Rot and Ruin (Benny Imura 1)

“Please. ”

Benny gave in, nodded. Nix flicked a glance across the yard to where Morgie lay, apparently dead.

But when she spoke she didn’t say what Benny expected. “Morgie told me about the card you found. The Lost Girl. He said that the second you looked at it, there were little red hearts floating in the air around your head. ”

“Morgie’s an idiot. ” He said it as a joke, but in truth he wanted to go over and beat Morgie to death for opening his big, dumb mouth. Especially since the Lost Girl card was lying under his pillow at the moment, and he’d planned to leave it there when he went to bed tonight. His face was wet hot. He hoped she would think that it was still the postexercise flush, but he knew she was way too smart for that.

“Maybe,” she said, “but is he wrong?”

“How could anyone fall in love with someone on a Zombie Card?” he said with a laugh, but he was at least a full second late in getting the answer out, and he knew it.

“So … you’re not in love?” she said offhand, but Benny was already waiting for a snare, and he knew that this was it. That question had as much to do with Zombie Cards as their school textbooks on American history had to do with the world in which they lived. That question was a twisted path filled with thorns and bear

traps, and he knew it.

Benny knew that he wasn’t the smartest of his friends, and when it came to perception he wasn’t usually the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he was a long way from stupid. He knew what was happening, and he knew that allowing it to go down that path would only do harm. Nix wanted him to say something about emotions, about love. She wanted him to open a door that would lead to a conversation that would really do neither of them any good. It was too soon to talk about why he hadn’t taken her hand; too soon to talk about what he really felt about her or if he felt anything at all. He didn’t know the answers to those questions himself, and he was afraid of what his mouth would say.

So, he turned to her and instead of saying anything, he simply looked at her. And let her look at him.

Heat lightning forked the sky above them.

“What?” she snapped, and then she heard the shrill sound of her own voice and the need threaded through it. Benny could see the awareness blossom in her eyes, and it was a shared experience, because she knew that he saw it. It was a sobering moment, and in a bizarre way Benny felt like it aged him. Matured him. Just a bit. Nix too; he was certain of it. Her green eyes lost some of their force, and her mouth softened for a second, as if her lips were going to tremble, and then her jaw tightened as she clamped her self-control into place. In an odd, distracted way Benny admired that. He loved that about her.

They sat there for a long time, their eyes shifting away and coming back, their mouths wanting to speak but uncertain what language was spoken in this strange new country.

“I—,” he began, but again she cut him off.

“So help me God, Benny, if you say ‘I’m sorry,’ I’ll kill you. ”

She meant it. Even her freckles seemed to glow with dangerous heat. But at the end of her anger, there was the whisper of a smile that lifted the corners of her lips. Benny wished right then that things were different for them, that they had been given the chance to meet at this age rather than growing up together. It would make so many things easier.

He cleared his throat. “So … where does that leave us, Nix?”

“Where do you want it to leave us?”

“I want us to be friends. Always. ”

“And are we friends?”

“You’re one of my best friends. You and Chong—you’re my family. ”

“Me and Chong? What about Morgie?”

Benny shrugged. “He’s the family dog. ”

Morgie raised his head at the sound of laughter. On the other side of the yard, in the shade of the big oak, Benny and Nix were howling with laughter.

“What the hell’s so funny?” he asked irritably.

Chong peered weakly out from under the picnic table. He saw the two of them laughing together, but he also saw that they were sitting apart. He sighed.

“I don’t like it,” growled Morgie. “That monkeybanger’s making a play for Nix. ”

“Morgie,” Chong said.

“What?”

“Shut up. ”