Chapter One

Eight-fifteen.

I’m late. Mom--

Pain lanced through Max as her thoughts came full-circle back to the one person she hadn’t wanted to think about. She bit her tongue, hoping the pain might distract her. It didn’t. There was no way around the horrible, bitter truth that lingered at the back of her throat, choking her like acrid second-hand smoke. It ate away at her insides like cancer, burning her lungs, searing her consciousness.

Mom would’ve made sure I wasn’t a nanosecond late.

But Mom was gone. Six feet under, the moldering victim of circumstance, or so the police had said. Their dismissive, dispassionate attitudes and barely-masked lies took the shattered pieces of Max’s heart and ground them into the dust.

They’d refused to reveal the exact details of Heather Rycroft’s ‘untimely demise,’ but Max had overheard enough in the twisted halls of the police station and in whispered rumors to know that her mother had been murdered, cold-blood.

The injustice hadn’t yet failed to amaze and enrage Max. Heat flooded through her veins as she remembered--has it only been a week?--how she’d begged the officers to help, to at least tell her what had really happened. They looked at me as if I were crazy, a freak!

Stop. Thinking. About. It. Max gritted her teeth, focusing on the soft tap of her Converse on the school’s tile hall. It’s dust in the wind; I can’t do anything about it. Mom always told me not to dwell on the past.

A feeling flicked across Max’s subconscious and she looked up, realizing she’d passed her class. Backtracking several strides, she found herself confronted by a large wooden door with a narrow, vertical window in it. A shudder of anxiety passed through her as she confirmed the name and room number above it to be “Mills-R101.”

Ignoring the slight nausea she was feeling, Max took a deep breath, and raised her hand to knock. No getting around it. Gotta take life head-on, Mom always used to say.

Her knuckles rapped lightly, a cold, hollow sound that echoed slightly in the hall. A moment passed before a deep baritone bid, “You may enter.” Max raised an eyebrow.

Shaking her head, she gathered what courage she had, pushing away memories of a painfully-similar-yet-drastically-different situation that, long-story-short, ended with her forced into home-schooling. No matter how hard she’d strived to repress the memories, they never stayed locked away for long.

Will this be like kindergarten? Will they stare and whisper and eventually run me off?

Shaking off her doubts, Max opened the door and slid inside the Calculus class.

One sweep of her gaze over the classroom had her sending her eyes to the floor and her sneakers. The whole room had gone silent; stares burned into her, searing her subconscious, making the edges of her very soul blacken and curl like plastic in a fire.

“Good morning. May I help you?” the clean-cut voice boomed. His greeting was the crack that broke the dam, releasing a muted flood of whispers. Embarrassment sent waves of fire and ice up Max’s spine and over her shoulders, tightening the skin of her scalp. Just like kindergarten, without the gasps and open looks of horror.

Yeah, this is so much better, Max thought sarcastically, throat tight, the back of her eyes pricking with--Tears? I thought I was past tears.

Max shuffled up to the teacher’s desk and handed him a paper in reply to his question. If only you could help me.

Mr. Mills was a large, bear-like man with short, curly blond hair and a beard. His desk was mostly organized, and he had a variety of odd things in his work space--a Darth Vader statue, a yellow rubber chicken and a bright orange triceratops, as well as a small purple plush octopus. Behind him on a counter was a small coffeemaker, several bags of gourmet coffee beans, a grinder, and a mug that matched the one beside his computer. The whole room smelled like coffee.

Max almost smiled.

“Maxine Rycroft,” he stated, handing back the paper.

“Max,” she replied, nodding. Her voice came out as sort of a hoarse whisper.

“Welcome,” he said. He didn’t smile, but Max could see the friendliness in his eyes. “Where’re you from?”

“Here.” The stares she could feel still boring into her back made her uncomfortable, as did the icy-coldness of the room.

Surprise sparked in his eyes, leaving as quickly as it had come. “Home-school?” he asked, half-turning to his computer.

“Yeah.” Max didn’t mean to sound curt or rude, but she really just wanted to go sit down, perhaps fall through the floor, or disappear.

Mr. Mills nodded, clicking on his computer mouse. Seconds later, he stood and moved to a cabinet to grab a textbook. He pulled one out, noted the number, and handed it to her.

“There’s an open seat in the front right there by Mr. Acheron.”

Max swiveled to look and felt her heart skip. Wow.

He was the only one not staring at her in shock/confusion/disgust. And as she looked at him, his gaze slid up her body and met hers. Her breath hitched. His eyes were an amazing shade of red, blood red, with flecks of ruby and amber and garnet. Almond-shaped, tilted just slightly, and rimmed by long, thick black lashes, shaded by dark, finely arched brows.

Silky, natural blue-black hair curled over his forehead, around his high cheekbones and gauged ears, framing his pale, angular face perfectly.

Even sitting down, Max could tell he was tall. His shoulders were broad, his arms lean and sinewy, like the rest of him. He had his elbows propped on his desk, his large hands clasped in front of his mouth, making him look very thoughtful. A pen dangled from his fingers; rings glinted on several digits.

He was positively gorgeous; he made something in her tremble, made fire flicker through her subconscious.

Mr. Acheron’s eyes flicked pointedly to the empty desk beside him and then back to her, eyebrows raising in something between an invitation and a dare.

Max dropped her gaze and shuffled to the desk, wishing she could’ve sat in the back, where it would have been harder for her so-called peers to stare at her, where there wouldn’t have been anyone sitting behind her. She hated having people at her back.

Dropping her messenger bag gently, Max set her book on the desktop and slid into the seat, automatically slumping low, shoulders slightly hunched.

The muted feeling she’d been sensing intensified. Inexplicable fear pricked her, shivering through her subconscious. Involuntarily, she looked over at the red-eyed boy. His eyes slid over, head turning just slightly in her direction. Why did he seem to have an aura saturated with subdued danger and… sensuality? It was as strangely alluring as it was confusing, like his eyes. When she looked at them, she got a distinct hint of predator at the same time the phrase “bedroom eyes” came to mind.

~~~

Zack studied the girl out of the corner of his vision, drawing in her odd, delicious scent and memorizing the perfect contours of her face. She was abnormal, a beautiful anomaly. A diamond amid plain rocks. And, judging by her confused, mildly alarmed expression, she was special in other ways, too.

Does she know what I am? he wondered, even as the hunger panged in him. He looked away from her, lowering his hands to the desk as tension slithered through him and he ran his tongue along his teeth. Would she taste as good as she smells?

He blinked and fisted his hands, suddenly wondering where his ironclad control had gone. Mentally shaking his head at himself, he only half-listened to Mr. Mills as he picked up his pen and slid it along the back of last Friday’s homework paper.

His gaze slid over to the new girl. Max. Maxine Rycroft. She seemed to be studiously concentrating on what Mr. Mills was saying. Her glossy white hair was just long enough to brush her collar bone; she’d tucked one side behind her ear, revealing a small silver cross dangling from her lobe. It made her look innocent, oblivious. The tenseness in her shoulders and the white teeth tugging on a pale pink lip told him just how unsure, how uncomfortable she was.

Desire mixed with the hunger in his veins, surprising him. Zack looked away again, down at what he’d been scribbling--a perfect likeness of her. What the Hell? He blinked, and then found himself staring at her again.

He watched as her eyes flitted briefly in his direction, but she continued to pointedly concentrate, specifically not on him. But she knew, sensed he was looking.

Control, Zack, control. Chirst, you’re not in middle school. Staring is rude. Too bad he really liked looking at her. In fact, he’d would love to paint her…

Zack swallowed, gritted his teeth, stared hard down at his paper. Inevitably, his attention slid back to Max, his head turned just barely in her direction. What is it about her? he wondered.

She fidgeted and finally let her gaze meet his. Sparks burst in Zack’s mind as he took in all the emotions in her eyes, raw and real, reaching out to him, into him. She was sad, in pain, alone. It called to the protective male instinct in him. Yet, she also had a strong passion for life, strength, a fire inside, repressed, but there nonetheless. That was what really got him, right in the gut. That energy was such that had the potential to draw him in like a moth to the flame.

Me, a moth? He almost laughed at how absurd that seemed. A smile pulled the corners of his lips up, one side higher than the other. He watched surprise flit across Max’s pale face, and then her lips twitched too, into a small, uncertain-but-uncontrollable smile.

Then she ripped her eyes away, focused again--valiantly but futilely--on the teacher.

/chapterone