“Listen. I’m all for skipping the my-stepdad-is-a-total-asshole preamble. Been there, done that,” the werewolf said. “So why don’t you just jump to the part where you confess what shit you’re into so I can figure out why the hell I’m here.”
“Beau hasn’t even been in the state for four years,” I said.
Kandy turned her glare on me. I folded my arms, jutted my chin out at her, and leaned back against the laminate counter. She wasn’t going to intimidate me in my own home.
The werewolf pulled her phone out of her back pocket and scrolled back through her text messages. “So you know what happens when you throw a few bucks the way of an Adept who has a way with technology?”
“What?” I said snottily, though I was exceedingly aware that I was treading a fine line of ignorance. “She can find shit on people like any regular person with Google can?”
Kandy snorted. “She can find a whole lot of shit about an Ada and a Cy Harris, even though all she had was an address to work with, but Beau Jamison doesn’t come up with anything at all. Not. One. Thing.”
She turned her glare back to Beau.
He sighed. “But Beaumont Harris has a bunch of priors, no convictions. All under the age of eighteen. I reverted to my birth name, for obvious reasons.”
“So?” I asked.
“So?” Kandy echoed in disbelief.
“Yeah, so what? You think Beau wants to be here? Hell, I don’t even want to be here, but we’re here, aren’t we?” I yanked my sketchbook out of my satchel. “You want to know why? You want to see why? It’s right here in black and white.”
“Whoa, whoa, oracle,” Kandy said, throwing her hands up in mock-surrender. “We’re having a conversation, not a cage match. I’m asking questions because I need to know what I’m protecting Beau from. I’m not accusing or condemning anyone.”
I stared at her for a moment, then realizing I was still thrusting my sketchbook out between us, I tucked it back in my satchel. “Fine.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Cy mentioned a restraining order that I didn’t know about,” Beau said. “He could have been bluffing. I seriously doubt he went to court for anything permanent. The local police aren’t going to be my biggest fans, but I’m not skipping bail or anything.”
Kandy harrumphed, not wholly convinced, but then turned her attention to whatever food she could gather in the Brave’s kitchen.
Beau eyed me behind her back, then offered me a pleased grin. I narrowed my eyes at him. His grin widened. Apparently, he liked it when I freaked out while defending him.
Kandy started throwing things on the table. A loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, cold cuts.
I snorted as I gathered the food back onto the kitchen counter. “I’ll make sandwiches.”
“Finally,” Kandy groused. “What were you waiting for?”
She hopped cleanly over Beau’s propped-up leg and settled down on the bench seat opposite him.
I clicked the cutting board in over the sink, creating a perfect workstation for sandwich making. Then I crossed back to the fridge for condiments.
Beau reached for me as I passed. I brushed my fingertips against his in response.
Kandy was staring out the window into the parking lot, toward the pumps and the minimart beyond. I didn’t think she cared about our PDA, but something was still seriously bothering her.
I’d spread mayo and mustard on the whole-wheat bread and was in the middle of thinly slicing tomato when Kandy finally broke the silence.
“Man, your parents are way worse than mine.”
Beau started. He’d been dozing. “Thanks,” he said dryly.
“Mine just didn’t give a shit, you know? Don’t give a shit.”
“Right.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“To Ettie. Whatever is going on with Cy has nothing to do with warning Ettie.”
“Sure …” Kandy trailed off. “I just don’t think that was it.”
“Was what?” I slid a plate piled with diagonally cut sandwiches into the middle of the table, then tore three pieces of paper towel off the roll to use as napkins.
“The far seer didn’t send me here to stop you from getting a few extra bumps and bruises.” Kandy was still looking out the window, but now she was playing with the cuff on her right wrist, twisting it around and around.
I poured milk for everyone. Beau eyed the sandwiches, then looked at Kandy expectantly.
She waved her hand toward the sandwiches. “Eat. Eat.”
He smiled at her pleasantly, still waiting.
She snarled, grabbed half a sandwich, and bit into it. “I’m not your alpha.” Her words were garbled around a mouth full of food.
I sighed and slid into the tiny wedge of seat beside Beau, careful to not jostle his leg. Shapeshifter games.
Beau twined his fingers through mine and reached for half a sandwich with his other hand. I’d made a veggie sandwich for myself, devoting the remainder of the bread to turkey sandwiches for Kandy and Beau. I could handle touching cold cuts.
“So something else is coming,” Kandy said.
“Okay,” Beau said. “Maybe it is Cy.”
Kandy shrugged. “He’s nothing. He’s not the threat.”
“Don’t know, then. Maybe that was it. Maybe Cy would have shot us.”
“In front of your mother?” Kandy asked.
“What would she care?”
“She was at the window, clutching the curtains.”
Beau eyed Kandy uncertainly. “Over Cy, maybe.”
“Maybe.”
Kandy looked back out the window. I knew we’d get kicked out of the gas station parking lot sooner than later, even if we filled up the RV and the SUV, so I nudged the plate of sandwiches toward Beau. He squeezed my hand, then ate another two halves in rapid succession.
“So we find Ettie.” Kandy finally turned her attention away from the window to grab another sandwich.
“Oxford’s only an hour and a half away,” Beau said.
“It’ll be after six by the time we get there,” I said. “And we didn’t get an address or phone number.”
Kandy snorted derisively. Snapping up two more sandwiches, she climbed out of the dinette over Beau’s leg.
“What?” I asked.
“We’ll track her,” Beau explained. “Get on campus, then track her from there.”
“Don’t you need a … like an article of clothing?”
“I know what she smells like,” Beau said.
“And I know what Beau smells like,” Kandy said. “And her dad is really delightful. I know what that pig smells like as well.” She left without further comment, shutting the door behind her and sauntering toward the gas station’s minimart.
I looked at Beau. “Families smell alike?”
“Shared blood smells similar,” Beau said. “Usually. I can’t track like a wolf can, though. I wouldn’t be able to find just anyone, other than you and Ettie, maybe. Not by scent alone.”
I stood to clear the table. “What was with all the staring out the window? Contemplation doesn’t seem like a werewolf trait.”
Beau laughed. “She was watching for Cy. The Brave kind of stands out. Wolves prefer to run in a pack. Makes them harder to pick out and pick off.”
“But cats hunt solo.”
“Most of the time.” Beau smiled at me.
I grinned back at him over my shoulder, rinsing the milk glasses and placing them upside down in the rack to dry.
Kandy banged on the front hood of the RV as she crossed back to the SUV parked beside us, startling me. I peered out the windshield, seeing the werewolf now carrying a bag of Doritos and a handful of pepperoni. I shook my head, pulled a bag of Oreos out of the upper cupboard, and dropped it in Beau’s lap. He grabbed for me at arm’s-length reach, wincing in pain as he did so.
“Rochelle? We okay?”
I stepped back to brush my hand over his closely clipped hair, then pressed a kiss to his forehead
. “We’re always okay. Except you need to sleep. Food and sleep kick-start healing, right? Should I help you back to the bed?”
“Nah, here is good.” He let go of me, though not until after he gave my ass an appreciative squeeze.
I laughed. “Later.”
“Promise.”
“The vow is implied. Always.”
“Ah, good.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, then once again followed Kandy’s SUV onto the main road and toward the highway.
Beau’s family had said a shitload of shit about him. By his reaction and his mini confession to Kandy, I gathered that a bunch of it was true. That made me livid. Not at Beau, though — who I imagined had done what he needed to do to survive — but at his supposed family.
Yeah, I didn’t see any Thanksgiving or Christmas family dinners in our future. And honestly, I was more relieved than mournful about that. I wanted Beau away from these poisonous people ASAP. I just hoped Ettie wasn’t such a shithead.
∞
“That’s her,” I said, just seconds after I laid eyes on the two women at the end of the gray-carpeted corridor.
The two twenty-somethings — a blond and a brunette — were standing together in hushed conversation in what appeared to be a study nook. Not that I knew anything about universities, but a couch and some chairs off to the side of a hallway in the science building was pretty obviously a student lounge area of some sort. The lack of snacks or a TV seemed to put it firmly in the ‘study’ category.
About fifteen or so students milled around, chatting or texting, between us and the two women at the end of the hall. Apparently, an evening session of elementary organic chemistry — if Ada had any idea what she was talking about — had just let out. I’d tried googling the university’s schedule but hadn’t been able to track down the location of the lecture while driving. Further investigation had been thwarted by Kandy, who preferred ‘quick and dirty’ tracking, which apparently consisted of wandering through high-traffic areas while inappropriately sniffing people, seating areas, and handrails.
“That’s her?” Kandy asked.
“That’s her,” I said.
Kandy focused her gaze on the two women as we approached. Ettie was wearing a white collared T-shirt and blue cotton skirt. Her shoulder-length blond hair was slightly wavy, and pulled back from her face with a headband that matched her skirt. The other girl, a brunette with her long hair pulled back in a braided bun, was wearing shredded gray jeans paired with a red and orange tie-dyed tank top.
“I thought you said she’s a blond?”
“She is blond. Dyed, but blond.”
“But the blond’s a dud. A normal.”
Beau shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “Yeah.”
“The brunette’s the witch,” Kandy said. “Well, like one-quarter witch.”
Ettie was shaking her head emphatically, though she was still smiling at the brunette. The quarter-witch — according to Kandy — shifted her feet, looking like she was ready to start begging over whatever they were discussing.
“But …” I said. “Ettie’s not an Adept?”
“Not a drop,” Kandy murmured.
I glanced over at Beau.
He looked chagrined. “Talking about it always equaled a beat down from Cy. But yeah, I thought she was just a late bloomer. But, ah …” He shrugged, turning his attention to his sister down the hall. “Apparently, she isn’t.”
Ettie pulled her phone out of the front pocket of a light-blue backpack, which was emblazoned with the university’s red, white, and blue ‘Ole Miss’ logo. She started texting.
“But the visions,” I muttered underneath my breath, knowing that Kandy and Beau could still hear me. “The visions are always about Adepts.”
“Not this time, apparently,” Kandy said. “Don’t you love it when magic gets all convoluted and obscure?”
The green-haired werewolf grinned at me, as if she wasn’t being sarcastic. Her smile widened as I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“No,” I said. “No one likes that.”
Kandy barked out a laugh. “And here I was getting bored.”
All the university buildings we’d entered while tracking Ettie appeared to be constructed as blocks of corridors running in a perimeter around and through classrooms and lecture halls. The individually placed buildings were sprawled across and surrounded by what seemed to be miles of manicured green space and a complex network of paved roads. We’d parked the Brave and the SUV in one of the large parking lots situated on the outskirts of the campus, passing by at least two massive sports complexes as we’d driven in.
The science building where we eventually tracked Ettie down — Coulter Hall — looked much the same as the other buildings. Its exterior was constructed out of red brick, though, and it didn’t have as many windows as some of the newer parts of the campus.
There weren’t a ton of students on campus. I imagined that was because it was summer break and early evening. Any high school acquaintances that I kept vaguely in touch with who’d made it into university had to take the summers off to pay for next year’s tuition. And university in the States was even more expensive than it was in Canada, at least as far as I’d ever heard.
“Ettie,” Beau called out. We were only a dozen steps away now.
Ettie flinched. Then with the same smile still plastered to her face, she glanced over to see the three of us advancing down the corridor toward her.
I caught the moment she recognized her brother. It took her longer than I thought it would. Her fake smile didn’t change.
“See you later then, Sara.” Ettie spoke to her friend without looking at her. Her accent was a thicker version of Beau’s sweet Southern tone, but not the more lyrical for it.
Sara bobbed her head, glanced at us, and spun on the spot to take off down a perpendicular corridor.
Ettie tucked her phone back into her backpack. “Hey, Beau.”
We stopped a few feet away, then stood there awkwardly. Though Ettie barely glanced at me, she eyed Kandy carefully. Resisting the urge to pull my sketchbook out of my satchel and see how accurately I’d captured her likeness, I noticed that she’d opted for a plain gold lip stud rather than the magnolia one I’d seen in my vision.
“This here is Rochelle,” Beau said, dipping his shoulder in my direction. “And Kandy.”
Again, Ettie didn’t even bother to look at me. “Claudette. Or as Beau calls me, Ettie.” She reached out to shake Kandy’s hand.
Kandy didn’t accept it. Ettie curled her fingers into a fist, glanced at me a second time, then dropped her arm.
“Why are you here?” Any pretense of friendliness was gone from Ettie’s tone. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“I wasn’t.” Beau spoke carefully. “Mom said you were —”
“Mom?” Ettie sneered, the expression suiting her much more than her previous smile had. I had a feeling that was the attitude she used around her family the most. I would have. “Mom said? She’s ‘mom’ to you now?”
“She’s your younger sister?” Kandy asked casually.
“By eighteen months.”
“Then what gives her the right to talk to you like that?”
Beau sighed. “Maybe now isn’t the time —”
“Now is always the time.”
“So what that I’m younger than him?” Ettie was glancing back and forth between Kandy and Beau. “He lost any respect I had for him when he left. That’s what gives me —”
Beau interrupted his sister, glancing at a few students who appeared to be settling into the study nook. “We need somewhere private to speak, Ettie. Then we’re gone.”
Ettie snapped her mouth shut, spun on her heel, and took off down the same adjacent hall Sara had used. We followed.
“There you go,” Kandy said. “Much clearer.”
Ettie glanced over her shoulder to glare at Kandy. The werewolf bared her teeth in one of her
smiles that wasn’t really a smile. Ettie quickly looked away.
As we followed Beau’s sister deeper into the building, the air conditioning became oddly more oppressive than the heat. It was as if I was having sudden difficulty filling my lungs with the cool air. Or maybe I was drying out from the inside with each breath. Also, I was really cold in my tank top. The contrast between the extreme heat outside and the dry cold inside was screwing with my head, making me uncomfortable simply while walking down the hall.
I tried not to notice that Beau was limping.
Ettie led us through two sets of doors, one of which she unlocked, and into a lab. Though I’d never set one foot in a laboratory of any kind, the science equipment stacked on shelving along one of the walls was a dead giveaway. Long metal tables between the door and the heavily frosted high windows on the opposite wall were so clean they reflected the overhead fluorescent lights that Ettie flicked on as we entered.
Kandy, who was trailing behind us, glanced around the classroom and closed the door.
Ettie dumped her backpack on a table, then turned to Beau with her arms crossed and chin jutted out. “So?”
Beau cleared his throat but said nothing, eyeing Kandy as she walked the perimeter of the lab. She tested the door on the opposite corner. It was locked.
“Lecture hall,” Ettie said in response. She turned her attention back to Beau. “I work here.”
“Oh, yeah? First-year chemistry, huh? That’s —”
“Second,” Ettie interrupted. “Second year. Why are you here?”
“Are you sure it’s her?” Kandy asked me. She was leaning against a table behind and to the right of Ettie, effectively blocking Beau’s sister from bolting toward the lecture hall.
“It’s her,” I said, though I was seriously mystified as to why I would be having visions of anyone who wasn’t magical.
“It’s her what?” Ettie snapped.
“In my vision,” I said. “You know, getting … hurt.”
“Or, you know,” Kandy said mockingly. “Getting dead.”
Ettie snorted, then looked at Beau for confirmation.
“Rochelle’s an oracle,” Beau said. “She sees you.”
Ettie paled. “What?”
“Yeah, I see you dead.”
I See You (Oracle 2) Page 10