The Immortals by Mary Hallberg (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📗

“No, it’s not a big deal. It’s getting late anyway. I should get going.”

“I really wanted you to stay,” he said softly, shuffling his feet now but looking at me. “But I guess if you have to go...”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe next time, okay?”

“Yeah, next time.” He unexpectedly kissed my cheek. “Good night Kenzie.”

Gage came down a minute later, panting. “Sorry, I had to put away all my stuff. Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, Luke’s my ride.”

“Really? That sucks. Matt and I were going to go out and roast the last of the marshmallows.” He threw a jacket on. “Come on, let me walk you out.”

His put his arm around me and led me to the front porch, where he closed the door behind us. Luke must have gone around back say goodbye to people because there was nobody else in front of the house. It was the quietest it had been all night.

Gage balanced on the balls of his feet. We'd had several of these moments over the past few weeks, standing at the doorstep, awkwardly poised for a kiss, but I hadn’t let him have one yet.

“Well, here we are,” he said. “Too bad I don’t get to walk you to your door. I kind of like it.”

“Well, this is sort of the same thing. Only it’s...your door. And we’re walking away from it.”

“Yeah, it is.” He licked his lips.

I leaned in slightly. “Good night Gage,” I whispered and turned around.

“Kenzie wait,” I heard him say. I stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and he followed me down. He took a few steps in closer to me and was now out of reach of the porch’s light so I couldn’t see his face clearly. What I did see was the silhouette of his hands as they cupped my cheeks and his head as it dipped down and pressed his lips against mine. As we broke apart I felt myself smiling before he turned to walk up the steps and back inside.

chapter eight

It was my idea to go to a haunted house the weekend before Halloween. There was one at a nearby fall festival, and I asked Gage to go. So what if all our friends wanted to tag along? The more the merrier, right?

We pulled up to the festival grounds just after dark. Matt, Paige and I were in the backseat and had to wait for Elizabeth and Jacey, who refused to un-link arms to crawl out of the middle. Gage, whose car had broken down and been sent for repairs, had borrowed his mother’s van for the drive, despite Elizabeth’s constant complaints that it looked like a “mom car.” No kidding.

As we approached the main entrance, Jacey nudged me and pointed in the distance. It took me a minute of squinting to see the three teenage girls snapping pictures from a distance. I hadn’t gotten much of this yet, but knew most Immortals were the subject of gawking wherever they went. Grandpa says it was the same for pre-Immortal celebrities, like actors and musicians.

The house was one of those typical festival attractions that have been around for years. Of course, the ones in The Necropolis, I soon discovered, were much more elaborate than the ones in Rochester. Halfway through, the blinding combination of strobe lights followed by darkness caused me to lose Gage. There was a moment of silence before the next monster attack — a man in a mask I recognized as Leatherface thanks to Luke’s love of classic movies.

The man in the Leatherface mask was carrying a powered up chainsaw that buzzed just loud enough to drown out our screams. In a moment of adrenaline induced fear, I buried my head in the nearest available shoulder. I thought it was Jacey’s since she had been to my left before we got in, but as I looked up when the strobe lights flashed again, I saw that it was Matt’s.

Luckily Paige had also lost her way in the chaos so I didn’t have to compete with her for arm space. I didn’t even see her as I gripped Matt’s arm or as he smiled and laid his hand over mine as we proceeded forward.

We stopped by a food booth after the haunted house. Matt and Paige talked softly, Jacey turned her head away from them, and Elizabeth attempted to flirt with a worker to get a free drink. Gage and I ate in silence.

Jacey and I were the first to finish and headed back to the van alone. Jacey was still sipping on something out of a plastic cup; it had been sweet tea back at the booth, but I presumed from the smell of liquid that mysteriously appeared when the workers’ backs were turned that it was now a bit more.

“Did you have fun?” I asked.

She nodded and took another sip. “I did have fun. You should pick the group outings more often.” She emphasized the word group as if she would rather not hang out with these particular people. I didn’t bother to tell her that that night I would have preferred not to hang out with most of them either.

“Hey Jacey, I said, “Is it awkward hanging out with Matt? Especially with him dating Paige now? If it bothers you, I don’t have to invite them next time.”

She shook her head. “Not really. I’ve gotten used to him flirting with other girls. Hell, he did that when we were dating. He says they come onto him, but it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy it. Besides, he’s not really into Paige.”

“What do you mean? If he doesn’t like her, then why is he dating her?”

“He does like her.” She took one last swig of her drink. “But he’s not super crazy about her or anything. He’s just having fun. They both know it’s not going anywhere. She’s sort of...a placeholder.”

“Placeholder? Like, he’s just waiting for someone better to come along?’

She nodded.

“But...who? Does he have some fantasy woman he’s holding