I shook my head, as I noticed that Chloe had perked up like a meercat looking for danger.
“You don't get it. Alicia will kill you. You're acting like you don’t care.” Riley tugged on my sleeve and led me away from the group.
“Acting?” I quirked a brow. That was insulting. I genuinely didn't care. Witchlings got their magic from a Devil's bargain. It had been proved that it could not affect me.
Riley gave me some acute side-eye. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I responded with a chilled out smile. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
“God, you're strange,” Riley said, rolling her eyes.
“Looks like we have something in common then, don't we?” I replied joyfully.
Someone cleared their throat behind me. I turned to find Hugo. His brow was furrowed—an attempt at chastisement—before he relaxed into a floppy grin. Riley slammed her fist into one of the pads, and I staggered back, unprepared for the blow. Hugo gripped my shoulders. “Making friends, I see.” He laughed.
I huffed, blowing a tendril of hair out of my face. “I am the picture of strength and grace. Riley is a slacker.”
Hugo craned his neck and glanced at Riley.
“Don’t believe a word she says.” The Latino woman said dryly. Hugo chuffed a laugh and looked over his shoulders before he swooped in for a quick cheek peck. Unexpected and sweet, my face broke into a wide grin. Hugo did not look back as he sauntered over to the other Hunters to assist with their sparing.
I raised the pads and turned back to Riley.
“Hugo too?” She appraised me slowly before letting out a low whistle.
“The more, the merrier.” I winked.
Every muscle hurt as I dragged my feet back to my room. I unlocked the door with Frankie’s fingerprints and flicked on the light. As I stood on the threshold and studied Frankie's meager belongings, I noticed that every drawer had been turned out, and the contents littered the floor. The long-dead smartphone I had stolen weeks before laid cracked on the floor. My room had been ransacked, or the maid service had seriously gone off the deep end.
I cast my eyes over the damage with a veiled sense of detachment. It wasn't my things that had been carelessly dropped to the floor and then ground into the carpet. I shouldn’t have been bothered. But I was.
The Disney snow globes that had been moved over from Frankie's old room had been swept off the chest of drawers, their jagged broken edges dulled by wet glitter.
The brief memories that I had experienced when I had taken over Frankie's body had been joyless and strict. But the snow globes had been a small sign of whimsy. Each one had a note from someone called MG, who I recently found out to be Momma G.
The more I thought about the damage, and the memories that had been washed away, the angrier I became.
Every inch of my body drew back, taut, like a crossbow ready to fire. My eyes bled into black. Darkness swallowed the whites, and I closed my eyes, pressing my thumb’s into the corners to try and rub away my slip in control.
I shouldn't be upset. I told myself. None of these are my things.
My fingers wiggled as I tried to lift a magical signature from the room. The faint taste of burning plastic clung to the back of my throat, but nothing else. No residue, which meant it would be pointless to appeal to Davenport and ask for him to fingerprint Frankie's room.
I rolled my head on my shoulders, grabbing a cracked pair of Raybans from the floor, I slipped them on to cover my eyes and decided that I needed to get as far away from the mess as possible before I stabbed someone.
I knocked on Hugo's door, but he hadn’t made it back to his room yet. Instead, I decided to walk around for a little bit to try and calm down. Which was awe-inspiring personal growth.
I was circling the K9 pen like a shark, huffing, and puffing as I wrung my hands around an invisible thief’s neck when Hart found me. The first words out of his mouth were said with his blunt candor.
“Why are you wearing sunglasses? It's dark outside.” Hart shut the gate behind him as he moved closer.
Blinking, I removed the glasses and stuffed them in my pocket. “I’m a douche that likes to wear sunglasses at night.”
His lip twitched. “Douches don't call themselves douches.”
“The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.” I waved my hand helplessly.
“Very sage.”
“I read it on the back of an AA pamphlet,” I confessed. “I found it in the dumpster behind my local rec center. On Tuesdays, they teach a French cooking class.”
“You cook?” He looked pleasantly surprised.
“I'm an Avant-Garde chef.” I hedged. “I boil and burn. My skills are in tasting.”
“Don't you eat hot sauce with every meal?” Hart broke into a full smile, enjoying our banter.
“Hot sauce improves every meal.”
“If you say so.” He chuckled.
I looked away, into the darkness of the empty pen surrounding the kennels. I wanted to ask about Dixie and how his day had gone. Boring human stuff. Somehow, opening up in that way felt like I was giving away another part of myself.
“What’s been bothering you?” Hart asked, his impassive mask was back.
“Who said that anything's been bothering me?” I put my hand on my hip, putting on my cheeriest smile. He did not fall for it, not even for a second.
“Come on,” Hart gestured over his shoulder to the kennels. I followed on his heels as Hart led me to a tiny office around the back. A calendar hung on the wall with bright shining Labrador faces beaming back at me. There was a poster that had the words 'you don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps!’ It looked older than Betty White.
“Sit.” Hart pulled out a chair. “What’s wrong?”
I took a deep breath, ready to inhale my secrets back into my lungs, where they would fester and rot, which was unlike me. As usual, I found my lips moving as I regaled Sergeant Hart with the state of my quarters and how angry it had made me.
“There wasn't anything demonic in your room, was there?” He asked when my mouth finally stopped rambling.
I gave him a look that could curdle milk.
Hart picked up his office phone and called housekeeping for me. In a few seconds, he arranged a sweep and a clean of my room. I was grateful, I hadn’t known that I could do that.
“Stand up,” Hart said, pushing his chair back to make room in the center of the pokey office. I did as he said, as he arranged the furniture and then sat in the middle of the floor with his legs crossed.
“What are you doing?” I couldn’t help but laugh like a hyena. I held my ribs as I watched zen-master Hart close his eyes.
“Meditating.” He said shortly. “Try it.”
“No, thanks.”
“Afraid?” One of his eyes opened, just a hair. I sank into my haunches.
“I'm going to reach enlightenment before you.” I goaded as I assumed the same position as Hart. “Bring on nirvana,” I mumbled as I tried to empty my mind.
We sat in silence, my mind was a dark pool lapping at the edge of a beach of black sand. I drifted away, and before I knew it, I was standing in the ether between dreams and reality.
I turned on my heel, taking in my dream-scape. “Coolio!” I fist-pumped. I had never been able to access the in-between while awake and wearing a host before. Hart stood on the horizon, a tiny dot. A thought brought him to the shore. He looked around wildly, unsure of what was happening. I had managed to pull him into the dream with me, but I couldn’t begin to explain how I had done it.