I told her it was fine. By then I was way too deeply dug into my real-life glass coffin to care anymore — about her, about the evil I’d promised to protect her from, or even the fact that everyone thought I was crazy.
It wasn’t until the following year that I realized what a mess I’d made of everything.
By then it was too late for Hannah, of course.
I knew I couldn’t blame any of that on John. It’s only in fairy tales that princesses can afford to wait for the handsome prince to save them. In real life, they have to bust out of their own coffins and do the saving themselves.
And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person’s idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying.
But then…maybe he couldn’t help being terrifying.
Any more than I could help being the way I am, or reacting to him the way I had when I was fifteen.
“I’m not just apologizing,” I said, wondering why it was that, now that I was older, I still couldn’t seem to find the right thing to say to him, “because of what you did for me in the jewelry store, or last spring at my old school, either.”
This time, instead of tilting his head, he just tilted a single dark eyebrow. This didn’t exactly make things easier. His expression was still impossible to read.
“This has nothing to do with that,” I said when he remained silent. “Not that I’m not grateful. Because I am. I’m sorry I didn’t thank you then. Things just got a little…hectic after you left.”
Hectic was hardly the word to describe the firestorm John had left in his wake the day he showed up at the Westport Academy for Girls.
“Which,” he said, “is why you and your mother are here now. Making a new start.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So I’m not going to be needing you at my new school. And just so you know, I had that situation back in Westport completely under control before you showed up.”
Now both eyebrows rose.
“I did,” I insisted. “I didn’t need your help. That’s what the camera was for —”
His hand shot out, so quickly the gesture was a blur, on the word camera. Before I knew it, he’d grabbed my upper arm in a grip that didn’t hurt, exactly, but wasn’t gentle, either, and I was being dragged towards him.
The shades that had been pulled down over those eyes finally came flying up again — just for a moment.
“What camera?” he demanded.
“The camera,” I murmured, beginning to think I probably shouldn’t have opened my mouth about this, “that I set up inside my backpack —”
To say he looked shocked would have been an understatement of the grossest proportions.
“Are you telling me that you planned it?” he asked. “What happened that day with your teacher. That was on purpose? You meant for him to do that to you?”
Maybe he really wasn’t following me around. Because if he had been, surely he’d have known about this.
“Well,” I said, my mouth dry. “Yes.” Then, before he had a chance to explode, since I could see he was about to, I added quickly, “It was the only way I could get proof of what Mr. Mueller was really like, because no one believed that he and Hannah had…”
My voice trailed off, because when I glanced up into his face, I saw that his mouth was pressed into a flat line…like the one my heart had gone into the day I’d fallen into his world.
I knew this wasn’t good. This was all very, very bad.
“But I never intended to let it get that far,” I said quickly. “I took total responsibility for everything that happened that —”
His grip on my arm tightened.
“How could you have put yourself in such a dangerous situation in the first place?” he demanded. “And for something so stupid? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”
Well, yes. I did…now. Back then, I hadn’t had the slightest idea, or I wouldn’t have tried it.
But I said, trying to shrug it off, “Really, it wasn’t that big a —”
“You shouldn’t have been there,” he said through gritted teeth. “Any more than you should be here now.”
And the next thing I knew, he was physically dragging me away from the crypt.
“The cemetery gates are locked at night,” he muttered. Poinciana blossoms exploded beneath those heavy black boots.
I barely heard him. It was true that once, I had somehow managed to escape from him — and from death. But that had been because of those defibrillation paddles and that shot of epinephrine back in the real world…or so the doctors insisted. My escape had had nothing to do with anything I’d done back in his world, they said. Because his world wasn’t real.
Except — as I knew better than anyone — it was.
“How did you even get in here? That fence is seven feet high. With spikes at the top,” he was saying under this breath.
I didn’t want to say anything to make him angrier…like that the fence hadn’t really been all that hard to scale once I’d wheeled one of those giant green-lidded Isla Huesos trash cans, which were just sitting around everywhere, up against it.
And that it wasn’t my fault the family of Dolores Sanchez, Beloved Wife of Rodrigo, had chosen to place her crypt so close to the fence on the inside of the cemetery, providing me with such an excellent landing pad.