I shuddered but resisted the urge to look.

By the time I got to the front of the high school, I knew I was being watched by more than just the thing that had stopped to taste my blood. I could feel them all around me, some hidden behind or inside buildings, others in plain sight. I could have seen them, if I’d turned, but forcing a confrontation would be pointless, as long as they were letting me move around freely. So I decided to walk as long as they let me, and face any obstacles when they actually stepped into my path.

My stomach churned with nerves as I passed the front entrance, trying not to see the cracked glass doors and windows or wonder what had hit them. I didn’t want to see the vines trailing over and around the front steps and scrolled concrete rails, and I didn’t want to hear the dry scratching sound as they slithered over one another.

The sky was darker than ever, and that was a mercy, as well as a curse. With just the reddish light of the scarlet half-moon hanging on the horizon, I wouldn’t be able to clearly see whatever was coming for me until it actually popped out and said boo. If ignorance was bliss, I was prepared to be ecstatic here in the Netherworld until I could escape it entirely.

At the edge of the building, I turned left and stepped off the sidewalk, headed for the quad entrance to the cafeteria. That was exactly where Luca and I had been caught by the hellion earlier, but all the other routes to the cafeteria involved going through the school and picking my way through nests of vines, in near darkness this time.

I crossed the grass quickly, trying to ignore the sounds following me, as well as the fact that they weren’t well defined enough to truly be called footsteps. I didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

As I neared the corner of the building, a new sound set my nerve endings on fire and raised hairs all over my body. More footsteps crunched through the grass, but this set was coming from the quad, ahead and to my left. The hellion? Running from him would do no good, because he could evidently appear wherever he wanted, and if he found out I’d escaped the jungle gym cage, he’d find a better place to keep me this time.

Or maybe he’d just eat me.

I stopped and pressed my back against the brick wall, wondering suddenly if my “ignorance is bliss” philosophy was a mistake from the beginning. Maybe if I knew what was coming for me, I’d be better prepared to fight. Or run, since I’d never actually been in a fight. Or hide, if running wasn’t an option. Or…

The footsteps approached the corner and a shadow stretched out across the grass, an inky shape in the greater darkness. I squeezed my eyes shut as logic and fear came to a stalemate inside me and I froze, hating myself a little for my own indecision. Was this the best I had? Close my eyes and hide in the shadows, wishing for the big bad to pick another target?

I wanted the courage to face whatever was coming to kill me, but who was I kidding? I didn’t even havethe guts to defend Laura—my own best friend—when Peyton started ragging on her, so what good would I be against an actual monster?

The footsteps came closer. My jaw clenched. I would look. This time, I would be strong. I would open my eyes in three…two…

Something touched my arm and I sucked in a deep breath to scream. But then lips pressed against mine, soft and warm, and the breath I’d taken froze in my throat. I kissed back for a second without thinking, caught up in the eager touch, the pleasure where I’d expected pain.

Then my senses came roaring back and my eyes flew open, but the face was too close, the world too dark. I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing or feeling, and I couldn’t pull away, because of the wall at my back. So I wedged my hands between me and a solid, cotton-covered chest and shoved.

Luca came into focus as he stumbled backward, recovering from surprise with a grin I ached to indulge even though I wanted to smack it off his face. “What was that for?” he asked, staring into my eyes in the dark.

“Why’d you kiss me?” I asked, instead of answering his question.

He shrugged. “You were about to scream, and that would have attracted attention.” He frowned and glanced around in the dark, obviously just now hearing the sounds that had been following me all along. “Though it sounds like you’ve already done that.”

“So, what? You couldn’t just say ‘Shh’?”

“I could have.” His grin widened, his eyes sparkling in the red-tinted moonlight. “But this was more fun.”

I knew better than to admit that I agreed. “I was coming to rescue you. How’d you get out?”

Another shrug. “Netherworld fun fact—monster flesh crisps up nicely with direct exposure to an open flame.”

“Open flame?”

“Turns out the gas stoves in the kitchen actually work. Also turns out that vegetable oil functions nicely as an accelerant.”

My eyes widened. “Impressive.”

“Thanks. You?” he asked, as I let him lead me away from the building.

“Good old-fashioned bloodletting.” I showed him the gash on my palm, crusted over with dried blood, and he raised one dark brow.

“Gruesome, but obviously effective. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“You have no idea what’s in me,” I said, and then I realized that that statement applied to us both. I wasn’t sure what I had in me either.

“I intend to find out, if we ever get out of here.”

I hoped he couldn’t see my stupid grin in the dark, because I couldn’t banish it—until I noticed how many dark shapes lingered on the edge of my vision, lumbering slowly toward us. We’d be surrounded soon. We needed to get out of the open.