Immortal City (Immortal City 1)

Jacks looked at him, dissatisfied. Wordlessly, he headed up the stairs.

Lola had turned his bed down already, but Jacks wasn’t tired. He pulled off his shirt but stopped undressing as his gaze drifted out the window. He walked to the glass door for his private deck, unlocked it, and stepped out into the cold night.

Angel City unrolled beneath him like a carpet of twinkling stars. For the first time ever he squinted and forced his eyes to search among the tiny, individual lights of the city. He spent almost a minute examining the lights below until he found it. A tiny, blinking sign tucked into the bottom of the hill.

The sign for Kevin’s Diner.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, his mind kept returning there, to the back room, and to the girl. That flash in her eyes when their hands touched. And what had he felt? He watched the sign. It blinked and blinked. Then went dark. Jackson let his eyes defocus, and the city returned to an unbroken, glimmering whole.

CHAPTER TEN

Maddy woke before her alarm went off. She had tossed and turned all night. In her half-conscious mind, the strange images of the frozen diner played over and over like some kind of surreal nightmare. And he was there as well, in the back room with her. She saw his pale blue eyes, his cruelly perfect features. Again and again, she relived him manipulating her. He was probably dying with laughter inside while he made up the whole story. He was making fun of her, and she fell for it. She must have looked so foolish to him. Yet under it all was a tiny voice, a lone note of discord in the chorus of her thoughts: it was the hope that what had happened between them in the back room—and what she had felt—was real. When she couldn’t lie in bed any longer, she pulled a shirt from a stack of laundry, dressed, and went downstairs.

Outside, the morning was soft and gray, the Angel City sign barely visible on the misty hillside. Uncle Kevin sat at the kitchen table in his robe, reading the AC Times. When he looked up at her, his eyes were tired. His face, Maddy thought, had changed. It was lined with worry and looked somehow older.

“Morning,” she said quietly.

“Morning. Why are you up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Maddy said, sitting on a step at the base of the stairs.

Kevin nodded. “Me neither.”

He stood and took down a mug from the cupboard. He poured her coffee, then took two slices of bread from a bag on the counter.

“Toast?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Kevin placed butter and strawberry jam on the table. Maddy shuffled over the faded linoleum of the kitchen and sat down. She drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. He poured her a glass of OJ—they always had the generic store brand from concentrate, but Maddy thought it tasted pretty good. She picked at the toast Kevin set in front of her.

“I’m really sorry about last night,” she said at last.

“It wasn’t your fault, Maddy,” Kevin said, his voice gruffer than usual.

“Well, I’m sorry I let things get as far as I did. Even though he asked for an application—” she said, then stopped herself. It was so embarrassing to think about in their little kitchen in the daylight. Interviewing the world’s most famous Angel for a part-time position at Kevin’s Diner. And the way he had . . . bewitched her. The way he had made her believe there was something between them. Stupid, stupid girl. “I just should have been more careful,” she muttered, and took a vicious bite of her toast. “Are you sure you don’t need help with the cleanup?”

Kevin shook his head. “No, it’s really not that bad,” he said. “Just some broken plates and glasses; we’ll be open for lunch.”

“Okay,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. She let the guilt wash over her.

She walked to school with her head down and her hood up, as usual. She waded through the usual crowds, not looking up until she got to school. When she did, she was surprised to see a curious pair of eyes staring back at her. A girl from calc, Maddy thought her name was Lucy, had been watching her. Maddy quickly looked away, hiding herself behind a curtain of hair until the girl had passed. It was odd. Maddy turned and saw a pair of guys, sophomores, looking at her too. Their gaze was curious, intent. Something was different.

As she approached her locker, she could already see Gwen there, waiting impatiently for her. Her eyes looked like they were about to bug out of their sockets.

“Hey,” Maddy said as she approached.

“You little bitch!” Gwen exclaimed, holding her phone out. On the screen, to Maddy’s shock, was a picture taken in Kevin’s Diner. A picture from last night. There was Maddy standing just behind Jackson Godspeed, looking terrified, in her waitress uniform. Ew. The headline under the photo read in all caps:

“JACKSON GODSPEED TRASHES DINER”

Maddy could feel the hot blood rushing into her cheeks as she read the blog’s embellished detailing of the previous night.

“You’re on every Angel blog,” Gwen said excitedly. “Now, I want details and they better be juicy!”

Maddy hazarded a glance down the hall. More intrusive eyes stared back. Assessing. Prying. Even the cheerleaders were looking at her. Everybody knew. She opened her locker and tried to use the door as a shield for her face.

“Nothing really happened,” she said as she pulled her books out.