Juliet Immortal

homeroom.”
    I follow her out into the rain, praying I’ll have another chance to pump her for information on the way to school. She might act like she doesn’t care, but she
has
to be upset that she and Ben are fighting. But Gemma keeps her mouth full of food, and when we pull into the student parking lot I’m no closer to discovering what happened last night.
    “Are you going to your locker?” she asks.
    “Yeah, but I’m going to grab some juice first.” The coffee’s left me thirsty, nervous, and not much more awake than I was before. “You want to come to the cafeteria with me?”
    Gemma makes a gagging sound. “I’d rather eat my own heart than set foot in that stink hole.” She slams out of the car and pops up her umbrella. “Meet you outside homeroom.”
    “Okay.” I hurry down the concrete path a few feet behind her, holding my backpack over my head to stay dry.
    Within a few minutes, Solvang High School appears at the end of the curved path, six shabby brown buildings that would have been depressing to look at even if it weren’t pouring rain. Groups of kids—shoulders hunched, identical frowns on their faces—cluster along the walkway. The students look less thanthrilled by the rain but make no move to get closer to the shelter of the overhangs. Instead, they linger on park benches along the path, putting off the inevitable until the last minute, confirming that Ariel isn’t the only teenager who thinks SHS is a prison.
    No one says hello as I rush along. No one smiles or makes eye contact. It’s as if I’m invisible.
Except
for the occasional shift of a body, the turn of a shoulder as someone moves to get out of my way, clearing the path to the cafeteria. The movements are subtle—easy to miss if your head were down and your hair were in your face—but the other kids are clearly aware of Ariel’s presence. And they don’t seem to hate her. They almost seem … afraid of her.
    But why? I can’t understand it. Ariel is anxious, awkward, and uncomfortable around just about everyone, but nothing in her memories gives me a clue why half the school treats her like a bomb about to explode.
    I sigh as I shove my way through the heavy cafeteria door, and immediately wish I’d settled for a drink from the water fountain. The long room reeks of overcooked vegetables, burnt toast, and armpits. Unwashed armpits. Long-unwashed armpits.
    Still, the juice in buckets of ice at the end of the line makes my mouth water. I grab a cracked melon-colored tray and start through the line. There are only a few people in front of me, and the cafeteria itself is nearly deserted. I slide my tray along—refusing lumps of eggs and greasy circles of sausage from the tired-looking cafeteria workers—and am nearly to the juice when I feel a change in the air.
    Suddenly it’s charged, electrified with danger. Romeo has arrived.
    I know it’s impossible, but I swear I can smell him coming, a faint odor of evil that cuts through the stink of the Solvang High breakfast. My stomach sucks in tight to my spine. I stand a little straighter, determined not to let him see any change in me.
    Today is the same as any other day, this shift the same as any other.
    I clutch my tray and turn, face carefully blank as I search for Romeo and find him all too quickly. He is striding across the cafeteria, followed by a shorter boy with honey-colored skin and jet-black hair that sticks up in spikes. The shorter boy wears dark blue jeans and a black button-down shirt, while Romeo has dressed Dylan’s body all in black—black sweater, black jeans, and black motorcycle boots that give him another two inches of height, maybe more. His cheek is slightly bruised, as if—oddly—he hasn’t quite healed from the accident, but he’s still undeniably handsome.
    But it isn’t his looks or the bruise that make the air rush from my lungs. It’s his hair, that unruly mop of brown curls. He’s
curled
Dylan’s hair, made it fall in soft waves around his forehead, made him look so much like—
    I sway on my feet, lost in a crush of memories I was certain I’d burned away. I forget how to move, to speak, to breathe.
How
did I not notice this last night? Darkness, the threat of death, the shock and pain of entering a new body—none are adequate excuses. Nothing should have kept me from seeing how much Romeo resembles his old self, the boy I knew, the one who crept through my window with an expression just like that one.
    No,
not
like