Okay, maybe not Illumenari, because they would have revealed themselves as such. But they sure knew about them if they were acquainted with Rainer. Weren’t they worried he would recognize their voices if they ran into each other in town? Maybe they were confident their paths would never cross. Bottom line was Dillan didn’t like the sound of things. But instead of worrying about something he had no proper intel on, he cut his losses. They gave him a bone with this case, and he’d run with it. If a mysterious introduction was the price, he considered himself paid in full.
“Okay,” he stood up, “they’ve met me. Now can I go?”
“Let the boy sniff around, Rainer,” continued gruff. “If the dogs keep disappearing, we’ll have trouble. I can’t keep the ranchers calm any longer. They want to hunt whatever it is down before it goes for cattle or horses…not to mention people.”
He was out the door before Rainer could change his mind. The senior citizens could continue their little chat without him. He’d initiated missions on less clearance. He got his directive: find whatever was taking the dogs.
Rolling his head from side to side until vertebrae popped, he stretched his shoulder. The ache had subsided. Even without the aid of healing, his body mended faster than the average human by virtue of his bloodline. But he couldn’t risk reinjuring it. To give himself more time to heal, he made his goal for the night locating all of Rainer’s wards and determining what exactly they kept out. With a huge grin on his face, he jogged to the lake behind the house then veered left toward the tree line and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Ten
Selena
Got That Sinking Feeling
I didn’t want to go to school today.
As the warmth of sleep left my body, memories of yesterday came as sour as my morning breath. Mr. Rock-Star-National-Geographic insulting my intelligence ate at me. I hadn’t expected to see him at the bookstore. Arguing with him had been irritating. The humiliation of losing said argument unsettled my stomach. It was good I left when I did. Before that afternoon, I’d never come so close to pummeling someone until he bled senseless on the floor.
Then when I got home, I spent most of the night on the Internet finding answers for the electricity zinging through our bodies every time we touched. The closest I got was this study that showed some people more predisposed to generating static. Why would Dillan hate me for that? Okay, maybe he didn’t know about the study. I debated whether to risk telling him about it or just avoid him altogether.
Speaking of avoiding someone, my vision of running into Bowen at school today resurfaced. I sat up, wondering if I could skip.
I shook my head. Bad idea.
Grams would never allow it.
One time, I pretended to have a fever to get out of a math quiz. Grams came into my room with a foul-smelling soup and ordered me to finish the whole bowl. I remember it smelled like skunk spray. It inspired a miraculous recovery. Unfortunately, my room stank for a week after that.
Shuddering at the memory, I slapped my cheeks lightly to get the rest of my sleep-haze out of my system before scrambling to the bathroom.
At breakfast and in the car afterward, I focused on the radio. The Morning Show was a part of my daily routine for as long as I could remember. Today, Jeanette Morris interviewed Committee Chair, Betty Hillsgrove, about the Fall Festival preparations and what Newcastle could expect this year.
Bowen and I always went to the festival together, along with Penny and Kyle. He’d been MIA since the afternoon he’d left me at Miller’s. I said a silent prayer of thanks for small miracles. But, according to my vision, my luck had run out.
No matter how hard I tried to think of other things, all roads led back to him. Through the years, I’d come to realize that my visions eventually came true. I could stay away from my locker, but eventually, I would forget and end up there anyway, and the vision would play out. Even Grams’s excited chatter about the widow, Mrs. Nixon—spotted at the movie theater in the middle of the afternoon with a certain younger gentleman—couldn’t keep my mind from what was about to happen. Thankfully, being late for her shift meant my furrowed brow went unnoticed. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and left me at the school’s parking lot with only a “Have a nice day.”
With apprehension, I stared at Newcastle High’s double doors for a good five minutes. I had to face Bowen and make him understand we were over, and I’d moved on. Why Dillan’s face chose that moment to pop into my head, I had no freakin’ idea.
…
Outside American History, I hesitated. Dillan was in my first two classes. What a way to start the day. My heart pumped like I’d just finished a marathon, and my palms practically dripped sweat.
“What’re you doing out here?”
“Kyle!” I whirled around, eyes wild. “Jeez, don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“Ease up on the caffeine in the mornings.”
“You know I hate coffee.”
“Then something tells me you don’t want to go into class,” he teased. “Does it have to do with a certain teacher’s nephew who’s been giving you hell since he set foot into Newcastle?”
His amusement irritated me. “Please, let’s not get into that.”
“Come on, he’s harmless.”
I gave him my best withering glare. “Weren’t you on the receiving end of a million texts yesterday?”
“My phone’s practically bursting. I get it. He’s a jerk for insulting you at the bookstore like that. Don’t let him get to you.”
“Too late for that.”
“Oh, this is good! You are letting him—” he finished with a grunt when I stuffed my fist into his side.
“I’d say you’re right.” His voice roasted my cheeks beet-red.
Ladies and gentlemen, the thorn on my side, the pebble in my shoe, the bane of my existence had arrived.
“Shut it before I cut you.” I poked Kyle on the shoulder, and then turned to glare at Dillan, who stood by the door with a book in one hand and his schoolbag in the other. I narrowed my eyes at him and said, “Don’t ruin my morning by being a jerk, please.”
“Is that the way you greet people around here?”
“Why you—” I hissed, the rest of my words garbled by the first period bell. If Kyle’s arm around my waist hadn’t kept me in place, I would have jumped him.
“Oh, stop staring like you plan to go in for the kill,” he said to Dillan. “It makes me think you actually like each other.”
Dillan and I glared at him and denied his accusation simultaneously.
Unfazed, he gave us his most charming grin. “Class is about to start. Mr. Sloan just rounded the corner.”
With a non-committal shrug, Dillan walked into the room. I took two more breaths and glanced at Mr. Sloan’s smiling face as he walked toward us before I let Kyle nudge me past the door.
Minutes passed, and even in the radiant presence of Mr. Sloan, I couldn’t concentrate. Every time I tried to focus, my eyes flicked toward Dillan, who sat a few desks in front of me. Desperate, I resorted to staring at Mr. Sloan, but my anger, confusion, and anxiety clung like a cotton shirt on a muggy day.
My distraction eventually turned into embarrassment when I totally missed the announcement that class was splitting into groups. Mr. Sloan had to remind me twice to pick a number out of the glass bowl he held. I couldn’t look at him while I fished out a folded piece of paper.
I hadn’t even finished unfolding it when Kyle pulled me to his group. He grabbed a brown-haired boy’s paper and exchanged it with mine. “You don’t mind, do you, Peter?”