The Inner Circle, Book 3 of the Glass Wall ( A YA Urban Fantasy Romance ) (11 page)

Pulling my cellphone out, I was just about to
call Ellison when Ajax suddenly bounded to my side, and I whirled
to see Rafael. I could barely make out the pale blur of his shirt
in the darkness as he advanced with the slow tread of a stalking
cat.

“What happened?” he asked, stepping into the
circle of dim light.

He’d shed his Inner Circle garb and was now
dressed in jeans and a brown leather aviator jacket.

“You tell
me
,” I said. I was pretty
sure that Melody had acted alone here, but then Rafael had his own
share of secrets.

Rafael’s gray eyes narrowed. “Did you just
find him like this?”

I was torn between showing him my cellphone
video or just pretending I didn’t know anything. I chose the
latter. While my heart screamed I should trust Rafael, my brain
wouldn’t let me.

“Yeah, I just found him here like this,” I
muttered.

Ajax pricked his ears at that, and then I
felt stupid. No doubt, Ajax had already told Rafael the entire
story.

My lie hung heavy in the air between us, but
Rafael didn’t say anything. Although his lips did tighten in the
corners.

“Let’s get him back to the house,” he
said.

We each took one of Jareth’s arms and hefted
him onto his feet again. He was becoming more conscious by the
moment and helped this time. As much as Jareth normally cooperated,
anyway.

I slipped my arm around Jareth’s waist as
Rafael did the same. His hand touched my skin, and a shiver rippled
through me. Rafael alone had the power to make me feel that way,
even after everything that had happened. I wondered what that said
about me.

I jerked my hand back.

Rafael didn’t move. “Shall we?” he asked,
leaning forward a little so our eyes met.

I stared at him, wanting to ask him what was
really going on, what he was really doing. For some reason, I was
sure he would tell me at that moment, but then my cellphone
rang.

It was Betty. She was worried and wanted to
know where I was.

“Ajax hurt his paw.” I said the first thing
that came to mind. “It took me a bit to find Rafael. We’re taking
him home right now.”

After assuring Betty that I would be home
soon, I turned my phone off.

“What happened?” Jareth asked in a groggy
tone. It took him a moment to realize that someone else was
supporting him, and he swiveled to see Rafael. He reacted by
shoving him back. “What’s this? What are you doing?”

“Helping, actually,” Rafael supplied in a
cool tone.

“Get out of here,” Jareth rasped in response,
weaving unsteadily on his feet a bit. He seemed to have trouble
focusing his eyes.

“You need help,” Rafael began.

But Jareth wasn’t about to listen. “Then if
you don’t go, I will,” he snarled.

And before I could do anything, he
shifted.

“This is getting tiresome,” I said acidly,
waving my hand at the puff of mist he’d left behind. “Instead of
dealing with things, you guys just disappear at the drop of a
hat.”

“And how does an article of apparel equate to
shifting?” Rafael repeated quizzically, sliding his hands into his
coat pockets.

I glanced up, startled into a smile. He was
seriously asking, but upon seeing my amusement, an answering smile
sprang upon his lips.

Somehow, that smile made me forget everything
but the present. With a beating heart, I watched his expression
alter into one that made my heart soar.

He was going to kiss me again.

And I wanted him to, but suddenly I became
nervous. And when I get nervous, I babble. Waving my hand in the
direction of the gazebos, I asked, “So what was that all about?
What were—”

But I didn’t get anything else out as Ajax
leapt between us. Raising his fur, the Doberman bared his shiny
white teeth and snarled right at me.

I took an involuntary step back.

And then Rafael frowned. “What’s this?” His
voice turned cold and his expression grew distant all at once.

“I don’t know,” I snapped, a bit shaken.
“He’s
your
dog.”

Rafael’s jaw clenched tightly as he nodded at
Ajax. “He says you were fighting with Jareth in some … lovers’
quarrel.”

I was surprised. The only word that escaped
my lips was “huh?”

Obviously, Ajax didn’t want Rafael knowing
I’d spied on them. Apparently, even he had his own secrets. But I
didn’t appreciate his method of protecting his secrets. I reached
down and pinched his pointy little snout. Hard.

He flattened his ears in response.

“Ajax misunderstood,” I began, but Rafael cut
me off.

“You shouldn’t wander around by yourself at
night,” he said curtly. “I’ll see you back home.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond. He turned
on his heel and headed off through the darkness towards Al’s
house.

I followed.

Maybe it was something else, but I couldn’t
help but think that Rafael was jealous. He sure acted like it. It
was a thrilling thought for all that it implied. And even though I
knew I should really be pressing him for details about his dealings
with the Inner Circle and what they were doing with the mutant
tulpa, I suddenly had to let him know that I didn’t have any
romantic interest in Jareth.

Skipping to catch up with him, I nearly slid
in the snow and grabbed his arm to anchor myself.

“Ajax is crazy,” I said breathlessly as he
instinctively reached out to steady me. “Yes, I care for Jareth,
but you know, he’s like a brother to me.” I gave a little laugh and
added, “You know, like a really annoying obnoxious brother that
you’re stuck with. Maybe that looks like something else from a
dog’s point of view.”

I wasn’t going to let Ajax off the hook. I
was going to give him a nice talking to at some point. But not now.
Not when I had Rafael’s full attention.

His gray eyes bore into mine. I couldn’t tell
if he believed me or not.

And then I did something that surprised even
me.

Reaching up, I grabbed his head, and standing
on my tiptoes, pulled his lips to meet mine.

It started as an awkward kiss. I didn’t have
much experience, but it didn’t really matter. With Rafael, I knew I
wasn’t being judged.

He responded at once, and his lips parted to
meet mine with a sweet tenderness that stole my breath. I shivered
as a deep thrill surged down to each nerve ending.

And then he pulled back, his lips hovering
millimeters from mine. “This won’t work,” he warned softly. “No,
this can’t happen, Sydney.”

“Can’t?” I repeated. And then I
remembered.

Of course. The Tree of Life thing. The fate
line that said if Rafael was to love me that he’d bring about the
destruction of the dimensions.

I frowned.

He was the only guy that I’d ever really had
an interest in. But there were so many cards stacked against us, I
really didn’t see how it could work either. After all, the fact
that he was a royal fairy prince from another dimension, embroiled
in some kind of conspiracy, was probably a game-ender anyway.

Embittered, I turned away. “Forget it,” I
said. “Sorry.”

“Sydney!” he called after me.

But I just ignored him, and bursting out of
the greenbelt, took refuge in Al and Betty’s house. Waving at Betty
so she wouldn’t worry and putting the egg in the fridge, I escaped
to my room and peeled off my wet, muddy jeans and slipped into a
comfortable pair of sweats.

I had to stay focused. I couldn’t let myself
think of Rafael. It was too painful.

With grim determination, I focused on the
problems at hand.

I watched the video of Melody several times
before making up my mind. I would show it to Jareth—whenever I
could get him to sit still long enough to watch it. We would have
to figure out what Melody was doing to him.

I dug my notebook out and added it to my list
of issues to resolve, and then quickly glanced over the other
topics to see if I’d made any progress. I drew a line down the page
to make a column and titled it ‘Update’.

First of all were the Mesmers.

Jareth’s rune seemed to be working well, and
they were obviously steering clear of the house since he’d burned
his symbols in the garage. And Al was working on the Faraday idea,
so I felt that everything was progressing ok. Enough so that I
could work on something else for the moment, anyway.

I stared at the next words of “Inner Circle”
and glanced away.

Rafael kept sidetracking me. It was hard to
play the spy when my emotions were wrapped up at such a deep level.
Grimly, I pinched myself and promised that I would be more focused
the next time I saw him. “Ask about the tulpa” I wrote in tiny
letters in the update column.

That brought my attention back to the evil
tulpa.

I frowned.

I was on my own here. But then, being a
human, maybe I really was the best person for the job. I drummed my
fingers on the page, wondering how to get it back from Rafael and
destroy it.

Thankful that Al had given me a phone with a
data plan, I dove under the covers and began to search the web.

I didn’t learn much.

There weren’t any eHow articles describing
how to destroy evil tulpas.

I finally gave up and lay in bed, wondering
if it would be possible to create a good one, as kind of an agent,
to destroy the bad one. The more I thought about it, the more I
liked the idea. Not really sure how to intentionally create a
tulpa, I just settled for imagining something beautiful and before
I knew it, I’d started to drift.

I woke to Grace giving my shoulder a friendly
shake.

It was morning. A weak ray of sunlight
streamed in through my bedroom window.

“Ellison’s here to take you to work,” she
said. “I’ll keep him entertained while you get ready. Hurry
up!”

I was ready in five minutes, shower and all.
Ellison shot me a mile-wide grin when I dashed into the kitchen,
and then we were flying to work in his Volkswagen. The thing I
liked most about Ellison was the fact that I could totally be
myself around him. I didn’t have to chit-chat if I didn’t feel like
it. Neither of us said a word the entire trip.

And when I walked into the coffee shop, I
found Jareth already there, dressed in a maroon shirt, black
leather pants, and chains. He was lounging in an overstuffed chair
with his boot propped up on Samantha’s coffee table.

Samantha herself was standing over him with a
bright red scarf draped over a trench coat. She’d apparently just
come in.

“I’m not responsible for the fact that people
around me feel a sense of inferiority.” Jareth was saying. “I can’t
help it if I’m perfect, even though it does get a bit
tiresome.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t been diagnosed
yet,” Samantha responded, reaching down to whack his boot off her
table.

Jareth gave her a wide grin and then spying
me, lifted his hand in a cheerful wave.

The coffee shop was a madhouse that morning,
filled with teenage girls snapping pictures and sending Jareth
doe-eyed looks. They had all frowned when I walked in.

But Samantha was pleased to see me. With a
crisp nod of greeting, she pointed at Jareth. “He’s all yours,
Sydney. Make him behave.” And with that, she sailed into the
backroom.

Jareth shot me another cocky grin.

I hesitated. He was clearly in a good mood.
But I knew I had to show him the video. And now, before he
disappeared again.

Approaching him, I thrust my phone into his
hands.

“What’s this—” he began, but then his brows
rose to his hairline and a horrified expression crossed his face as
his eyes locked onto the tiny screen.

He watched it several times. I could hear
Melody’s voice squeaking in the earphones dangling from the
phone.

And then he glanced up at me. He looked
sick.

“It’s ok,” I said in a feeble attempt to
cheer him up. “We’ll find out what she was doing and—”

But he cut me off with a chopping motion and
abruptly stood up. “It’s far from
ok
, Sydney.”

“Wait,” I said, holding onto his arm. “We
aren’t going to get anywhere like this. You have to quit walking
off. We’ve got to get organized—”

“I
am
,” he said darkly. And then
shaking me off, he pushed his way through the throng of girls and
left the coffee shop.

“I’m really getting tired of this,” I
muttered, picking up my phone where he’d tossed it. It buzzed in my
hands.

Glancing down, I saw the words, “We should
talk, Sydney.”

I looked up and saw Rafael sitting in the
corner near the Christmas tree. My stomach dropped as our eyes
locked for a moment, but then I turned away. I couldn’t talk to him
right now. It hurt too much.

And even though I knew I should pretend to
be, at the very least, friends, so I could gather information, I
just couldn’t.

With a frown, I texted, “Leave me alone.”

My new phone was annoying. I wasn’t used to
autocorrect. It kept wanting to change “alone” to “along”, but at
last I succeeded and headed to the backroom to put my things away
and collect my apron.

I was going to have to find a different way
to get information about the mutant tulpa and the Inner Circle. I
just couldn’t use Rafael for that. I was discovering that my heart
wouldn’t let me play games with him.

Rafael took so long to respond that I thought
he wasn’t going to. I’d just tossed my phone into my locker when it
buzzed his reply. “Of course!”

I raised a brow. It was kind of a snippy
response. But then, I guess my message had been a tad sharp too.
Putting my phone away, I went to work.

I stayed in the storeroom, unpacking boxes
and mentally complaining to the universe how unfair and difficult
life was getting, until Ellison arrived with a mischievous look on
this face.