Beautiful Darkness by Kami García, Margaret Stohl Page A

Diet Coke. She smileddown at us, as fake as ever. “What a cute couple. See, Ethan, you didn't need to be wastin’ time with that lil’ tire slasher window basher. You and Link, y'all lovebirds were meant for each other.”
    “She didn't slash your tires, Eden.” I knew how this was going to look for Lena. I had to shut them down before their mothers got involved.
    “Yeah. I did,” Link said, his mouth full of ice cream. “Lena's just bummed she didn't think of it first.” He could never resist the chance to harass the cheer squad. To them, Lena was an old joke that wasn't funny anymore but nobody could drop. That was the thing about small towns. No one ever changed their opinion of you, even if you changed. As far as they were concerned, even when Lena was a great-grandmother, she would still be the crazy girl who busted out the window in English class. Considering most of our English class would still be living in Gatlin.
    Not me. Not if things were going to stay like this. It was the first time I had really thought about leaving since Lena came to Gatlin. The box of college brochures under my bed had stayed under my bed until now. As long as I had Lena, I wasn't counting the days until I could get out of Gatlin.
    “Hell-o. Who is that?” Eden's voice was a little too loud.
    I heard the bell on the door of the Dar-ee Keen chime as it closed. It was like some kind of Clint Eastwood movie, where the hero steps into the saloon after he's just shot up the whole town. The neck of every girl sitting near us snapped toward the door, greasy blond ponytails flying.
    “I don't know, but I'd sure like to find out,” Emily purred, coming up behind Eden.
    “I've never seen him before. Have you?” I could see Savannah filing through the yearbook in her mind.
    “No way. I'd remember
him
.” Poor guy. Emily had him in her crosshairs, target locked and loaded. He didn't stand a chance, whoever he was. I turned around to get a look at the guy Earl and Emory would be kicking the crap out of when they realized their girlfriends were drooling over him.
    He was standing in the doorway in a faded black T-shirt, jeans, and scuffed black army boots. I couldn't see the scuffs from where I was sitting, but I knew they were there. Because he was wearing exactly the same thing the last time I saw him, when he ripped out of Macon's funeral.
    It was the stranger, the Incubus who wasn't an Incubus. The sunlight Incubus. I remembered the silver sparrow in Lena's hand when she was sleeping in my bed.
    What was he doing here?
    A black tattoo wound around his arm, sort of tribal-looking, like something I'd seen before. I felt a knife in my gut, and touched my scar. It was throbbing.
    Savannah and Emily walked up to the counter, trying to act like they were going to order something, as if they touched anything here other than Diet Coke.
    “Who is that?” Link wasn't one for competition, not that he was in the running these days.
    “I don't know, but he showed up at Macon's funeral.”
    Link was staring at him. “Is he one of Lena's weird relatives?”
    “I don't know what he is, but he isn't related to Lena.” Then again, he did come to the funeral to pay his respects to Macon. Still, there was something wrong about him. I'd sensed it since the first time I saw him.
    I heard the bell chime again as the door closed.
    “Hey, Angel Face, wait up.”
    I froze. I would have known that voice anywhere. Link was staring at the door, too. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, or worse….
    Ridley.
    Lena's Dark Caster of a cousin was as dangerous and hot and barely dressed as always, except now it was summer, so she had on even less than usual. She was wearing a skin-tight, lacy black tank and a black skirt so small it was probably made for a ten-year-old. Ridley's legs looked longer than ever, balancing on some kind of high, spiky sandals that could stake a vampire. Now the girls weren't the only ones with their mouths hanging open. Most of the