“Dang, Sam, you look tired. You’ve got some totally serious bags under your eyes.” Draylan pointed to her face and lightly punched her in the arm while grinning playfully.
“Um, I—I haven’t really slept that well,” she stuttered, embarrassed and somewhat appalled by his directness. She probably did look horrible, but did he really have to point it out to everyone?
“Leave her alone, Dray. She doesn’t remember your not-so-subtle personality,” Evrik barked.
Draylan eyed Sam grudgingly, now rummaging through the fridge. “How could anyone forget me? Memory or no memory, I’m unforgettable.”
“Why can I remember most of my life, but not much that has to do with you guys or Chase, just bits and pieces?” She looked at Evrik, Alea and Malachi. Draylan had his head in the fridge.
Alea answered Sam, guiding her over to the kitchen table. “We've been hesitant to tell you anything. We don’t want to frighten you. We hoped you would’ve regained more of your memory by now.” Alea sighed. “I’ll tell you this. We’re different from you.”
“What about Chase?” Sam asked.
“He’s different too, just not as different as we are. All of us are part of a different world, a world most people don’t know about. A world you’ve forgotten,” Alea explained.
Sam glanced down. Her eyes caught the numbers on her watch. It was already three. She’d told Chase she would meet him in his room that afternoon.
“Do you need me to take you back to the dorms?” Evrik asked.
Sam wavered. “No, I just told Chase I’d talk to him this afternoon. Please, Alea, go on. I want to know more.”
“Maybe it’s better if we don’t say anything else right now.” Alea looked at Evrik for agreement. “We’ll talk again when you remember more.”
“I understand why you don’t want to tell me about your world, especially now that I’m starting to remember on my own.” Sam sighed. “But I assure you, I’m not scared. I may not remember, but I can still feel. I feel safe, and I feel loved, and in a weird way I understand that others exist—others I never knew existed before I came to Baltimore. I don’t know how I know this. I just do.”
“I understand, Sam. And I’m really working on restoring your memory,” Alea said.
“But how?”
Alea looked hesitantly at Evrik before speaking. “I have a certain ability. I can create magical elixirs that help me do and see things I otherwise couldn’t.”
Sam’s posture straightened. “You’re magical?” She smirked skeptically.
“In a way,” Malachi explained. “We each have a unique ability. Everyone of our race is born with special gifts. Some of us are just more powerful than others.” Malachi slid his attention over to Evrik. Sam had a feeling Malachi wanted Evrik to tell her the rest.
“What can you do?” Sam asked Malachi.
“I can track scents—”
“Like a dog!” Draylan laughed, sitting down to join them with a gigantic submarine sandwich and a heaping pile of potato chips.
“Dray—” Malachi spoke through tight lips.
Draylan waved his hand in the air. “Sorry, Bro, please continue.”
“As I was saying, I can track scents—find other beings by their smell. Everything has a unique scent. That’s how we found you in Fells Point. I tracked your scent.”
“Like a dog,” Draylan repeated under his breath. He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth. Everyone ignored him.
“Oh.” Sam’s eyes widened implausibly. She didn’t know why she was so shocked. Her life had become full of rationally unexplainable surprises over the last twenty-four hours. She’d learned anything was possible, or, more accurately, “re-learned” anything was possible.
“And you?” Sam asked Draylan, who chewed an enormous bite of his sub, a piece of deli ham hanging from his lip. He swallowed, slurped up the loose piece of ham, snagged Evrik’s water, and chugged the whole bottle until the plastic crumbled in his large hand.
Suddenly, Malachi stood up quickly, followed by Evrik and Alea. Draylan grumbled and reluctantly joined them.
“What’s wrong, Chi?” Evrik’s jaw hardened.
“He’s here,” Malachi warned. “I can smell him in the woods.”
“Who’s here?” Sam asked.
Evrik took her hand. “I’m going to take you back to the dorms now. You have to meet Chase anyway.”
“We’ll go out first,” Malachi said.
“Bye, sweetie.” Alea wrapped her arms around Sam.
Within seconds, they were gone. She was alone with Evrik again.
Evrik helped Sam to her feet. “We’ll leave in a few minutes. I just want them to check out the area first to make sure he’s gone.”
“Who’s out there?”
Evrik held her hand in his. “I don’t want you to have to worry about anything. Just focus on trying to regain your memory. Talk to Chase. He might trigger it. You two are close.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Do you want me to pick you up tomorrow morning? I’ll make you breakfast.”
“You can cook?” She glanced around the gourmet kitchen.
He knitted his brows. “I think that’s the main reason you keep me around. The dining hall food is terrible, remember? All you eat is Cocoa Puffs.” Evrik stepped closer to Sam and leaned down, his face only an inch from hers. She could feel his warm breath on her skin and taste his clean scent.
Her senses seized, leaving her body screaming for more. She removed her hands from his and grasped her jeans so they weren’t free to grab him and kiss him—real ladylike, Sam. How many guys are you going to kiss in one day? But the possibility of kissing Evrik felt different. Deep down, she wanted to kiss him, unlike Cale. She felt as if she had to kiss him. It was more of a compulsion.
“I think it’s safe to go now,” Evrik whispered. Sam let out a puff of air she didn’t know she was holding in.
CHAPTER 8
Chase opened the door and took Sam in his sturdy arms, squeezing her tightly. “Chase, it’s good to see you too, but I need to breathe.”
“Oh—sorry.” He released her from his strong hold. “My roommate’s a slob. It’s embarrassing to bring a girl into this mess,” he huffed.
Chase wasn’t kidding. Sam had to hurdle across a pile of dirty clothes blocking the entrance to the room. “Does he ever consider doing laundry?” She turned her head away from the stench. God, the stench of sweaty men.
“His form of doing laundry consists of throwing everything on the floor,” Chase scowled. He did his best to clear a path for her with his foot as she moved into the room.
Chase’s side of the room was in flawless order. His textbooks were aligned across his dresser from tallest to shortest. The clothes in his open closet were coordinated by style and color. His flannel comforter lay neatly over his bed. “I see someone has a touch of OCD.” She directed her eyes over to the personal products, also categorized by size, along his side of the sink.
“Oh, and you’re one to talk, missy.” He had a point. She guessed he really did know her well.
Chase’s walls were covered with posters of all different kinds of animals. A life-sized picture of a black bear hung directly above his bed. To the left of the bear, a wolf howled amid a backdrop of a snowy winter’s day. To the right, a mountain lion stood proudly on a rocky ledge above the animal kingdom. Smaller posters hung above his closet doors: a monkey, tiger, deer, fox, and panda bear.
“You’re an animal lover,” she said, still taking in the wild kingdom before her.
“Animals are focused. They’re not clouded by human emotions. They have a job to do—survive —and they do it.”
She noticed a rectangular poster above the door to the bathroom. It appealed to her more than any of the others. A microbar flew within a sea of black, using its echolocation system to navigate through the night sky, fluently scooping up insects in flight. The poster reminded her of her memory from earlier, the first night she went to
Evrik’s home. A bat had scooped down to retrieve an insect just inches from her face.
“Samantha, is everything alright?” Chase asked, waving a hand in front of her face.
“Sorry, I must’ve spaced for a second. I was just admiring your picture of the bat.” She redirected her attention to Chase. “Anyway, how was the gym?”
“I lifted really heavy weights and ran on the treadmill. The usual.” He smirked.
Sam tried to return his playful banter, but her head suddenly started to hurt and she felt really hot, like she had a sudden onset of a raging fever. “Can I sit down? I’m not feeling that well.” She reached for something to steady herself. “This has been happening a little too frequently today.”
“Here, sit on my bed.” Chase offered her his hand.
Sam doubled over and started to shake. Then she saw it. Another memory, putting clothing into the washer in the dormitory laundry room…
Sam grabbed one of the two uncomfortable-looking chairs, eager to read her book. The washing machine screeched to a halt and the obnoxious buzzer went off. She transferred her clothing over to the dryer and headed back to the chair to finish the chapter.
The laundry room door opened and a nice-looking guy walked in, carrying a laundry bag over his shoulder. He nodded in her direction and gave her a sideways smile. She returned it and buried her face back in her book.
“I’m Chase,” the jock finally said. At least, she assumed he was a jock. He was washing his locker-room-smelling university football uniform.
“I’m Sam.” She extended her hand.
Chase leaned down to shake her hand. His short sleeves exposed his well-built arms. Sam’s eyes wandered to his black Adidas shorts and back up to the medium-length sandy-blond hair peeking out from under his baseball cap. He was definitely cute.
“May I take the seat next to you?” he asked politely.
“Considering the university only provides us with two chairs, I don’t think you have much of a choice.”
He laughed. “I guess you’re right. It sucks having to wait for your clothes. I wish I could trust that no one would come in and steal them if I left the room.” Chase leaned over to check out Sam’s book. “Good book?”
“Yes,” she said quickly and continued to read.
“So, do you ever go to any football games?” He interrupted the sentence she had already read four times. He must’ve realized he was disturbing her because he immediately apologized. Sam decided to look up and act somewhat interested in what he was saying.
“It’s no problem,” Sam dismissed, suddenly feeling bad for ignoring him. “It would be nice to take a break from reading. To answer your question, I haven’t been to a college game. I’ve been to NFL games, and too many high school games to count. High school football is kind of the ‘thing’ in my town. Is Tolbert any good?”
“So far we’re undefeated.” A cocky smile formed on his face. Sam had seen that smug smile before on her conceited football player ex-boyfriend’s face, but Chase’s smile seemed to express more pride than arrogance.
“Congratulations, what position do you play?”
“Running back.”
“You have a tough job. You must be good if you’re undefeated.”
“I hold my own.” His bronzed cheeks blushed. “You should come to a game sometime. We’re playing Hopkins next Saturday. It’ll be a good game.”
“I’d like that. I’ll talk to my friends and see what their plans are.”
“What floor do you live on?” he asked.
“The fourth. My room is to the left of the elevators.” Sam gestured with her hands. She often did this, many times knocking drinks out of people’s hands.
“I’m below you on the third floor, opposite side of the building. We’ll have to hang out sometime.”
“The girls and I are often around. Come up and visit whenever you want.”
His warm smile exposed two adorable dimples. “I notice you keep saying ‘the girls.’ Do you want to hang out, just the two of us, sometime?”
“Oh—” She hadn’t even realized. He was asking her out. She was always so naïve when it came to guys. “I have a boyfriend, but I’d love to hang out with you as friends.”
“Friends…it’ll have to do, I guess—Samantha.” She thought she had introduced herself as Sam. Her mom was the only person who still called her Samantha. Chase tapped her leg. “I’ll definitely stop up to hang out with you—and the girls.”
Sam lifted her head and sat upright on Chase’s bed, again covered in sweat and breathing heavily.
“Are you okay?” Chase asked worriedly. He had one arm around her.
“You hit on me when we met,” she said.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The first time we met, in the laundry room. You hit on me.”
He grinned widely. “You remember me.” Then his expression turned serious. “Did your memory come back?”
“No, not entirely. What’s wrong? You don’t seem excited. I thought you’d be happy to hear that I was starting to remember my life. To remember you.”
“No, I’m happy for you, go on,” he insisted.
“I just had a memory of the first time we met. It happened to me earlier at Evrik’s. Things are starting to come back to me.”
“That’s great,” he said. But for some reason she didn’t believe him, and she’d seen him lie. He was a master at fooling people. Sam wondered if she was one of the only people Chase couldn’t fool.
“I know about Alea and Malachi—their abilities. Alea told me today,” she said.
“Do you know what they are?”
“No, Evrik felt that it was best if I remembered on my own, since I was starting to remember things anyway.”
“How do you feel about what they said?” Chase eyed her attentively, waiting for her response.
Sam picked at the fuzz on Chase’s flannel comforter. “I’m not freaked out, if that’s what you mean. Logically, I think it’s kind of nuts, but deep down inside I believe them, and it doesn’t bother me. I don’t know…it’s weird.”
There was a knock at the door. “It’s probably one of my roommate’s friends,” he grunted. “I’ll be right back.”
Sam immediately recognized the annoying voice at the door. Chase opened the door to let her in.
“Hey, Sam. I didn’t know you were here. I guess I should’ve figured as much.” Vicky’s head looped around the room. “Wow, your roommate is a total pig.” She hopped through the clothing like she was doing the tire exercise in football practice and took a seat next to Sam on Chase’s bed.
“Hi, Vicky.” Sam forced a smile. Make yourself right at home, why don’tcha? She wasn’t normally so fake, but something bothered her about Vicky being in Chase’s room. Sam needed to remember she was with Evrik. Someday she would get her memory back and she didn’t want to do anything she’d regret later.
Vicky gave her a look of agreement, which confused Sam. This girl was being even weirder than usual.
Vicky flipped her hair and smacked her gum obnoxiously. “It’s almost five. What are you doing for dinner?” she asked.
“I’ll probably just eat in the dining hall. I’m really tired. I hardly got any sleep last night,” Sam said.
“How about you, Chase?” Vicky batted her blue eyes at him.
He looked at Sam before answering. She gave him a do-what-you-want-to-do look. “I’m going to eat in the dining hall,” he finally answered.
If Sam knew Vicky, she would ignore his answer because it wasn’t the one she wanted to hear—and yup, Sam was right.
“I really want to try out this new restaurant uptown. I forget the name. It’s right before the traffic circle. Chase, do you want to check it out with me?”
Chase eyed Sam again. This time Sam looked away. She didn’t want to get involved. “Samantha, are you interested?” he asked, not so subtly kicking her foot.
“No, why don’t you two just go.”
C
hase seemed to choke on his spit and glared at Sam, licking his lips, trying to think of what to say. He sighed. “Sure, Vicky. When would you like to go?” He spoke through a tight jaw, making Sam feel a little bad for him.
“Give me thirty minutes. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” Vicky jumped off the bed, kissed Chase on the cheek and flittered to the door, no longer bothered by the heaps of laundry in her path.
“Bye, Sam.” She waved her hand triumphantly on the way out the door.
“Bye,” Sam said, not quite so enthusiastically.
Chase glared at Sam. His face had turned a deep shade of red. “What were you thinking? I don’t want to go to dinner with her.”
“Oh, stop. It could be fun.”
“Fun? With Vicky? The girl who lives in her own self-absorbed world unless she’s obsessing over a boy, who used to be her ex, Brian…”
“…and now it’s you,” Sam finished. “I better get going. You have to get ready for your date.” Sam jumped up from Chase’s bed and turned to face him. He had crossed his arms and his bottom lip popped out like a child who hadn’t gotten his way.
“It’s not a date,” he mumbled.
She put her hands on his arms. “Whatever you want to call it. But you stink like sweat. You need to shower before you go.”
His cold gaze turned to a disappointed frown. “I wanted to have dinner with you.”
Emanare (Destined, #1) Page 6
