“To Be or Not to Be” Is a Question,
Not a Pickup Line
Jaxon walks me right up to my classroom door—which we get to in what I’m guessing is record time, considering there’s no one else in the room, not even the teacher.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I ask as we step inside.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” I glance at the clock. Class should start in less than three minutes, and still nobody’s here. “Maybe we should check if it got—”
“They’re waiting for me to either sit down or leave, Grace.
Once one of those things happens, they’ll come in.”
“Sit down or—” I goggle at him. “So you were just messing with me in the hallway? You do notice how people treat you?”
“I’m not blind. And even if I was, it would still be hard to miss.”
“It’s madness!” He nods. “It is.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say about it? If you know how bizarre it is, why don’t you do something to stop it?”
“Like what?” He gives me that obnoxious smirk from the first day, the one that made me want to punch him. Or kiss
him. Just the thought has my stomach spinning and has me taking a cautious step back.
He doesn’t like the added distance, at least not if his narrowed eyes can be believed. And the way he takes two steps toward me before continuing. “Stand up at the pep rally and reassure everyone that I’m not going to eat them if they get too close? Somehow I don’t think they’ll believe me.”
“Personally, I think they’re more worried about being thrown in high school jail than getting eaten—”
The smirk is back. “You might be surprised.”
“Well, then, you should reassure them. Be friendly. You know, show them that you’re harmless.”
I feel ridiculous even before that left eyebrow of his goes up. “Is that what you think? That I’m harmless?”
Jaxon doesn’t sound insulted so much as astonished, and really, I can’t blame him. Because I’ve never met anyone less harmless in my life. Just looking at him feels perilous. Standing next to him feels like walking a hundred-foot-high tightrope without a net. And wanting him the way I do… wanting him feels like opening a vein just to watch myself bleed.
“I think you’re just as dangerous as everyone gives you credit for. I also think—”
“Yo, Jaxon, at some point, class does need to start,” Mekhi interrupts as he saunters into the room—apparently the only one in this class who isn’t afraid of Jaxon. “You going to take off, or are you going to keep everyone standing around watching you try to woo this girl?”
Jaxon whips his head around to glare at Mekhi, who raises
his arms defensively and takes a big step back. And that’s before Jaxon’s voice drops a full octave as he growls, “I’ll leave when I’m ready.”
“I think you should probably go now,” I tell him, even though I’m as reluctant to see him go as he apparently is to leave. “The teacher needs to start class. Besides, aren’t you the one who told me to keep my head down and not draw attention to myself?”
“That was the old plan.”
“The old plan?” I stare at him, bemused. “When did we get a new plan?”
He smiles at me. “Two nights ago. I told you it wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Wait a minute.” My stomach drops. “Are you telling me the cafeteria, the walk to class… This was all because of Flint?” Just the thought makes me feel awful.
“Flint who?” he deadpans. “Jaxon.”
“It was all because of you,” he tells me.
I’m not sure I believe him, but before I can probe any more, he reaches out and takes hold of one of my curls in that way he does. He rubs it between his fingers for a couple of seconds as he watches me with those unfathomable eyes of his. “I love the way your hair smells.” Then he stretches out the curl before letting it go so it can boing back into place.
“You need to go,” I tell him again, though the words are a lot more breathless this time around.
He doesn’t look happy, but I stare him down.
It takes a few seconds, but eventually Jaxon nods. He
steps back, a grudging look on his face, and it’s only as he moves away that I realize my heart is beating like a heavy- metal drummer.
“Text me a pic of your schedule,” he says as he moves toward the door.
“Why?”
“So I know where to meet you later.” His face melts into a grin, and the butterflies I always feel when he’s around take flight in my stomach.
“I have AP Physics right now, so I’m out in the physics lab and won’t make it back before you have to go to your second period. But I’ll catch up with you later. If I can’t, I’ll have one of the others walk you to class.”
Yeah, because that will help me blend in. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s not a problem, Grace.”
I sigh. “What I mean is I don’t want you to do that. I just want to get to class like everyone else. On my own.”
“I get that. I do,” he continues when I give him a disbelieving look. “But I meant it when I said you aren’t safe here. At least let me watch out for you for a few days, until you learn the ropes.”
“Jaxon—” “Please, Grace.”
It’s the please that gets me, considering I’m pretty positive Jaxon isn’t the kind of guy to ask for something when he can order it. And though I think he’s overreacting, he seems really worried, and if this will set his mind at ease, I guess I can handle it for a few days.
A very few days.
“Fine.” I tell him, giving in as gracefully as I can. “But only until the end of the week, okay? After that, I’m on my own.”
“How about, we renegotiate at the end of the week and see—”
“Jaxon!”
“Okay, okay!” He puts his hands up. “Whatever you say, Grace.”
“Yeah, right. That’s a bunch of—” I break off because he’s gone again. Because of course he is. Because that’s the story of our lives. He disappears, and I get disappeared on.
One of these days, I’m going to turn the tables.
He’s right, though. As soon as he leaves, the classroom floods with people. I try to stand to the side, waiting to see where there might be an empty seat, but Mekhi nods me over to the desk next to him in the second row.
I go, even though I don’t know if a person normally sits there, because it’s nice to have someone in this class to talk to. Especially since he’s grinning at me while everyone else is doing the same old stare-and-glare.
The teacher—Ms. Maclean—bustles in after everyone has taken their seats. She’s dressed in a flowing purple caftan, her wild red hair piled atop her head in a haphazard bun that looks like it’s going to fall down at any second. She’s not young, but she’s not old, either—maybe forty or so—and she’s got a huge smile on her face as she tells everyone to open their copies of Hamlet to Act II.
Half the class has books and the other half has laptops, so I pull out my phone and start looking for a public-domain copy, since I left my book in California. But I’ve barely typed “Hamlet” in the search bar before Ms. Maclean drops a dog-
eared copy on my desk.
“Hello, Grace,” she murmurs in a low voice. “You can borrow one of mine until you can find one of your own online. And since you look like the shy type—despite your association with Katmere’s most notorious student—I won’t make you stand up and introduce yourself to the class. But know that you’re welcome here, and if you need anything, feel free to stop by my office hours. They’re posted by the door.”
“Thanks.” I duck my head as my cheeks start to get warm. “I appreciate it.”
“No worries.” She gives my shoulder a comforting squeeze as she heads back to the front of the room. “We’re excited to have you here.”
Mekhi leans over as I pick up the book and says, “Act two, scene two.”
Thanks, I mouth back just as Ms. Maclean claps her hands.
Then, in true drama queen–style, she throws her arms wide and says in a booming but perfect iambic pentameter:
“Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it, Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was.”
We spend the rest of the class discussing Hamlet’s shift from perfect prince to total downer. With Ms. Maclean doing her drama thing in the front of the room and Mekhi making sly comments in my ear every couple of minutes, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. Mekhi may look intimidating, but he’s way more chill than Jaxon—and also really funny. It’s easy to be around him, and I end up enjoying class a lot
more than I expected to, especially considering I’ve already read the play once this year.
In fact, I enjoy it so much that I’m a little disappointed when the bell rings, at least until I remember that I’ve got art next. Art’s been my favorite class pretty much since elementary school, and I’m excited to see what it’s like here. But it means heading out to the art studio, and that means a detour to my room, where I can put on at least a couple more layers to protect myself from the cold.
It’s only a ten-minute walk to the studio, so I don’t need to put on everything I did the last two times I went outside. But I do need a heavy sweatshirt and a long coat—plus gloves and a hat—if I don’t have any plans to get frostbite. Which I definitely don’t.
I just hope I have enough time to make it to my room and out to the art studio before the next bell rings. Just in case, I speed up a little, hoping to make it to the main staircase before the masses.
“Hey! What’s your rush, New Girl?”
I glance over at Flint with a grin as he comes up on my left side. “I have a name, you know.”
“Oh, right.” He pretends to think. “What is it again?” “Bite me.”
“That’s an interesting first name…and a phrase you might want to be careful saying around here.”
“And why is that exactly?” I lift a brow at him as we weave our way through the halls. Unlike earlier with Jaxon, the whole parting of the halls thing is currently nowhere in effect. In fact, traversing the school with Flint is an awful lot like playing this old video game my dad used to like, where
you have to race to get the frog across the street before one of the eight million cars going by splats it on the pavement.
In other words, it’s a normal high school hallway. I can feel myself relaxing a little more with each near-collision.
“You’re actually going to pretend you don’t know?” “Know what?”
Flint studies me, then shakes his head when I look back at him, brows raised in a definite WTF. “My mistake. Never mind.”
There’s something about the way he says it that has an uneasy feeling sliding through me. It’s the same feeling I got when I saw Jaxon and Lia outside without a jacket yesterday.
The same feeling I got when Flint fell out of that tree and walked away with only a few bruises.
The same feeling I got when Lia was chanting in tongues in the library, even though she had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned several of the Alaskan languages.
“I’m not dense, you know. I am aware that something isn’t quite right here, even if I don’t know what it is yet.”
It’s the first time I’ve acknowledged my suspicions even to myself, and it feels good to give voice to it all, instead of letting the thoughts fester below the surface.
“Are you?” Suddenly Flint is right up in my face, his whole body only inches away from mine. “Are you really?”
I don’t back down, despite the sudden desperation in his voice. “I am. Now, do you want to tell me what it is?”
It takes a minute, but when he next speaks, the worry is gone. And so is everything else except the teasing drawl that’s as much a part of him as his amber eyes and
muscles. It’s like the warning never happened, even before he says, “Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’ve got an odd definition of fun.”
“You have no idea.” He wiggles his brows. “So what are you up to anyway?”
I stare at him. “Do you ever finish any conversation without starting another?”
“Never. It’s part of my charm.”
“Yeah, just keep telling yourself that.”
“I will.” He walks several more feet with me, happily bopping along to a song that’s only in his head. “Where are you going? The classrooms are back that way.”
“I’ve got to go to my room and grab some warmer clothes.
I have art next, and I’ll freeze if I go outside like this.”
“Wait.” He stops dead. “No one told you about the tunnels?”
“What tunnels?” I eye him suspiciously. “Are you messing with me again?”
“I’m not, I swear. There’s a whole network of tunnels that run under the school and lead to the different outbuildings.”
“Seriously? This is Alaska—how did they dig tunnels in the frozen ground?”
“I don’t know. How do they drill in the frozen ground? Besides, summer is a thing.” He gives me the best Boy Scout look in his repertoire. “I promise. The tunnels are real. I just can’t believe the omnipotent Jaxon Vega forgot to mention them to you.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re going to start in on Jaxon now?”
“Of course not. I’m just saying, I’m the one telling you
about the tunnels and keeping you from freezing off all the important parts of your anatomy. He could have mentioned them to you before sending you out into the cruel, cruel winter.”
“It’s fall.” I roll my eyes. “And are we going to do this every time we talk about Jaxon?”
He holds his hands up in mock innocence. “As far as I’m concerned, we never have to talk about Jaxon.”
“Funny claim coming from a guy who keeps bringing him up.”
“Because I’m worried about you. I swear.” He draws an X
over his heart. “Jaxon’s a complicated guy, Grace. You should stay away from him.”
“I find it interesting that he says the exact same thing about you.”
“Yeah, well, nothing says you have to listen to him.” He makes a disgusted face.
“Nothing says I have to listen to you, either.” I give him a shit-eating grin. “You see my conundrum, right?”
“Ooh. The new girl’s got some claws after all. I like it.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re a total weirdo. You know that, right?”
“Know it? I own it, baby.”
I can’t help but laugh as he makes a ridiculous face at me, crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue. “So are you going to show me these tunnels sometime this year, or am I going to have to do my best impression of the abominable snowwoman?”
“Definitely the tunnels. Turns out I’m headed that way myself. Come on.”
He reaches for my hand and makes an abrupt left turn, tugging me down a narrow corridor that I don’t think I would have even noticed if he hadn’t dragged me into it.
It’s long and winding and slopes down so gradually that it takes me a minute to notice we’re descending. Flint keeps a firm grip on my hand as we pass a couple of students coming the other way.
The hallway is so narrow that all four of us have to press our backs up against the wall to keep from crashing into one another as we pass.
“How much farther is it?” I ask as we get back to walking normally. Or at least as normally as we can walk as the ceiling starts to get lower as well. If this keeps up, we’ll be duck-walking through this thing like they had to do in the pyramids.
“Just another minute to the tunnel entrance and then a five-minute walk to the art studio.”
“Okay, cool.” I pull out my phone to check how we are on time—seven minutes—and see that Jaxon has texted me twice. The first one is just a string of question marks that I assume is a reminder about my schedule. And the second is the start of a joke:
Jaxon: What did the pirate say when he turned 80?
Oh my God. I’ve totally created a monster. And I love it.
I text him back a laughing emoji along with a string of question marks of my own. I also text a copy of my schedule
—not because he demanded one earlier but because I want to see if he’ll follow through and find me again. Once the texts are delivered, I shove my phone back in my pocket and try to tell myself that I don’t care that much if he shows
up or not. But it’s a lie, and I am very well aware of that fact.
The light is getting dimmer and dimmer the farther we go down this corridor, and if I were with anyone but Flint (or Jaxon or Macy), I’d be getting nervous. Not because I think there’s anything wrong necessarily, but because I can’t help wondering: If the walkway to the tunnels is this creepy, what are the actual tunnels going to look like?
“Okay, here we go,” Flint finally says as we come up against an old wooden door—one that’s protected by an electronic keypad that has my eyebrows lifting to my hairline. Nothing in my life has ever looked as incongruous as that keypad in the middle of this musty, dusty corridor with a door that looks to be at least a hundred years old.
He punches in a five-digit code so fast that I don’t see any number past the first three. It takes a second, but then the light above the door flashes green at the same time as the door unlocks.
Flint glances over his shoulder at me as he reaches to pull open the door. “You ready?”
“Yeah, of course.” Another glance at my phone tells me we better hustle or I’m going to be late.
Flint holds the door for me, and I smile my thanks at him, but the second I take a step over the threshold, a little voice deep inside me starts screeching—telling me not to go any farther.
Telling me to run.
Telling me to get the hell away from these tunnels and never look back.
But Flint’s waiting for me to go. Plus, if I don’t get moving,
I’ll be seriously late to art. Definitely not the first impression I wanted to make on the teacher of my favorite class.
Besides, this is Flint. The guy who jumped out of a tree and took the brunt of a very nasty fall just to save me. It’s ridiculous to think that I might have to run from him of all people, no matter what Jaxon says.
Which is why I shove all the new and bizarre misgivings I’m suddenly having back down where they belong. And walk straight across the threshold.
