by Jo Holloway
“Whoa.” She held out a hand to Jenner. All three of them took a sharp breath and froze. When she glanced at her uncle, she found him peering suspiciously at Jenner. She gave her dog the same look. “Jenyx, what the crap was that? Jenner’s never snapped at anyone before. What’s going on?”
Jenner had relaxed and was now sitting calmly on the carpet with a worried arch above his eyes. He looked like he had destroyed a pair of shoes or torn up a couch cushion.
“My deepest apologies, Joshua. I do not know what happened. When you screamed, Cara, I felt your fear. It was similar to the day the Pyx attacked at the archery range and I knew you needed me though I was a short distance away at the time. But I do not know where the anger came from, and I certainly should not have let it drive my control over Jenner. I am terribly sorry.”
“You felt her fear?” Josh asked. “And this happened before?”
“Indeed. I have been giving it a lot of thought since then, and I believe there have been other times. More subtle than the intensity of fear, but at times, it has seemed as though her emotions affected mine in addition to the other way around. I know Cara and I are closely connected after years together, but I have never known that sort of inherent knowledge of someone in danger. Not before now.”
“And the anger?”
“That might have been my fault too,” Cara said. “I hate the memory of that attack and knowing everything that happened after it. I hate Messoryx for all the awful things I see in his memories and for leaving me with all this baggage. But mostly, I don’t want him to get away with whatever he’s planning. It makes me furious he’s out there.”
“And you picked up on that, Jenyx?”
“It would appear so.”
“Did you know he was sensing your emotions, too? Do others?” Josh turned to her.
She shrugged. “Not really. I guess I might have noticed a few times where I can’t tell who’s feeling what, but I figured that’s because my feelings were aligning to match theirs because I can’t separate them. I’ve only noticed it with Jenyx.” A memory sprang to her mind of running out of the Dougie after kissing Rhys and Grawllyx offering to take revenge for her anger and confusion. “Maybe once with Grawllyx too. He felt pretty angry one time when I was sort of having . . . a thing. I was a little too wrapped up in my own stuff to notice at the time.”
Josh rubbed a hand across his day-old stubble. Cara pursed her lips. Being an empath meant she picked up on the emotions of the Pyx, not the other way around. This was going to be another one of those things no one could understand because she wasn’t like other Pyxsees. Why did this keep happening? She wouldn’t trade being a Pyxsee. Not anymore. But couldn’t she be the normal version of this already not-normal thing? Why did she always have to be an exception?
“Are we done for today? I have a date with Wes.”
Josh dropped his hand, and his eyebrows rose.
“Not that kind of date. Like, a me and Wes date. Never mind. It’s not a date, but I am supposed to meet him.”
“Sure. Of course.” He sounded distracted, and she grew more eager to leave. He probably wanted to start calling his Pyxsee friends and contacts to ask awkward questions about how weird she was . . . again.
Outside the castle-like stone building, she looked up to see the red fox sniffing her way through the meadow. Her red and tan fur matched the colors of the grass, unusually dry for the start of June.
“Where’s Wes?” Cara asked.
“Right behind you.”
She jumped at his voice and whirled around to find him stifling a laugh.
“Didn’t mean to scare you. I was leaning against the wall in the shade. That’s all.”
She swatted his shoulder. “Don’t do that. You have no idea.” Her head shook with the confusion of the last few minutes, and she looked to Jenner. Did Jenyx really sense her emotions too? Was she going to start having to worry about her angry outbursts triggering her dog to growl and snap now?
Wes fell into step beside her as they started toward the dorms. He walked in silence and waited for her to elaborate if she wanted.
“It’s nothing important. Not yet, anyway. Suffice it to say I’m really looking forward to a nice, normal movie night. Can we stop by the Cedars first? I could use a clean shirt.”
Wes waited in her lounge while she ran to her room to change, and then they headed over to the Lodge.
“Where’s Tomyx?” she asked when they entered the room and she couldn’t find Thomas’s furry orange shape anywhere.
“Following Jory around.”
“Where’s Jory?”
“I think he was taking Liv on a hot date to the library.” Wes grabbed his laptop. “Studying. Then to the Treehouse, if I remember right.”
“Perfect.” She stole Jory’s pillow and crawled onto Wes’s tidy bed, tucking the pillow behind her against his headboard. She nestled into a comfortable spot where they’d watched countless movies together over the past year.
Wes joined her, opening his laptop. “Hang on, I have to find it. Mak distracted me while I was looking earlier.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He keeps coming over to talk. It started about three weeks ago. Seriously, everyone was acting weird that week.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. She was running out of ways to avoid the subject. If Mak had come over right after she’d yelled at him in Rhys’s room, then she probably had some explaining to do to Wes.
“Yeah. Rhys was acting strange. Liv noticed too. Something was definitely up with you. You still seem off. And yeah, Mak. He came over that Sunday and asked Jory to leave. Which was my first clue, because he’s always happier to talk to Jory than to me. It freaked me out. I thought something happened to Kaiah or our parents. But everything’s fine. He just wanted to talk.”
“What did you talk about?”
Wes abandoned the search for the movie and held the laptop idly in one hand with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Nothing in particular. He asked how things were with school, and about people. He asked about you. Bonehead still couldn’t figure out we’re friends and not dating. I think he finally gets it. Oh, and he has a girlfriend now.”
Cara grimaced at the part about her before she could hide it under the surprise of hearing Mak was dating someone.
Wes turned his head and narrowed his eyes. “Why do I feel like you know something about this?”
“Yeah. I might be able to explain all those things. Well, not Mak having a girlfriend . . . but good for him.”
“So this involves Rhys somehow?”
Her nose wrinkled into a guilty look. The knots in her stomach rolled and tossed around, but she pushed the laptop out of his grasp and slipped her hand into his for courage. “You could say that.” She leaned against her friend and spilled.
“I sort of kissed him. Rhys.” Her eyes squeezed shut, but she felt his little jolt of surprise against her side. She had to continue before she lost her nerve. “It was after the meeting with the outlaw, after the guardian was killed. When I went over there . . . I don’t know. It just sort of happened. Then your brother walked in.”
He leaned away from her to look down at her face. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, um, he kind of caught us. But he was mad because of you. It was sort of sweet in a sad way. He was angry on your behalf because he thought we were a thing. I, ah, might have yelled at him.”
His shoulder shook as he chuckled. “Damn, I wish I’d seen that.”
“I may have insinuated that he should know you better. I hope I didn’t cross a line. Are you mad?”
“No. It’s been fine. Nice, even. We’re not magically going to be close, but it’s good to think we’ll do a better job of being brothers since he’s graduating at the end of the week. When he goes to college this fall, it would be nice if we still talked sometimes. I can’t believe you kissed Rhys and didn’t tell me.”
Her throat constricted. Wes sounded happy for her. H
e didn’t understand the mess.
“Hey. What . . .? Isn’t that a good thing?”
She couldn’t speak and turned her head to his chest instead. He brought his arm up and wrapped it around her, pulling her closer. The dam broke.
With the comfort of her best friend and his warm strength enveloping her in a safe cocoon, she let the tears flow. Full ugly-cry style. The worries about being found out, the guilt over Emma, and the ache that consumed her all snowballed together and burst through her walls. The flood of emotion joined forces with the stress of the past few months and her impotence in the face of everything she’d seen from Messoryx, until she was wracked with sobs. Wes had to pass her tissues between gasps for air. Her tears stained his shirt, but he didn’t let go. He held her quietly until her tears ran out and her breaths steadied with exhaustion.
“I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me why it’s not all paradise and rainbows now? I figured once you two sorted yourselves out, everything would be smooth sailing.”
She sniffed again, sitting up and wiping her face with another tissue.
“I don’t know why you thought that. It shouldn’t have happened. I was asking him about learning how to kill a Pyx, and he was emotional because of the memories that time brings up for him. That’s all. It was just a weird vibe and it went too far. It didn’t mean what I wanted it to mean. Not to him. He came over to clear the air the next morning at breakfast, and we agreed it had been a mistake. That’s when Liv said he was acting weird.”
“What? None of that sounds right.” He paused, thinking. “I mean, I don’t know what led to the kiss, but I know that’s not when Liv said he was acting strange. She was over here with Jory before Mak came by and said Rhys was acting weird that same night. Her exact words were “he was practically buzzing.” Are you sure he said it was a mistake?”
The knots inside broke apart into a million wriggling worms at the mere thought that Rhys could have been happy about the kiss. But the conversation the next morning, after she’d seen him smiling with Emma . . . she hadn’t made that part up. Maybe he had been happy for a little while—her insides flipped over with the idea—but then he’d seen Emma again and things must have changed.
What exactly had he said that morning? Think, Cara. What did you say?
Had she let him say anything at all? She’d been heartbroken and more than a little angry. She hadn’t wanted to hear him say the words.
“I guess he didn’t say that exactly. But he agreed. We haven’t talked about it since, and he’s back to normal now. Or getting there.” She couldn’t bring herself to say Emma’s name out loud. The crush of guilt was too much even though the two of them still looked like they were together.
“No he’s not.” Wes’s low voice beside her ear made her turn.
Wiping her face with her sleeve, she looked at him.
He sighed. “I have no idea what you’ve been thinking, but he likes you. A lot. Haven’t you noticed how he tracks your movements, and the little smile he gets whenever you say something funny? He’s drawn to you.”
Cara blinked. The words coming out of Wes’s mouth made no sense. “He never smiles around me. That’s why I thought I made him think of all the bad stuff with Liv. Why he’d never be able to see me for me.”
“What? Oh, Cara, no. Okay . . . remember Jory before he and Liv made things official? Remember how his expression changed around her?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t his usual grin. He has a different smile for her. Sweeter.”
“And . . .”
It took her a minute to see what he was hinting at, but then her head shook back and forth. “It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
Yeah, Cara, why not?
She clung to Wes like the world had started spinning in the opposite direction. “I don’t know. It just . . . can’t be. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying now it makes sense why he’s been acting so off the last few weeks. You both have. You said he’s back to normal, but I promise you he’s not. Actually, I’ve barely talked to him because he’s been so distant.”
Her heart threatened to pound through her ribcage. It hammered in her throat hard enough to make breathing difficult. It wanted to fly free with a string of butterflies chasing after it. Only one problem.
“But he has a girlfriend,” she whispered.
“What?” Wes pushed her away so he could give her an incredulous look at arm’s length. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
The cage burst open, and her heart sailed. All she could do was stare until her heart returned to its home in her chest. She wasn’t sure how it could function properly when it kept flipping over and twisting inside out and back again.
“He doesn’t?” she breathed.
“No.” Wes pulled her close again. “Honestly. For someone so smart, you are a complete disaster. You know that?”
She gave a shaky laugh, and a few more tears leaked out. She didn’t want to ask Wes how long Rhys had been single. Not yet. This way, there was a chance it had been before he’d kissed her. This way, it was possible it hadn’t been a mistake at all. She nestled back into Wes’s hug and felt the grin spread across her face until her cheeks hurt.
“Okay, screw movie night,” Wes said. “You need to go talk to him. You two need to figure out what this is.”
Her smile faltered. She had no idea how to do that. “He’s probably in town for the weekend, anyway.”
“Fine, then text him. You have his number, right? Don’t say no, because I’ll just give it to you. Or call him . . . Or I’ll text him.”
“Stop, stop.” She was laughing again. “Promise me you won’t do anything.”
“Why? Why not?”
“Wes. Promise.”
She needed to sort out her thoughts after being mad at Rhys for the past few weeks for something he might not have done. Before she could talk to him, she had to shift how she’d been thinking about this and figure out what to say. It had been so long thinking of him as unavailable. How did she readjust? She’d also probably have to work up the nerve to find out when he and Emma had broken up so she knew what the situation really was. If it was after the Valentine’s dance, then that changed everything. She’d been so mean about their kiss since that day; she couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking at this point. He could have changed his mind by now. There was a lot to think about.
“Fine. I’ll promise on two conditions,” Wes replied.
“I’m scared to ask.”
“The first one is there’s a time limit. Two weeks. I’ll talk to him myself if you haven’t done it in two weeks.”
“A month. Come on. This week is exams, and then we’ll be settling in at home for the summer. I need time to think and figure out how to talk to him. Jory took four months to tell Liv how he felt.”
“And I’ve been watching you trip over yourself around Rhys for a year now.” He gave her a hard look. “Fine. Three weeks. I can’t be surrounded by idiots any longer than that.” He was smiling, but then his face turned serious. “The second one is you can’t pull the stunt you tried at the mansion again.”
The bubbly mood deflated. He’d forgiven her easily, but apparently he hadn’t forgotten.
“You can call me out for playing the hero, or whatever. I know I can be quick to decide on something that makes sense to me, and I act too fast sometimes. But you can’t go off on your own and you can’t try to sacrifice yourself for us. Especially me . . . and Rhys too. Not because of any of this other stuff, but because this is our fight as much as it is yours. We’re Pyxsees too. And there’s no way Jory’s letting us take this on without him, either. You don’t get to stand alone, and none of us are okay with you martyring yourself to get to Messoryx. Promise you won’t try to take off again.”
“I’m sorry, Wes. I really am.” She’d hurt him more than she’d realized. Starting with not confiding in him after Messoryx had invaded her mind and left her with the memories and visions, and then more when sh
e’d left him out of her decision to leave. “I won’t. I promise. And after next week, when we go home for the summer, we’ll be together every day. We can train and everything. We’ll come up with an actual plan to deal with Messoryx. A Wes-certified plan. Deal?”
“Deal. Still want to watch Romeo and Juliet?”
“Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Let’s ace this English final and get to planning this summer.”
She snaked her hand back into his and leaned into the comfort of his shoulder. With friends like this, she could take on any enemy.
CHAPTER 28
STUDENTS AT THIS SCHOOL sure knew how to celebrate the last day of exams. Following their history final, Cara spilled out of the social studies building with her classmates to the sound of joyful shouts and people reveling everywhere. The tops of the trees in the surrounding forest swayed in a rippling wind, but down in the shelter of the clearing, it was a soft summer breeze. Early June heat had made the classrooms uncomfortably warm for writing exams, but outside, the fresh air licked at the beads of sweat on their brows, and Cara swept her hair into a ponytail to feel its refreshing breath on the back of her neck.
A group of juniors had started a raucous game of ultimate frisbee on the lawn between the dining hall and the Dougie. She paused to watch, and Wes stopped beside her. They’d spent the week together, studying and going back and forth from the staff apartments at the castle when she had training sessions with her uncle. Wes had sat in on a few with her. With exams, she’d had to cut back, but they’d managed another session at the archery range, where Harrison had tagged along again.
“Last day blues?” Wes asked.
She had sighed without meaning to. “I guess so. As much as I wanted to leave, and in spite of all the bad stuff that happened this year, I love this place.”
“I know the feeling.”
“It’s okay, though. My uncle left this morning to set up his place in the city. We’ve got Jory’s house as headquarters for hanging out and planning. Liv’s already offered up a whole summer of pool parties at her place. It’ll be great.” She tried to sound convinced, but all the happiness from the students around her refused to sink in.