Crush

by Tracy Wolff

  I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I figure, What the hell. The worst that will happen is I’ll look like a total dork and hey, everyone here has already seen me do that at least once.

  So I take another deep breath and then try to do what Macy asked me to—I reach for her, trying to will a tiny spark of her magic into me.

  “Do you feel anything?” she asks, and her eyes are glowing just a little, in a way I’ve never seen before.

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  She smiles. “Don’t be sorry. Just try again.”

  I do, and this time I try really hard, but still nothing happens.

  “Third time’s the charm,” Macy says with a grin. Then asks, “Feel it?”

  She seems so sure, I can’t help wondering if I’m just missing something. “I don’t know if I do or not,” I answer after trying for several seconds to feel something. Anything.

  “You don’t,” Hudson tells me, not even bothering to look up from the book he’s been reading all afternoon.

  “How do you know?” I demand.

  “Because I’m in your head and I don’t feel anything? Plus, I have power and I know what you’re supposed to feel, and that’s definitely not happening right now.”

  “Of course it’s not,” I whine. “I’m destined to live my life on the side of a museum—as the world’s most unaccomplished waterspout.”

  A bubble of panic forms in my chest as I realize everyone is staring at me, varying degrees of pity in their eyes. Well, except Hudson. For once, my complete humiliation appears to not be of any interest to him.

  Probably sensing my frustration, Jaxon tries to tease me out of my growing anger. “Hey, don’t worry. We can figure this out another day.” He smiles encouragingly. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  I sigh. Maybe he’s right. This paranormal stuff is all new to me. Maybe it’s perfectly natural that I can’t do even the most basic gargoyle things yet.

  Hudson sighs, carefully closing his book and setting it on the cocktail table near his chair in the corner. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but this is going to be.” He stretches like a cat, his hands so far above his head that the bottom of his T-shirt lifts up to expose those ridiculous abs again.

  He catches me looking and raises a brow, right before he says, “You can do this; it’s just clear you need someone with a little more…expertise.”

  Screw the candle. My face feels like it’s on fire.

  “Grace, are we doing this or not?” Macy asks.

  “Not,” I answer. “I can’t figure out what to do.”

  “Nobody knows how at the beginning,” Hudson says as he walks over to stand a foot to my side. “You can do this. I promise.”

  I turn to face him more fully. “You can’t promise that. You don’t know—”

  He gives me a soft smile. “I do know.”

  “How?” I ask, my voice breaking.

  “Because I won’t let you fail.” He nods to Macy. “Tell her to try again.”

  I hold his gaze, then take a deep breath. I swivel my head toward Macy. “Hudson says we should try once more, Mace,” I tell my cousin. “And then I’m calling it quits.”

  “O-kay,” she says, clearly not sure if she should be glad Hudson is encouraging me to try again or not. “Once more.” And then her eyes do that weird glowy thing as she sends another burst of power my way.

  “Ready?” Hudson asks, a grin slowly spreading across his face that sets butterflies loose in my stomach.

  “Ready for what?”

  He snaps his fingers. “For this.”

  52

  Come on Baby,

  Light My Candle

  Just like that, there’s a weird feeling deep inside me. A spark of heat, of light, of energy that is both familiar and completely foreign at the same time.

  “Go ahead,” Hudson tells me, his voice little more than a whisper. “Reach for it.”

  So I do, hand outstretched and everything about me open wide. And then it’s there, right there inside me. Arrowing into me. Lighting me up from the inside. Making every nerve ending in my body come alive like I’ve never felt before.

  “Do you feel it now?” Macy asks, voice raised excitedly.

  “I do,” I tell her, because this has to be it. This brilliant feeling that’s warm and bright and airy and light has magic written all over it.

  “Good,” Macy continues. “Now hold it for a minute, get used to it. Feel it moving through your body.”

  I do as she says, letting the warmth and the light burn through me.

  “What do I do now?” I ask, because while it feels amazing to have this feeling inside me, it also feels unsustainable—like it’ll burn right through me and then disappear if I don’t know what to do with it.

  “Focus your mind,” Macy says, “on lighting the candle. Imagine it. And then just do it.”

  I stare at the candle as hard as I’ve ever stared at anything in my life. I imagine it lit, a flame burning along its wick. And then I try to light it.

  Nothing happens.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Macy says. “You’re so close, I can feel it. Just try again.”

  So I do, again and again, and still nothing happens.

  I can feel the light flickering inside me, feel it starting to dissipate, and I’m so afraid that it’ll go away that my hands start to tremble and my chest starts to ache.

  Macy must see my distress, because she says, “It’s okay. We can try again later.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Hudson tells me, moving to stand right behind me now, both our gazes focused on the candle, so close that I can feel his breath against my ear. “You can do this.”

  “I can’t do this. It’s leaving. I can feel it—”

  “So draw it back,” he orders. “Don’t send it out like Macy told you to. Pull it back, concentrate it into one ball of energy, of power, and then let it go.”

  “But Macy said—”

  “Fuck what Macy said. Everyone wields their power differently. I can feel it in you. It’s right there, ready to be used. So use it.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can.”

  “It’s okay,” Jaxon tells me. “We’ll practice a little bit each day until you get it.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Hudson orders. “You’ve got this.”

  “I don’t have it. I don’t.”

  Hudson leans forward, braces his arm under mine, and grabs onto my hand. “Focus,” he tells me. “Send every ounce of the magic you feel inside you right here, to where I’m holding you.” He squeezes my hand for emphasis. “Pull it back from wherever else you sent it and put it all right there.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out shakily. Breathe in a second time and let it out. The third time I breathe in, I hold it for long seconds as I try to do what he asks. The light has made a trail through me, so I grab on to one end of it and start to pull, rolling it back, back, back until it’s right there in my chest, my shoulder, my arm. Until finally, I can feel it in the palm of my hand.

  “Feel it?” Hudson asks.

  I nod, because I do. It’s so strong, it’s like it’s going to burn a hole right through me.

  “You’ve got it now,” he tells me.

  “I do. I’ve got it,” I whisper.

  “I know. Now, open your fist.” He lets go of my hand slowly, gently unweaving our fingers even as he keeps his arm directly under mine.

  “Aim,” he says, his voice and his body a solid presence behind me. Holding my feet to the flame and my palm to the power. Not letting me back up so much as an inch.

  And then he’s right there—chin near my shoulder, mouth pressed to my ear—as he whispers, “Now let it go.”

  So I do. And then let out a little scream as every single candle on Jaxon’s bookcase
bursts into flame at exactly the same moment. Oh my God. I did it. I really did it!

  “Holy shit, New Girl!” Flint yelps. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know.” I turn to look at Hudson, and for a second, just a second, he’s right there, his face barely an inch from mine. Our eyes lock and power—pure, unadulterated power—sizzles between us. At least until he steps back, putting several feet of distance between us in an instant.

  “How much power did you give her, Macy?” Jaxon asks, looking from the bookcase to my cousin and back again.

  “That wasn’t me,” Macy answers. “I can barely do that now with all my power, let alone with the little bit I was siphoning off for Grace.”

  “Then where did it come from?” Jaxon demands. “Power like that doesn’t just—”

  He breaks off as it hits him, which is just about the same time it hits me. No wonder the power felt strangely familiar. It’s been there, lurking inside me, for nearly four months.

  “Hudson.” Jaxon says his brother’s name like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, nose up and mouth curled into a small sneer while I simply whisper it.

  But when I whirl around to confront him, determined to find out what and how and why he did what he did, he’s gone. And not “hiding in a corner, pouting” gone, either. He’s gone gone, and I have absolutely no idea what to do to bring him back.

  53

  Everybody Wants to

  Rule the World

  “I don’t know what happened,” I tell Jaxon for what feels like the thousandth time. “He helped me feel the power, helped me focus it, helped me use it, and then he just disappeared.”

  “How can he disappear?” Jaxon answers, shoving a hand through his already messed-up hair. “I thought he was trapped in your head?”

  “He is trapped in my head,” I soothe. “Sometimes he just goes to a part I can’t access very easily.”

  “How does that even work?” Flint asks, his voice going up an octave on the last word, and for the first time I realize he’s almost as stressed out as Jaxon. “He’s just running around in your head, and you hope he’s not screwing up anything important?”

  I start to take offense—it’s not like I have absolute control over Hudson, but I feel like he and I have been bumping along pretty well since the body-snatching incidents—at least until I remember that Flint’s older brother died because of Hudson. It’s what put such a strain on his friendship with Jaxon, and it’s what led to the weirdness that’s between them today.

  “It’s not like that, Flint. We have different times when we give each other privacy—like when I’m in the shower, for instance—where we don’t know what the other person is doing. He’s still trapped in here with me; he’s just out of touch for a little while. He’ll be back.”

  Jaxon looks sick. “I never thought about you taking a shower or getting dressed with him around. How come I never thought of that?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter. We have a system worked out.”

  “Is this part of your system?” Flint asks, and the tone he uses gets my back up. “Him directing his power through you and then disappearing while you take the consequences?”

  “The consequences?” I answer. “You aren’t my teacher or my parents. There are no consequences in us having a discussion, no matter how unhappy you are.

  “Plus.” I shoot him a narrow-eyed look. “I don’t even know what you’re so upset about. You wanted me to channel magic and I did, so back off a little, will you?”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Flint shoots back. “I just meant that you’re the one who’s going to have to fix things if he messes them up, and that doesn’t seem fair to you.”

  His explanation takes a little of the fight out of me, and I slump down onto the back of the couch. “I get that you want answers, guys. I want answers, too. But there are times when something upsets me, and I want to be alone. I owe Hudson that same courtesy.”

  Besides, after everything that happened, I want some time alone, too. Some time to process everything that happened and just sit with it for a while. So I’m in no hurry for Hudson to come back. Once he does, I’m pretty sure everything is going to get even more complicated.

  Flint relaxes a little at my words, and so does Jaxon, but they both keep wary eyes on me. As does Macy, who has been uncharacteristically quiet since the whole magic-channeling thing happened. And while I appreciate the fact that all three of them are only looking out for me in their own ways, I also have to admit that the overprotectiveness is going to exhaust my patience sooner rather than later.

  Macy must sense it, because out of the blue, she suddenly suggests, “Hey, why don’t you guys go flying?”

  “Flying?” I ask, because just the thought of it makes me nervous.

  “Yes, flying. It’s another one of those powers gargoyles have,” she tells me. “And the one power we knew about before we even started researching. So why don’t you take Flint up on his offer to teach you and just go for it?”

  “I don’t know, Macy,” Jaxon says out of nowhere. “Grace has already had to deal with a lot today and—”

  Just that easily, I make my decision. Maybe it’s contrary—okay, it’s probably contrary—but Jaxon doesn’t get to decide what I do or when I do it. The guy is a bulldozer, especially with the people he feels responsible for. If I give him an inch, he’ll take seven miles…and then start inquiring about mineral and air rights.

  “I’d love to go flying, Flint!” I say with an enthusiasm that is at least partially fake. “But I think we should come up with a plan before we do anything else.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Macy agrees. “I mean, how many days do we have left before Hudson gives up on wandering to other parts of your brain and decides to just go back to doing his ‘adventures in vampire body snatching’ thing?”

  It’s a legitimate question, considering Hudson has already gained enough strength to punch a hole in the wall. I didn’t tell Jaxon about that—he’s already so worried that giving him more to stress out about seems like a bad idea—but we’re running out of time. I know it and so does Hudson.

  And while there’s a part of me that wants to believe he would never do that to me again now that we’ve gotten to know each other a little, there’s another part that’s smart enough to recognize that Hudson will do whatever he needs to do to get out of my head. That right now he’s going along with me because he knows I’m actively working for the same thing. I don’t know what he’d do if I changed my mind.

  “I feel like we have at least a few more days,” I settle for telling everyone. “But I’m not sure about much more than that.”

  “Which means we need to get this show on the road,” Flint says. “I have a general idea of where the Boneyard is and how to get there. I just need to get my hands on a map so we’re not wandering around forever trying to find the right spot.”

  “Good plan,” Jaxon says dryly.

  Flint pauses. Then he shoots me—and Jaxon—his typical goofy grin. “I’ve already texted my grandma about the map, told her I needed it for a school project, and she promised to text me a pic when she gets back to her lair tonight. Then we should be good to go.”

  “That’s awesome!” I tell him. “So we have the Ludares tournament on Wednesday, and that will get us the bloodstone. So we can go to the Dragon Boneyard on Thursday? Or should we go before?”

  “Definitely not before,” Flint answers in an “obviously” kind of tone. “The Boneyard is dangerous. If one of us gets hurt, we’ll risk losing Ludares. No way am I going to let that happen.”

  “Good point,” Macy says. “If we lose, we don’t get the bloodstone.”

  “Pretty sure Flint is more worried about the bragging rights than the bloodstone,” I tease. “But either way, I agree. We can’t risk being hurt going into the tournament.”r />
  “But we can risk being hurt in the Dragon Boneyard?” Macy asks. “I mean, not to sound like a baby, but what kind of hurt are we talking about? A broken finger or full-on dismemberment? Because I can deal with a couple of broken bones, but I need my limbs.”

  Jaxon laughs. “Pretty sure we all need our limbs, Macy.”

  “Yeah, but now that Grace is a gargoyle, I have the highest chance of actually losing a limb in this whole group. And I just want to go on record as saying, I’m not okay with that,” Macy says.

  “Fair enough,” Flint tells her. “Ludares and then a trip to the Boneyard with absolutely no dismemberment. I think we can pull that off.”

  “So Boneyard on Thursday night,” Jaxon says. “And if no one loses a leg, we can plan on going after the Unkillable Beast on Friday or Saturday—depending on what shape we’re in?”

  “Do we even know where the Unkillable Beast is?” Macy asks. “I mean, you mentioned it’s somewhere near the North Pole, but the Arctic is a huge area. And not exactly hospitable. We don’t want to be bumbling around in freezing temperatures.”

  “Actually, I kept researching and discovered it’s on an enchanted island in the Arctic off the coast of Siberia,” Jaxon adds.

  “It’s on an enchanted island?” I ask. “Seriously?”

  “That’s what the legends say,” Flint agrees.

  “Not a legend if it’s true,” Jaxon says. “I spent the last several hours looking for info on the Unkillable Beast’s location, and I think I’ve found it. I’m going to do more research tonight and tomorrow, just to make sure I’m right. But if I am, I say we aim for Saturday.”

  “So…Ludares Wednesday, Boneyard Thursday, and Beast on Saturday.” Flint recites the plan, a questioning look on his face. “Everyone good with that?”

  “I am,” I tell him, although the truth is that my hands are shaking a little at the thought of that lineup.

  “Me too,” Macy agrees.