Chelsea’s face immediately softened. “No, of course not!” She hesitated. “But I think someone gave him something. And let’s just say I don’t think it was his parents.”
“You really think his memory loss is… unnatural?” Laurel asked.
“It doesn’t make sense for it to be anything else. Saturday night on the drive home he was coherent and answering questions. He knows less today than he did an hour after it happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“I wasn’t sure at first. But we were talking on the phone last night and he seriously doesn’t remember anything from about ten o’clock Friday night till Saturday morning. It’s too big a window of time. My brother Danny got a major concussion last year and there are only a few minutes that he doesn’t remember. Nothing like this.”
Laurel sighed. She didn’t know which would be worse — if it was Tamani who did this, or if it was Yuki.
“Laurel?” Chelsea’s voice was quiet now.
“Yeah?”
“You told me last year you’d do everything you could to protect Ryan. I’m calling in that promise now.”
“I can’t undo it,” Laurel said. “But you have my word I will do everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
They both got to their feet and headed back toward the main hall, which was filling with students. Laurel stood in front of her locker, trying to decide what to do. She caught Tamani’s slender profile out of the corner of her eye and carefully tracked him through the halls, trying not to make it too obvious she was watching him.
Instead of stopping at his own locker, Tamani paused in front of Yuki’s, stepping in close to her. Laurel managed a quick peek at Yuki’s wound, but there wasn’t much to see. The cut had been right at her hairline, so it was mostly hidden anyway. On top of that, she — or Klea — had applied some kind of makeup to the wound that made it look like a regular human scar. Laurel had to admit, it was clever. The Mixer in her wanted to take a closer look, but… it just wasn’t possible right now. Especially with Tamani blocking her view.
He reached out and touched Yuki’s head, just below her cut, and then traced his finger down her face. Anger roiled in her stomach and Laurel had to turn away. She didn’t know for sure which one had given Ryan a memory elixir, but it had to have been one of them.
Laurel felt strong hands slide up her hips and David’s barely scruffy cheek pressed against hers.
“Good morning,” she said with a smile.
“Are you—”
“Please don’t ask if I’m okay,” Laurel interrupted. “I’m fine.”
“I was going to ask if you were… hungry,” David said, grinning.
Laurel rolled her eyes and Chelsea smacked David’s shoulder good-naturedly.
“Did Klea stop by again?” David asked, opening his locker.
“Not since eight o’clock yesterday when you asked last,” Laurel replied.
“That’s weird, isn’t it?” David asked.
Laurel had to admit it was. Klea was being way too hands-off about the whole thing. “We have a problem,” Laurel said, sobering. They all looked up as the five-minute bell rang. “Abbreviated version,” Laurel amended. “Somebody gave Ryan a memory elixir, and it wasn’t me, so I’m either angry or afraid, and maybe a little of both.”
“You want me to talk to him?” David said, folding his arms across his chest and shooting Tamani a glare.
“No,” Laurel hissed, pulling him back around, knowing Tamani would already have noticed anyway. “I can talk to him myself, thank you.”
“Fine,” David said darkly.
“Besides, we don’t know it was him,” Laurel said.
“Oh, please,” David argued. “What was it he said right before he left?” David affected a Scottish accent. “There is still work to be done tonight.’”
“He could have meant anything,” Laurel said, running her hand down David’s arm. “Please don’t jump to conclusions.”
David pursed his lips. “Fine,” he said. “But if you change your mind, just let me know.”
“I will,” Laurel said sincerely, tugging at the front of his shirt for a kiss. “We’ll talk later.”
David turned and headed down the hall just as Tamani said good-bye to Yuki and started walking toward Laurel. At the last second, Tamani looked over his shoulder, as though he were glancing back at Yuki — but this move changed his trajectory just enough for his shoulder to slam into David’s. David snapped around, hands spread wide.
“Hey!”
Everyone in the hallway stopped and stared.
Everyone but Tamani, who continued walking. But he held up one hand, still clad in his black, fingerless glove. “Sorry, bro,” he said, his accent sounding strangely American. “My bad.” He neither stopped nor met Laurel’s eyes as he strode past her, on his way toward their classroom.
Tamani couldn’t look at Laurel as she took her seat beside him in Government. He was wrong to shove David and he knew it, but after spending the whole weekend stewing, his temper had gotten away from him.
And it could have been an accident.
From her stiff posture, Tamani could see Laurel knew better. She was mad at him and he was tired of apologizing.
He had to admit, seeing her with David day in and day out had proven harder to handle than he expected. If he was honest with himself, he had kind of expected Laurel to be his by now. He always assumed that if he could just be in the same place as Laurel for long enough, he would win her over — awaken the chemistry that had sparked between them so many times in the past. But he’d been in Crescent City for more than two months and clearly that wasn’t happening.
He was essentially failing on all fronts. He had lost the trolls — and hadn’t found a single sign of them all weekend — he still had no idea what to do with Yuki, and the one time Klea had shown herself, he hadn’t been able to do anything at all.
Maybe Shar was right. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it had always been a bad idea. But he couldn’t give up now — it just wasn’t in his nature. He tried to catch Laurel’s eye one more time, but she had her head down over her notebook and was scribbling furiously on the pages, taking down Mrs. Harms’s every word.
Fine, Tamani thought stubbornly. I don’t want to talk to you, either.
When class ended Tamani saw Laurel turn to him, but before she could speak, he presented his back, slid his books into his backpack, and hefted it onto his shoulder. He gave her one quick glance, met her narrowed gaze, then stormed out of the classroom.
He tried to look over the heads of the students around him, cursing his stature. But he managed to glimpse Yuki heading toward her locker and pushed through the crowd to get to her.
“Hey,” he said, a little breathless.
Her eyes widened and then she looked at the floor, trying to hide her smile. “Hi.”
“I so don’t want to go to class. Any interest in ditching with me?”
Her eyes swung to both sides before she stepped closer and whispered, “Ditching?” in a voice so mortified you’d have thought he suggested murder.
“Sure. You’ve never done it?”
She shook her head sharply from side to side.
He held out a hand. “Want to?”
She stared at his hand for a long moment, as if it might jump up and bite her. Or, more likely, Tamani thought, that it might be a trap.
“Okay,” she said, a smile crossing her face now as she put her hand in his.
“See,” Tamani said, kind of enjoying himself now. “That wasn’t so bad.” He grinned as he pulled her with him, through the sea of warm bodies, toward the front doors. He had skipped class enough times that he knew there was no one standing in the parking lot waiting to pick off truants, but Yuki’s gaze was darting all over the place as if waiting for someone to jump out from behind a bush to catch her.