Lost (13 page)

Training with Lydia and playing with fire was still exciting after doing it every day for a week.

Learning control hurt, physically and mentally. I’d lost count of how many miles I’d run, both for exercise and punishment. But Lydia always found a way to make my time with her fun.

I’d been having such a good time with her that I hadn’t allowed myself to be sad about my friends leaving in the morning.

Today, she was tired of playing chess and wanted to do something different. Maybe she’d sensed her winning streak ending and wanted to stop before she started losing to me. I was getting the hang of chess, the strategy of it. A few more games, and I would probably beat her.

Instead, to test my focus, she had her robot inundate me with whispers and told me to follow one in an English accent. It told a story about angels walking around on Earth like normal people, while other voices hummed about traffic, taxes, and weather forecasts in China.

Sophia couldn’t handle it, and had left to pack Em, Paul, and Nathan’s bags for the trip. Right when the main character was about to kiss the wrong type of angel, she popped back into the lounge with us and waved her hand in the air to silence the story.

“Lydia, your dress choices for the ball are ready,” she said.

“The … Peace Group thing?” I asked. She nodded. “I didn’t know you were going.”

She stacked the papers in her lap and smiled at me. “They invited me as a special guest. It’s supposed to show their cooperation with the treaty or some other bull-”

“Lydia,” Sophia scolded.

“Bull-stuff. I was going to say bull-stuff.”

“They are stealing my friends from me, so I also think the Peace Group is bull-stuff,” I said, making my two favorite adults giggle.

Sophia and I followed Lydia into her office. She scanned the dresses hanging on the rack and picked a long green one.

“You’re going to look lovely,” Lydia said, holding the dress out to me.

“What
?!
”

“Your friends are going to the ball, and it’s your last night with them for a while. I don’t want you home alone missing out.”

Sudden euphoria shot through me, and I wrapped my arms around her. It took me a moment to realize I’d crossed the line by hugging her. I stepped away slowly as embarrassment crushed me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was weird.”

She looked like she was going to say something but didn’t. Eventually, she cleared her throat and walked away from the tense moment.

“We’ll see you later,” Sophia said. “She has a few meetings before the ball.”

I gathered my things to leave in awkward silence. It was the weirdest three minutes of my life. Sophia was staring at her feet, and Lydia was staring at New York City with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

Neither of them said goodbye.

Emma tortured me for two whole hours after I’d told her the good news, burning me countless times with the flatiron I couldn’t talk her out of using.

“All done,” she said. “You can turn around now.”

I spun towards the mirror. My reflection startled me. I looked different with straight hair.
Different and interesting.
I twisted my face in different angles to inspect it, letting the light find new parts of me I hadn’t noticed. The girl in the mirror captivated me, and in a way, reminded me of someone.

“Promise me you’ll be okay,” she said, luring my attention away from my face.

“I promise. When you get back, I will be in one piece … without a murder record.”

“I can’t promise the same. Two months on the road with Paul and Anna-skank with no technology? I might snap.”

I rolled my eyes, more at their boss than Emma. He was being ridiculous and not letting anyone bring phones or laptops. Nate had stashed his phone and charger in his suitcase already. He liked his boss and didn’t want to break his rules, but two months without talking to me didn’t sit well with either of us.

A camera flashed as Emma and I walked down the stairs. Paul’s dad didn’t let any special moments go undocumented, apparently.

“Look at my two little angels,” Sophia said, with her arm around Paul’s mother. Mrs. Ewing smiled, especially at Em.

Nate winked at me from the bottom of the stairs, gorgeous in his tuxedo, with a bouquet of white roses in his hand. I could’ve died right then and wouldn’t have complained.

“You look amazing,” he said. I hid my smile behind my roses as Mr. Ewing snapped more pictures of us.

A bright blue light flashed in the room, and I jumped. “Did I miss it?” Emma’s mother asked, as the light cleared around her and her husband. It was my fourth or fifth time seeing them, but I still wasn’t used to how much they looked like Emma. Her mother’s lips were fire red like hers usually were, and her father’s dark hair dangled down his back as far as Emma’s. More than anyone in the house, he looked like a wizard. Paul’s parents could pass for normal humans, but Mr. Arnaud looked like someone who chanted over candles.

“Miss what?” Emma said.

Paul strolled into the living room, carrying a bouquet of pink roses. He reached around Emma’s back and held them in her face.

She turned around slowly, her eyes on the flowers.

“Did Annabelle not want them?” she asked.

“Shut up, Em,” he said, and kissed her. Sophia and I gasped, and Mr. Ewing snapped pictures like the moment had been staged. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I met Annabelle at my interview and asked her and my parents to help me out.”

“With?” she asked.

“You! I thought if I made you jealous, you would finally stop playing games with me, but I’m tired of it. You’re obviously never going to admit that you love me, so I give. You win.”

I couldn’t contain myself. A strange concoction of joy, relief, and the smug need to say
I told you so
bubbled inside of me.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?” Sophia said, holding Emma’s mother’s face between her hands like she did with us.

“Sophie, he just called this morning. I haven’t had time to tell you.”

Sophia looked massively offended. “You’ve had hours!”

“We’ve been in defense meetings all day,” Emma’s dad said. “The hunters have-”

Sophia cleared her throat and shook her head, shielding us from whatever he was about to reveal. Or maybe she was just shielding it from me. I was, of course, the only human in the room.

I grinned at Em when our eyes met. Nate didn’t look shocked at all, obviously in on Paul’s plan.

“So … you’re my what?” Emma asked Paul hesitantly.

“Your boyfriend. Duh. I guess you’ll have to break up with Lou.” I laughed first,
then
Em joined me. “By the way, that is the worst fake boyfriend name of all time. I can’t believe you expected me to buy that.”

We stayed in the living room for so long, celebrating their new relationship, that I thought we’d skip the ball altogether.

I fought the jealousy biting my heart as I watched them say goodbye to their parents for two months. Both of their moms were crying. Paul even got a little choked up while hugging his dad. I couldn’t even picture what it would be like to say goodbye to my parents like this. I didn’t even know what they looked like.

Sophia snapped and flashed us out of the house and into a ballroom. White lights twinkled on the ceiling, suspended there on their own. Gold dust swirled around the room, making enchanting designs in the air. The tables were covered in light blue linens with floating candles as centerpieces. Beautiful magic.

Paul and Em attacked each other as we weaved through the crowd. I didn’t think Nate and I had that much skill. One of us would’ve fallen over by now, but not Paul and Em. Their lips didn’t part until we made it to a table where a blonde girl was seated. Annabelle, I guessed. She looked as perfect as Emma had described her.
Big smile, big hair, even bigger boobs.
Nate pulled out a seat for me. Paul didn’t have a chance to be a gentleman. Emma grabbed her own seat and started kissing him again.

Annabelle didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

 
“Hi, Chris,” she said and winced. “Sorry, I should’ve said Christine. It feels like I know you. You’re kind of famous and they talk about you all day. That’s a beautiful dress. You look gorgeous.”

Darn, she was nice. Now I felt bad for calling her Anna-skank for two weeks.

“Thanks. You too. Nice to meet you,” I said.

Emma and Paul came up for air as the other guests settled at their tables.
Most of them looked normal, witches and wizards and shifters in human form.
A few were slightly more obvious, like the man with far too much facial hair and the woman with strange proportions – long legs and a short torso.

“Oh my God! Look. Look. Look!” Annabelle said, startling me back into the ballroom. She pointed to the door and at the woman coming through it. “I thought they were kidding when they said she’d be here.”

Lydia looked beautiful in her satin
dress,
black like everything else she wore. The long sleeves and neckline were sheer and elegant. The keyhole opening in the back put the dress over the top. A hush fell over the ballroom, and everyone stood and bowed.

She looked like royalty, a queen, and the colorful man greeting her looked like the court jester. He had on burgundy pants, a green jacket, and a Hawaiian shirt underneath it to pull it all together.
And,
God
, his hair.
The mixture of blonde and red fell around his shoulders in a mess of curls and dreads. He desperately needed a comb. No … a razor to start over.

“Look, Chris,” Nate said. “Our crushes are together. That’s Devin.” I didn’t know what I was expecting of him, but this surely wasn’t it. Nate talked about Devin like he was the coolest, most interesting person alive. He’d been so many places, seen so many things, according to my boyfriend. He was smart and cultured, but apparently he couldn’t even find matching clothes for this formal event. And he was a wizard. Finding matching clothes should be as simple as a snap.

Devin escorted Lydia to her table and pulled out her chair.

She sat, and he bowed slightly before walking away from her.

“Great. Here he comes,” Nate said. “I’ll introduce you to him. Devin! Hey, Devin!” His flip-flops smacked against the marble floor as he jogged to our table.

“Hey, gang,” he said, his voice low and relaxed like a surfer. “Thanks for all of your help with this place. I really appreciate it.”

Each of them offered their own version of
no problem
.

“
Dev
,” Nate said. They were on a pet name basis, apparently. “This is-”

“Christine,” he finished, smiling. “Of course, man. You talk about her so much, who else would it be?” The table laughed, but I couldn’t force it. For some reason, I didn’t like Devin. He seemed too … something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Nice to meet you, Chris. Glad you could make it. Nate said you couldn’t come.” Apparently, we were also on a pet name basis.

“Last minute change of plans,” I said.

“Awesome. You know … I think
it’s
badass that you almost exposed magic to humans.” He laughed hard, finding joy in my terrifying ordeal. “Eventually, someone will have to be bold enough to do it if we’re ever going to live in peace.” He held up both of his hands, palms facing us. “Not me. But someone.” Everyone at the table mirrored his hand gesture, like it was a thing they did at work, and inside joke I was on the outside of. “Have fun, guys. I’ll come back to chat.”

Nate leaned into my ear as his disheveled boss walked away and said, “You smell like you hate him.”

“I don’t even know him,” I said and rolled my eyes.

“Be honest,” he urged.

I sighed. “He’s just … I don’t know. I guess I just don’t get your fascination with him.”

“Just like I don’t understand why you idolize a certain assassin.” I felt my face flip up, cursing him out without opening my mouth.

“That was rude. I’m sorry,” he said, half of his face wincing, the other half obviously lost in my scent. He loved how I smelled when I was angry.

He lifted my chin and kissed me. It felt like our lips needed to close on each other’s to prevent our first screaming match.

A relationship between a shifter and the kind of human who hunted them had failure written all over it, even if we lived in a bubble and had no allegiances to either side. Nathan was what kept the broken pieces of me together. The parents I wouldn’t know, the lonely life I used to live, the dangerous hunter searching for me. He made life sweet despite it all. But even at that, for some odd reason, the idea of him speaking against Lydia Shaw made me want to scratch his eyes out.

“I don’t want to fight about Lydia and Devin,” he said. “I spend my day with him and you spend your day with her, but whatever is happening between the hunters and magical kind is not our problem. It’s me and you and no one else.”

 
I nodded without moving my lips from his, feeling the last of our moments together speeding away. I didn’t want to waste time being angry.