Siren's Song (3 page)

I grasp it lightly and shake once. “Hey, Luke.” I ignore the warm pull of the contact and draw back.

“Sorry about yesterday.”

I'm not sure what I should say.

“You surprised me,” he continues.

“I surprised you?”

“Your voice.” His smile fades and a crease pinches his eyebrows briefly. “It caught me off-guard.”

My voice. Really?
“Yeah, it surprises people,” I say, “but they don't usually look like they're going to reach down my throat and rip my voicebox out.”

I watch him swallow, and he inhales as if the visual might be too much for him. I raise one eyebrow. He doesn't look like the type who shies away from graphic violence.

He swipes back the hair from his forehead and huffs. A smile comes out slowly. “Yeah, I'm not good with surprises. My parents haven't thrown me a surprise birthday party since the castastrophe when I turned five.” He shivers dramatically as if recalling the horror.

I grin as I look sideways at him. Gorgeous
and
a sense of humor.

“No sneaking up on Luke Whitmore. Got it,” I say and stack my books in my locker.

“Maybe we should start over,” he suggests, and I glance at him. He has his hand extended. I exhale loudly but turn toward him, leaning back into the thin hole of my open locker.

I grasp his hand harder this time. It is warm, strong. Very unlike my own thin fingers. His grip feels solid, steadying. “Welcome to Summit, the peak of good living,” I quote the official town motto. “I'm Jule Welsh.”

“Not Julietta?”

“Only to my parents.” He releases my hand and I quickly lower it.

“And you're not Lucas?”

“You witnessed that?” He smiles with a half-embarrassed look.

“Half the school did.”

He ignores my questioning look. “Just Luke.”

The tone for first period sounds, cutting off any chance I have to ask for an explanation. A rush of kids surges through the hall. I grab my chemistry notebook. “Thanks for the help.” I tip my head toward my locker.

“Sure.” He turns with me after he hangs up his jacket. “Do you know where room 2343 is?”

I stare at him for another long second while my still-stunned brain processes the number. “Umm…yeah. I'm headed there. Chemistry?”

He nods and walks with me through the throng. I study him peripherally. Something is different, missing. Not that he is lacking in any way with that tall, cut bod, but he looks different. The impression I got yesterday was much darker, sinister. “Your tats.” I point to his bare arms. “Where are they?”

“My tats? Tattoos?” he questions, but I don't see confusion in his frown.

“Yeah, the ones that wrapped around your arms. Were they, like, fake?”

He stares straight ahead. “I had some grease on my arms from working with my motorcycle. I don't have tattoos.”

“But they were dragons or something.”

He continues to look out over the throng and shrugs. “Nope.” He flexes a bicep, which balls up in a glorious tan hill of masculine strength. Several girls stop mid-sentence, eyes wide, tongues nearly rolling out of their gloss-framed mouths. He doesn't even glance at them.

“Hey, Jule!” Madison's blonde, sleek hair lies flat around her face. What I wouldn't give for hair that stays flat in this sweltering fishbowl of humidity. Her eyebrow rises when she notices Luke next to me, but she keeps her smile on me. “I grabbed an audition schedule for you.” She shoves the paper in my hands.

“Hmmm… Thanks.” I step-ladder my gaze down the long list of roles without actually reading any of it. “What's the play?” I am always in the play; at least, I have been in the past.

“You're not going to believe this!” Madison rolls to the balls of her feet. “Ms. Bishop chose
Phantom
!” She thumps the top of the sheet that spells it out. “Can you believe it?”

My heart aches, literally aches. Can a relatively healthy seventeen-year-old have a heart attack? “
Of the Opera
?” My mouth remains open and I feel my heart thump to get out.

She rolls her eyes. “Is there any other
Phantom
? Of course,
Phantom of the Opera
. You know she only picked it because she knows you can carry the female role. With your voice, we'll make it all the way to State again!”

“I don't know, Madison.” I indicate the chemistry room door for Luke, but he stands next to us as if he is part of this discussion. I face Madison. “I was thinking of sitting this one out. I have a lot going on.” I shrug. Of course she'd have heard about Mom. Who hasn't? “You know. And I need to concentrate on my grades to get into Boston University's School of Theatre.”

“God, Jule! We neeeeed you.” Madison grabs my arm. “And BU will die to have you after you pull this off. You can skip the spring musical, but we need you for this competition.”

I look down at the Band-Aids on my foot, half-covered by my strappy flats. “I'll think about it.” Geez, I promised I wouldn't sing. And playing the lead role in a musical would require singing. The part of Christine would be fantastic, full of drama, and I practically know all the songs already. Mom would have been so excited for me. Would have.

Madison's eyes move to Luke. “Who are you?” Coming from someone else, that probably would have been rude. But Madison has a dizzying ability to say whatever she wants with such open and friendly body language that people don't care.

“Luke.” His casual voice holds a smile. So Madison can charm the scowling, invisible-tats guy, too. “I'm new.”

“See ya later,” I call to whichever one of them is listening and step into the fluorescently lit chemistry lab. Black, tacky-topped tables with stools run in two long columns up the room. At the back sits Taylin, her coal-blackened eyes widening with her grin. She must have spotted Luke, because the expression certainly isn't for me. I slide onto a stool toward the front. Luke stops beside me and my heart takes off again, pounding as I glance up.

“Your…Taylin is back there.” I thumb toward her.

“Yeah,” he says, and I see him nod. “She's my cousin.”

“Cousin? You must have a
close
family.”

“We haven't seen each other for a long time. She's a bit… darker than I remember her.”

I laugh quietly at his reference to Taylin's goth wardrobe–all black. “See ya.” He walks past.

Kiara slides onto the empty stool next to me. “Hey, Jule. Seat taken?”

“It's all yours.”

“Sorry.” She grins and glances over her shoulder.

“What?”

“I thought for sure Mr. Hot Bod would sit with you. I saw you two walking in the hall, and he was giving off definite territorial signals.”

“Signals? No.” I shake my head. “I was just showing him where the room was.”

“Whatever.” She flips her dark cascade of tiny, tightly beaded braids over one shoulder. “He's sitting with dark, angsty Taylin, but staring at you. Did you see those bandages on her wrist? Word has it she tried to off herself a week ago. They say she's some sort of witch.”

I barely pay attention to Kiara. The last thing I'm interested in is gossip. It could just as easily be about me.

“Her birthday is on Halloween; creepy, huh?”

Goosebumps rise on my arms as the air conditioning, swooping down from the vent, wars with the heat flushing through me. I feel eyes locked on me, Luke's gaze like a heat lamp touching my back.

“Luke and Taylin are cousins,” I mumble and open to the page Mr. Perkins wrote on the board.

“Kissing cousins? It's legal if they are at least third cousins out.”

“Gross, Kiara.”

She shrugs and taps her pencil on the page. “I'm just saying, he's sizzlin'. If he was my cousin, I'd kiss him.”

I shake my head and Mr. Perkins starts to review the scientific method, cutting off any more discussion. Sizzling? I let out a long breath and rub my arms. Definitely.

So, if my life is hell and Luke Whitmore is sizzling, does that make him Lucifer? I drop my pencil and bend to pick it up, casually glancing under my arm toward him. His dark eyes follow me down as he scoops up his own #2. I jerk up and face forward, a shiver running from the roots of my hair to the tips of my ice-blue toes. Definitely devil material.

* * *

“Let me see your schedule,” I demand when Luke shows up in my PE class. First chem, then English, now PE? “Are you a stalker?”

“Never been convicted.” He gives me that casual grin, but I resist the urge to smile back. I haven't been able to concentrate through the last two classes, not with his stares and deep voice. And now he's going to witness my inept, non-existent athletic ability.

“You're not taking third-year French.”

“
Je parle
déjà
Français couramment
.”

I purse my lips tight. So, he doesn't need third-year French. Even his accent rolls off his tongue like an authentic Frenchman.

“And no drama?”

He shrugs. “I'm taking AP Art. My mother's idea. The rest is…coincidence.”

He sits on the bleacher next to me. First day of school means no dressing out. Just rules and lockers.

“Hey, Jule.” Rachel Manx slides down the bleacher. The girl hasn't talked to me since the eighth grade. Talking
about
me doesn't count. She either wants the scoop on my mom, or she's just trying to get near Luke. I can stomach the second possibility, so I go with that.

“Rachel, Luke. Luke, Rachel.” I throw out the introduction like a bone and hope she'll pant after it.

Rachel scoots around to sit next to Luke. She holds out her hand. “Hi. So, you're new. Where are you from?”

“Boston,” he answers and shakes her princess-limp hand.

“That's right,” she exclaims, her hyper-mascaraed eyes popping wide. “Your dad is Oscar Whitmore, the new assistant coach of the Blizzards!”

“You know hockey?” he asks. “I play.”

“I love hockey,” she gushes.

Yeah, right. Rachel knows enough to talk to the hot-bod hockey player.

I lean back against the bleacher and count the retired basketball jerseys and pennants hanging from the rafters. I wonder if they wash those jerseys before hanging them up. Maybe that's why the gym always stinks.

Assistant Coach MacGuire passes forms and lists of rules down the line of students.

“Where do you play?” Rachel asks. “There isn't a team at Cougar Creek.”

“There are some leagues over at the IcePlex.”

“Oh, I love the IcePlex. I took figure skating lessons there.”

Yeah, when she was, like, nine. I take a green form and hand the pile to Luke. His fingers brush mine and I jerk back, almost dropping the stack.

“I've got them,” he says as I flounder.

I catch Rachel's pursed lips. “Jule, I've been meaning to stop by and see if there is anything I can do to help.”

Oh, here it comes. “Nope, we're just fine.” I pick up one green paper that fluttered to the polished wood planks and give her a tight, close-lipped smile.

She tips her head down and looks up at me with big, innocent eyes. “Now, Jule, everyone knows that you all aren't fine at home.” She shakes her highlighted head. “My mom wanted me to ask if she can bring a meal over.” Two months ago might have been nice. I hardly think her mom is offering now. More likely it has everything to do with embarrassing me in front of Luke. Well, I don't really care what Luke or Rachel thinks, I tell myself, and straighten in my seat.

“Geez, that's nice,” I say, playing along. “I prefer lasagna, lots of mushrooms.” I squeeze out a smile and stand up just as Carly's dad, Coach Ashe, dismisses us to find our lockers. What are the chances I'll ever see a noodle from Rachel's mother? Nil.

After PE I stop by my locker to grab my French notebook.

“So, you like lasagna?” Luke's voice makes me catch my breath, throwing my heart again into overdrive. Up and down. It's like running sprints. He looks around my locker door. “Sorry. Did I scare you?”

“Startled,” I say and bend down to pick up the pouch of pens that had slapped against the linoleum. He studies me as I stand. I feel his scrutiny, like he's trying to see inside me. I turn. “What?”

“What?” he repeats.

“You keep staring at me. Like you're trying to see through me, into my skull or something. Like yesterday, except today you aren't scowling.”

“I'm…trying to figure you out. I've never met anyone like you before.” His words start slow, but roll along into a smooth sentence, punctuated with narrowed eyes.

“Well, I'm just a normal girl. I'm not in the witness protection program or a fugitive. I'm boring old Jule Welsh.” I slam my locker a little harder than normal. That's what an extra dose of adrenaline will do to a person. “So there's nothing to figure out.”

“
Je ne pense pas que tu sois spécial
.” The French words flow like he's the hero of a romantic movie. I swallow hard as my mind swirls around the translation.

“I'm not special,” I whisper. I feel my face flame and turn toward French. I slide into my seat, thankful for the familiar class without Mr. Dark and Hot making my heart race. As Madame Peele drones on in her perfect accent as she hands out review sheets, my mind whirls around the bizarre day. A little shiver tickles up my spine.

I decide to go straight from French to drama. I'll just use my French notebook if I need to write anything down. This way, I won't run into Luke, with his focused stares and unspoken questions. I just want to get through this day.

“Hi, Jule,” Ms. Bishop says when I sit back in one of the theater seats in the auditorium. “Have you seen the audition dates for the fall performance?”

My smile is a tight line. “Actually, I sort of wanted to talk with you about that.”