Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
“Shit!” Donovan says, and I hear him fumble toward his desk, probably making sure his backup’s backup’s backup is functioning or whatever the technical term might be.
I ought to be concerned about my laptop—it’s not plugged into a surge protector, and the pitch deck wasn’t backed up to the cloud. If my Mac’s fried, I’m screwed. But instead, the familiar red haze creeps over my vision again. And when it clears, seared into the air six inches from my face is a fiery symbol: a scroll, crossed with a dagger.
I stare at it, mouth agape. The symbol’s huge, as wide across as my desk and blazing, with the scroll’s edges curling and the dagger’s blade razor-sharp. Flames dance around the edges, casting flickering shadows on my face. Heat radiates from it, scorching me.
In all my years of having premonitions, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Could it be a trick of the light, somehow reflected from a wild party that I had no idea downtown Sapphire Springs was hosting? That must be it: they overloaded the power grid and somehow we’re seeing their bizarre scroll-and-dagger bat-signal up here.
Even as I formulate the idea, I know it’s absurd. For one thing, as evidenced by the Shenanigans disaster, everyone knows everyone else’s business in Sapphire Springs. If there was some type of wacky, power-grid-overloading bacchanalia going on downtown, I’d know about it, whether or not I wanted to. For another, this is the tallest building in town. It makes no sense that a symbol projected from the ground would wind up in the middle of Donovan’s fifth-floor office, much less emitting enough heat to rival a sauna. And for a third, if our power is out, then the hypothetical party-hoster’s probably is, too.
Still, I can’t help but give it a shot. “Does anyone else see…” I begin, hoping against hope that their answer will be Yep, of course, super weird, right?
But before I can finish my sentence, the lights flicker once again and the power comes back on.
There’s no more red haze. And no symbol emblazoned on the air. Just Donovan poking at his keyboard, Ethan looking bemused, and me, trying not to panic.
“Are you okay, Rune?” Ethan says, peering at me. “You look like you’ve seen…well, I’d say a ghost, but that’s rather clichéd, isn’t it?” He chuckles. “Wish we had ghosts in this building, actually. We could probably monetize them around Halloween. You could make us some killer graphics.” He grins at me. “Get it, Rune? Killer graphics? For a ghost tour?”
I give him a weak smile. “Yeah, I get it. Super funny. Um, no. No ghost. I, uh, don’t like the dark, that’s all.” The moment the words leave my mouth, I wish I could take them back. Don’t like the dark? What am I, five?
“Oh, I get that!” Ethan says. “Don’t tell anyone, but I slept with the light on until I was fifteen. Drove my brother crazy.” He winks at me. “You okay over there, Frost? Lose anything important?”
Donovan’s head jerks up, as if he’s just realized he’s not alone in the room. “No,” he says, sounding distracted. “I thought for a moment—but I’d made sure to put redundancies in place—we’re fine. Fine,” he says again, like he’s trying to convince himself.
Surely if he or Ethan saw the symbol, they would have said something. But I have to ask, to be sure. “Um,” I say tentatively, “did either of you see anything when the lights went out?”
“You mean, like with my unbelievably awesome night vision?” Ethan asks, just as Donovan mutters, “Only the last six months of my work going down the drain.”
So much for that. Also, how the hell Ethan is so chipper at 10:00 p.m., after getting into the office at who-knows-what-o’clock this morning, is beyond me. Literally the only thing I’ve ever seen get under his skin is lateness. At the moment, for instance, he’s chattering on about a legally blind astronomer who actually does have incredible night vision. Under other circumstances, I’d be intrigued, but right now, all I want to do is figure out what the heck just happened.
What does the symbol mean? Why would it appear now, and only to me? What’s it trying to tell me? And if it’s another kind of premonition, how am I supposed to act on it if I have no idea what it stands for?
A scroll. A dagger. And those flames. Could the symbol have something to do with the ocean of blood and the premonition of Donovan’s death, and if so, what?
Exhaustion crashes down on me. Suddenly I feel every bruise and scrape from the past twenty-four hours, not to mention the emotional weight of seeing Julia again, discovering the monster’s death, finding Donovan only to lose him, and all of my premonitions. I just want to go home and sleep for about a thousand years, except I can’t. I need to reverse image search that stupid symbol, to see if I can dig up anything that will tell me what it is and what I’m meant to do about it. And to do that, I need to get out of here.
“I’m sharing the pitch deck with you now,” I tell Ethan, leaning over my laptop. “And then I’m going to go home, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course it’s okay.” He beams at me. “It’s late on a Friday night. I should’ve brought the two of you pizza, or something. Besides, better get going before we have another surge. I’ll stick around for a while, wrap up some loose ends, but you two should get out of here.”
Donovan clears his throat, emerging from behind his monitors once more. “I just need to check on a few things, Rune, but if you wait a couple minutes, I’ll be leaving too. Do you want me to walk you to your car?”
It’s a kind offer, but the last thing I want is to be alone with him right now. The hell with investigating that stupid symbol; I don’t trust myself not to drag Donovan into an alleyway and kiss him until neither of us can breathe. And downtown Sapphire Springs is full of all kinds of convenient nooks and crannies. Hell, it probably has video cameras that the Sinsters have set up, just to catch folks in exactly this kind of nefarious act. With my luck, they’d publish it in the online version of the Springs Sing, our local paper. And even if Ethan’s somehow oblivious to the goings-on on the Shenanigans page, there’s no way he’d miss that.
“No, I’m good,” I say, trying to sound easy-breezy rather than how I feel: like every single one of my nerve endings is aflame with an unfortunate blend of anxiety and desire. I sling my laptop bag over my shoulder and grab my purse, unable to meet Donovan’s eyes. “We’re talking downtown Sapphire Springs, you know? The worst thing that could happen is that a black cat will cross my path, and honestly, I think I’ve used up my quota of bad luck for the day.”
“If you’re sure,” Donovan says, looking from me to the window and back again.
Maybe I’m being na?ve, but with the monster dead, I feel like nothing can touch me. Yeah, I need to figure out the deal with the symbol and my premonitions, but physically, I feel invincible tonight. Like I want to celebrate my body for being strong, for surviving, and for outliving the greatest threat it ever faced. Making out with Donovan again feels like an awesome way to commemorate this turn of events. It also feels like the first step on the road toward disaster.
But he’s looking right at me now, his expression concerned and almost…sweet, and all I can say is, thank God Ethan’s in the room right now. Because otherwise, I’d be hard-pressed not to hop back on Donovan’s desk and have my way with him, premonition or no premonition.
No, Rune, I tell myself. Bad, bad, bad.
“I took martial arts classes for years,” I say, forcing a smile. It’s the truth; if the monster ever came for me again, I wanted to be able to defend myself. “Plus, I have mace on my keychain.” I hold it up so both he and Ethan can see. “I’m good, I promise.”
Before Donovan can say another word, I wave goodbye and leave, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as the elevator’s doors whoosh shut behind me. The lobby is deserted, and when I step onto the sidewalk, there’s no one to be seen in either direction.
I should feel happy to finally be alone, to have the space to think through everything that’s happened tonight. But instead, no matter what I told Donovan, I feel on edge, ill-at-ease. And the whole time I walk down Orchard Street, past The Bookaholic and Brew Box and the yoga studio, I can swear I feel the pressure of someone’s eyes on my back.
Watching me.