I instinctively lashed out, punching right at his face.
The guy easily leaned back, dodging my blow as though I was moving in slow motion. He still looked furious, but he was smirking now.
“Please. You couldn’t hit me if you tri—”
I kicked out from beneath the covers, catching him in the side of the knee before scrambling to the other corner of the bed.
The guy had barely flinched at my kick. Now that I got a good look at him, three things were immediately apparent: he was definitely the guy from the fair; he was unbelievably good-looking; and he was glaring at me like I’d just murdered his best friend.
His jaw was model-sharp, shoulders broad and fitted in a black T-shirt. His hair alone would have been a marvel on any normal guy—black as midnight, strands staked across his forehead while the rest appeared perfectly tousled—his lips full and still tilted downward in a pissed curved line. But I couldn’t stop looking at his eyes. His irises were red as roses—or blood—and seemed to suck me right in…
I managed to free myself from his gaze. What was wrong with me? This guy had clearly kidnapped me and all I could do was stare at him? At his near-perfect face, at his mouth…
He smirked again and I saw his teeth. His teeth. It couldn’t be…they couldn’t be…
The guy moved faster than was possible, appearing on my side of the bed. I tried to punch again but he caught my wrist.
“Let me go,” I said as calmly as I could, trying to break his iron grasp.
“How did you manipulate the prophecy?” he said.
Prophecy? “I didn’t manipulate anything. Now. Let. Go.”
He relinquished his grip, but almost immediately leaned closer, way into my personal bubble. My heart (which was definitely working again) stuttered into overdrive. If it wasn’t obvious before, I knew with certainty now: there was something predator about him. Like a snake. Or a wolf. Or a…
Vampire? My disbelieving mind offered, looking again at his teeth.
Yeah, like a vampire.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said. “The witches spoke it to all of us before sending us here. How did you fool them? Did the Northern Pack set you up to it? Maybe the Deathless?”
“I don’t…I have no idea…” I managed to shove him away and again scrambled to the other side of the bed to put some distance between us. I knew what this was. This was a hallucination. I’d gone totally bonkers, and my dream guy and my nightmares were colliding into some freakish collab from Hell.
“You’re not real.” I pushed as much confidence as I could into my voice. If I fought back, focused my mind and really believed, he’d go away. I was sure of it. “You’re just my imagination. I’m not looking at you. I don’t see you. You’re not real…”
He stalked closer, immediately shattering my illusion. “Oh I’m very real. Dangerously real. And there’s a lot more that’s even more dangerous than me out there. You’ve stumbled into a whole different world, little girl. Vampires, shifters, the undead, and those are the least of your worries. Now I want you to answer my questions—”
“Jasper!”
A young woman walked into the room and the guy, Jasper, lazily leaned away from me. I felt a small sense of relief. Wherever I was, at least this girl seemed to have my back. She looked like she put the capital T in Tough. Her hair was short and sculpted. Tattoos and faded white scars clawed up her arms while her ears held a window display’s worth of piercings.
“Ari,” Jasper nodded. He crossed his arms as though he’d been doing absolutely nothing wrong. “You’re late. She was awake a while ago.”
“And you’re already terrorizing her.” Ari punched Jasper on the shoulder, then gave me a kind smile. “My name’s Arianna, but call me Ari. And I apologize for him. He never learned how to talk to girls properly. Or anyone, really.”
“I wanted answers,” Jasper said. He glared at me. “Still do. They sent us her. She can’t be…”
“You’re the boy from the fair,” I said. It was the only thing I could think of to say. Maybe because the fair was the last time anything in my life made sense.
“The fair?” Ari said. “Wait, Cliffside’s summer fair? What were you doing there, Jas?”
Jas?
“Investigating a magical disturbance.” His eyes remained locked on me. “And I think we found it.”
Ari looked thoughtful at that. “You think you sensed her before—”
“Okay, that’s enough.”
I swung my legs out of the bed and got to my feet. I realized I was still fully clothed, blood, shoes and all, as though I’d been sent straight from that witch’s hall right to…wherever this was. “The last few hours I’ve been attacked, stabbed, electrocuted by the Wicked Witch of the West—”
Jasper frowned. “Wicked Witch—?”
“And now kidnapped. I’m done. I’m out.”
Ari gave me a sympathetic look. “I get it. Really, I do. All of us were confused when we first arrived at the Loft. But I promise you weren’t kidnapped, you were sent. There’s a lot to explain, and I imagine it’s a ton to grasp for someone like…well, someone…”
“Human,” Jasper cut in. “Weak.”
“Whatever,” I said, not even trying to conjure up a response to that. “I’m going home.”
“Riley, please.” Ari stepped in front of me, hands up. “I know it’s a lot, but this is your home now.”
“No, my home is with my mom and dad.” Who were probably freaking out right now. “Out of my way.”
“Riley—”
I shoved past her, only to feel Jasper’s iron grasp on my arm again. “Ari’s right. You can’t go home. They won’t—”
“Let me go,” I said, voice dangerously low. “I’m warning you…”
My skin was growing hot. It grew within my center, rose to coat my skin.
“Not until you listen to what we have to say,” Jasper said. “And I get my answers.”
“Jasper…” Ari warned.
But it was too late; the heat had grown to a furious burning. “Hands off!”
I ripped away from him, throwing my arms up to push him off. All the heat pushed out. A ring of fire exploded from my body, blistering the air in a blinding flash of light before crackling away to nothingness.
I stared at where the fire had gone, trying to catch my breath. Trying to make sense of it. How had I done that? What had I done?
“Still think she’s not one of us, Jas?” Ari said.
But before either of them could stop me, I rushed out the door.
The Loft, or whatever that girl Arianna had called it, happened to be right in the heart of Cliffside, slotted alongside the other outrageously priced condominiums and towering skyscrapers. I had no clue how much time had passed since the fair, but it was mid-day, the sky gray with the threat of rain. My skin prickled.
I walked as fast as I could away from the Loft, accidentally shouldering into pedestrians and muttering half-hearted apologies as I did so. I felt like if I walked fast enough I could forget about what had happened.
About the fire that’d leapt from my body.
About Jasper’s teeth, and the figures in the hall.
Magic. Vampires. Witches. Real. All of it was real.
At last I leaned, exhausted, against a crosswalk button. A few people gave me concerned looks, right before the light turned and they started to cross. I’d wearily pushed off to follow them when my eyes snagged on someone. They stood out of the flow of foot traffic, hunched and shrouded in the shadows between two buildings. I couldn’t have said why they’d caught my eye.
Then they turned my way and I glimpsed their face: sunken, hollow eye sockets; peeling flesh; tongue lolling out over sharp teeth.
I swallowed a scream and hurried across the street, but now my senses were on full alert. Everywhere I looked I caught snatches of things I never had before. The glint of sharp fangs. The pointed snout of a wolf peeking from beneath a hat. The words to a spell drifting out from a nearby pawn shop.
I squeezed my eyes shut until the wave of disorientation passed and the noise of the crowd returned to its usual dull murmur. That stupid Jasper, he’d put these ideas in my head. Scared me into thinking danger and the impossible lurked around every curve.
I finally relaxed when I stepped onto the L train. Things were starting to look familiar. This was the usual route I took from school back home to my neighborhood on the north end of Cliffside. I kept my eyes on the passengers at each stop, but none of them looked out of place. Nothing wolfish or sharp-fanged about them. Just normal, tired commuters on a normal, battered L train in a normal city.
I eased against the window as we began passing over the river, the foothills of Cliffside slowly rising to greet me as though an old friend. A slice of coastline formed the inlet that the train was passing over. On the opposite bank was the fairground I’d been at with Iris. I wondered if the police would still be searching for me—
I pressed my face harder against the glass, looking at where the fair should have been. All of it was gone now, the lot as vacant and bare as it usually was most of the year. I was no carny, but I knew you couldn’t pack all the rides and booths up in only a few hours.
I yanked my phone out of my pocket. Completely dead. I looked around the train car, finally finding an older man reading a newspaper. I spied the date at the top and felt my blood go cold. A week. It’d been a week since the fair.
I braced my arms against the center pole. The man looked concernedly up at me. “You okay?”
“Just fine,” I said, forcing a smile.
I had to get home.
Once I reached my stop at Knob Hill, I rushed off and practically sprinted from the platform. All I could think was how my parents must be feeling. A week. I’d been missing an entire week. They must have thought I’d been kidnapped (technically true). They must have thought I was…
I swallowed, not wanting to finish that thought.
I turned onto my street and spotted the house I’d lived in since birth. Just seeing the brick front and meticulously manicured lawn my dad kept in order filled me with a sense of calm. In all the craziness, here, at least, was something that had remained the same.
Only…As I stopped running and crossed the front yard, I noticed that not everything was how I remembered. The hedges had grown thicker and wilder than their usual, impeccably trimmed appearance. I had to push aside a pile of packages that’d been left nearly toppling at the front door.
Feeling a bit uneasy, I tried the front door handle. They’d thankfully left it unlocked and I stepped inside the brightly lit foyer.
“Mom? Dad?” I yelled, my chest nearly bursting with relief. They’d be beyond overjoyed. I would be too. This entire nightmare could finally be over. We’d hug and cry and put this entire thing behind us.
My smile slowly wilted when nobody came running to greet me. “Mom? Dad?”
They’d left the door unlocked, so they had to be here. Where were they?
I checked the living room, then upstairs. Their bedroom, like the yard, had been left in unusual disarray. My room, however, looked the exact same as the night I’d left it. I picked up one of the plushies I kept on my dresser—for sentimental value only, I swear—and hugged it. A second after I did, I thought something moved in the place where it’d been, but when I stared at the spot, I couldn’t see anything. I put the plushie back. Everything remained eerily silent save for the sound of the air conditioner outside kicking on. There was a distant rumble of thunder. I went back downstairs and checked the kitchen.
“There you guys are!”
My parents sat at the kitchen island, papers spread out in front of them. I could tell my dad had been crying based on the red splotches covering his cheeks. My mom too.
“Guys, hey!”
I ran forward, partly thinking that something was very, very wrong, that there was no way they’d missed me come in, partly just wanting to hold them, to let them know I was okay and they didn’t have to cry anymore.
I stumbled past my mom as I tried to hug her. I blinked, not comprehending why I wasn’t holding her right now. I stared at my arms, wondering if I’d somehow forgotten how to use them. Had I just missed?
I tried to hug my dad.
And passed right through him.
“No. Nonono. Guys, look at me. Look at me!” I grabbed for my mom’s hand but it was like grabbing mist, my hand drifting through hers like she wasn’t even there.
Or I wasn’t.
“I called Chief Ryans and he says there’s still some hope.” My dad’s voice was thick with tears. He sounded broken, and that nearly broke me. “They’ve checked all the potential suspects, all the places she might have gone.”
“Nothing on the Amber Alert?” my mom said, pushing aside some of the papers. I saw my junior year’s yearbook photo plastered on most of them.
“Nothing,” my dad said with a defeated sigh. “He did say…He did mention the possibility that she ran away—”
My mom slammed a fist on the table, spilling her mug. “She did not run away. How many times do we have to tell them that? Iris was there. She saw the man with the knife.”
“He was real,” I said. I raised my voice. “You hear me? He was real, and I’m right in front of you.”
“But nobody else did,” my dad said, and I sank back, horrified. “There was blood in the bathroom, but no man. No sign he’d ever been there, and nobody saw him leave.”
I couldn’t stand this any longer. I didn’t know what kind of magic—yes, I’d admit it, magic—had done this to me, but I wouldn’t let it take me away from my parents. I would make them see me.
I picked up my mom’s mug and smashed it on the counter. The sound was satisfyingly glorious.
My parents didn’t even flinch.
How could they miss that? I couldn’t touch them, but I could obviously touch other things. They had to have noticed.
But when I looked at where the mug had sat, it was there again, completely untouched. How…?
I reached over the counter and, with one huge move, swept all the papers off. I watched them this time. Watched as they fluttered past my parents’ unchanging faces.
Then the papers changed. It was like I was seeing double: the papers I’d touched, fluttering in the air, but also the papers my parents must have been seeing, unaffected where they’d always been.
Then my papers vanished and it was as though nothing had been touched.
I opened all the cabinets, broke all the dishes against the floor, turned on the sink faucet, threw their spice rack, anything to get them to look at me. None of it worked. By the end of my tirade I sank against the counter, out of breath, with everything I’d just messed up back in its usual place. I felt tears threatening to break free and pressed my arm against my eyes until they retreated. As much as I wanted to, crying wouldn’t help. Those jerks Jasper and Arianna had done something to me. They’d trapped me here in this between. Alive, but not fully.
I looked up as the front door opened.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jameson?” Iris called.
“In here,” my mom called.
Iris stepped into the kitchen and my hopes soared, only to plummet even deeper than before as her eyes passed right over me. “Still nothing?”
“Still nothing,” my father said.
Iris nodded. She gave my mom a hug. She didn’t even glance my way.
I walked out before the tears could force their way back.
I hid myself among the hydrangea bushes on the side of the house. Not that there was any point. Anyone walking by could apparently see me, just like the guy in the train. Or the man with the peeling skin on the street corner.
Anyone but the most important people in my life.
I sat for what felt like hours until all the sunlight drained from the lawns and the streetlamps came on. Until thunderclouds growled overhead, opened up, and dumped rain on me.
Flippin’ great.
I squeezed my knees tighter into my chest as I began feeling weak and lousy as I always did. I had no idea where to go. I could stay here. I could obviously physically touch things. But the thought of hanging around while my parents mourned my absence was too painful to bear.
I hung my head between my legs, on the verge of feeling sorry for myself.
I sensed the presence of someone else. I looked up to find Jasper standing over me. He hadn’t made a sound as he approached. His hands were thrust into his pockets, red eyes slightly glowing in the dusk.
“It’s a curse,” he said. His tone was strangely soft. Maybe even…consoling? “The same magic that sends us to the Loft also keeps our loved ones from seeing us.”
“How?” I managed to say.
He shrugged. “Ancient magic. It just knows which ones we’re closest too. Which ones will hurt us the most.”
That didn’t make me sad; that made me furious. “But why? Why me? Why do that at all? What’s the point?”
Jasper looked as though he was going to answer. Then his expression hardened. “If you come back to the Loft, you might help us figure it out. But I doubt it.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Just being honest. You don’t have a clue about our world. I could see it on your face. And all of us there? We’ve been stuck a long time.”
I moved my legs to get some feeling back into them. They trembled a bit as I pushed myself into a crouch.
The corners of Jasper’s lips tilted down further. “Don’t expect me to carry you.”
“Don’t expect you to be a nice guy, either,” I snapped. “And I can’t go back with you. I’m not one of you.”
“One of what?”
I waved a hand in the air, not believing he didn’t get it. “What you were growling at me about earlier. Magical. Paranormal. A vampire.”
Jasper let out a deep chuckle, though there was something primal and not funny at all in it. He continued giving me a humorless grin, showing every bit of those sharp teeth. “I wasn’t being entirely truthful earlier. The thing is, if you were sent to us, it means you’re not human, either.”