Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon

know, you’re really good at compliments. Actually, it’s surprising that a person with charm like yours has any enemies.” The words came out before I could stop them. At this rate I would never be able to ask him about Benjamin Gallow, and it didn’t help that every time he looked at me I wanted to melt.
    “So you think I’m charming?” Dante countered, mocking me. “Is that why you keep staring at me ?”
    “Alarming, not charming. And no, I’m just curious.”
    “Curious?” Dante gave me a bemused look and leaned back, draping his arm over his chair. “About what?”
    “Why don’t you talk to anyone?”
    “I thought that’s what we were doing.”
    “To anyone else.”
    “Talking isn’t the only way to communicate. I speak when I have something to say.”
    “Then you must be pretty boring, judging from what everyone says about you.”
    Dante let out a laugh. “And what are they saying?”
    “That you won’t talk to anyone at school because you think you’re superior.”
    “And what if I am?”
    I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not. You just think you are.”
    Dante smiled and leaned toward me. “So now you can read my thoughts?”
    I swallowed. “No. I can just tell.”
    “Really? What am I thinking now?” he said, lowering his eyes to mine.
    It was difficult to act normal with him staring at me so closely, so intensely. My voice wavered. “You’re...you’re wondering where I’m from.”
    Dante’s face softened. “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said, studying me. I wasn’t sure if he was joking.
    “Somewhere green, I’d guess,” he continued. “With a lot of sun.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    Without touching me, he traced his fingers through the air along the top of my cheeks. “Freckles.”
    I blushed. “California. And you...you’re from—?”
    “Here and there,” he said, brushing off my question. “Nowhere, really.”
    I gave him a suspicious look. What did that even mean? Though, admittedly, I couldn’t imagine him being from anywhere. He was too handsome, too mysterious to come from a place.
    Before I could ask him another question, Dante continued. “So why did you come here? You don’t seem like the average Gottfried student.”
    “Why?” I said, taking offense. “Because I don’t have a trust fund and a summer home?”
    “Because you say what you think.”
    “Oh,” I said, averting my eyes. “And people at Gottfried don’t?”
    “Not like you did to me at the Awakening. Or to Mrs. Lynch this morning.”
    I sighed. He saw that. “I’m not used to so many rules. My old school was more...laid back.”
    “So your parents sent you here?”
    I shook my head. “My grandfather. ..” my voice trailed off.
    I felt Dante’s eyes on me, examining my face.
    “Do you have parents?” I asked, before realizing how stupid a question it was. Everyone had parents.
    Dante hesitated. “No, not really.”
    “What do you mean not really ?”
    “Nothing,” he said. “It’s...just, never mind.”
    I rested my chin in my hand, considering his aloofness. “What’s the big secret?”
    “No secret,” he said with a smile. “Just nothing to tell.”
    I gave him a coy frown. “Or nothing you want to tell.”
    Around us, everyone was flipping through the pages in their textbooks as Professor Starking recited something about forces. I shuffled through the pages haphazardly, more aware of Dante’s presence next to me than the vectors in the book.
    He gave me the beginnings of a smile. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over?” He held his hand out beneath the desk. “I’m Dante,” he said.
    I studied the creases in his palms, the veins running up the contours of his arms, before responding. “Renée,” I said quietly, slipping my hand into his.
    His skin was cold to the touch, and I felt a tingling sensation in my fingers, as if they had just begun to go numb. Our eyes met, and my face became warm and flushed, my