The Chase Page 0,7

inside you. Ever since-"

"We have to go to P.E.," Jenny said abruptly.

"I thought you wanted to cut."

"Not anymore." Jenny didn't want anything else to change. She wanted to be safe, the way she was before. She wanted to be a regular junior looking forward to summer vacation in a month or so. She wanted Tom.

"Come on," she said. For a moment, just as they left, dropping iced tea bottles in the metal trash can by the English block, she had the feeling that someone was watching her. She turned her head quickly, but she couldn't see anything there.

Tom watched her go.

He felt bad lurking there in the shadow of the English building, behind the scarred metal pillars that held the porchlike roof up. But he couldn't make himself come out.

He was going to lose her, and it was his own fault.

The thing was, he'd blown it already. He'd screwed up. The most important thing in his life-and he hadn't even realized it was the most important thing until seventeen days ago. April 22. The day of the Game. The day Julian came and took Jenny away.

Of course he'd loved Jenny. Loving was easy. But he'd never thought about what it might feel like without her, because he'd always known she'd be there. You don't sit around and think to yourself, "I wonder what it would feel like if the sun didn't come up tomorrow."

He'd assumed things, taken things for granted. He'd been lazy. That was what came of having everything handed to you on a platter. Of never having to prove yourself, of having people fawn on you because of your good looks and your hot car and your knuckleball. Of, essentially, being Tom Locke. You get to think you don't need anything.

Then you find out how wrong you are.

The problem was that just when he'd started to realize how much he needed Jenny Thornton, she'd discovered she didn't need him.

He'd seen her in that Other Place, inside that paper house that had turned real. She'd been so brave and so beautiful it made his throat hurt. She'd functioned absolutely perfectly without him.

It might still have been all right-except for Julian. The Shadow Man. The guy with eyes the color of glacier pools, the guy that had kidnapped all of them because he wanted Jenny. Which had been an indisputably evil, but in Tom's view, completely understandable thing to do.

Jenny had changed since Julian had gotten to her, Maybe the others hadn't really noticed yet, but Tom had. She was different now, even more beautiful, and just-different. There were times when she sat with a faraway look as if she were listening to things no one else could hear. Listening to Julian's voice in her mind, maybe.

Because Julian had loved her. Julian had said it, had said all the things that Tom had never thought to mention. And Julian had the charm of the devil.

How could Jenny resist that? Especially being as innocent as she was. Jenny might actually think that she could change Julian, or that he wasn't as evil as he seemed. Tom knew differently, but what was the use of telling her? He'd seen them together, seen Julian's eyes when he looked at her. He'd seen the kind of spell Julian could cast. When Julian came for Jenny next time, Tom was going to lose.

So now all he could do was lurk in shadows, watching her. Noticing the way wisps of her hair blew over the rest of it, light as cornsilk and the color of honey in sunlight. Remembering her eyes, a dark green touched with gold. Everything about her was golden, even her skin. Funny he'd never bothered to tell her that. Maybe that was what Dettlinger had been doing just now. Tom wasn't surprised that the football star had come to talk with Jenny; he was just surprised at how fast he'd gone away. He wished he could have heard the conversation.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter how many guys approached Jenny. Tom was only worried about one-and that one had better watch out.

Tom couldn't have her anymore, but he could protect her. When Julian did come back-not if; Tom was virtually certain that he would-when Julian did come back for Jenny, and tried to play on her innocence again, Tom would be there to stop it. He didn't quite know how, but he would stop it.

Even if it killed him.

And if it made Jenny hate him, so be it. She'd thank him someday.

Moving