by Cyn Balog
“I must go,” I say hurriedly.
“I … don’t understand.” Above, a bell rings, tinny and disconcerting. Julia looks away, hesitating. “I—I’ve got to go, too,” she says, moving away from the fence. She picks up her tray and disappears into the building without another glance in my direction.
And that is when I see a face, twisted in rage, in the school’s dust-coated window. The same boy from Julia’s dream. Mr. Colburn’s best friend.
CHAPTER 15
Julia
Breathe.
Once inside, I need to remind myself to do that. Though the air in the courtyard was fresh and cool and smelled like the honeysuckles lining the back of the school, and the air here, in the dank cafeteria, reeks of mustard, onion, and some unidentifiable dead animal, I finally have an easier time getting my lungs to work.
He spoke to me like he knew me. But I’d remember if I’d seen him before, and not just because of the top hat and spats. He’s easily the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen, someone unforgettable. It was obvious Ebony and her crew thought the same, judging by the way they drooled into their lunch trays. He had a movie-star, chiseled jawline with the slightest hint of late-day stubble, and dark brooding eyes that lingered lazily, comfortably on me, making me uneasy. I’d have remembered very clearly a guy who could look at me that way. I had the vaguest feeling of déjà vu, but nothing I could place.
He knew my name. And he wanted to speak to me, only to me. About what? Probably that I can save hundreds on auto insurance by switching to his company. But still …
What kind of insurance salesman wears a tuxedo?
Before I can formulate a better explanation, an arm snakes around my shoulders and pulls me against the cold cinder block wall of the cafeteria. I gasp, then relax when I see Bret. “Who was that guy?” he asks, just a bit too loudly and too protectively for my liking.
I shrug. “No clue,” I say, wondering if my cheeks are still flushed. He leans into me, so close I think he’s going to put his forehead against mine. That’s something Griffin used to do; he would boast that he could read my thoughts by osmosis. But Bret has never been this close, and that’s when I smell his breath, hot and sour. His dad’s scotch, I think. “Are you trying to get suspended on the second-to-last day of school?”
He grins, and slurs, “I’m going to B Tri-C. All you need to get in there are three brain cells and a number two pencil.”
This is nothing new to me. Bret is constantly disparaging himself because Griffin got into a good school and he didn’t. Bret has never been the scholarly type, so that’s why he’s going to Bucks County Community College this fall. And when he’s drunk, he likes to mope and feel sorry for himself. “Oh, stop,” I say, slapping him lightly. “Look on the bright side.”
He’s still standing entirely too close for my liking. And looking entirely too serious. The smile is still there, but barely. Unfortunately, Bret gets that way when he drinks. He raises an eyebrow. “And what is the bright side, Ippie?”
“You know. You won’t be here, at Wilson.”
His face falls until only a trace of a smile is left. Clearly it was not the answer he was hoping for. He sighs and his eyes trail to the ground. “I always thought the bright side was that I would be near you.”
I’m trying to figure out how I can escape him, so it takes me a moment to realize what he has said. I search for the irony, the sarcasm in his features, but there is none. He’s not looking at me; though he may be tipsy, he’s obviously still aware that he’s out of his comfort zone. Bret is being sweet. How can I run away and toss a casual “See you” over my shoulder when he’s baring his soul like this? I can’t. But I can’t think of anything else to say, so a lame “Oh” slips out.
Maybe a full minute passes, and I still can’t think of anything to say. Well, nothing nice. I can think of a hundred insults, the best being “Go tell it to Dr. Phil,” thanks to all the time I spent with Griffin.
Finally, he mumbles, “I thought with Griffin gone, you and I would be … you and I … we make sense. But you’re … changing…. I mean, don’t you like me anymore?”
It’s really pathetic. He sounds like a three-year-old asking if someone, anyone, will play with him on the playground. But this is Bret; he’s only this way because he’s drinking. Tomorrow he’ll shrug it off and crack jokes about it. “It’s not you,” I explain, knowing I’m heading for that horrible cliché It’s not you, it’s me. “You know I loved Griffin. I still do. And—”
My mouth is still forming words when he swoops in and lays a kiss on it. His lips are cold and wet and lacking all muscle tone, like two fat jellyfish. And I thought it wasn’t possible for a kiss to be any less passionate than in my dream. But how can I deny a guy who has just broken open a vein for me like that? He brings his hand to my cheek and strokes it, kind of nice and soft, like I’m some fine treasured possession, so I know this is a big deal for him. Even if he will deny that tomorrow. So I tilt my chin up and kiss back. But only for a second, because at that moment someone tweaks my ass.
“Ouch!” we both shout in unison, separating.
I rub my backside, muttering curses, ready to slap him, when I realize that one of Bret’s hands is wrapped around a jug of something probably laced with scotch, and the other, the one that was previously stroking my cheek, is now gingerly massaging the back of his head. “Something hit me,” he moans, sour-faced. He turns around, looking confused. The vast cafeteria is empty except for a couple of hairnetted ladies cleaning tables in the far corner.
I stop rubbing as a tingling sensation rises up my neck to my hairline. Only one person I know liked to squeeze my butt like that.
Oh, hell.
I belong to you. I belong to you, Griffin, I say to myself, as if he’s in my mind and can hear my thoughts. I start to move away from Bret, but he grabs my hand. “Are you okay?”
I snatch it back. Any more physical contact and my backside might end up a black-and-blue checkerboard. “Yeah. Late for class,” I say, forcing a smile.
It’s crazy. Crazy to think Griffin is still here.
Still, when I turn away from Bret and make my way past the empty tables, I mutter, almost inaudibly, “I belong to you, Griffin.”
Just in case.
CHAPTER 16
Eron
Twenty, twenty-five minutes. At the most.
By the time I’m back on Julia’s front lawn, I’m in a dither. It’s less than five days before I’m supposed to return to the human world for good. By now, my time on earth should be stretching to at least three or four hours each day. Instead, I barely had time to orient myself before fading. And all because of my student, who can’t for the life of him follow simple directions.
I grimace, rubbing my sore head. If he hadn’t swatted me there, I might have had a few more moments with Julia. His interference with the human world caused me to fade. I am certain of it. If he is not behaving himself like a proper Sleepbringer, then I cannot be human.
Before I can climb Julia’s tree, I hear Chimere’s giggles. Here I thought she’d be in a sour mood like me, scolding our newest member for his transgressions. Sometimes I just don’t understand her. When I rise past the leaves to the branch she’s lounging on, I realize that she’s not just in a joyful mood; she’s in a joyful mood because my student is … Oh, how improper.
Chimere has her shoe off, and her skirt is pulled up to her knee. And Mr. Colburn is sitting across from her, leaning against the trunk of the tree, with her foot in his lap. Massaging her ankle. They turn to me, and immediately Chimere blushes and throws her skirt down to cover more of her legs. She giggles some more. “I twisted my ankle,” she explains, “and Mr. Colburn was good enough to tend to it.”
“The saint,” I mutter.
She tilts her head. “Oh! What has gotten you in such a foul mood?”
I jab a finger at the young man at the other end of her branch. He’s much too absorbed in Chimere’s tender and dainty foot for my liking. It
’s shameful. “He has,” I say, seething. “I should still be down there, becoming human. Instead, I had no more than thirty minutes.”
Colburn’s eyes narrow. “Just what are you accusing me of, old man?”
A vein on the side of my brow pulsates with heat. Chimere straightens. “Don’t fret, my pet. Everything is in order.”
“In order? How can you—”
“Mr. Colburn did well with the seduction last night, did he not? I was very pleased. And do not trouble yourself if you were only human a short time today. These things vary. Everything will come together,” she says soothingly.
It’s infuriating. I seem to recall Chimere being much less indulgent when I was learning the trade. They stare at me until my cheeks burn. “But … he hit me,” I sputter, very aware that I sound every bit of two years old.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he returns indignantly. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to slap that smug expression off his lying face.
“Nonsense, Eron,” Chimere sings, turning to him. “He has been here, with me. For quite some time.”
They exchange looks, and I can tell someone is not being truthful. Perhaps they are both lying. I’ve always trusted Chimere, though she can be naive, but she is not above telling lies. She hates conflict. Her eyes turn to me, pleading.
I sigh. “Fine, fine,” I say to Chimere. “But tell him. Make sure he knows that he can’t touch humans. If he gets sent to the Last Place and I’m stuck here, I’ll—”
Colburn exhales. “I get it, I get it. See that dead horse in the corner?”
Chimere smiles. “It looks like we are all in accordance. I’ll leave you both to your work, then. Please try to get along.”
I meet Colburn’s sneer with an icy glare. We don’t speak for several moments. Finally, he says, “Sure we will.”
Even after Chimere disappears, we continue our staring match. I sigh. “Why did you hit me?”
“I was trying to show you. Bret was in the window, watching you, and—”
“I know.”
“So then you know what I said was true.” I’m about to say that I’m still unsure, when his face softens. “So was it me hitting you that shortened your time down there?”
“I imagine so.”
He shakes his head. “Bret had his hands all over her today.”
“He … did?” The thought alarms me, but I push it away. This is not something we need be concerned about. “Well, perhaps that is what she wants.”
“No way in hell. You didn’t see the look on her face. She was just being nice.”
He does have a point. Julia is nothing if not polite, but she did cry out against him when he kissed her in her dream. “Still … I have a hard time believing that this young man, your best friend, can be as evil as you say.”
His eyes narrow. “Why would I lie?”
“Because you are obviously too attached to her to be thinking straight.”
“Oh yeah?” He rubs his chin, and his face falls, revealing him in a rare vulnerable moment. Clearly hurt, he mutters, “Screw you.”
Everything he says blurs the line between truth and fiction. If Julia truly is in danger … if I knew that for certain, I couldn’t stand idly by. I didn’t before; though I knew it was against the rules, my emotions got the best of me. Colburn’s face reveals nothing, but I don’t need to take his word for it, I suppose. I have the answers at my disposal. It will take some careful research, perhaps require the bending of a few rules, but the answers are there.
I give him a pointed look. “Fine. I will check into it. If you follow the rules.”
He nods. “Fine.”
“I’m quite serious. If I so much as suspect you’re not where you should be, I won’t do a thing.”
He sighs. “Got it. I promise.”
Since he’s almost sounding reasonable, I go further. “And please don’t play with Chimere like that. She may be an Original but she’s quite naive to humans.”
He grins. “Are you jealous, old man?”
I straighten, thinking of how she let him do something so compromising as massaging her foot. “Of course not. It’s simply … I can tell she has taken a liking to you, and I would hate to see her hurt.”
“Seriously?” He grins. “But you said she’s not interested in that. She’s not a girl.”
“You are not a man,” I remind him. I’m relieved when the door to Julia’s room opens and I see her enter, then settle down on the bed. Though it’s a warm June day, she pulls the comforter over her body. The sun is setting, but still strong, streaming orange rays through her blinds. It’s much too early for Julia to be sleeping. And yet I can feel that it’s time. The compulsion to visit her is overwhelming, drawing me toward her window. My student inches forward, feeling the drive as well. He casts me a questioning look, and I shrug. “I suppose,” I say, following him through the window and into the bedroom.
We separate and move over her, one of us on each side of her bed. Only her forehead and a few wisps of her tea-colored hair are poking out from the blankets. I gently ease the sheets down and study her. There are deep worry lines in her brow, and her jaw seems clenched in pain. “Is she ill?” I ask, mostly to myself. I bring my hand over her forehead but feel no heat there.
But there’s no mistake, I realize, as I look at her hands clutching her pink comforter, that she’s trembling.
I meet my student’s eyes. He gives me the same wide-eyed expression he wore when I accused him of lying to Chimere.
I draw in a breath. “Mr. Colburn. What did you do to her?”
In the early morning, satisfied that Mr. Colburn is doing what needs to be done to care for our charges, I make my way across town, checking every so often to see if Chimere has followed me. Again, she will not be pleased to know what I am up to, but this is something I am compelled to do as Julia’s protector.
I stop at a large brick house I know only vaguely. Once or twice, when Julia didn’t come home, I was drawn here, only to find her yawning away on the leather sofa in the basement. Perhaps Mr. Colburn and Mr. Anderson had been nearby, but I’d never seen them. This time, I venture to the window of Bret’s bedroom. A girl with white-blond hair is perched on the landing, and she’s dressed so revealingly I can’t bring myself to look at her. Her breasts spill out of her tight red dress, which barely covers any part of her long legs. She narrows her eyes at me as I approach.
“Good morning,” I say.
She doesn’t answer; she’s too busy inspecting me, clearly wondering why I’ve come. As I’ve said, this is solitary work.
I know she isn’t going to like what I have to say, so I speak in my friendliest voice. “You may leave. I’m going to take care of your charge until he wakes.”
She moves in front of the window. “Hell you will. Bret Anderson is mine.”
I can tell she’s new to the seduction. I haven’t had much inter action with the new ones, other than Mr. Colburn, but besides their less than adequate formal dress, they can be so crass. So boorish. And so overly possessive. “There is a … rather perplexing situation. I don’t have time to explain, but I should like to read his dreams. He will be perfectly safe.”
She stiffens. “That’s not allowed!” she spews, but I can tell she’s thinking, Or is it?
I move closer to the window, and she scurries away like a frightened mouse, still grimacing at me. I pass inside, into a dark room. Mr. Anderson has not yet woken. He’s snoring loudly and the room smells like old cigarettes and alcohol. I move to the side of the bed and put my hand over his head.
The dream is horrific. In it, he’s with Julia, and so much of her pale skin is visible I can only gasp. Her makeup is heavy and her features are distorted in such a way that she looks cheap and obscene, almost like Evangeline. Her body is pressed against Mr. Anderson’s and I can barely tell where she ends and he begins. He’s running his tongue along her neck and she’s making a horrible, animal noise I’ve never imagined someone like Julia could make. But this i
s his dream. This is how he sees her, as wrong as it is. I pull myself out quickly, my body hot with rage. When I turn to the window and pass the blond girl outside, she is studying her fingernails. The shadows darken her face, but she is grinning, triumphant, happy to see me speechless as I slip away.
• • •
Mr. Colburn joins me as I’m trembling on the sidewalk outside Julia’s house, thinking about Bret Anderson’s dream. As much as I hate to admit it, he was right. When I tell him this, his face twists. “How do I protect her, then?”
“You warn her, in her dreams. That is the best you can do.”
“That’s not enough. I tried to get through to her last night, and she didn’t listen.”
“She was in quite an agitated state. Something you created, mind you. And if she isn’t willing to listen, there’s nothing you can do.”
“There is something I can do,” he whispers, his eyes sparkling like firecrackers. “Something you can do, actually. You are going to be human.”
I don’t like the wild look in his eyes. He had it when he tried to seduce Julia, and I am not at all comfortable with it. “And?”
“I may not be able to protect her. But you can.”
I remember the way she looked at me when I introduced myself. It was so cold. “I’m but a stranger to her. She’d never believe me.”
His eyes are intent. “Tell her it’s a message from me.”
This is what I was afraid of. “That is completely out of the question. Chimere would be—”
“Saint DeMarchelle. Afraid of getting your hand slapped by the old lady, are you?”
I glare at him.
“Why did you go to the school, anyway, old man?” he says, prodding. “You weren’t just passing through. You wanted to see if what I said was the truth. You went there to protect her.”
“No, I …,” I begin, but I know that the truth is written everywhere on me. It’s in my nature to protect her. It’s something I cannot not do.