just missed him,” he says lightly. “I can give him a message, if you like.” His voice is husky and low, with a lingering softness on every S. He’s backlit by the open door behind him so I can’t see him well, but there’s something about him that nonetheless feels off—the way he talks, or holds himself, or the strange breathiness of his voice. Or maybe it’s the way he smells: a hint of citrus carried over by the wind, not unpleasant, but flat and artificial, like detergent or air freshener.
“You’re Hyde, aren’t you?” I say, though I can’t explain what makes me so sure. He goes very still.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” he says after a pause.
“I’m Lulu,” I say. “Lulu Gutierrez.” I take a step toward him, my mind churning with curiosity. Those things Camila and Maia said about how odd he looked, beyond description, I have to see for myself. “Would you do me a favor?” I ask, stunned at my own daring. “Would you step into the light? I want to see your face.”
Hyde hesitates, and for a moment I think he’s going to laugh at my request, or get offended and tell me to get lost. I could hardly blame him if he did. But he surprises me.
“If you like,” he says, and he takes a step back over Jek’s threshold, letting the lamplight hit him directly.
I’m not quite surprised to discover it’s the boy who ran into me at the Halloween party, but I can’t help the gasp that escapes me now that I see him clearly. I can understand why Camila and Maia disagreed about his race—his features are hard to place. His eyes have a sleepy, heavy-lidded aspect that suggests an Asian background, and his skin has a sallow cast, though that could just be the light. His hair, though, falls in thick, dark curls and his nose has a slight bump to it that could be European or Middle Eastern, possibly.
None of that explains, though, why his face is so off-putting. There’s something unpleasant and alien about his looks, and I search him for what is producing this uncanny effect, like one eye set lower than the other or missing eyebrows, but I can’t put my finger on it. His features seem somehow out of proportion with each other—eyes too small, mouth too big, nose too prominent—but in the next moment the effect shifts, and it’s his chin that seems too sharp for a mouth too soft. Just like at the party, though, the most remarkable thing about him are his eyes—as black and unreflecting as the shadows settling around us.
I know it’s rude to stare, but Hyde doesn’t seem offended. He just stands calm and self-possessed before me, a smile twisting his lips as he waits for me to finish my examination. Then he steps outside again and tugs the door firmly shut, casting us both in darkness.
“Now,” he says, “return the favor and tell me how you knew me.”
I swallow against a mounting tremor in my voice before answering. “You were described to me,” I say. “We have friends in common.”
I can feel more than see Hyde’s sneer at this. “I’d be surprised,” he says softly, again teetering on the edge of a lisp. “What friends?”
“Well... Jek, for one,” I point out.
He stares at me coolly. “Jek never mentioned me to you.”
Even though I never quite claimed he had, I still feel called out by this statement. But it’s not like Hyde can know every conversation Jek and I have had. I shake off the creeping sensation Hyde is giving me and remind myself why I came here in the first place: to warn Jek about him.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask, my voice firmer now. “Alone at Jek’s place.”
“What’s it to you?” he replies, unperturbed. “If Jek doesn’t mind...”
“Sure,” I say with a shrug. “None of my business. But maybe I’ll make sure Jek actually knows you’re here.” I pull out my phone, but Hyde makes a sharp gesture before my thumb is even on the screen.
“No,” he says quickly. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
Even in the dark, I can sense the prickling alertness in Hyde’s body. It’s gone in a flash, and his tone becomes lazy and sneering again.
“Text him if you like,” he says, “but it won’t do any good. Jek forgot his phone when he went out earlier. I was just on my way to bring it to him.” He takes Jek’s phone out of his pocket. It’s instantly recognizable, thanks to its distinctive case decorated with colorfully trippy mandalas. I hesitate, still unsure. Jek forgets his phone at home all the time, which is one of the reasons he’s careless about returning texts, but who the hell is this guy to be hanging out in Jek’s room alone? Especially after what Maia told me about Hyde spending Jek’s money as if it was his own—even close friends don’t usually do that.
“All right, then,” I say carefully. “Bring him his phone, and I’ll talk to him later.” If Hyde has really broken into Jek’s house or something equally criminal, his cover story won’t hold up long.
“You do that,” Hyde replies coolly before stepping over to where Jek’s bike is leaning against the garage—it’s one of Jek’s little idiosyncrasies, that he prefers biking to driving. I guess Hyde must share it, because he mounts Jek’s bike and heads off toward the main road without another word.
Again, I’m weirded out that this stranger is so confidently helping himself to Jek’s possessions, but I have to admit that Jek’s pretty casual about his stuff, and generally shrugs it off when someone “borrows” his bike without telling him. Last year his stepdad made a point of getting him a seriously heavy-duty lock on a bright green chain so he’d stop using his missing bike as an excuse for coming home late, but Jek can’t be bothered to use it, so it just hangs uselessly off the frame. Still, it’s a bit weird that the bike’s here, if Jek’s not. The whole situation feels suspicious—maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t feel right just walking away.
I may not be able to contact Jek and ask him about Hyde, but I’m not completely powerless. I head up the hill, around to the pillared and porticoed front of the house and knock on the main door. Some little blond kid opens it after a minute. Jek’s new stepbrothers all have names that begin with C, but I can’t keep them straight. Conner, Cameron, Caden, Carter, Caleb? I have no idea.
“Hi,” I say. “Is Jek around?”
The kid shrugs. “Try his apartment.”
“I did. I was just wondering if he was in the main house.” Jek still joins the rest of the family for dinner some nights, if his mom is cooking, though she clearly isn’t right now—the house smells of cheap jarred tomato sauce, which means the au pair is making dinner. She cooks mostly pasta and grilled cheese and chicken fingers, since that’s all the Barrows will eat, anyway. Back when it was just Jek and Puloma, their house was always filled with the smells of spices Puloma’s parents sent her from the Indian markets where they live in New Jersey. London doesn’t have any Indian restaurants, let alone an international grocery, so I learned to associate those smells with Jek’s house.
“What about Puloma?” I try. “Is she around?”
“Yeah,” the kid says laconically before wandering off toward a room where I can hear his brothers are playing video games. I show myself in and walk around a bit, looking for Puloma. I’ve only been in the main part of the house a couple of times, but I know the layout well enough from others in the neighborhood.
Though
