by Dave Ferraro
Shanna blinked as Valor opened the book on her lap, realizing they’d just been dismissed. “Oh. Okay...sure.”
Numbly, Shanna left the room beside Cameron and Jade, her mind remaining back in the room with Valor. She felt like she’d just been scolded or something.
“I’m sure I’m fine,” Shanna insisted suddenly as she realized that they were indeed headed toward the infirmary.
“Well, this way, we’re super-sure,” Jade assured her. She looked over at Cameron and nodded.
Cameron nodded back.
“I can take it from here, Cameron,” Jade told him, amused, as they reached the infirmary doors. “I promise not to keep your girlfriend for too long.”
“Oh, right.” He looked at Shanna and quickly leaned in and kissed her full on the mouth, hard and deep.
It was such a sudden, unexpected move that Shanna barely had time to register the act until Cameron was halfway down the hall and her face was completely scarlet. A month of dating and that was the first really intimate kiss they’d shared. Yet he’d been so casual about it. And where had his trademark shyness gone? He didn’t seem very affected by the act. He certainly hadn’t closed himself off during the sudden move. It only served to further confuse her. She turned to look at Jade, who was watching Cameron’s movement down the hall with interest.
“That was pretty brash,” Jade concluded, turning to Shanna and opening the door of the infirmary.
“I…yeah. I’ll say.”
Jade raised an eyebrow, switching the lights on and instructing Shanna to sit on the examination table while she dug out the equipment.
“Maybe it was a thank you for saving him back there,” Shanna suggested, feeling unsettled.
“I guess I’ve heard stranger things.”
***
Rachel carefully slid her razor up her leg in a swift, firm stroke. One leg up on the rim of the bathtub, she scolded herself for not remembering to shave during her bubble bath. But she’d already applied her olive face mask and had her golden hair up in a towel, half dry, so she would have to suffer for her neglect. She reached over and swished her razor in a half-full sink of lukewarm water and began a new stroke. She had to do this now, she knew, while her skin was still soft from the water, while her hair follicles had been raised to the surface of her skin by her sugar scrub. That was what she’d read in one of her many magazines that piled the nightstand beside her bed. Most of the stuff in those magazines was crap, but every once in awhile, something jumped out that seemed to be the greatest beauty tip of the past decade. Although one never knew until they tried said tip. This worked, she knew. She’d been receiving the closest shaves of her life for weeks now.
Reaching over to rinse her razor again, Rachel gave pause. Had she heard a knock from the other room, at her bedroom door? She rolled her eyes, running the possibilities of visitors through her mind, like a rogues’ gallery. Either one annoying, socially-stunted individual or another. What did it matter who it was, in the end? She quickly finished her leg and toweled it off, striding into the other room while wrapping another towel over her torso. “I’m busy,” she called out as she approached the door. Pausing before it, she awaited an answer. She didn’t get one, so she shrugged and walked back into the other room. It was probably her imagination, anyway. Halfway into the bathroom, however, another knock resounded through the room.
“Jesus Christ,” she mumbled to herself. She glanced over at her four-post bed, draped with soft satin and luxurious cotton sheets. Her eyes then danced over the wall past her nightstand, where underneath the window, stuffed animals dominated the whole space, vying for a place of visibility. That softened her annoyance a bit. Her stuffed animals always seemed to have that effect on her. Who could be angry with snuggly, cute creatures everywhere?
She walked over to the door again and unlocked it, swinging it open viciously. “What?” she demanded, staring down her nose at Jade.
Jade looked sheepish as she held up a bottle of red wine, tilted to impress her with its good year. “Celebrate a successful mission?”
Rachel snorted. “I think not. I wasn’t part of the damn thing anyway.”
She began to close the door, but Jade stuck the bottle in the doorway. “But this is a special occasion. You have to. It’s good luck.”
Rachel opened the door another inch and arched an eyebrow. “I am not drinking with you. Your intentions are dubious at best.”
Laughing, Jade pushed her way inside and produced two wine glasses from behind her back. She began to pour a glass as she slid into the chair at Rachel’s extravagant bureau. “God, this is like a model’s dressing room. I bet you have a walk-in closet full of Gucci dresses or something.”
“Or something,” Rachel murmured, eyeing the glass Jade pushed toward her. The girl poured another glass for herself and held it up. “Cheers.”
Rachel shook her head. “Out. There’s no way I’m chatting it up with a girl in as dire need of a makeover as you.”
Jade tilted her head.
“I mean it, Jade. I’m really not in the mood right now. I don’t care if you guys bagged Dracula himself on this mission of yours, I’m not slumming it with you. Anyway, there are plenty of other hunters to annoy into drinking with you who are more sympathetic to bad hair. And we’re all going to be briefed on this sooner or later so I don’t need to tolerate your presence.”
“Alright, alright!” Jade growled, grabbing the wine bottle, knocking her wine glass off of the bureau in the process. They watched silently as the glass slipped easily to the floor and emptied onto the cream-colored carpet, a bloodstain on sheep skin.
“Oh, my God!” Jade screeched. “I’m so sorry!”
“Jesus!” Rachel muttered under her breath. She eyed the floor warily, before expelling a pale sigh. “Just…just leave, Jade. Please, just leave me alone.”
“Okay, but…you go ahead and have that other glass,” Jade told her, walking back out of the room slowly. “It’ll…calm you down.”
“I don’t drink, Jade,” Rachel whispered, then looked up, flames anew in her irises. “Now, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” She scampered into the adjoining bathroom and wet a towel, hurrying back into her bedroom to stagnate most of the damage. Not that it was a big deal. It was just annoying. She hadn’t wanted the klutz in her room in the first place. Glancing up at the door, she saw it shut firmly. She sighed as she scrubbed at the red stain. “God damn it. That little…God, you’d think I’d be able to get some peace around here.”
“I think the room could use a splash of red,” a voice glowered from behind her.
Rachel hadn’t even turned her head all the way around when the bottle of wine connected with her head, announcing a loud, hollow crack. The hunter fell back into the stain on the floor, her vision blurry. She put her hands up to ward off another blow and managed to kick Jade’s feet out from under her. Scampering across the floor, she grabbed a blue vase filled with cottonwood branches, swinging the heavy glass back into the face of the pursuing hunter.
“Ah! You bitch!” Jade screamed, her hand at her face.
Rachel pulled herself to her feet and ran toward the bedroom door, throwing it open with a flourish and shoving the door closed as she slid down the wall of the hallway ungracefully. She shook her head to fight off a wave of nausea and quickly gathered herself to her feet, squealing as Jade grabbed her ankle from behind. In a panic, Rachel shoved the door shut on the hand that stuck out of the open door.
“Fuck!” Jade screamed as the door closed on it.
Rachel grabbed hold of the door and slammed it shut again, but the hunter had withdrawn her hand and…she could hear her breaking things. Had the bitch gone completely stark-raving mad? She looked around quickly to see if anyone was coming to her aide before a wave of nausea took hold of her again. Putting a hand to her head, she found it wet with thick syrup. Blood. “I gotta…” She took s
everal steps forward before she saw Shanna’s bedroom door open. “Shanna!”
She threw herself at the doorway, landing in the girl’s arms as they both fell back into the room. Rachel shoved the door shut and turned wild eyes on her companion. “Shanna! Jade - she’s insane! She tried to…” She paused as she noticed one of her windows was broken, glass shards littered over the floor like something had crashed into it from the outside.
Burning ice seeped into the back of her neck suddenly, reminding Rachel of the time she’d been stung by a bee. A sharp prick, a trickle of blood, a flash of anxiety. She could see her father kissing her arm, his moustache lingering, tickling her skin, transforming it to rough gooseflesh. “There. All better.”
Her face arched back toward the figure behind her, her vision growing blurry with a rapidity that scared her. She touched the back of her neck as she focused on the syringe that withdrew from her neck. “You…” Her eyelids closed, cutting her off from the scene like a curtain blanketing a stage. She felt her body fall, but was unaware of anything by the time it hit the floor.
“God, damn it, you can fight,” Shanna muttered, shaking some glass shards from her hair. She looked up into a mirror as she transformed back into Jade’s slightly taller, darker form. “Gave me a run for my money, but that’s going to take you down a notch. Isn’t it, you condescending twit.”
Chapter Four
Amelia stepped cautiously out of the lounge, another iced tea in hand, and paused as she heard something…scraping? The wind was whispering in her ear, bringing her ever closer to Rachel’s bedroom door…no. Shanna’s bedroom door.
The door suddenly opened and Shanna backed out, hastily closing the door behind her with a start as she noticed Amelia.
“Oh, Jesus, you scared me,” Shanna confessed, a bottle of wine in hand. “I was just going to see if you wanted a drink.”
“Hmm. What’s the occasion?” Amelia asked, lifting the bottle to look it over.
“Friendship.”
“Ah, friendship,” Amelia sighed. “Getting rather sentimental, aren’t you?”
“What can I say? I can’t help it,” Shanna shrugged, walking Amelia back to the lounge.
Amelia replaced her iced tea in the refrigerator and produced two wine glasses from a small cupboard. “So, Valor must not have had much to say.”
“Not really. We just went over a few details from the fight.”
“That must have been pretty rough, with an imposter of Cameron.” Amelia set the glasses down on the coffee table before the sofa and sat beside Shanna as the other hunter began to pour wine for the both of them.
“Yeah. It was strange. A little unnerving. I’m just glad it’s behind me.”
“So where is he now?” Amelia asked suddenly. “Shouldn’t he be basking in your radiance or some such romantic notion?”
“Please. Cameron’s sweet and all, but he doesn’t exactly sweep me off of my feet.”
“He…doesn’t?”
Shanna put a glass in Amelia’s hands and held hers up as if to toast. “Cameron’s low-key. And I think he’s kind of new to the whole dating thing. Like me.”
“You think?” Amelia frowned as she drank her wine. “You haven’t even asked him about his past relationships?”
“I was going to get to it. But truth be told, I’m not sure I want to know much. I get jealous easily.”
“You…do? You don’t seem like you would.”
Shanna glanced up at her. “I fought tooth-and-nail for a guy once because I didn’t like the girl that wanted him.”
“You? I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“I…I thought you’d only dated one guy and you never even pursued him.”
“Hmmm…” Shanna shrugged. “I guess she might have said that.”
“She?” Amelia paused, mid-sip, and coughed. She set down the glass and put out a hand, coughing more aggressively, like she was choking. Her eyes bulged as she looked at Shanna and knocked the table over, sending wine and paper across the carpeting. She stumbled another moment before the room began to shake. Or rather, the furniture began to shake. She was panicking and her control over the air was illustrating her fear physically. It was much more potent than her companion had expected. And it was only when the redhead fell to the floor amid the mess, face against a puddle of wine, that the room became calm again.
Shanna smiled calmly from her seat. She took a sip from the wine glass yet in her hand and swished it around in her mouth before spitting it back into the glass. “Yes, it does taste a tad tart, doesn’t it?” She threw the glass at Amelia’s still form, savoring the moment as the glass shattered and spilled over the girl. “Now that you’re out of the picture, the rest of the lot should be easy pickings, wouldn’t you agree?” She smiled down at Amelia for a moment before grabbing her beneath the armpits and dragging her away.
***
“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate needles?” Shanna demanded as she strode out of the infirmary with Jade, at a speed that demonstrated the distance she wanted to put between herself and the tests she’d just undergone, a tender hand subconsciously running over the cotton ball taped inside the crook of her right arm.
“Mmm. And I have an uncanny fascination with them,” Jade stated dryly before letting out a brief laugh that let Shanna know she was kidding. “I’m around this stuff all day, so it doesn’t bother me anymore. But even I feel a little apprehensive at the other end of the needlepoint. Believe me.”
“So you’re not a masochist? Hmmm…the rumor mill will be disappointed by this revelation.”
“My weakness can be our secret,” Jade offered.
“Heh. And what fun would that be?”
Jade sent her a look and shook her head. “Anyways, I think I’m going to check in with Valor quick to let her know what I found.”
“Which was nothing.,” Shanna reminded her.
“Nothing yet.”
“At all.”
“We’ll see.”
Shanna laughed. “Okay. I’m going to get ready for bed. Give our mysterious counselor my love, will you?”
“Mmm. After that last kiss from Cameron, I don’t think you’ve got the extra love to spare at the moment.”
“That kiss…yeah…” Shanna waved distractedly as she parted with Jade and made a beeline for her bedroom. She paused outside her door, debating whether to go confront Cameron about it then and there. Or maybe he didn’t realize that the intensity of that kiss had been new. It was possible, right? A kiss might not be a big deal to him. Then why hadn’t he done it before then? And why had he closed off every other time a kiss had moved in that direction? She could see it again, her hands rising to touch his jaw line, cup his face, but his hands there, always there, sentinels that held her back, gently wrapping around her wrists, holding their intimacy back like a dam, like he was afraid to let it get that deep, or perhaps afraid of something else? She hadn’t wanted to force it. He seemed rather vulnerable whenever he did that, like he couldn’t help himself from stopping her. But then…the sudden recklessness in that regard frustrated her. Was he trying to confuse her? Shanna shook her head. She was too tired to be thinking such things after the mission and unrelenting pokes and prods. A nice hot shower beckoned.
She stepped into her room and frowned at the wind that lashed at her. Looking up, she was shocked to find her window smashed open. Her hand immediately went up to her neck and she dashed toward the window, staring out into the darkness. Was he out there? Damien? Had he finally come to see her?
She stared into the midnight air and willed him to materialize from its inky depths. But he did not. Then the window…
Shaking her head, Shanna bent over to pick up a few pieces of glass, looking the shards over before glancing back out into the night air. She had a bad feeling in the back of her mind as she touched her neck again and ventured out to find a dustpan, trying to
explain the accident away, despite her growing dread.
***
The night screeched through a crack of open window, sending clawed curtains into the hallway threateningly, vying for Jade’s attention as she sauntered up to Brett’s door with more than a little reluctance. Brett was really the last person Jade would want to ask for help, but unfortunately, he was the strongest person around and she needed brawn to help her carry the equipment in from the van. The recent mission had required weaponry and supplies and lucky her, she got clean-up duty.
Shaking her head, Jade knocked on his door. Valor hadn’t been in the mood to talk much after hearing Shanna’s results. Once that part of the conversation was over, Valor had simply asked her to drag in all of the things they’d brought on the mission. Like that was all she was good for. Like she wasn’t being paid good money to be a team player, but a maid. Jade snorted. What a bitch. She never had time for any of them, yet she could always be found lounging about with a book or on the phone, talking to some important person or another. Someone more important than them, the ones who put their lives on the line for her. What about their questions? Why did she always put them off?
She’d thought she could have at least counted on her twin brother, Jordan, to help her with the supplies, but he’d been so distant as of late. It was strange, like he was trying to avoid any interaction with her at all. Sure, they’d talked about not relying on each other so much, but cutting each other off completely? It was like she was the only sane person around. It all came down to the battle at The Crimson Rope’s mansion last month. They’d all been separated pretty completely during the battle, so she didn’t know what Jordan had gone through, but she wished he’d at least talk to her about it. They’d always talked to each other about things, had grown impossibly close since their parents had died. She wondered if he was mad at her for suggesting hunting with others instead of each other. Sure, it had been unnerving, but she felt it was for the best that they bond with their teammates. She just hoped he didn’t feel like she wanted space from him, because that wasn’t it at all. In fact, she’d been pretty jealous of the girls vying for his attention. Yeah, he was a blond-haired, golden-tanned, Abrecrombie-clone, the type that everyone was raised to desire, but jeez…how about throwing a little of that love at the plain twin sister that didn’t don the striking cheekbones and perfect nose of the American Dream? She would have enjoyed it just as much. If not more. She was a horny, under-fulfilled lesbian, after all. Jordan got the chicks all the time. Where was the justice in that?