Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We order a feta cheese and olive pizza and a basket of fries to split between the four of us.
“Okay, Betts, spill the tea.” Mia leans across the table toward me. “What’s going on with you and Leo?”
My eyes dart to Liv. How much has she told them? Come to think of it, how much has Zander told them?
Jenna laughs. “Oh my god, Braden was so ready to kick Leo’s ass. He was all like, grrrr, like he was gonna defend Zander’s honor or something.”
Mia winks at me. “You go, girl. I can’t believe you introduced them like that.”
“Well, they weren’t going to have a showdown in the middle of the student center,” I say with a shrug.
But the truth is, I introduced them because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.
And because I’d already forgotten that Zander was a point of contention.
The whole drama seems so unimportant now.
“And that Rime guy—” Mia prods Liv. “Braden was ready to take his ass down.”
Liv shoots a disinterested glance at Mia’s nudging elbow. “What does that have to do with me?”
But she’s not fooling any of us. Jenna fans herself while Mia smirks at me and rolls her eyes. I grin back, but inside I’m screaming, No way! The last thing Liv needs is to fall for a faerie. Trust me, I know.
As I nibble on too-hot fries, I try to fabricate some sort of story for Rime. Where he’s from, how he knows Leo, why he’ll be disappearing in a matter of days. But I’m drawing a blank.
Jenna slides her beer to me. “You’re not getting out of it, so drink, then spill the tea. We want to know about Leo.”
I don’t drink, I gulp. Then I say, “There’s no tea. We’re just friends.”
Mia snorts and rolls her eyes again.
“Girl, please,” Jenna says. “We’re not blind.”
“Um, well,” I admit, “we tried taking it, uh, you know, a little further, but—”
Liv cuts in, “They really are just friends. Trust me. They just sit around talking about books and stuff.” She shrugs and gives a bored smile, like Leo and I are so lame.
But I know she’s rescuing me. She shifts gears.
“So what’s the deal with the hotel rooms?
Did Trevor get the block discount or what? ”
Spring Break in Panama City, a marginally safer topic. I just need to come up with an excuse for not going.
“Yeah,” Jenna answers. “I can’t remember the rate, but I’ll text you guys.”
“You’re coming, right?” Mia asks me.
“Um, I don’t think so. I mean, no, I can’t—” Actually, I could.
It’s a week and a half away. Plenty of time to find the weapon and resume normal college life.
Like I can recover from this with a simple Sunday reset.
I fumble into the best excuse I can think up on the fly.
“I need to go home, it’s a family thing.
I promised I’d help plan my brother’s graduation party. ”
I hold my breath, waiting for Liv to blurt out, Since when? But she simply nods and stuffs two fat fries into her mouth. Conveniently, our server arrives, forcing us to clear a space on the table for our huge pizza. She clunks down some extra plates and a wad of napkins and disappears.
Once we start on the pizza, the conversation shifts from trying to get me to go to Panama City to trying to get Lara not to go.
Jenna piles the dangling strands of cheese back onto the end of her pizza slice. “She has to know Zander can’t stand her.”
“I don’t think she cares,” Liv says with a wry twist of her lips. “If one time you succeed, try try again.”
I’m surprised she’s mentioning Zander’s indiscretion in front of me. She must be confident that I’m completely over him. Or, more precisely, she’s confident she’s completely over him-and-me.
I serve myself another slice of pizza, pick the olives off, and eat them first. I’m probably going to end up eating more than I want, but it’s a way to keep my mouth occupied.
I should be grateful for this reprieve. A chance to spend some time with friends, having a conversation that has nothing to do with villainous faeries, harnessing emotions, or weird-ass candlesticks.
But it’s not like I’m benefitting from it.
I’m struggling to engage. Struggling to keep up with who’s sleeping with whom and who wants to kick whose ass.
Discussions about Sweetheart duties are a little more interesting, if only because of Liv.
Her eyes light up when she suggests slip-and-slide races and a human pyramid challenge for the Greek Games in September.
There’s no going back to this life, is there? Even once this search is over. Being psychic, with an ability that’s multiplying exponentially by the day, means there’s no normal for me to go back to.
Halfway through our meal, our server returns to ask us if there’s anything we need.
As I open my mouth to request a drink refill, I notice something odd happening outside the window behind her.
She might be asking me if I need another Diet Coke, and I might be nodding.
I might even be breathing. But the surge of panic in my chest would suggest otherwise.
A group of students stands just outside the restaurant door, probably debating whether to come in or go somewhere else. But what they’re doing there doesn’t matter. What does? That they don’t look at, or react to, the three figures weaving between them as they make their way past.
Three figures I recognize. Two men and one woman.
And I’m the only one who’s seeing them.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I may’ve just said that out loud.
My phone is on me somewhere. Where the hell did I put it?
“Betts—?”
“You okay?”
“What’s wrong?”
It’s not until someone lays a hand on my arm that I come to. Jenna.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” I babble, finally unearthing my phone. “I’m so sorry, but I need to… can you let me out? Just for a sec?”
With a concerned expression, she slides out of the booth and steps back, letting me by.
I call over my shoulder as I dash for the exit, “I’ll be right back.”
Once I’ve burst out the door, I slow down and try to blend in. I don’t think Brier’s team would recognize me, but I don’t want to give away the fact that not only am I someone who can see them, I’m also following them.
The trio saunters down the hill, looking relaxed and unhurried.
They glance in windows as they dodge the people on the sidewalk, but nobody acknowledges their existence.
Believe me, if people could see them, they’d get noticed.
Tall, striking, intimidating. Everything Leo, Rime, and Topaz are, even in their glamoured forms.
I stand on the edge of a group of sorority girls as I frantically type out a message on my phone: B’s team is on main st. I send it to Leo, I think.
Maybe it was Rime. Whoever it goes to, I hope they can make sense of it.
A text comes back almost immediately from Rime: We’re coming. Keep them in sight.
Wherever he, Leo, and Topaz are, I doubt they’re more than five minutes away. I glance over each shoulder—who the hell knows why—before I start down the hill, hugging the storefronts and trying to look casual. Another message sends my phone dancing in my hand.
Leo: Don;tlet them seeu
What a hot mess of a text. And an insult to my intelligence.
I stay back a good fifty feet, not because Leo told me to, but because I have common sense.
The female fae’s dark red ponytail swings as she walks—no, as she slinks.
Just like Topaz. Is that what all fae women do?
No wonder Rime’s so charmed by the typical, ingenuous Brownhill girl.
The threesome screech to a halt, point at a display window, and cheerfully laugh.
Next thing I know, they’re ducking into the little corner drugstore, the tallest guy pulling open the door and ushering the other two in before going through.
To the nearby humans, would that look like a door opening and closing all on its own?
I pick up the pace, dashing past an insurance office and cutting through a group of obviously stoned guys debating whether to go in for some Combos.
Luckily, they come in right after me, drawing everyone’s attention with their girlish giggling and sloppy gesticulations.
Over the top of the greeting card rack, the tall fae studies them with intense, crystal-blue eyes.
Like Rime, he looks like some sort of Scandinavian god.
With normal human ears.
It looks like the fae have made themselves visible in order to shop.
I slip into the shampoo aisle and shoot off another message: Hoffman’s Drugstore.
Rime: We’re almost there.
I pace distractedly, pretending to be looking at conditioners and nervously tapping the back of my phone to the beat of “Billie Jean” playing over the speaker. What are Rime, Leo, and Topaz going to do when they get here? Is there gonna be a faerie battle in this poor mom-and-pop store?
No, that would be stupid. If Brier’s team sees them, they would know they’ve come to the right place.
That the macguffin is here in Alderford.
No, surely Rime’s intent is to merely follow them.
Find out where they’re staying and how much they know.
They could very well be closer to finding the weapon than we are.
I type back to Rime, hoping they’re still in the car and he can reply: Can you use glamours on each other?
The answer is rushed and simple: No.
So he, Topaz, and Leo will have to stay hidden the old-fashioned way.
Movement at the end of the aisle catches my attention. Reflexively, I look up—straight into the face of the female fae. Her violet eyes widen in surprise, then narrow.
Shit. She has pointed ears. Unlike the male fae, she’s supposed to be invisible.
I gulp and look away. I’m so fucked. Curling my hands into my sweater sleeves, I pretend to browse the styling gels.
Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her.
When I feel her getting closer, I stroll to the end of the aisle and turn down the one with the snacks. And the stoners.