Juliet Immortal

as I always have sweet breath. Evidently.
    I run faster, feet pounding along the broken asphalt, breath crystalline in the air. Romeo is out of the ravine and on the move. He continues to sing as he runs, filling the night with his haunting voice, making me feel as if he’s already caught me with every note that pricks at my ears.
    But he hasn’t. He won’t.
    I see the lights of the town ahead. I’m going to make it. It’s a mile, at most. I’ll head for the first open business and throw myself into a crowd. Romeo won’t attack me in front of witnesses. Despite his strength, bars
can
hold him, and the western lawmen of recent centuries haven’t hesitated to punish men for abusing their women. Not like in the earlier days, when it was legal for a man to beat his wife, legal for him to throw her into the streets to starve, legal for him to—
    “O dear mistress mine, mistress mine, your eyes like stars, your lips like wine,” he sings, switching to a song from our childhood, in English instead of Italian.
    We always speak in the language of the new bodies, assimilating speech as fully as memories, but I can recall the waythe words sounded in our native tongue. Back when he sang beneath my window, when the sound of his voice filled me with joy and expectation.
    Now there is nothing but terror.
    He’s going to catch me. He’s too fast. I’m tired, weak, not—
    The headlights spin onto the road from a dozen feet ahead, hope in the darkness.
    I race forward, screaming for help, waving my arms, willing the person inside the vehicle to hear me, see me, and
stop
before it’s too late. One second passes … then two … three; the car is pulling away and taking hope with it when suddenly, the brake lights burn red.
    With a sob of relief, I sprint the remaining distance to the car, throw open the passenger door, and fling myself inside without bothering to see who’s behind the wheel. The identity of the driver is immaterial.
    The devil himself would be preferable company.

FOUR
    “W hat the he—”
    “Hurry! Drive!” I slam the door shut behind me, cutting off the driver, a boy not much older than Ariel, from what I can see in the darkness. I quickly take in tanned skin, wavy hair to his shoulders, a thick necklace, and a faded T-shirt hugging arms too thin to belong to a grown man.
    Good. Better to get help from someone younger, less likely to ask questions.
    “Please drive. Anywhere. Just go!” I fumble for the locks, smash down the button on the passenger’s door, then reach over to hit the boy’s lock, my shoulder brushing his as I fall back into my seat. “Please!”
    We have to go. Locks won’t deter Romeo for long. Neither will one witness, not if he thinks he can get away with murder. I’ve seen him kill before—men, women, children, anyone who gets in his way. He has no moral objections, no compassion or pity.
    “Where did you come from?” the boy asks, eyes narrowing as he leans closer. “Is that blood? Are you ok—”
    “Please drive! Please!” I risk a glance over my shoulder, barely swallowing a scream when I see Romeo sprinting toward the car, eating up the road with powerful strides of his long legs, mad anticipation spreading across his face. He’s going to kill this boy, just for fun, and it will be my fault.
    And then it will be my turn to die. Unless we move. Now.
    I dive for the driver’s seat, straight into the boy’s lap, tangling my legs with his as I seek the gas pedal with frantic feet. His arms close around me in surprise, seconds before his foot knocks mine away from the floorboard.
    “You can’t—”
    “Drive! Hurry, we—”
    My words turn to a sound of triumph as my foot finds the accelerator. The car leaps forward a few feet, only to screech to a stop when the boy pounds the brake, summoning an angry groan from the engine.
    “We can’t drive like this,
chica
!” His hands span my waist as he tries to shift me into the passenger’s seat while pulling my foot away from the gas.
    I would usually be strong enough to overpower an average person even at this early point in the shift, but not after the struggle with Romeo and the climb up the ravine. I need time to refuel. Time I won’t have if this boy doesn’t stop fighting me.
    “You’re going to kill us!” he yells.
    “No,
my date’s
going to kill us!” I yell just as Romeo’s hands slam down on the trunk. The thump makes us jump in our shared seat, twin shouts of surprise bursting from our