6

Jeremy

Saturday: 1:15 AM

I was roused suddenly from a brief and fitful sleep to the sound of a soft but persistent thumping at the door. I tried to ignore it, but whoever was there had no intention of leaving. Marisa slept soundly through the steady knocking, her ponytail a wild tangle, stray strands of loose hair stuck to her face and fanned across her torn yellow sweater. Her chest rose in sharp little intakes of air. I rested my head against her thin shoulder then glanced at the bedside clock. 1:15 AM.

She’d cried herself to sleep in my arms until I’d eventually drifted off too. I hadn’t pressed her about what happened. We both knew each other better than to pry into things we weren’t ready to share.

“Crap,” I muttered. The knocking persisted. I grabbed Marisa’s stick umbrella and bunny-hopped to the door. “What the fuck do you want?”

Like I didn’t already know.

◆

Bobby Pendell’s eyes were glazed and wild beneath the disheveled black mop. The red-haired girl looked pretty spooked herself, the skin around her freckles a sickly white.

“What do you want now, wolf boy? Baying at the moon lost its charm?”

“Didn’t she tell you?” he demanded. They barged past me into the room.

“Whoa! No way in hell are you bothering her.” I tried to block them, but my human pogo-stick status pretty much killed that approach. Pendell easily circumvented me and strode to the bed where Marisa slept.

“Don’t wake her,” I growled.

Ignoring me, Pendell sat on the bed beside Marisa and whispered into her ear. The redheaded piano player glared at me, warning in her yellow cat eyes.

I launched myself airborne and somehow landed on Pendell’s flanneled back. Wrestling him off the bed and onto the floor, I had his wrists pinned, my knee digging into his ribcage. “I think you need to leave before I break your face. I told you we were done with you. I don’t care about that fucking ring.”

I was about to land a punch on his ugly mug when the wildcat grabbed me by my hair and dragged me off. I tried to scrabble away, but it was pointless. Who was I kidding? I was as lethal as a fish on sand.

The girl towered over me, the tip of her boot pressing against my Adam’s apple. I gritted my teeth. Marisa had appointed herself one fearsome bodyguard. “Keep your hands off of Bobby,” she said, nostrils flaring.

“Congratulations, Wonder Woman. You have smote the enemy.”

“We came here to help you, idiot,” she huffed, the boot pushing under my jaw. “Bobby saw something.”

I rolled my eyes and swiped the hair from my bleeding scalp. The cut had reopened. “I told you we could handle this ourselves. So can you please remove your boot from my throat?”

In a spectacular blur of motion, Marisa shot from the bed and lunged at the girl. She was a tiny thing, but Marisa knew how to fight. She’d once threatened a guy with a baseball bat on my behalf. I almost felt sorry for the redhead. “Leave him alone!” she screamed, clawing at the girl and pulling at her hair like a banshee.

“Whoa, whoa. Baby, don’t…” I tried to grab for Marisa’s ankles, but my flounder moves didn’t get me far. I managed to reach for Veronica, strap her on, and then get to my feet. “It’s okay. C’mon, honey,” I pleaded.

But Pendell had already pulled Marisa off his girlfriend. She continued to struggle and cry hysterically in his grip. I still wanted to punch him, but instead, I sucked in a deep breath and tried to channel the voice of reason rather than my inner prizefighter. “Will everyone just calm down? What is wrong with you people? Marisa, baby, come over here.”

From under her nest of wild hair, Marisa stopped struggling and met my gaze, the fight drained out of her. The defeat in her eyes was far more terrifying than her rage.

Pendell gently eased her into my arms and looked me stonily in the eye. “If I’m not mistaken, you were the one who jumped me. Not a good idea to start stuff you can’t finish, Glass.”

I shook my head and let Marisa burrow her face into my chest, her ribs shaking with silent sobs. All I wanted to do was glue her broken pieces back together. And sleep. “I’m tired. We’re both tired. Seriously, can’t this wait? Look at her. Have a heart.”

Pendell’s mouth was set in a firm line. The redhead glared at me, arms crossed in front of her chest. Clearly the Dynamic Duo had no intention of letting up.

“There’s a dangerous person on the loose,” Pendell said. “I saw the whole thing. He wore a black bandana. It’s not just about catching a maniac. It’s about…”

The redhead had opened her palm to display a silver button. Pendell tensed up at the sight of it, his eyes blank and unfocused.

Wrenching herself free of my embrace, Marisa said, “That’s my coat button. How did you get that? And how did you know about— What the hell kind of freak are you?”

Pendell continued to stare straight ahead, frozen like he’d been turned into a wax figure.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Marisa shot me a panicked look.

The redhead looked on in fear. No one seemed to know what to do.

The loud knock made us all jump. Except for Pendell, who remained inert and unblinking, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

“Campus security. Open up!”