The Killing Jar Read Online Free Page B

beneath Blake’s 4Runner, a fast-moving conveyor belt carrying us home.
    But I didn’t want to go home, because then this night would be over.
    â€œCan we keep driving?” I asked. To my bass-numbed ears, my voice sounded like it came from the bottom of a lake. My mom and Erin had left the festival shortly after I played, but Blake and I had stayed to hear the rest of the bands. For hours we’d lost ourselves in music and voices, in black night and white stars. I forgot to care if I won the contest. I’d played and that was all that really mattered. Erin was the happiest I’d seen her in years, and my mom had hugged me. Actually hugged me. It was a brief embrace, over almost the instant it began—before I could even acknowledge the hunger that raised its voice at contact with another person—but it was enough to tell me that something had changed between us tonight. Maybe the apprehension she’d held toward me since Jason Dunn’s death was finally starting to fade.
    And then there was Blake, who kept staring at me when he thought I wasn’t aware, smiling like he was reliving a happy memory, who’d told me a hundred times already how great I’d been, how the audience had loved me, how they’d gone still and silent the moment I started playing and hadn’t seemed to breathe until I was finished.
    Blake, who made me feel good about myself, made me feel like I deserved to feel good.
    He stretched his fingers on the steering wheel, like a racecar driver about to jam the pedal to the floor. “Any particular destination in mind?”
    â€œNo destination. Let’s just keep moving forward.” I leaned back in my seat and let my head loll toward Blake. The glow of the dashboard gauges created a rim light that traced his profile. “This is probably going to sound dramatic, but everything seems different now.”
    â€œMaybe it is.” His smile faded and he looked at me for a moment, nodding seriously.
    Heat crept into my cheeks and gathered in my stomach. My will to resist Blake was weakening, and I wasn’t sure I cared anymore.
    Ahead, I saw the turnoff to the long drive that cut through several hundred yards of forest before reaching my house. An unfamiliar brown Bronco was parked on the side of the road next to our mailbox.
    â€œWhose truck is this?” Blake asked, slowing into a turn and then pulling up next to the SUV.
    Both of us peered into the cab, but saw no one inside.
    I shrugged. “Maybe the driver broke down and didn’t have a cell phone to call a tow truck.”
    â€œWho doesn’t have a cell phone?” Blake asked. He’d moved to the midsize Oregon town of Rushing from a pristine Connecticut suburb, where I imagined no one ever abandoned a broken-down SUV next to his mailbox, or if they did it would be promptly hauled away.
    Blake accelerated slowly and continued down the gravel driveway to my house.
    â€œWhat happened to driving all night?” I asked, trying not to sound disappointed.
    Blake glanced over at me. “You were serious about that?”
    â€œNah,” I lied, and forced a laugh. “You know me. Spontaneity is my mortal enemy. Pull over here, okay? I don’t want my mom to hear your car and wake up.” I was supposed to be home by midnight. It was almost two.
    Frowning, Blake slowed and steered onto the shoulder, under a canopy of trees. He was probably counting the number of points he’d lose with my mom for keeping me out past curfew, respectable young man that he was.
    â€œRelax,” I told him. “I’ll sneak in through the basement window so she won’t hear the front door. I have a whole system.”
    â€œYou do this often?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
    â€œWell, I probably shouldn’t tell you this because my order has a code and everything, but I’m a vampire slayer, which involves a lot of late-night outings.”
    I was relieved when