by Chloe Neill
“Oh. Well, good call,” Scout allowed.
Michael smiled sweetly at her. “I’m entitled to a few good ideas, you know.”
She blushed.
When Michael was done and the cell phone was tucked away again, Jason clapped his hands together. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Everyone in the back of the bubble. Puts more space between us and them when the circle goes down,” he explained.
When we’d stepped back, Scout glanced at each of us in turn. “Are we ready?” When we’d all nodded, she did the same. “Then here goes nothing.”
Michael, Jason, and I each put up our fists, like we were heading into a schoolyard fight.
Scout closed her eyes and held the crane in her lifted hands. “Beauty comes in many sizes, but these guys just aren’t prizes. Give them all a new disguise, and make them change before our eyes!”
She cocked back her arm to throw the bird. “And three . . . two . . . and one!” She used her toe to push some sand out the circle. As soon as it was breached, the shield gave one final shimmer and dropped away. They lunged forward, and Scout threw the paper bird into the middle of the group.
The tunnel exploded into noise and white light.
I dropped down, hands over my head, waiting for an attack—that didn’t come.
I opened an eye. The air was filled with a thousand tiny white paper cranes, all of them flapping their little paper wings as they spun around us. The creatures were nowhere to be seen.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“She transmogrified them,” Michael said, surprise in his voice.
I stood up, waving a hand in front of my face so that I could see through the cranes. After a moment, they formed a long V and flew past us down the tunnel, leaving us alone, the floor littered with bits of origami confetti.
Michael stared openmouthed at the birds as they disappeared into the next chunk of the tunnel. “This is just . . . fricking amazing! You did it! You actually did it!” He picked Scout up and spun her around in the air, just like in the movies.
I grinned at the look of total shock on her face. Considering the fact that she’d actually kissed him a few minutes ago, my math said Garcia, two. Scout, zero.
“It was teamwork,” she said, adjusting her shirt when he finally put her down again. Her cheeks were pink, but I could tell she was trying really hard not to smile. Before I could say anything to her, Scout jumped at me and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Can’t breathe,” I said, patting her back. “Dial it back.”
When she finally loosened up, I rubbed my neck. “What was that for?”
“You believed in me,” she said simply, and then put an arm around my shoulders.
“Of course I did. Now, shouldn’t we tell somebody about those things?”
“On it,” Michael said, tapping the keyboard on his phone. “Gave Daniel the heads-up,” he said, then nodded when the phone beeped only a second later. “Enclave tomorrow night for the debriefing.”
“Then I think that means our work here is done,” Scout said. “Let’s go home.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Just in case there were any more nasties lumbering around, Jason and Michael escorted us to the door into St. Sophia’s. And then, wolfless, Scout and I made our way back through the main part of the convent and the Great Hall, where we studied during our mandatory two-hour study hall (I know, right?), to the building that housed our suite. The common room was dark when we unlocked the door and tiptoed inside, as was Lesley’s room.
But Amie’s door was open. The bedroom light was off, but Veronica was standing in the doorway.
My stomach turned.
Veronica took a step forward, closing Amie’s door behind her. She was dressed for bed in yoga pants and a tank top, her hair long and styled straight, circles beneath her eyes. She looked us over.
“Where have you two been?” she asked, crossing her arms and leaning back against the doorway.
I glanced between mine and Scout’s rooms, which faced each other across the suite, the doors wide open. That was an obvious signal that we weren’t tucked in like we were supposed to be—and hadn’t been for a while.
But Scout stayed calm. “We couldn’t sleep,” she said, “so we walked around for a little while.” She walked toward her room. When Veronica didn’t budge, Scout stopped and looked back at her. “What are you doing in our suite anyway?”
Veronica took a step forward and closed Amie’s door behind her. “We were studying. Unlike the two of you.”
Her voice rose at the end, like she was asking a question—or daring us to prove her wrong.
“I mean, it’s pretty weird,” she said. “You two just heading out to walk around or whatever. It doesn’t even look like you’ve been in bed at all.”
Scout and I exchanged a glance. This was going to be tricky. If we stuck to our “we were just walking around” story, she might think we were lying and do some investigating that would only inconvenience both of us.
We obviously couldn’t exactly tell her what we’d really been doing. But maybe if we told her something a little bit bad, we might answer her questions . . . and keep her from asking too many more.
“I went to meet my boyfriend,” I threw out. Okay, so I was fudging about our status, but the rest was true enough. “And Scout went with me. To, you know, prop the door open so I wouldn’t get locked out.” That sounded legit to me, anyway.
“You haven’t been here that long. You don’t have a boyfriend.”
I managed a bored eye roll. “That you know of.”
“Who is it?”
I made a little mental apology to Jason for outing our almost-relationship, but figured he’d get over it. “Jason Shepherd.”
Veronica’s eyes widened, and she uncrossed her arms. “From Montclare?”
I nodded.
“Isn’t he, like, John Creed’s friend?”
I opened my mouth to answer yes—Creed was a friend of Jason’s, a guy I’d met when Veronica and I had had our afternoon of friendship. He’d shared a flirty moment with Veronica at the store where we’d met them. Creed had dark hair and dark eyes, and just looked wealthy. It was obvious in the way he carried himself, in the way he talked. He was just comfortable in a way that said, “The world is at my feet.” But most important, he had a unique look. Funky designer watch, square-toed shoes, that kind of thing. I’d known rich kids who were joiners—who dressed just like everyone else—and rich kids who were so rich they didn’t have to be joiners. He was the nonjoiner type.
And Creed seemed friendly enough, but there was still something—I don’t know—odd about him. Something shadowy. Not like Reaper shadowy—I didn’t think he had magic, and he didn’t strike me as the type to run around in dark and damp tunnels in the middle of the night.
But I closed my mouth again. Had we just jumped from being in trouble for sneaking out to Veronica asking about Creed? Scout and I weren’t out of the woods yet, and we could probably use that.
Trying to play it cool, I just shrugged. “I guess they’re friends, yeah. Why?”
“No reason,” she said, but her cheeks blossomed pink. “Was he here?”
“Creed? No, just me and Jason and Scout.” I saw no need to also drag Michael into this. Besides, maybe Veronica had actually decided to turn her attentions elsewhere. Creed seemed more her speed anyway.
Veronica’s expression went flat again. “And where, exactly, did you meet Jason?”
“Admin wing,” Scout offered. “The very same door M.K. uses when she sneaks out to meet her boyfriend.”
Well, that was information I didn’t need.
Veronica’s eyes flashed, but since she didn’t move from her spot in the doorway, I guess the threat against M.K. hadn’t been all that effective. Scout tried again.
“They were in there, like, forever,” she said, sliding me a look of disgust. I tried to look guilty, shuffling my feet a little for good measure.<
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“That’s against the rules, you know.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I looked away, tucked some hair behind my ear and faked an attitude. “I’m almost sixteen. I do what I want.”
“She is from the East Coast,” Scout said. “They mature differently out there.”
“Well, whatever. It’s against the rules.”
“So’s spending the night in someone else’s suite,” Scout pointed out. “And I know you don’t want to get in trouble for that. So why don’t we all just go to bed and get in a good night’s sleep?”
Veronica’s lip curled, but she spun on her heel, walked into Amie’s bedroom, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Almost immediately, the door beside Amie’s opened. Lesley, our third roommate, glanced out. She was dressed in rainbow-striped pajama bottoms and a T-shirt with a pot of gold on it. Lesley knew about our midnight ramblings because—just as I’d done to Scout—she’d followed us into the basement one night. But she’d offered to help us, and she’d helped me out the night Scout disappeared. So as far as I could tell, she was one of the good guys. Or good girls. Whatever.
Lesley offered a thumbs-up.
Scout gave her back a thumbs-up. Apparently satisfied with that, Lesley popped back into her room and closed the door behind her.
Scout glanced over at me. “Next time you decide you want to make out with your boyfriend, call someone else.” Her voice was just a shade too loud—it was another scene in our little play for Veronica.
She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, then turned on her heel and walked to her bedroom door. “Good night, Parker.”
“Good night, Green.”
I went to my own room and shut and locked the door behind me. My messenger bag hit the floor, and I threw on pajamas that might have matched, but probably didn’t. My room, with its stone walls and floor, was always cold, so I went for warmth over beauty.
Grateful that I’d made it safely back—slimy monsters notwithstanding—I grabbed my cell phone and checked for messages from my parents. My father and mother had each sent me a text. Both of them said they loved me. My mother’s text message was straight and to the point: “HOW WAS YOUR MATH TEST? R U EATING PROTEIN?” I was a vegetarian; she usually just said I ate “weird.”
My dad always tried to be funny. That was his thing. His message read: “R U BEING GOOD IN THE WINDY CITY? SANTA WILL KNOW.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t nearly as funny as he liked to think he was. But he was my dad, you know? So I typed out a couple of quick texts back, hoping they were somewhere safe and could actually read them.
After I’d pulled on thick, fuzzy socks, I climbed into bed and pulled the St. Sophia’s blanket over my head, blocking out the dull sounds of Chicago night traffic and the faint glow of plastic stars on the ceiling above my head.
I was asleep in minutes.
4
When my alarm clock blared to life, I woke up drenched in sweat, my St. Sophia’s blanket pulled completely over my head.
I’d had a nightmare.
I sat up and pushed the damp hair from my face, my heart still racing from the dream. I was awake, sure, but I hadn’t yet recovered. I still felt like I was there . . .
I’d dreamed that I’d been home in Sagamore. I’d been upstairs in my room reading a book. The house had been quiet; I think my parents had been downstairs watching television or something. I’d heard the front door open and close again, and out of curiosity, I’d put down my book and walked to the window, pushing the blinds aside.
Two men in black suits had gotten out of a boxy sedan. They’d looked at each other before walking toward our front door. They’d adjusted their suit coats as they’d moved, and I’d seen the glint of metal in one of their coat pockets.
I’d heard the doorbell ring, and the front door open and close, and the low murmurs of conversation that filtered upstairs.
And then the conversation had gotten louder. I’d heard my father demand the men leave.
I’d put my cell phone into my pocket—just in case—and I’d begun to walk toward my bedroom door. But with each step I’d taken, the door had gotten farther and farther away. My bedroom had expanded exponentially until the door was just a small rectangle in the distance. My heart had pounded in my chest, and my vision had narrowed until everything was fuzzy at the edges and the door was a tiny glint at the end of a tunnel.
That was when the yelling had begun.
I’d reached out for the door, but it was too far away. I’d begun to run, but each step felt like I was running through molasses. And even though I wasn’t going anywhere, my chest tightened like I’d been running a marathon. With no means to get to the door, I’d turned around and stared at the window like it was my only means of oxygen.
I’d run to the window—which stayed in place—and thrown it open. The men had walked outside again. One man had gotten back into the car on the driver’s side. The other had stopped and looked up at me. Our stares had locked, and there had been an evil glint in his narrowed eyes. He’d mouthed something I couldn’t catch—but there’d been no mistaking the symbol on the side of his car.
It was a quatrefoil—four circles stacked together like a curvy cross.
The symbol of the Reapers—of the Dark Elite.
The entire scene played in my mind like a movie. Just as real—the sounds and sights and smells of home the same. And that was the scariest part. Something about the dream felt familiar—familiar enough that I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream . . . or a memory. But I couldn’t remember seeing two men in black suits in an old-fashioned car arriving at the house. I didn’t remember yelling on the first floor or being unable to check on my parents. But still, something rang true. And I was afraid that something had something to do with the Reaper symbol on the car.
Shaking it off, I pulled on my robe, grabbed my shower kit, and headed down the hallway to the bathroom. I stood under the spray for a good, long while, but I couldn’t erase the feeling that I was still in the dream. That I’d try to turn the shower handle but it would move out of reach, or I’d return to the suite and find the man in black outside my door.
When I was dressed—skirt and St. Sophia’s polo under a hoodie—I walked across the suite to Scout’s room and knocked on the door. She answered with a “Yo!”
I opened the door and found her standing beside her bed, stuffing books into her messenger bag. At the sight of me, her expression fell. “Geez, you look awful. What happened?”
“Nightmare.”
Frowning, she glanced at the clock, then patted the bed beside her. “We’ve got a couple minutes. Bring her in for a landing.”
We both sat down on the bed. I told her about the dream. She listened patiently while I rehashed the details, occasionally patting my knee supportively. When I was done, I let out a slow breath, trying to remind myself that it had been just a dream . . . except it didn’t really feel that way.
“I think that’s the thing that bothers me the most,” I told her. “I mean, I know I didn’t see any of that stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone yell at my parents. But it felt real.”
“Dreams can do that, you know. This one time, I dreamed I was being booed off the stage at this outdoor concert where I was playing the French horn. I don’t play the French horn, nor do I aspire to play the French horn. Couldn’t even pick one out of a lineup, probably. But when I woke up, I still felt like I was up there. I’d been humiliated in that dream, and the whole rest of the day I felt like I’d just walked off that stage.”
“French horn in hand?”
“Exactly.” Scout stared blankly ahead for a few seconds, like she was reliving the memory. “I knew it was just a dream—I mean, logically I knew it. But that didn’t make it feel any less real. It took a while to, like, shake off the psychic funk or whatever.” She grinned a little and bumped me with an elbow. “You just need to shake off your psychic funk.”
“You know, you are a pretty good friend.
Those things they say about you are hardly true.”
Scout snorted, stood up, and shouldered her messenger bag. “They say I’m fabulous. And it’s crazy true. Now let’s go chow.”
It was just common sense that Adepts who spent their evenings fighting evil needed a good breakfast to start their day. Unfortunately, there was only one route to breakfast, and that was in the cafeteria through the horde of teenagers already in line for their own breakfasts.
Scout and I muscled into line.
Okay, that might be overstating it. Our evening adventures were one thing. Down there, we ruled the night with magic and firespell and flirted with werewolves. We had supernatural muscle.
But up here, we were the weirdish girl and her weirder friend—just two high school juniors trying to get enough credits for graduation while avoiding as much brat-pack drama as possible.
Not that that was easy.
Scout and I had just taken breakfast (hot tea and giant muffins) to a table when they walked in, Veronica in the lead, M.K. and Amie behind. They wore the same skirts that we did, but you could still tell they were different. They had swagger. They sauntered across the room like every eye was on them—and they usually were—and like there was no doubt in the world who they were, what they wanted, or what they were going to get.
The attitude aside, you kinda had to admire the confidence. Even Amie, who was a worrier, moved like the cafeteria was her personal catwalk.
“If you keep staring, your head’s gonna get stuck that way.”
I glanced back at Scout and stuck my tongue out at her, then nibbled on a giant blueberry from my muffin. “I can’t help it. They’re like a really rich, super-put-together train wreck.”
Scout rolled her eyes. “I’ve totally taught you better than that. The brat pack is to be ignored. We rule the school around here.”
“Mm-hmm. If that’s true, why don’t you head on over to the front of the room”—I pointed out a perfect spot—“and tell them that?”
