Goddess of the Night by Lynne Ewing

things, but she suddenly felt the Amazon stir
inside of her, an instinct that had
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    been dormant
all these years. She grabbed his hand.
    "Can we
leave by going down the hill?" Her voice was steady.
    "Yeah, but
we'll get in trouble. Illegal access to the Bowl."
    "It's
better than ..." She didn't finish the sentence. She started
walking, pulling him behind her. What he saw as trouble, she saw as
salvation. If someone saw them creeping down the terrain and thought
they were trying to sneak into the Bowl, the person might alert the
security guards, who would rush to meet them. They would no longer be
alone.
    "Vanessa,"
Michael whispered. "It's probably a coyote. They're all over the
hills. Or a skunk. Some wild animal must have smelled our food, but
it won't attack us."
    Then why are
you whispering? she wanted to say. From the jagged tone of his voice
she knew he didn't believe his own words. Whatever ran stealthily in
the dry brush was not a wild animal.
    Something
blundered down the hill, no longer trying to hide its approach.
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    She jumped in
front of Michael to protect him from whatever was ready to crash
through the bushes. At the same time Michael bent down to pull her
behind him. Their heads collided in a clap of pain. They fell and
tumbled down the side of the canyon, scraping knees and palms.
    A dried scrub
oak stopped their fall.
    "You
okay?" Michael said and helped her stand. His hands traced her
face and arms as if he didn't trust her to tell him the truth.
    Her hands stung
and her head pounded. She felt a trickle of blood on the inside of
her mouth.
    "I'm
okay," she panted. "You?"
    "Just
scrapes."
    "We better
go." She reached for his hand again. He pulled back.
    "If we
keep trying to protect each other, we'll kill ourselves."
    "We're not
far enough away yet." Vanessa didn't let him pull his hand away
this time. She grabbed it and held tightly.
    Something
tramped down the side of the canyon above them.
    "I'll
follow you, then." He let her lead.
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    She stepped
onto hard baked earth and slid on loose gravel. He grabbed her arm
and pulled her to him, his body hard against hers. She wanted to kiss
him, to feel his hands on her back. But another sound made her wrench
free. How had it caught up to them so quickly? She whipped around and
stood between Michael and the foliage.
    "Come on,"
he chuckled. "If it's a skunk, you'll be sorry."
    The closer they
came to the cement bleachers, the more comfort she felt. But no
security guards ran to meet them.
    She and Michael
sat in empty seats near the back. She was sweating, her mind too
stormy to let the music wrap around her. She kept turning and staring
into the fierce shadows on the hillside behind them, but she no
longer sensed danger, not with seventeen thousand people in the
audience.
    But the evening
was over, the magic gone. She wanted to leave.
    She turned to
say so to Michael. He seemed upset. She felt suddenly embarrassed
that she had
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    made him come
down to the bleachers the way she had. How could she ever explain why
she had needed to flee?
    "Great,"
he said sarcastically. "Stanton's coming over here."
    "Who?"
Even as she asked she saw a boy dressed in black walking toward them,
his hands in his pockets. His shaggy blond bangs hung in his face. He
kept flicking his head as if he was trying to whip the hair out of
his eyes.
    "What a
lowlife," Michael muttered.
    "Is he
from our school?"
    "No, he
hangs out with a pack of losers in Hollywood."
    Stanton was
good-looking, but there was something strange and foreboding about
him. His eyes were so blue they seemed luminescent. How could she see
the blue so clearly in the dark? Her body thrummed, alert and
watchful, as if something portentous was about to happen.
    "Hey,
Michael." Stanton stared at Vanessa as if awaiting an
introduction. He sat down next to her. His body pressed against hers.
    "I'm
Stanton," he said. His gaze lingered over
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    her body as if
she had invited him to look and take all the time in the