“Oh, come on. That’s what you —”

“Cole. Are you?”

A pause to convey irritation. “Yeah.”

I kept my voice very even, but it took a lot of effort. “Please come get me.”

Chapter Forty-Three

· cole ·

When I got to the party, I had to park way down the street, and then after I got in, it took me a while to find Isabel. Inside the house, the lights were out and black lights were wired up to make all of the girls glow in the UV. Outside, it was all glitter and experimental dancing because they were that sort of people.

I was recognized, because it was that sort of party, but no one cared, because it was that sort of party. The music made me want to punch a hippie.

Isabel stood by the pool in a group of people who moved their arms with the enthusiasm and gracelessness of the inebriated.

She was posed. One shoulder down, chin up. Her eye makeup was black and thick except for a line of neon blue that matched her eyes. Her mouth was a glass creation, still and chiseled. She wore a white leather dress that made her look one thousand times more sophisticated than most humans. Surrounded by all this glitter, in this noise and silliness, in a world that I clumsily and loudly inhabited, she was beautiful.

The guys in the group gazed at her with fearful awe. They looked at the face she wore right now and saw a stunning ice queen. Something to be thawed.

All I could see was how sad she was.

As I got closer, I heard their voices. The others were hysterical and loud. Isabel’s voice, lower, sounded bored and over it.

I walked up behind her. They saw me before she did. “Hi, princess,” I said, loud enough for them to hear me. “The world called. They want you back.”

She turned to me and her face, just in the split second when she saw me — I was murdered by it. Not because it was cruel, but the opposite. For one fraction of another fraction of a second, I saw naked relief on her face. Then it was gone behind the mask. But I still had it inside me.

“What, are you going?” asked one of the other girls. She was blond and blue-eyed like Isabel, but slightly older and several degrees softer looking.

Isabel’s hand was between her leg and mine. Without any fanfare, I threaded my fingers through hers. “Yes, yes. I’m very needy. Don’t tell anyone.” I flashed a smile at her, a needy one, and the girl’s eyebrows shot up.

“I’ll see you on Thursday,” Isabel said. How easily she hid her misery in plain sight. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her so upset. She might have said something else. I didn’t know. I was leading her away, out of there, through the people, through the gate, down the road, toward the Mustang. We were out of neon and into the dark, but I didn’t let go of her hand.

We got to the car.

“I want to drive,” she said.

I did not want to give her the keys. Wordlessly, I handed them over.

She drove too fast, and she braked too late, but the thing about Isabel Culpeper was that she always managed to pull herself up before she went over the edge.

“Whose party was that?” I asked.

Isabel’s mouth went thin. She didn’t look away from the road. “My boss.”

She floored the Mustang away from a light. We were going to die. I was ceaselessly turned on.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

The engine snarled away in the silence. I didn’t think I’d ever been in a car without the radio turned on before. It felt like the end of the world.

“Why can’t I do it?” she asked, suddenly angry. We screamed around a turn. It was possible this night would end with the car getting impounded, but it seemed like a bad idea to tell her.

“Do what?”

“Just forget about everything. Just go somewhere and get smashed and pretend like there are no problems or consequences. I know why. Because there are still problems and consequences.

And going and — and — partying doesn’t make them go away.

I feel like I’m the only sane person in the world. I don’t get why this whole world runs on stupidity.”

Her voice was getting flatter instead of louder. “You do it.

I saw you drunk. And I know you became a wolf again. I can smell it. I’m not an idiot.”

I didn’t answer for a long time. I knew it maddened her more, but I didn’t know what to say. It was too raw that she hadn’t trusted me, and too raw that, in the end, I hadn’t been trustworthy after all.

I had been sober, but I had also been a wolf, and that was worse.

Isabel didn’t look away from the road. She tore around another turn. “Be afraid. Why aren’t you ever afraid?”

“What do you want me to be afraid of?”

The tires scuffed as we scudded to a noisy, bouncing stop at an unoccupied red light.

“Dying. Failure. Anything.”

I’m afraid you won’t pick up the phone.

I said, “Where are we going, Isabel?”

I sort of meant right then, but I also sort of meant more.

She repeated, “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to go home?”

She didn’t answer. That was a no. That was good. I didn’t want to take her home.

“Do you want to go to my place?”

“I don’t want to be on camera.”

That, at least, I knew how to take care of.

Chapter Forty-Four

· isabel ·

Cole didn’t quite take me home. He directed me to park the Mustang behind his place, but when we got out, he led the way away from the gate and toward the house next door.

“It’s empty,” he told me. “It’s a rental. I checked it out the other day.”

Inside, it was dark in a way that Sierra’s house hadn’t been.

It was dark in a way that was dusky and imperfect, comforting in its realness. The furniture was shabby chic, sparse and pleasant and inexpensive in the way of rental furniture.

Cole gave me a tour, throwing open doors, barely looking inside each. “Bedroom. Kitchen. Mudroom. Half bath. Stair to roof deck. Bedroom. Hallway to side yard.”

Then he led me through a tiny sitting area to a sliding door hidden by a bamboo shade. He threw his shoulder against it until it gave way. On the other side, impossibly, was a miniature garden world. I couldn’t understand it until I stepped through the door. A white sofa sat in the middle of it; just ten feet away was another sliding door to the rest of the house. In between, in this small room, the walls climbed and sprouted and unfolded tropical leaves of all shapes and sizes. Oranges studded one tree, lemons another. Ferns crowded densely at the bases of small palms. Mysterious flowers like exotic birds revealed themselves only slowly, only on a second look. The air smelled like growing things and beautiful things, things people put in bottles and rubbed behind their ears.