Chapter 6
ALLY? POSSIBLE LOVE INTEREST? FUTURE SIDEKICK?
MORGAN
“Stay here a minute,” the shadow man, who was still more shadow than man, said as he slid through the darkness away from me.
“Wait! Don’t prance off.” It was super weird talking to a disembodied voice, but maybe if I pretended it was like Violet in the earbud that’d make it easier.
“I’m not leaving without you,” he said. “I’m checking if the guards are gone and getting your earbud off the shelf.”
Yeah. Okay. That made sense. I totally would have thought of that too.
A moment later, a tingle of magic fluttered through the air, right before a very real hand grabbed my wrist. I reached for him with my other hand, just to check I wasn’t misinterpreting what I was feeling.
I may have been accused of having an active imagination once or twice.
It was one of my best qualities. But sometimes it got a little carried away, so it was always best to check whether things were real.
My free hand hit a solid body.
Excellent.
“Come on. Let’s get somewhere safe where we can talk.”
As we stepped into the empty hallway and the light (the actual light, not the metaphorical one), I seized the opportunity to check out my mystery rescuer.
My first thought: Score one for Violet. Because this guy was also dressed in blah and boring black. She’d insisted this disguise would help me blend in, and obviously he agreed.
My mystery man even had short, dark brown hair, almost as dark as my wig. Oh! Was he wearing a disguise too? He was super handsome, so I understood why he might want to wear one: I knew I’d never forget him.
His neatly trimmed beard accentuated his jawline. I hadn’t thought of a beard. That would have hidden more of my face than the makeup. Shoot. I’d have to remember to try facial hair next time. Maybe something I could glue on would work, since I’d never be able to grow that much on my own.
Oh well, I guess a few differences between us would be good too, so we weren’t complete twinsies.
His thick dark eyebrows were tilted down in the center when he glanced back at me with his dark eyes. Was he wearing contacts? If he was, I needed to invest in his brand. They made his eyes look menacing and almost black.
It was super effective.
He dragged me to the end of the hallway before stopping abruptly when the sound of conversation from the banquet room reminded us we weren’t alone on this floor. He shot a look down the hallway.
“We’ll leave through the stairwell, and hopefully no one will notice us,” he whispered.
I nodded because it seemed expected. Without any other discussion, he was pulling me along behind him again.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about him dragging me around like he was a little kid clinging to his precious teddy bear—me being the precious teddy bear, if my simile wasn’t obvious—but I was too curious to put up a fight.
Violet would have hated this. She’d have kicked his ass if he tried to manhandle her, but I was willing to give the guy some leeway. He had saved me, after all.
He could be my overprotective sidekick. Every hero needed one, right?
Besides, my cloak was fluttering behind my hurried steps, which was immensely satisfying. It made me wonder why fashion trends had steered away from cloaks. But everything came back in style eventually, right? Cloaks would be popular again anytime now.
My rescuer, who still hadn’t identified himself, hit the stairwell and kept on going.
The sound of our footsteps ricocheted over the unadorned concrete.
I hoped no one heard us and investigated.
We didn’t need that kind of attention. What happened in the janitorial closet was a reminder that our safety wasn’t guaranteed here.
Although, to be accurate, I wasn’t safe anywhere.
“Where is your room?” he asked.
Was it a bad move to take him to my room? Probably. But my instincts told me to trust him. And that’s how, a few minutes later, we were safely ensconced in my room on the third floor.
“Now what?” I asked, curious about… well, everything. Him. His plans. Why he’d been in the closet.
Did he want to get in my pants? He’d hugged me and stroked my face, so maybe?
Should I tell him I was happy to have him polish my horn?
No one had ever wanted intimacy like that from me before, so I wasn’t sure what to do.
I was wildly curious, though—curious enough to agree if he started stripping.
Unfortunately, he didn’t do anything delicious like box me in and press me against the wall again.
How disappointing.
Instead, he stalked across the room to the window and yanked the curtain closed. Then he spun toward me and narrowed his eyes.
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
Hmm… What to say? Violet would have opinions about how I should answer. Many, many opinions. But without her warnings in my ear, I needed to wing this on my own. Which reminded me… I should probably get the earbud back from him and check in with V before her head exploded.
I tapped my chin. Should I give him my real name? Or my alias?
Logic, as boring as it was, said my alias was the way to go, so of course I immediately chose to do the opposite. My reasoning was twofold. First, I hated the rashes I got from lying. Second, I didn’t want to deceive this man, for some strange reason. Weird.
“Morgan Russell,” I said. I swished my hand through the air and rested it lightly on my chest as I bowed. “At your service.”
“You…” he sputtered. “You’re… Morgan.”
I’d never considered eyebrows to be especially expressive before, but at my announcement, his eyebrows were dipping down in the middle again. Was he confused? Angry? It was anyone’s best guess.
“And you are?”
He bit his bottom lip for a moment before answering. “Eric Long.”
Now it was my turn to frown. He was lying. That was a problem. I wasn’t a hellhound—those supes were renowned for being able to sniff out lies—but I could still tell. Being close to someone telling a lie made my skin crawl.
I folded my arms across my chest and stared at him. “Why did you rescue me?”
“Who is V?”
Wait. He was supposed to answer my question, not ask another one.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“V. Who is it?”
Shoot. He sounded serious, and now I really, really wanted to answer him, mostly so he’d quit frowning at me. I’d never fibbed convincingly, but Violet would have my hooves if I told Eric-not-Eric everything. “Uh… V? Like the old TV show?”
“No,” he said curtly. “Like the person you were talking to on this.” He tossed my earbud up, then swiped it out of the air before it fell to the ground.
“Oh, you know. Someone.” I waved my hand through the air, gesturing vaguely, as if that’d distract him. “We were chatting. Like people do.”
“You’re going to pretend you don’t have someone on the outside working with you and whispering in your ear?”
Nerves overwhelmed me, and laughter bubbled up through me. Literally. I tried to stop it. I did. Really.
But have you ever tried to stop laughing?
Especially when laughing is the absolute last thing you should do?
The harder I tried to quell the rise, the harder it pushed at me until finally it burst out of me in a booming guffaw.
A dizzying number of iridescent bubbles shot out of my mouth, filling the air between us.
I clamped my mouth shut, but it was too late.
Pinecone prickles!
Eric-not-Eric gaped at the bubbles as they floated lazily to the carpeted floor where they popped out of existence. One enterprising bubble had made it all the way over to the cute shadow man and landed on his black sleeve. He scowled at it as if it was an irritating fly.
I hurried over and swatted it.
There. The evidence was gone.
Eric-not-Eric slowly lifted his dark eyes to mine. I flashed him my best the-world-is-super-amazing-and-everything-is-wonderful smile and waved at him jauntily.
“How bizarre was that, hey? I must have swallowed some soap in the shower this morning.”
The man, who’d been so calm and decisive in the janitorial closet earlier, looked a little woozy. He staggered to the nearest chair and plopped onto it.
Well, this was awkward.
“I didn’t realize I’d be having visitors,” I said.
“So I don’t have any refreshments, but would you like water?
Oh, wait! There’s a mini fridge.” I dashed over to it, which made my cloak flutter behind me, and yanked the baby appliance open.
“Oh, look! How about a teeny tiny bottle of juice? A pop? Or do you call pop soda? Either way, there is some of that too.”
I didn’t drink carbonated beverages. I had enough bubbles already, obviously. If I added a carbonated drink to my insides, I wouldn’t be able to leave my room for at least twenty-four hours. Believe me, turning into a magical bubble machine wasn’t as fun as it sounded.
When Eric-not-Eric didn’t answer, I glanced over my shoulder at him. He stared at me as if I was an extraterrestrial explaining how the pyramids were constructed.
Man, how cool would that be?
I loved those pseudo-documentary shows about aliens on TV. Because if unicorns existed, who was to say aliens didn’t too?
But when Eric-not-Eric still didn’t answer, I grabbed a cola, cracked the top, and shoved it at him before selecting an orange juice for myself.
I couldn’t do bubbles, but sugar? Sugar was brilliant.
I also needed sugar to balance out my magic.
I hadn’t used much magic today, but it was always prudent to be prepared, right?
Huh. I wondered what Eric-not-Eric needed to eat to replenish his magic…
“You’re Morgan,” he whispered. “The unicorn.”
Shoot. How did he know? No one was supposed to know anything about unicorns.
Until that moment, I’d never understood why squirrels froze in place when a predator was skulking around. It was a completely silly fear response, particularly in this situation, but alas, my body was doing its own thing.
On TV sitcoms, people would laugh at accusations they wanted to dismiss, but laughter was what’d gotten me into this predicament in the first place. So that wasn’t an option.
I wished I had my earbud. Violet would know what to do. Of course, she would be spinning in circles because I’d told this man my real name. But to be fair, I never said I was a unicorn. I hadn’t expected him to guess so easily.
“I’ve been looking for you.” He was still speaking softly, as if he feared scaring me.
Which was kind of silly. My scare-o-meter was all the way up already. One hundred percent. I’d jumped right over freaked-out land and had planted a flag in this-is-so-fucking-bad territory.
Except Ethan Hunt wouldn’t be frightened, would he? I tried to rally my courage by humming the theme song to Mission: Impossible again. Quietly. So quietly only I could hear it. Was it still humming if it was only in my head?
“I’m sorry. I’m fucking this up,” my mystery rescuer said. He leaned forward so abruptly the cola sloshed out of the top of his can and splashed over his fingers. He didn’t notice. “Do you remember Ogden? A dragon? Likes to sing? Can electrocute people with his dragon fire?”
I blinked. Of course I remembered the dragon who’d been caged beside me all those months ago, in that awful facility run by that awful troll.
Holy glittering rainbows. Was this guy one of those kidnappers?
I glanced at the door. I doubted I’d make it before he caught me. On the one hand, it took shadows whole afternoons to travel across the floor in the living room at my uncle’s house. But at the same time, they flashed into existence with the flick of a light switch. They could pop up anywhere.
“He’s my friend,” the guy continued. “He asked me to find you. I’ve been looking for you since the summer. I found the grain bin and the cage…” He shook his head. “Fuck. I can’t believe I found you. I need to get you away from here. Somewhere safe.”