“You going to stand there spying on me all day long?” Gemma turned. She’d smiled because she’d noticed I was there.

  I smiled back at her and folded my arms behind my head. “I was just wondering whether I should leave you to your book boyfriend or demand your attention.”

  “What did you decide?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  I shot forward and snatched the book out of her hands. “That I’m better.” I planted a quick kiss on her mouth and darted away, the loot in my hand.

  “Hey! Give that back!”

  “Let’s see, who do we have here?” I opened the book to scan a few words as she leaned over the back of her seat. “Damon and Kitty. Interesting names . . .”

  “That’s not all. If you must know, he’s quite the hunk,” she teased.

  “Oh, is that so?”

  “Yep,” she said, her expression sly.

  “Are you saying I should be jealous?” I dematerialized to change places and seconds later she was sitting on my lap. She looked around, confused. I’d moved so fast she couldn’t even tell how she’d ended up there.

  “Well, actually . . .” She touched my nose with hers. “Damon’s a really hot alien. On the other hand, you’re here in flesh and blood.”

  “Oh, is that the only reason?!”

  She shook her head and moved her mouth to my ear. “It’s also because . . .” She stroked my arm provocatively and nimbly whisked the book out of my hands. “Gotcha!”

  I laughed. “So it’s true? I’m competing with that guy? I’ll have to work hard to capture your complete attention.”

  “C’mon, cut it out!” Gemma laughed and hit me on the chest. A tremor ran through my body the instant she touched me.

  I went serious again and brushed my thumb against the paint on her cheeks. “These look good on you. They remind me of last night.” With her so close, sitting on my lap, I was in danger of losing control.

  Gemma touched the yellow streaks on her face. “Yeah. I look like a warrior.”

  “You are a warrior,” I replied in a heartbeat, and she kissed me. I slid my hands under her loose yellow jersey and she stopped, laughing against my mouth.

  “Hey . . . People can see us, you know!”

  “So what? I don’t care.” I pulled her closer and continued to kiss her.

  “Evan!” She looked around to draw my attention to the kids on stage who were stealing glances at us.

  I relaxed in my seat and raised my hands. “Okay, you win this time, but only because I can’t stay for long anyway.” She nodded without asking questions. “Aren’t you going to the game?” I asked, pulling at her jersey.

  “My class is outside playing snow volleyball in the Olympic Oval and I’m not allowed, so I’d rather stay here.”

  “Why’s your friend still up on stage?”

  Gemma looked at Jeneane, who had started reciting her lines. “It’s the guys’ team on the field. They’re holding auditions for the spring musical in a few days and she wants the lead role.”

  “Doesn’t she always get the lead role?”

  “Yeah, but this time she has competition. There’s a freshman girl who’s really good and might steal the part from under her nose.”

  “Jeneane’s giving it all she’s got, I see.”

  “Yeah. She won’t stop rehearsing. By now I know all her lines by heart.”

  “How’d the pie-eating contest go?” I asked, hiding a smile.

  “I didn’t stand a chance. Ginevra, Nausyka, and Anya creamed everybody. To compensate, Jeneane outdid everyone at the opening ceremony and clinched our team’s victory during the sing-thing.”

  “Which would be . . . ?”

  “A competition among all the classes to see who sings the LPHS Alma Mater best. It’s what kicks off the Winter Carnival, and the winners get a ton of points.”

  “What else is planned?”

  “Let’s see . . . they’ve already done the relay race, the tug-of-war, and the alligator walk.”

  “Sounds like a dangerous game,” I joked, making Gemma laugh.

  “I didn’t take part in it, anyway. The broomball match starts in half an hour. Today it’s the girls’ team’s turn and I’ll just be cheering them on. What a drag.”

  I glanced at the stage. Her friend also wore the senior team’s yellow uniform for the Winter Carnival games. I could read in Gemma’s subconscious how much she wanted to play. She’d always been a tomboy and she liked a challenge. It must have been hard for her to accept the faculty’s decision, but after all they had no way of knowing the baby could withstand far more than a game of broomball. Gemma’s fear of having to leave her life behind was right there around the corner and she clung to the need to live every day to the fullest.

  “I bet they’ll win, with you cheering them on,” I said, trying to boost her spirits.

  She crinkled her nose. “There’s no way they can lose, with Ginevra, Anya, and Nausyka on the team.”

  I looked over my shoulder. From the back row, Nausyka shot me a scornful greeting. She was pretending to read something as she watched over Gemma. “But they aren’t even on the team,” I said in disbelief.

  “Ha, that’s nothing! You should see what they did to their uniforms.”

  “I can imagine.” I grinned. There was nothing surprising about that. With three Witches in the rink, I was sorry to miss the game. It would have been fun to watch. I pushed the hair from her face and smiled. I adored the feisty side of her. I’d probed the souls of thousands of mortals, but Gemma’s was like no other. “I’d better go. I wouldn’t want someone to miss their big date,” I joked.

  “Well, whoever it is, I bet they’d be more than happy to miss their date with death.”

  I laughed, assuming my angelic guise. It was quite rare for Gemma to manage to joke about my duties as a Subterranean. That aspect of me still upset her—which was understandable, given that she herself had been one of my targets.

  “See you later,” I murmured, just as Jeneane called from the stage: “Hey, you two!”

  We turned to look at her. She shook her head and squinted, confused. “What happened to Evan? He was there a second ago.”

  Gemma cast me a fleeting glance, smiling. My eyes must have been shining like liquid silver in the half-light, but Jeneane couldn’t see me. “Yeah, and angels have wings. Evan left a while ago. You were just too wrapped up in yourself to notice.”

  “Hey, is the pregnancy turning you into a bitch?”

  “If that’s what causes it, then you must be pregnant too,” Gemma called back.

  “Very funny!”

  I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh at how they were needling each other or worry that Gemma was becoming more like Ginevra.

  “So tell me, did you even listen to me singing? That’s why you came here, wasn’t it?”

  “For that and to have some peace and quiet so I could read.”

  “You mean you prefer make-believe stories to my beautiful voice?”

  Gemma smiled. “A story is a big lie that everyone loves listening to.”

  “Not me. Close that book and experience the real world—that is, me.”

  “No, you get down here or we’ll be late for the game.”

  “Is it so late already?” Jeneane jumped down from the stage and walked up the aisle to her. She was glowing. “Well? How was I?” she asked casually.

  Was Gemma becoming more like Ginevra? Maybe I was just imagining things. I was getting more nervous with every passing day. Jeneane bounced up and down, clapping her hands. “C’mon, I’m psyched for the game! We’re going to bring home lots of points, I know we are!”

  “I bet you’re right,” Gemma said softly, glancing my way. She also knew they were bound to win, thanks to her Sisters. I took her hand in mine and she squeezed it to say goodbye before I vanished. It was time for me to focus on my other assignment. My work wasn’t done.

  I found myself in the corridor of a hospital, in front of the heavy door that separated me from my target. Something caught my eye. I turned and saw a man staring at me through the window of one of the ORs. He was an Executioner, like me. Hospitals were always full of us. Still, it had become hard for me to look at other Subterraneans without suspicion, without thinking they were my enemies. Once I used to ignore them. The only thing that had mattered to me—the only thing I knew—were orders. But Gemma had changed all that. She’d changed me. My dedication to my obligations as a Subterranean hadn’t changed; ferrying Souls to prevent the Witches from claiming them was still an essential principle of my nature as a Soldier, but now my priority was to protect Gemma. That was why I could never let my guard down. In every Subterranean I encountered, an enemy might be hiding.

  A gurney was rolled out of the OR and the Angel of Death followed it. I went back to focusing on my mission and entered my operating room. I walked slowly among the doctors, who moved cautiously. A twelve-year-old girl, Yoko, was lying face down as the doctors stitched up her skin after having operated on her kidneys.

  I moved farther into the OR, to another bed where a young woman was lying in the same position. Her name was Corinne. She was twenty-two years old and American, the one who’d been driving the car that had crashed into Sachiko’s motorcycle.

  A single heartbeat ran across the monitors, letting out a steady beep. It was the little girl’s. Corinne, on the other hand, had been dead on arrival. She must have been an organ donor because the doctors had just removed one of her kidneys to give it to the girl so at least she might live.

  I waited for the doctors to finish with Yoko and then freed the Soul trapped in Corinne’s body.

  “Hands off, perv.” I spun around. Corinne was behind me, glaring at me. “Well? You one of those types who’s into corpses?”

  A smile escaped me and I stood up straight. “You’re pretty lively for somebody who just died.”

  “Oh, no!” She touched her face, pretending to be shocked. “I’m dead? Gasp! Why?!” A second later she was serious and condescending again. “I figured out I was dead when I was screaming my head off and nobody even noticed, Einstein. I mean, c’mon! They could at least have covered me up, don’t you think?! I’m dead for ten minutes and the first thing they do is take my clothes off. Practically the story of my life,” she grumbled, waving her arms in the air. “Speaking of which, shouldn’t I be transparent?” She turned her hands over and back again, examining them.

  “Would you stop pacing?” I asked with a smile. “It’s making me dizzy.”

  She stopped and took a closer look at me. Her hair was black, cut short, and she had big blue eyes. “So who the hell are you, anyways?! Was it you who freed me? If it was, then thanks. I couldn’t keep on screaming like that. I was out of breath.”

  “I can believe that,” I muttered, given how much air she was using even now with her nonstop talking. “Just so you know, you don’t need to breathe any more.”

  Her eyes bulged. “You don’t say!” She closed her mouth and pretended to hold her breath, then exhaled hard and shook her head, rolling her eyes at me. “You think I hadn’t noticed that?! It’s the first thing you notice when you die. So where’d you get your Undead License anyway? I’ve never seen the handbook, but I’m pretty sure the first rule is: always answer questions. Well? You want to tell me what you’re doing here? Are you a voyeur or what?”

  “What,” I replied, grinning.

  “Right, so this is a guessing game? Okay, let’s see . . . Are you my spirit guide? Are you here to teach me all the tricks of being an evil poltergeist?”

  “In a way.”

  “I bet you’re like that guy in the movie Ghost. What was his name? You know, that guy, the ghost in the subway.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but no, you’re not an evil poltergeist. If you were, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Buddy, if you don’t know the movie Ghost you definitely are weir—He didn’t have a name! That’s why I couldn’t remember it! No name, can you be more pathetic than that? So what about the tricks?”

  “I’m not here to teach you tricks.” I tried to dam the raging river, but the woman was a hurricane of energy.

  “Then what do you want from me?! Who are you?” she asked, finally serious.

  “I’m your ride.” I smiled.

  Incredibly, Corinne finally closed her mouth. My revelation seemed to have stopped her in her tracks, but it only lasted a second. “Whoa! So I have to come with you in order to go . . .” She moved her hands up and down, simulating scales. I took one of them and raised it to show her we were going up and not down. She twisted her mouth and nodded, pleasantly surprised. “Can’t say I expected it. Nice that they sent me a hottie!”

  Her brazenness made me laugh. I held my hand out to her. She looked at it hesitantly. “So now what happens? I take your hand and we start flying around the room?”

  “Something like that.”

  Corinne glanced one last time at little Yoko and her face fell. “She’ll have to find another nanny. I won’t be much good to her dead,” she joked, but the sarcasm couldn’t hide her sadness. She loved the little girl.

  “She won’t forget you,” I promised. I took her hand and she smiled, but then, just as she was fading, something crossed her mind.

  “Hang on! I’ve got more ques—”

  I shook my head and ran a hand over my neck. Rarely did you encounter spirits like Corinne. I materialized in the corridor and glanced at the other rooms again. There was no trace of the Subterranean I’d seen before, but in a quiet, dimly lit room, a woman was kneeling at the foot of a bed, praying under her breath. I paused to study her, listening to her words. She wasn’t praying for her elderly father to get better—she knew he was suffering and there was nothing more they could do to help him. She was praying for his soul, asking her God to give him peace and put an end to his pain. The woman had no way of knowing it, but a Subterranean was already there for him, waiting beside the window.

  A group of doctors ran toward me and I dodged out of their way, then walked to the waiting room, where a doctor was talking to the little girl’s mother. She’d left her husband to pursue her career, but it hadn’t left her with much time to dedicate to her family. I didn’t need to enter her dreams to know she was reflecting on her decisions—I’d learned to read the human soul. Later that night she would phone her husband. If the nanny’s kidney wasn’t compatible, their daughter might not survive either. But that wasn’t what was written; her time hadn’t come yet. The little girl had been very lucky because my work was done for the day. I smiled and turned away, anxious to return to Gemma.

  It was pitch dark in the little room I materialized in but I could already sense Gemma’s heartbeat as she neared. I opened the door a crack and saw her. She was walking with Nausyka and Jeneane, who was talking nonstop. The Witch seemed interested in her chatter and was giving her advice better left unfollowed. Gemma, on the other hand, was engrossed in her book. The hallway was deserted. The students were all at the game. When she was close enough, I grabbed her hand and pulled her inside.

  Gemma let out a shriek but I covered her mouth, gesturing for her to be quiet. When she realized it was me she nodded, so I let her go. I pricked my ears toward the hallway, where Jeneane had just noticed she was gone. “Gemma? Where are you?! Where’d she go? Did you see her?” she asked Nausyka.

  The Witch didn’t reply but I knew she’d spotted me. In fact, she’d sensed my presence even before hearing my thoughts. It was almost impossible for a Subterranean to hide from a Witch. I could, though. Gemma laughed and I pulled her against me. “Shh . . . or they’ll find us,” I warned her in a whisper.

  “Evan, what are you doing?!” she reproached me, still laughing.

  “I thought that since you can’t play games with the others, you could still have a little fun with me.” I kissed her neck.

  “Are you going crazy?”

  I kissed her again. “I’ve always been crazy.”

  “Evan, they might see us!” she protested, laughing. She tried to break free but I held her tighter.

  “Nobody’s going to see us in here.” I drew her close, my breath coming quickly against her neck.

  “What do you think you’re doing? We’re at school!” She put her hands on my shoulders to push me away but then sank her nails into my skin, her breathing growing ragged from my kisses.

  “I have every intention of making you forget that guy Damon.”

  Gemma’s breath came fast when my lips closed on her earlobe. Her fingers gripped the tattoo on my arm. “I forgot him the moment you grabbed my hand to drag me in here.”

  I smiled and pulled back. “Good: mission accomplished.”

  “What are you doing? Why did you stop?” she protested. She stumbled and I pulled her against me to keep her from falling. She reached one hand over her head and with a click a dim light barely illuminated the cramped closet we were in.

  “Didn’t you tell me to stop?” I loved teasing her, especially when she looked at me with those mischievous eyes.

  She rested a hand on my chest, but something happened when she touched me—an image burst into my mind: the two of us, our skin sweaty and our breathing mingled as we made love in that broom closet. My lips moved over her, my hands touched her all over . . . Gemma pulled away from me and the vision vanished. We stared at each other for a long moment, stunned, trying to understand what had just happened. My ravenous eyes were drawn to her lips and desire overwhelmed me. In a flash, my mouth found hers and I pushed Gemma against the wall almost brutally. She returned my kiss passionately and yanked my shirt up. I pulled it off, trying to maintain the contact between our bodies, and she did the same. My dog tag clinked against her necklace, both of them cold against our burning-hot skin. I grabbed her by the thighs and lifted her up, wanting to meld with her. Overcome by the same need, Gemma wrapped her legs around my waist and sank her fingers into my hair.