In the Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

prodded, when he didn’t say anything. She cast me an apologetic look. Finally, he took a step forward and offered me his hand. It was soft and hot in mine.
    “Nice to meet you,” he said.
    What was there between us in that very first moment that would have told, if observed, everything that would follow? Nothing. I am sure of it. Not anything, not a twinge of instinct, not an internal shudder. He was that good.
    “You’re pretty,” he said.
    I felt the heat rush to my cheeks, even as I saw Rachel visibly relax. A broad smile crept across her face and it was unmistakable as relief. I, on the other hand, felt my tension ratchet as he kept his eyes on me. Inside I squirmed as I always do when someone looks at me too long. I thought he’d break his gaze, but he didn’t, and my face was burning. Still, I didn’t lower my own eyes either. It wassome kind of strange, subtle standoff that I didn’t like, but from which something inside me refused to back down.
    As I look back now, it was really the first move in the game we’d already started playing. There was something about him, about our chemistry, that immediately hooked us into each other. But it was all so brief, just a second. Finally, it was Rachel who broke the moment, lightly, as if she hadn’t noticed anything passing between us. And maybe nothing had, I thought then—just a curious boy unsettling a person who was too self-conscious at the best of times.
    “Why don’t you change out of your school clothes, and I’ll get you a snack?” Rachel said.
    He nodded and bounded off like any other eleven-year-old boy. And I felt silly as he galloped away.
    I’d expected someone different. Someone obviously hyperactive, or disturbed like some of the kids I’d worked with at Fieldcrest. Not just from the way Rachel had described him, but from the way she acted as she described him. She was as nervous, as wary, as an abused woman, as if wondering when the next blow might be delivered and forever scheming as to how she might avoid it. As he pounded up the steps, I actually found myself wondering a little about what might be wrong with her.
    She walked over to the steps and peered up, as if she was concerned that he might be listening. Then she returned to the kitchen, and grabbed my arm, smiling giddily. She leaned in close. I’m not sure if she noticed me shrink from her touch.
    “He likes you,” she whispered, as if I’d just won a fabulous prize.

3
    Is the prey complicit in its own demise? Are we not seduced in some small way by the beauty, the grace, even the dangerous soul of the predator? Do we not look into its eyes and see something that excites us, that entices, even hypnotizes us? Yes, in some sense, I think we are seduced by danger. When we stand on the edge of a precipice and look down at the deadly fall, who among us doesn’t imagine tipping his weight over and plummeting to a bone-shattering death? And it’s not just terror that we feel at the thought. There’s a thrill there, too, isn’t there? Or maybe that’s just me.
    “So, how did it go?” Langdon asked the next day as I entered his classroom. I was the first to arrive, as I usually am to all my classes but especially to his.
    “I got the job,” I said.
    He looked up from his notes and pushed his glasses up, gave me a nerdy smile.
    “Hey! Good for you.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I’m excited.”
    He looked back down at the text on his desk. “Awesome,” he said distractedly.
    “The kid’s a student at Fieldcrest.”
    I put my bag under my seat on the far left of the front row. Langdon usually kept the lighting dim and the room cool. The bright fluorescent lights hurt his eyes and made everyone look hungover, he’d said when I’d asked why. That’s because everyone is hungover, I’d answered. He’d found that funny.
    “Oh,” he said. He wore a frown now. “Who is it?”
    “Luke; Lucas, I think. Lucas Kahn?” I said, hating that everything I said sounded like a