by Tracy Wolff
What he does next, in fact, is pull up at pretty much the last second, sending us screaming back to the top of the castle as I laugh and laugh and laugh. Now Flint looks back at me, laughter in his own eyes as we do two quick spins around the school before finally coming in for the smoothest landing ever.
I manage to get off him pretty much the way I got on but in reverse, and seconds later, I’m back on the ground, standing on my own shaky legs.
There’s another shimmer, another air funnel, and a few seconds later, Flint is standing next to me in what’s left of his school uniform—which now is little more than a pair of ripped-up pants and half a button-down shirt missing all the buttons.
I take one look at him and start laughing, partly because of his clothes and partly because of the goofy smile on his face. It doesn’t take long before he’s laughing, too.
“So what’d you think?” Flint asks.
“It wasn’t quite the flying lesson I was anticipating,” I answer with a grin. “But it was so much fun.” And it’s true. For the first time since I turned human again, I feel completely, 100 percent myself. It’s a good feeling, one that has me holding on to Flint’s arm because I don’t want him to go. I don’t want him to take this feeling with him. “Did you have fun?”
“I really did. And you’re a natural.”
“Yeah, right. You rolled your eyes at me.”
He very deliberately rolls them again. “You couldn’t figure out how to get on my back.”
“Well, it’s not like dragons come with an instruction manual. It was difficult.”
“Apparently.” I stick my tongue out at him, but he just laughs. “Wanna do it again sometime?”
“Absolutely.” I take a second to go over my schedule in my head. Then suggest, “How about tomorrow morning? We could get the whole Ludares team together to meet and maybe practice for the tournament? And you can show me how to fly, using my own wings this time.”
“I like the way you think, New Girl. Meet you on the practice field at nine?”
“Make it ten. Macy’s not a morning person.”
He shakes his head. “Witches and vamps, man. They never are.” He glances toward the school. “You need me to walk you back to your room?”
“Nah, I’m good. But thanks, Flint.” I give him an impulsive hug. “You’re the best.”
“Not so much, New Girl.” This time his smile is tinged with just a little bit of sadness. “But I can’t wait to see you fly tomorrow. See if you can give me a run for my money.”
“Pretty sure a F-35 couldn’t give you a run for your money, but thanks for the compliment.” I give him a little wave, then head toward the stairs that lead up to the front entrance. As I go, I can’t help wondering what it is that keeps making Flint seem so sad when he thinks I’m not looking.
56
Just Shut Up
and Dance
I’m exhausted by the time I get back to my bedroom around eight. Macy tries to convince me to go hang out with some of her witch friends—they’re getting together for Netflix and facials—but the truth is, I’m too nervous about tomorrow to think about anything else.
I’m going to meet the whole Ludares team tomorrow—Flint and Macy worked on rounding it out today, and they think they’ve finally got the team we need to win. And we need to win, at least if we’re going to get the bloodstone we need to force Hudson out of my head and turn him human. Without it, we’re totally screwed.
But how am I supposed to compete in this game I still know next to nothing about? I mean, I know it takes place in the Katmere athletic complex—a place I’ve never even set foot in before. I also know that it’s a strange hybrid of Keep Away and Hot Potato and that every member on the team has to control the ball for at least one part of the game.
All of which translates to me having to keep the ball away from the other team with my nonexistent skills.
I mean, yeah, I can turn to stone with the ball, but that isn’t going to get it across the finish line. Supposedly, I can fly, but that would require shifting into my gargoyle form, which I’ve yet to do again. Well, that and actually flying. And as for the channeling-magic thing… I don’t know. How much of that was me this afternoon and how much of it was Hudson? It’s a question that’s haunted me since I realized it was his power, rather than Macy’s, that I was directing.
Nervous, frustrated, and more than a little freaked out, all I really want to do is bury my head in a good book and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist—even if part of that world is actually sharing my headspace with me.
But ten minutes into that plan, I realize it’s a bust. I’m still way too hyped-up from a combination of nerves and residual energy from what was probably the most amazing flying lesson in the history of flying lessons to just sit around on my bed.
Maybe I should have gone to girls’ night with Macy after all. At least I’d have something to do besides watch my own fears chase one another around and around in my head all night. But if I’d gone, I’d be forced to make small talk with people I don’t know, and that’s a whole different level of stress. Especially since I’ve never been very good at small talk even at the best of times.
In the end, I decide to take a quick shower, hoping that will settle me down. But that doesn’t work, either—I’m still bouncing off the walls even after I dry my hair and straighten up my side of the room.
I think about calling Jaxon, but he’d looked really tired when we parted tonight. He’d mentioned going to bed early. If he’s actually done that, I don’t want to be the one to disturb him.
The best thing I can do for me is also to sleep—my mind has been through a lot over the course of the last several months. Too bad sleep currently feels about as foreign as a walk on the moon.
With nothing else to do, I gather up Macy’s and my dirty laundry and head down to the laundry room on the second floor. I’ve never used it before, but I know where it is because it’s attached to one of the student lounges where Macy gave me a tour my first couple of days at Katmere.
Normally I’d do only my laundry—I’m not sure how witches normally handle things, and the last thing I want is to upset the status quo—but since I’ve heard Macy bemoan being short on tights three different days this week, I might as well help my cousin out. It’s the least I can do after everything she’s done for me.
It’s not until an hour later, as I’m loading clean clothes from the washer to the dryer, that Hudson finally shows back up again with a “Boo!” so loud, I swear it shakes the rafters.
I’ve been expecting him and still he startles me so much that I drop my wet clothes all over the place—and nearly scream loud enough to be heard in the art cottage.
I bite the scream back at the last second, but it still takes me a little bit to get my breath back. “You know you’re a jerk, right?” I snarl at him when I can talk again—and after I’ve picked up all the clothes he made me drop.
“You’re just saying that because you missed me,” he tells me from where he’s perched on the lid of a washing machine several washers down.
“Missed you or wanted to make sure you weren’t somewhere plotting world domination? It’s a fine distinction, really.”
“But an important one,” he says with a grin that lights up his whole face.
I immediately distrust it. “Exactly what are you so smiley about this evening anyway?”
“Can’t a guy just be happy for no reason?” he asks with an arch of his brow.
I throw the last of the clothes in the dryer and slam the lid with a solid thud. “Not when the last time he was happy, he was plotting a hostile takeover of half the paranormal world.”
“You wound me. It was at least three-quarters.”
“Remind me. How’d that work out for you again?” I ask as I empty out the lint trap and hit the start button.
“Pretty well, considering I’m sitting here tonight with a superhot gargoyle’s panties on my shoe.” He holds up his left foot and sure enough, my black lace panties are dangling from the toe of his merlot suede Armani loafers.
“How is that even possible?” I demand, leaning down to yank them from his foot. They come off, but when I look at my hand, there’s nothing there.
I mean, of course there isn’t. Just because I can see him sitting on that washing machine doesn’t mean he’s actually there. Any more than it means my panties were actually dangling from his shoe. Except I saw them.
“Abracadabra,” he answers, complete with full-on magician hand gestures. Which…
“Oh my God. Are you high?” I ask.
“I’m inside your head, Grace. If I were high, wouldn’t that mean you are, too?”
“Yeah, well, maybe I am,” I mutter as I gather up my laundry supplies, because I cannot think of another scenario on the planet where Hudson would behave in such a bizarre manner. The fact that the whole routine is just a teeny, tiny bit charming is also of paramount concern.
“Or maybe you’re just coming around,” he shoots back, his eyes shining a deep indigo in the bright lights of the laundry room.
“What exactly am I coming around to?” I ask. “Thinking you need a tranquilizer…or possibly seven?”
“More like the idea that all this doesn’t have to end as badly as you seem to think it will.”
I shoot him a baffled look. “I…don’t have a clue what that means.”
“Don’t you?” He watches me closely.
“Not even a little bit, no.”
For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. Then, just when I think he’s going back to his normal, sarcastic ways, he lifts a hand and circles his index finger in a little loop that makes no sense to me at all—at least not until Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” starts playing—out of nowhere.
“What. Is. Happening?” I look around the laundry room a little wildly, at least half of me wondering if I’m being punked. Because what even is happening? “Why are you playing Flo Rida?”
“Why not?” he answers, then grabs my wrist just as the refrain starts. Then, before I can register what’s going on, he gives one solid yank, and I fly straight into his hard chest, squawking like an angry pterodactyl the whole way.
“What the hell, Hudson?” I demand, shoving at his chest until he finally lets me put some distance between us. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Why does something have to be wrong?” he answers.
“Because we hate each other. And because happy music isn’t exactly your style. And because the last thing I want to do right now is hug you.”
This time, both brows go up, marking the return of the superior look I know and hate so well. “Who said anything about hugging?” he asks, right before he spins me out in what I can only assume is supposed to be some kind of dance move.
“Hudson,” I say, but he ignores me in favor of pulling me back in and then spinning me back out in the opposite direction.
“Hudson!” I repeat a little louder. “What are you doing?”
He gives me a “what the hell” look. “We are dancing.”
“No,” I correct him. “You are dancing. I’m beginning to feel a dislocated shoulder coming on.”
“And whose fault is that?” he asks. “Dance with me, Grace.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to.” He spins me out again, but this time the move is a lot gentler.
“But why did you ask me to?” I quiz when he pulls me back in. “What’s going on, Hudson?”
“Grace?” he says, looking deep into my eyes, and for the briefest moment, I see something there that makes me catch my breath. And also wonder if I’m imagining it.
“Yes?”
He circles his finger again, and the music switches from Flo Rida to the opening lyrics of Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance.”
And it’s so clever, so ridiculous, so Hudson, that I can’t help bursting into laughter. Right before I decide, screw it, and let him dance me from one end of the laundry room to the other.
When the song finally comes to an end, Hudson lets me go, and we both stand there grinning at each other.
As we do, I can’t help but wonder what someone would think if they’d walked into the laundry room a few seconds ago and found me dancing around the machines by myself, singing to a song only I can hear. Probably that it’s just another weird human thing…or an even weirder gargoyle thing…which I guess it is, now that I think about it.
Still, I’m a little hot, a little breathless, but a lot more relaxed than I was when I got to the laundry room, and maybe that’s why I finally ask him, “How did you know I love that song?”
And just that easily, his smile fades away, leaving nothing there but an emptiness so stark that I feel it deep in my chest. Even before he answers, “So you really remember nothing of the time we spent together?”
57
Pulling all the
(Heart) Strings
Confusion swamps me. “I don’t… I mean… I told you…”
“Never mind.” He shakes his head, rubs a hand over his hair. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I don’t know what you were thinking, either,” I tell him. “That’s kind of the point of a conversation.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs.
“Maybe? What does that mean?” I feel like I’m missing something important here, but I don’t have a clue what it is. Even worse, this damn amnesia makes it impossible to figure out.
This time when his eyes meet mine, there’s so much intensity there that my mouth goes desert dry. “It means I guess I saw what I wanted to see this afternoon.”
I don’t have a response to that, so I just stand there, watching him, even as a small frisson of…something works its way down my spine. I can’t identify it—and if I’m honest, I don’t want to—but it scares me a little. Even as it makes me more determined than ever to regain my memory of what happened in those three and a half missing months.
Because for a moment, during the whole magic-channeling portion of the afternoon, I realized that it didn’t feel absolutely awful having Hudson stand right behind me. In fact, it almost felt kind of…nice.
I shook the feeling off because just the idea is absurd, but now that he’s standing here in front of me, a vulnerable look in his eyes for the first time ever, I can’t help but wonder if this afternoon was an anomaly or a memory of a friendship so unimaginable that I’ve somehow managed to forget it.
“Hudson…”
“Don’t worry about it,” he tells me, and the softness that’s been here since he showed up this morning is effectively gone. As I watch the Hudson I’ve come to know and despise over the last few days come to the fore, I can’t decide if I’m relieved or sad. Or maybe a little of both…
“So why’d you decide to do laundry tonight, anyway? I thought you and Lover Boy would be cuddled up in his tower.”
“Is that why you stayed away?” I ask as I open up the dryer to check my clothes. Sadly, they’re still very much wet, but I grab a few things I don’t want to overdry and shrink and throw them in my basket before I close the door and flip the timer on again. “Because you wanted to give me some privacy?”
“I stayed away because I had some things I needed to do. But you dodged the question, which makes me wonder if there’s an actual reason you’re here doing laundry.” He narrows his eyes at me. “So spill.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You hate doing laundry, so I don’t believe for a minute that it’s nothing.” He snatches my favorite sweatshirt out of the dryer and dangles it just out of my reach. “Spill or you’ll never see this hoodie alive again.”
“It’s nothing,” I tell him a second time. Then screech a little as he b
alls my damp hoodie up and prepares to make a three-pointer into the trash can.
“Last chance, Grace.”
“Okay, fine. I’m nervous.”
“Nervous?” He looks confused as he lowers the hoodie. “About what?”
“We’re all supposed to meet tomorrow morning on the practice field and start preparing for Ludares. I’m supposed to try to fly for the first time, and I have no idea how that’s going to work. Or even if I’ll be able to turn into a gargoyle. Everyone else will be doing their thing, and I’m either going to be a useless human or an even more useless statue.”
Hudson laughs. He actually laughs, and I have the sudden urge to punch him.
“Thanks,” I tell him with the nastiest glare I can muster. “You pushed me to tell you, and now you’re laughing at me. You suck.”
“I’m not laughing at you, Grace,” he manages to say between laughs. “I’m… Yeah, I can’t even lie with a straight face. I’m totally laughing at you.”
“You know, this may be funny to you, but if we don’t do well as a team, we don’t get the bloodstone. If we don’t get the bloodstone, we don’t find a way to free you and you’re stuck inside me forever until, you know, we both die. So I have no clue why you’re so amused.”
“I’m amused,” he answers with a shake of his head, “because you’re going to do fine.”
“You don’t know that—”
“I do know it, and you would, too, if you would just get out of your head for a minute and let yourself breathe.”
“I’m trying to get out of my damn head!” I fire back. “So sorry that I’m struggling with it, but it’s kind of hard to do with you in here demanding my attention all the time! It’s even harder to do when I can’t remember anything. I don’t know what I can do, so how can I have any faith in myself? How can I ‘breathe’?”