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Jenny, devastatingly aware that her jeans were crunchy fro wrinkled and her denih a chimney, said, "You invited me to come-and here I am"
He answered as easily as if they’d been talking for hours "Yes, and you’re off to a bad start Couldn’t even avoid this si"
"Whatever it is, it’s the last Game," Jenny said
It wasn’t the same as it had been before, when she’d felt as if she were fighting him all the tihting his sensuality, fighting his beauty, fighting the memory of his touch
In those days part of her actually longed for the , for the final surrender But now
Jenny had changed The fire she’d passed through in the last Gaed her It had burned away the part of her that had responded to Julian, that had craved his danger and wildness Jenny had coht not be as powerful as Julian, but her as as strong as his
She would never give in to the shadows again And thatwas different between them
She could see that he saw the difference He said, "More light?" anda line in the air
Kenaz, Jenny thought The rune of the torch, one of the runes she’d carved on her grandfather’s oak door It was shaped like an acute angle, like a lesser-than sign in esture, the light seeician’s flourish he plucked a second burning torch from the air
Jenny, stony-faced, clapped her hands two or three tias flary Not this early on," he said with dangerous quietness
"I thought I was supposed to be impressed"
He studied her "You really don’t want to get ht Inhuman, incomprehensible, and so alive he looked as if he should be dripping fire or electricity froht a shine with him like diamonds in coal But Jenny had a core of steel
"Where’s To about him," said Julian
It was true Jenny hadn’t Not continuously, not constantly, the way she had in the old days when she’d never really regarded herself as a separate person, but as part of a unit: Tom-and-Jenny It didn’t matter
"I came here for him," she said "I don’t need to think about him every minute to love him I want him back"
"Then win the Game" Julian’s voice was as cold and o
He stuck one torch into a wide horizontal crack in the wall Jenny hadn’t really taken in her surroundings yet-when Julian was around it was very difficult to focus on anything except hiuess earlier This was an enclosed place, and a very s as her bedroom at home Three of its walls were stone; the fourth was solidly packed boulders
Below the crack with the torch was a sort of natural stairway, each step broader than the one above it Like the fake waterfalls in the ht, only without the water She noticed her flashlight, apparently dead, lying by the bottom step
There was no entrance or exit to the roo about it
Jenny’s heart sank a little
No Don’t you dare let hihten you That’s what he wants, that’s what kicks him
Besides, what’s to be scared of? So you’re buried alive under tons of rock, alone with a demon prince ants you body and soul and will literally do anything to have you Who ht kill you just tohim off deliberately, but so what, eat the details?
She tried to make her voice quite steady and a little blase as she said, "So just what is the Game this time?"
"The clue will cost you"
Icy fury swept over Jenny "You’re horrible Do you know that?"
"I’m as cruel as life," Julian said "As cruel as love"
The fury, and the steel at Jenny’s core, gave her the courage to do so that astonished even her She wanted to slap Julian Instead, she kissed him
It wasn’t like the tender, cozy sort of kiss she gave Tom, and not like the terrified, half-wild kisses Julian had extorted from her in the old days, either She jumped up and snatched his face between her pal with the torch She kissed hie of maidenly shyness
She felt his shock His free hand came up around her, but he couldn’t pull her any closer than she was already pressing herself She ignored the danger of the torch completely-if it was close to her hair, that was Julian’s probleure it out
Julian recovered fast It was possible to take hi Jenny felt hi to soften the kiss
But she knew the danger of softness Julian could spin a web of shadows around you, with touches like the brush of ht He could turn your own senses against you until the kisses left you dizzy and breathless and thetouches put you on slow burn And by the time you realized as underneath the softness, you were shivering andand lost
So Jenny kept this kiss strictly business A cheap and nasty sort of business she’d never had to do before because before Julian she’d only ever kissed Torily, with a clinical coldness and all the expertise she could ed to startle him twice in just a matter of minutes When she pulled ahich she did easily-she could see the shock in his eyes
Didn’t think I could resist, did you? she thought She stepped back and with utter coldness said, "Nohat about ly, but she could see hie like exotic sapphires She had struck at his pride-and hit dead center
"Well, now, I’ot my money’s worth," he said "I’ve known icicles that were better kissers than that"
"And I’ve known dead fish that were better kissers than you," Jenny said-untruthfully and with an insane disregard for danger She kneas insane, but she didn’t care The freedo that the shadows had no power over her was intoxicating It made this encounter with Julian different froain She saw thefury well up in his eyes-and then his heavy lashes drooped, veiling them A half smile curved his lips
Jenny’s stomach lurched
He was evil, she knew Cruel, capricious, and dangerous as a cobra And she’d been stupid to goad hi bad-or her name wasn’t Jenny Lint-for-Brains Thornton
"I’ll give you your clue," he said He slid a hand into one skintight pocket and brought it out again, flipping soold thing winked in the torchlight, up and down "Heads I win, tails you lose," Julian said and gave her a smile of terrible sweetness
Then he flicked the shining gold thing at her so quickly that she flinched It hit the stone with a wonderful clear ringing clink Jenny picked it up and found that it was cold and quite heavy It was a coin, round but irregular, like a very thin home-baked cookie
"A Spanish doubloon," Julian said, but even then she stared at hi it
Oh, God-of course The ga What had that kid said this afternoon? "You get three tokens and they let you in free " And the billboard: collect three gold
DOUBLOONS AND BE THE FIRST TO SET FOOT ONTREASURE ISLAND
And Julian had invited them to come on a treasure hunt But Jenny hadn’t iant treasure chest had been the only thing ht
"You modeled this whole place after Joyland because they were having a treasure hunt? Why? Because I used to go to the park when I was a kid?"
He laughed "Don’t flatter yourself This whole-Shadow Park, if you like-already existed It was created ten years ago and for a very different reason
A special reasonbut you’ll find out about that later" He gave a strange sh Jenny "It was built on an old coaltime"
A pit Deep into the Pit, Jenny remerandfather’s desk in Julian’s first Garandfather had found the Shadow Men in the first place? Had he taken a question deep into a pit, into some place where the worlds were connected?
She would probably never know-unless Julian told her, which didn’t seeht over the real Joyland Park
Forget the conjectural crap, she told herself Get down to business
"Tom and Zach are on Treasure Island," she said
She got a wolfish s to swie is the only way, and the toll is three gold doubloons You’ll find the coins hidden throughout the park"
"I’ve got one already," she re her fist on the coin
His s than the wolf look "Yes, you do, don’t you?" he said pleasantly "Now all you have to do is get out with it"
On the word it, everything went dark
It happened so fast that it took Jenny’s breath away One ht of two ruddy torches, the next she was in pitch blackness Blackness so profound that it hostly blue pinwheels, then nothing It was like being struck blind
Okay Don’t panic He ht
I hope, her mind added, as she stuck the doubloon in her pocket and cautiously felt her way in the darkness
Her hand closed around cold metal She held her breath and thuht, a dull orange-ish glow Either soht in the fall or the batteries were going dead But it was enough to keep her fro crazy
You shouldn’t have made him mad, Jenny That was really, really duht, she was in trouble By holding the flashlight very close she could see the rock walls of her prison quite clearly She could exa, to the uneven floor, to the solidly packed boulders that blocked the entrance
There was no way in or out She couldn’t possibly shift those boulders by herself-and if she didthe rest of them down on top of her
Don’t panic Don’t, don’t, don’t panic