The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

What's on the back of the book:

True love's first kill

Daniel looked up at me. His dark eyes searched my face. There was something different about those too-familiar eyes. Maybe it was the way the orange light from the streetlamp illuminated his pupils. Maybe it was the way he stared without blinking. His eyes made him look . . . hungry.

A piece from the book:

I stopped and stared at him. This guy more than pushed the limits of Holy Trinity's dress code in a holey Wolfsbane T-shirt and black, dingy jeans, shredded at the knees. His shaggy, dyed-black hair hid his face, and he held a large sheet of paper in his pale white hands. It was my charcoal drawing, and he was sitting in my seat.

I left the group of bystanders and strode up to the table. "Excuse me, you're in my spot."

"Then you must be Grace," he said without looking up. Something about his raspy voice made my arm hairs stand on end.

I stepped back. "How'd you know my name?"

He pointed at the masking tape name tag on the supply bucket I'd left out during lunch. "Grace Divine." He snorted. "Your parents must ahve some God complex. I bet your dad is a minister."

"Pastor. But that's none of your business."

He held my drawing in front of him. "Grace Divine. They muct expect great things from you."

"They do. Now move."

"This drawing is anything but great," he said. "You've got these branches all wrong, and that knot should be turned up, not down." He picked up one of my charcoals between his thin fingers and drew on the paper.

I was ticked off by his audacity, but what I couldn't believe was the ease with which he wove thick and thin black lines into striking charcoal branches. The same tree I'd been agonizing over all week came to life on the paper. He used the side of his pinky to smudge the coal on the trunk - a major "don't" in Barlow's class, but the rough blending had just the right effect for the tree's bark. I watched him shade along the bottom of the branches, but then he began to fix the knot in the lowest one. How could he have known what that knot was supposed to look like?

"Stop it," I said. "That's mine. Give it back." I grabbed at the paper but he pulled it away. "Hand it over!"

"Kiss me," he said.

I heard April yelp.

"What?" I asked.

He leaned over the drawing. His face was still obscured by his shaggy hair, but a black stone pendant slipped out of his shirt. "Kiss me, and I'll give it back."

I grabbed his hand that held the charcoal. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"So you don't recognize me?" He looked up and pushed his hair out of his face. His cheeks were pale and hollow, but it was his eyes that made me gasp. The same dark eyes I used to call "mud pies."

"Daniel?" I let go of his hand. The charcoal pencil plinked onto the table. A million questions slammed against one another in my brain. "Does Jude know you're here?"

Daniel wrapped his fingers around the black pendant that hung from his neck. His lips parted as if to speak.

Mr. Barlow came up to us, his arms crossed in front of his barrel-like chest. "I told you to report to the counselors' office before joining this class," he said to Daniel. "If you cannot respect me, young man, then perhaps you do not belong here."

"I was just leaving." Daniel shoved back his chair and slumped past me, his dyed hair veiling his eyes. "See you later, Gracie."

I looked at the charcoal drawing he left behind. The black lines laced together into the silhouette of a lone, familiar tree. I brushed past Mr. Barlow and the group of students in the doorway. "Daniel!" I shouted. But the hallway was deserted.

Daniel was good at disappearing. It's what he did best.