionately and then paused for a moment. "With everything going on," he said. "I'm just relieved - "
Cassie put her fingers over his mouth to quiet him.
"Enough talking," she said, and pulled him closer.
Chapter 14
"Okay," Diana said. "We don't have much time. Who has something to report?"
The Circle was eating lunch in their new spot, a small patch of woods up one of the narrow paths on the edge of school grounds - a green grass hideaway beneath the cover of high birches and leafy apple blossoms. Adam suggested it as their new lunchtime turf for the warm-weather months.
All eyes turned to the Henderson brothers. They'd had a mission this morning: to set off a stink bomb in third-period math. The plan was to be sent to the new principal's office together, where they could then tag team and look for evidence. The Circle was looking into anyone new in town, but the principal was number one on their list of potential hunters.
"Shouldn't we wait for Faye?" Deborah asked as she unpacked her lunch.
"Lately all we do is wait for Faye," Melanie said. "If she's got better places to be, then we should go on without her."
"I can hear you," Faye called out from the top of the path.
She made her way down slowly.
"As I was saying." Diana raised her voice. "Chris, Doug, did you find anything?"
Faye made it down the path just in time to nudge Doug in the ribs with her pointy black boot. "Go ahead, say it. You came up with nothing."
"We came up with nothing," Chris said while Doug remained silent. "But not due to lack of trying. Mr. Boylan seems like a pretty straight-up guy."
"I don't buy it," Nick said. "He comes into town, and everything blows up. It's too much of a coincidence. We should question him, push the investigation further." Cassie noticed Nick was looking at her when he said it.
"There's no need to be reckless," Diana said.
Nick guffawed. "Yeah there is."
Nick was immeasurably different from Adam, who was so righteous, always. Even his adventure-seeking was based in devotion; never for a moment was it a form of revolt.
As Cassie watched Adam now, she observed how he scrambled around the group, always the mediator, trying to keep the peace above all else. The unity of the Circle meant more to him than anything.