Runes (Paranormal Romance, YA,) (33 page)

15.
 
A CENTURY OR TWO

“Wow, look at this place,” Cora said when we entered the gym. “The décor’s better than last year’s.”

 
I had no idea what the theme was last year, but the transformation was amazing. The room was done in Trojan colors—gold and crimson. From stretched arches for taking commemorative pictures and gold and crimson gossamer curtains flowing from floor to ceiling to strings of twinkly lights and oriental lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Gold and crimson balloons littered the floor, and tall, lighted luminescent columns covered in black with gold streamers were strategically positioned around the dance floor. I searched for Torin among the dancers.

 
“That no good, lying, cheating bastard!” Cora snarled.

I turned and followed her gaze. She was staring at Keith, who was making out with some girl on the dance floor.

“He said he’d come alone, that he’d miss me. Yeah, groping another girl is the new missing me,” Cora continued with her rant.

Eirik laughed then faked seriousness when she glared at him. “Do you want me to go punch him?”

“Yes,” Cora said with glee, eyes flashing. She looked amazing in her blue dress, her hair teased and her makeup perfect. Eirik kept staring at her. “Go. Avenge my honor.”

“No, go talk to him,” I said. “Keith might only be with her because you ditched him to stay with me.”

“Oh, please. Don’t make excuses for him,” Cora snapped. “I should go over there and rip him a new one.”

I pushed Eirik toward Cora. “Dance with her. I’ll
talk
to Keith.”

Cora and Eirik eyed each other, but they didn’t make a move to join the dancers. I rolled my eyes as I walked toward Keith and his date and tapped on his shoulder.

Keith turned around and frowned. “Raine? What are you doing he—oh crap,” he added, looking past me.

“Yeah, she’s pissed, so you’d better have a really good explanation.” Cora looked ready to commit murder. Then she grabbed Eirik’s hand and dragged him to the dance floor. Keith scrubbed his face, glanced at his date apologetically, and looked at Cora and Eirik.

“Good luck,” I whispered and walked away, continuing my search.

Staying on the outskirts of the dance floor, I searched for Marj, Catie, and Jeannette among the dancers. They weren’t here. A few times I thought I felt a zing, the tingling feeling I always associated with Torin’s eyes on me, but when I turned around, he wasn’t there.

The news about my accident must have spread because people turned to stare as I walked past. Usually too much attention bugged me, but this time I didn’t care. I couldn’t afford to feel self-conscious. Some members of the swim team and band even stopped me and asked how I was doing.

“Raine.”

I stiffened, recognizing Jess’ voice.
Please, don’t let Torin be with her… don’t let Torin be with her…
I turned.

She was with her friends and four other guys, two from the swim team and two I’d seen hang around her and her friends. None had shaggy black hair and sapphire eyes or the smile with a punch. I sighed with relief.

“You look amazing,” she said.

Jess being nice was, I don’t know, disturbing. “Thank you.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“It’s the Homecoming Dance,” I said politely, trying not to be rude.

“I mean you were hospitalized with brain injury. Are you sure you should be at a dance?”

Her concern blindsided me because it seemed genuine. “Yeah, the doctor said I should stay active. It’s good for my brain.” Despite her niceness, I couldn’t bring myself to ask her if she’d seen Torin. “Uh, have fun, Jess.”

I left the gym through one of the side doors and headed outside. The Sports Complex housing the basketball court, the pool, and exercise room was separated from the school’s main building by a large patio with a waist-length wall and a parking lot. The crowd on the patio was even larger, but the chaperones were everywhere, so students didn’t disappear in their cars to make out.

I shivered, wishing I’d worn my coat instead of leaving it inside. It was cooler outside than inside the gym. Then a prickly feeling I often associated with being watched washed over me, and I turned.

Ingrid floated toward me. She wore a white, vintage dress, the hem touching the ground as she moved. Her blue eye shadow matched her eyes, and her blonde hair was piled up, wisps near the ears framing her face.

“He wants to see you,” she said.

I frowned. “Who?”

“Torin.”

My heart fluttered. “Where is he?”

“This way.” She headed back inside the Sports Complex, using a door that led into the broad hallway that cut across the building. We walked past the inner entrance to the gym and kept going. Two chaperones—a teacher and unfamiliar woman who was probably a parent—stared at us, but didn’t try to stop us. I started to worry. Ingrid had never done anything to show that she hated me, so there was no need for me to be afraid. Still, I wasn’t sure about going anywhere. Maybe I should find Eirik and Cora first or text them.

“Do you have a phone?” I asked.

Ingrid chuckled. “We have no need for modern technology, Raine.”

“I should tell my friends where we’re going,” I said.

She stopped. “Listen, you can either come or not. I don’t care. But you should know that he’s leaving.”

My stomach dropped. “Leaving? What do you mean?”

Ingrid shook her head and continued down the hallway. “Did you think he’d stay here forever? He has a job, you know. He does it, like all of us, then moves on to the next one.” She turned a corner.

I hurried after her, my heart pounding. Torin wouldn’t leave me. Wherever his job took him, he’d come back to be with me. I followed Ingrid into one of the girls’ restrooms.

“What are we doing in here?” I asked.

She ignored me and checked the stalls to make sure they were all empty. One wasn’t. She rattled on the door. “Move it. This bathroom is being closed. Use the ones closer to the gym.” A girl dashed out of the stall. Ingrid indicated the exit. “Go!” Then she locked the door behind her.

I stared at Ingrid with wide eyes, fear slowly beginning to trickle through me. “What’s going on?”

She ignored my question again and lifted the hem of her dress to reveal a black, leather thigh-strap with pouches. She pulled a rune dagger from one of them. This one was different from the one Maliina had used to draw runes on her skin. Ingrid stepped in front of the full-length mirror and started sketching. The dagger was some kind of sketching tool. The runes blended with the mirror. She stepped back, her eyes glowing.

“What are you do…?” My voice trailed off when the mirror moved and shimmered, until it no longer showed our reflection. The surface became less grainy. It rippled like the surface of water. Panic slithered up my spine. “What is that?”

“A portal,” she said. “It is how we move from place to place. Come on.”

I took a step back. “No, I’m not going in there. I’ll get a ride… home.” My gaze was transfixed on the portal. The watery surface peeled back to reveal a short hallway. The walls and the floor now had that weird watery look, and at the end was a room that looked vaguely familiar.

“Don’t you recognize the room?” Ingrid asked.

I nodded. “Eirik’s parents’ bedroom had the same wallpaper and carpet.”

“It’s the same room and you know it’s in Torin’s house. See, I’m not trying to hurt you. My sister might have, but she was under the influence of forces we’ve never dealt with before.” Ingrid extended a hand toward me. I still hesitated.

Runes appeared on her arms. The next second, she’d grabbed my arm and was moving toward the portal. I closed my eyes, expecting the worst, but instead, there was a gentle brush of cool air on my skin, and my feet landed on a solid surface. The coolness disappeared, and we stopped moving.

Ingrid chuckled. “You can open your eyes now.”

I did, slowly. Behind me, the portal closed, the watery surface shifting and remolding into a floor-to-ceiling mirror, which I recognized immediately. It used to be in Eirik’s parents’ bedroom when they’d lived next door. They must have left it behind. Were they part of Torin’s world?

Heart pounding, I swallowed. “Do you use only mirrors as portals?”

“Any surface where we can draw runes can do, but we prefer mirrors. They’re more efficient.”

She walked to the door and unlocked it. During the party, the door to this particular room had been locked. Was the portal the reason? The door to Torin’s bedroom was ajar. There was no furniture, no sign that he’d ever slept there.

My insides tightened with dread. He wouldn’t leave without me. My stomach churned at the thought and nausea rose to my throat. I followed Ingrid downstairs, almost tripping in my haste. Downstairs, the furniture he’d used for the party was gone. The emptiness closed around me like suffocating fumes.

“Where is he?” I asked in a voice I didn’t recognize, fear constricting my throat. “Torin!”

“He’s not here,” a familiar voice said, and I whipped around. Andris closed the fridge and faced me. He carried a bottle with a clear liquid, his eyes glazed and his silver hair disheveled as though he’d run his fingers through it.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Gone. Maliina, too, and they’re never coming back,” he said, his words slurring.

Air left my lungs, and dizziness washed over me. I gripped the rail. “I don’t believe you.”

“Look around you, sweetheart,” he snarled, making the endearment sound like an insult. “Do you see any furniture? Does this look like a place he plans to return to? No, he’s gone, and he took my mate with him.”

His anger was like a slap on the face. The last time we talked, he’d been polite, nice. “Where did he go?”

“Hel’s disease-ridden realm or worse.”

Torin hated Hel’s Mist. I swallowed past a knot of panic. “What could possibly be worse than Hel’s world?”

“Being indebted to evil Norns put in charge of death and mayhem while you slowly become like them… cold, cruel, dead inside. No one challenges Norns without paying a price, yet he decided to do it for you, Lorraine Cooper. Once a destiny has been set, no one messes with it. Torin changed yours. He broke the ultimate law.” He twisted the lid off the bottle, threw it, and watched it bounce off the wall, then guzzled some of the drink. He swallowed, made a face, and shook his head. “You,” he pointed the bottle at me, “my lovely, should have died at the park. That was your destiny. He did the unthinkable. He saved your life and changed it. Then on your birthday, he intervened again. Saving you and changing your destiny meant saving the others and changing theirs. Then at his house last weekend, he intervened again.”

“But these were accidents started by Maliina—”

“Who was being used by evil Norns,” he snarled, his eyes glistening. “Bitter old hags. If I’d known, I would have saved her.” He rubbed his eyes, and for one brief moment, I thought he was crying. “There’s a reason why we don’t interact with Norns, Raine. They screw with people’s heads. Mortals, Immortals, gods, it doesn’t matter. They control all destinies. Now my mate is gone because of them, because of you. Something about you drove her insane with jealousy.”

He hadn’t minded Maliina’s jealousy last weekend during Torin’s party. Not sure what he wanted now, I stepped back and glanced at Ingrid. She wore an unreadable expression, but she blocked my path to the front door and huge boxes blocked the back door. There was no escape.

“I don’t understand what my dying has to do with your job.”

Andris smirked. “You were on our list, Raine, and everyone on our list leaves with us. Torin changed that because he couldn’t resist you. He crossed you out and, by doing that, sealed his fate.” He walked toward me, guzzling his drink, his face twisted with anger. No, not just anger. Grief, too. He really loved Maliina. “The worst part of this is you have no idea what’s going on. You’re just a Mortal girl who thinks she’s in love, or in lust, or whatever you think you feel for Torin. From what I remember, Mortals’ love never lasts. It comes and goes on a whim.”

“That’s not true,” I protested. “I love Torin.”

“Really? What about your love-struck boyfriend? Does he know you don’t love him, or were you stringing him along in case Torin left?”

My chest squeezed. “Is that what Torin thinks? That I don’t love him?”

Andris shook his head. “I have eyes and ears. I stopped by the hospital several times and watched him eat his heart out while you laughed with that love-struck idiot. Do you know how amazing it is he let you get away with so much? For centuries, he did everything by the book. He got the job done without losing sleep or caring about anyone on his list, never letting anyone get close. Women were just a means to an end. Then he met you.” Andris walked around me, his gaze assessing. “I can see why any guy might find you irresistible. You have a timeless beauty. You’re graceful, smart, loyal, funny, but for him, it went beyond the physical. Something about you pierced his cold, hard exterior. He should have done what he always does—seduced you and moved on, but he wanted more. Maybe your protection runes and ability to see us started it. I don’t know. When you were hurt, I begged him to heal you and start your transformation into an Immortal, but he refused. Do you know why?”