I hastily straighten up, brush my hands off, and turn to walk back toward my house, and that’s when I suddenly hear pounding footsteps getting rapidly closer. I gasp and flatten myself across a tomb. Someone’s running toward me, and I’m out here in the darkness all alone. I curse my stupidity. What if it’s the faux-frat boy who’s unaccounted for, or the person who murdered Glory?
A moment later, a figure shrouded in darkness bursts into the clearing less than a foot away from me, breathing hard. I scream before realizing that it’s Caleb Shaw.
A shirtless Caleb Shaw, with ripped biceps, taut abs, and caramel skin sparkling with moonlit perspiration.
He whirls to face me and pulls out his earbuds. “What are you doing out here?” he demands. “You scared me to death!”
“I scared you?” I manage. Just as quickly, my heart is racing for a different reason entirely.
He wipes his arm across his forehead and then puts his hands on his thighs as he catches his breath. He’s wearing olive green running shorts, dark gray running shoes, and nothing else. “You shouldn’t be out here, Eveny,” he says. “It’s not safe.”
“Well, what are you doing out here?” I counter.
He looks a little embarrassed. “I like running in the cemetery at night when I can’t sleep,” he says. “My dad’s buried here, so I kind of see it as my time to visit him.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. About your dad, I mean. I didn’t know.”
“I don’t talk about it much.”
I study him for a minute. “How old were you when . . . ?”
“Four,” he says. He wipes the sweat from his brow again, and the moonlight highlights the tendons and muscles in his arm. “Not much older than you were when you lost your mom.” He scratches his head and says, “What are you doing in the cemetery anyways?”
“A favor for Chloe.”
“Zandara?” he guesses.
“Yeah.”
He gazes at me for a moment, but seems to accept this. He leans beside me against the tomb, and I’m acutely aware of his near-naked body just inches away.
“You shouldn’t be here all by yourself,” he says, and I have the strange feeling that he’s as nervous as I am.
“Nothing happened,” I tell him.
“But it could have.” He shakes his head and changes the subject. “So Peregrine and Chloe have swayed you to the dark side?”
“I don’t know that I’d call it dark, exactly.”
“I’m not sure this qualifies as light either. You’re standing in a cemetery in the middle of the night, all alone.”
“But now you’re here,” I say before I can second-guess myself.
For a moment, we just stare at each other. In the silence, I can hear both of us breathing rapidly.
“So this protector thing,” I say after a minute. “I don’t get it. Before I got back to Carrefour, you weren’t responsible for me?”
“We’re only officially responsible for our queens when they’re inside the gates. But before you got here, it was kind of like sitting around, waiting to be called into active duty in the military. There was always a good chance I’d have to step up.” He half smiles. “You know, the day I heard you and your aunt were returning, I was out on Sailfish. The waves had been epic that day, so I was feeling great. But then I got home, and my mom was crying. She told me you were on your way back to Carrefour, and she kept telling me I had to figure out how to get out of this.”
The words wound me. “I’m sorry. If you know a way out— If there’s any way to get you out of the obligation—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“No, you don’t understand,” he says. “I didn’t want to do this. Not at first. But it’s in my blood, same as being a queen is in yours. And then I saw you at Glory’s funeral and a day later, I talked to you for the first time.” He shakes his head and says, “When you said, ‘Reading’s cool. . . .’ ”
He trails off, so I say, “You realized I was the biggest dork you’d ever met?”
He laughs. “No. I realized you were different from the rest of this town. You weren’t trying to be anything you weren’t. It was the moment I realized I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I ever let anything happen to you.”
“But you can’t have feelings for me,” I say softly.
“That’s the rule,” he says.
We’re silent for a little while. Finally, I move us into less depressing territory. “So what do you want to do with your life, anyways? I mean, after we graduate next year.”