by Kasi Blake
Nick was riding an emotional roller coaster and was currently plunging down a two-hundred-foot drop, his heart in his stomach. There wasn’t enough alcohol or cigarettes in the world to calm his frayed nerves. He regretted ignoring Van’s orders to guard the border. Everyone would be safer if he’d stayed in the Spirit Realm, including him. He needed to put distance between himself and Van’s daughter. Although he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, the girl was getting under his skin with her sultry eyes and provocative smile.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t see her for a while.
And that was his last coherent thought before he was slammed into the wall, face first. Rough hands grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. He geared up for a fight, but the identity of his attacker caught him by surprise.
Bay-Lee shoved him back against the wall. Her fingers twisted in his black shirt as she shouted, “I have had enough of your crap! You are going to mentor me whether you like it or not. Got it?”
Her dark eyes blazed with the fiery passion missing from his life. This girl wasn’t afraid of anything. He squelched his growing admiration for her and shook his head. It would be better for everyone if he held tight to his anger instead of giving into his desire to kiss her. He reminded himself that she was the cause of his problems. “You are delusional. I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do, and I don’t want to spend a single minute with you. End of story.”
A few students snickered as they walked past them. It was enough to convince Bay-Lee to release her hold on his shirt, but she didn’t give him any room to maneuver. One of the new boys (Jonah) stood in the background, watching them. As if realizing they weren’t going to get any privacy, Bay-Lee lowered her voice. “Hey, I didn’t ask you to volunteer. That was your brilliant idea. If you hadn’t made a big deal over taking the job, maybe someone else would have.”
He wagged a finger in her face. “Listen up, sweetheart. I know you think you’re something special because you’re Van Helsing’s only child, but I am not impressed. From the moment I saw you that first night I knew you were too soft to last a week here. You are going to screw up royally and get your butt sent home, and you are not taking me down with you. I worked too hard for my rank.”
He tried to push past her without knocking her down.
“You’re wrong.” She stood her ground, not giving an inch. “I was born for this.”
“Go then. Go prove it. Just leave me out of it. I want less than nothing to do with you. Now move out of my way.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you agree to do your job.”
He forced a grin while everything in him wanted to smash his fist through the wall behind him. “Stop embarrassing yourself. Flattering, really, but I am way too busy to train you. Van might not know it yet, but he’s about to bring Tyler Beck back to life. Then I’m out of here. I don’t want to work with you. Get that through your thick skull.”
“Too bad.” Her hands went to her hips and she stared a hole through his face, unblinking and unflinching.
“Excuse me?” He crossed his arms.
“You said you were going to mentor me and you are. Deal with it.”
He pushed away from the wall and leaned forward until his face was a mere inch from hers. Slowly he enunciated two words. “Make me.”
Hands on her shoulders, he lifted her off the ground, turned, and deposited her on the other side of him. The look of shock on her face melted into boiling rage. He wouldn’t be surprised if she took a swing at him.
“You don’t think I can, but you are so wrong, Tyler.”
The name of his alter-ego slipped off her tongue, drenched in irony, and the sound of it stopped him from walking away. She threw down an invisible gauntlet, daring him to pick it up. No longer cute, the girl was getting on his last nerve. He decided to meet her on the mental battlefield with guns blazing. “I’d love to see you try to make me do anything, Michelle.”
Using her last alias, the name she’d been going by when they’d first met seemed to throw her off balance. She blinked. He had her on the ropes now. Grinning with triumph because he was going to win this battle, he continued.
“No, wait. Michelle is all wrong for you. That’s the name of someone strong and capable of taking care of themselves. You’re cute and cuddly like a harmless bunny. I think I’ll call you Micki. So what do you say, Micki? How long before you wash out of the program?”
If anything, she stood taller and poked him in the chest with one finger. “I’m not going anywhere, Tyler. This is your last chance to give in without getting hurt. Agree to mentor me or prepare to be sorry.”
He opened his mouth to tell her to go jump in Van’s lake and drown herself. A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the hallway. Fight forgotten, they raced down the empty corridor. Nick moved faster, running ahead of Bay-Lee, but he could hear her feet pounding the floor behind him. He didn’t have a weapon on him. If it was something bad, a monster in the school, they were in trouble.
They found a short girl with bouncy curls standing near the bathroom door. He recognized her as Tessa Gerard. Her entire body shook from head to toe, and her face didn’t have a drop of color. Before he could ask her what was going on, Bay-Lee shoved him aside and raced past him. She ran straight up to Tessa, and Nick realized they knew each other. “Are you okay?” Bay-Lee asked. “Why did you scream?”
“My mom.” Tessa pointed at the closed bathroom door. “In there. I saw her. She was... I saw her in the mirror. She was hovering behind me.”
Bay-Lee frowned in confusion. “Did she come here to check on you?”
“My mom died three years ago.”
Nick’s internal warning system dropped from red alert to yellow, and tension eased out of his body. “Your mom is dead, but you think you saw her?”
Tessa stepped around Bay-Lee and her gaze clashed with Nick’s. “I don’t think I saw her. I know I did. She just stood there staring at me. It was her.”
Bay-Lee crossed the hallway to have a private word with him. She kept her voice low so Tessa wouldn’t overhear. “Should we get Van?”
“For this?” He waved a dismissive hand at the hysterical girl. “No way. She imagined it.”
“Does she look like someone who is lying?”
“I didn’t say she was lying.” Nick took a deep breath. The last thing he wanted to do was explain anything about the school to Bay-Lee because that was a mentor’s job, and he was determined not to be hers. Giving in on a temporary basis, he said, “She thinks she saw her dead mom, but we know she didn’t.”
“How do we know? Because ghosts aren’t real?” Bay-Lee crossed arms over her chest and made a face at him. “Oh no, wait. They are real.”
If he didn’t give her an explanation, she was going to call Van. Then Nick would have to talk to him, something he was trying to avoid for as long as possible. Van was still pissed off at him for volunteering to mentor his daughter. Nick wanted to wait for the old man to cool off. Then he’d approach him with a counter-offer, his old life back in exchange for his absence from the school and from Bay-Lee’s life.
“I’ve seen this before,” Nick said. “A student gets stressed over too much work and too little sleep. They freak over the possibility of getting killed. Hunters don’t have long life expectancies. So this is what we call the Freshman Meltdown. It happens all the time. Last year a kid convinced himself he had sucked up powers from a monster he’d killed, and he tried to fly. Damn near almost died.”
Bay-Lee argued, “I know her and she isn’t a Freshman. She isn’t Bait anymore. She’s a Hunter.”
“Sometimes a meltdown doesn’t happen right away.” His tone softened. “Everyone has their breaking point, Micki.”
“Stop calling me that!” She glared at him. “You’re just trying to make me feel dumb like I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m not some kid Van plucked off the street. I grew up in the life. I
found out monsters were real when I was five.”
He wondered what had happened when she was five. Unfortunately, he couldn’t ask her because she might take it as a sign of interest. The micro-mystery bothered him more than he cared to admit. How did she find out monsters were real? In his family they were told as soon as they could understand English. He went to the bathroom door and pushed it open, testing it. The room was empty. There was a white robe hanging on the back of a stall door. The reflection would be caught in the mirrors if you stood in the right place.
Gesturing to it, he said, “Sometimes a duck is a duck, and sometimes a ghost is just a bathrobe.”
Instead of being convinced by his detective work, Bay-Lee dug in her stubborn heels. “If you aren’t going to help, I will. She saw something that scared the crap out of her and it wasn’t a bathrobe.”
Sigh. “I will give the bathroom a thorough walkthrough, but I already know what I’ll find. Nothing.”
Mike joined them on the last few sentences and asked, “What’s going on, and why are we searching the bathroom?”
Nick kept his relief in check. At least he would have Mike on his side. Maybe Bay-Lee would believe the news if it came from another source, someone she didn’t have a problem with. “Tessa Gerard thinks she saw the ghost of her dead mom.”
“A ghost sighting?” Mike winced. “We haven’t had one of those in years.”
“We don’t have one now,” Nick insisted. Mike wasn’t going to be any help, after all. Bay-Lee glared at him, but he went on. “She imagined it. You know Tessa is flakey at the best of times. Her family has put a lot of pressure on her to do well because she’s fifth generation. All those expectations, it’s enough to make anyone crack.”
“So why are we checking the bathroom if she’s daydreaming?”
“Because Micki threatened to call Van if we don’t look for evidence of a ghost.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed. “Who is Micki?”
Nick wanted to kick himself. He’d used the nickname without giving it a thought. The name fell from his lips easily. He didn’t know why. Not wanting to explain, he said, “Long story. Follow me.”
They stepped into the bathroom. As the door was swinging shut, his eyes met Bay-Lee’s wary gaze. Had she caught how easily her pet name tumbled off his tongue when he was talking to his best friend? Her expression was hard to read. One thing for sure, Van’s little girl didn’t look happy with him. Maybe it was his imagination or maybe she was just mad over their disagreement. He was going to prove there weren’t any ghosts inside the school.
After the last one wreaked havoc on the building—an angry poltergeist—Van had put a series of spells over the school. No ghosts allowed. Either Tessa was imagining things or she was flat out lying, and Nick was determined to figure out which.
Chapter Eight
LEARNING CURVE
