The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (57 page)

I’m different, no doubt about that
, I thought as I tried to blend the rainbow clip-in extensions into my white hair. But maybe that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing like I had originally thought. I had acted like a hypocrite towards Bryn, and like a child in general. A part of me had always known it, but didn’t want to admit it to myself. Now was the time to ensure that my change would be for the better and not the worse. It was time for me to take responsibility for my own actions and choices and to stop hiding behind my fears and insecurities. How many times now had I declared that I would become the person I desired to be but only to backslide soon after? How many times had I blamed the actions of others for the bad choices I made?
Too many
. And the worst part was that I clearly knew better. “No more,” I muttered to my scowling reflection. I let my emotions flow from chastising to hopeful in a slow trickle as I completed my morning routine and headed downstairs for some breakfast.

“You really should buy some better breakfast food,” Nala complained as I entered the kitchen.

“I don’t like breakfast food,” I retorted. “Breakfast cookies and pastries I can tolerate though.”

“The baby needs healthier stuff than sugar and carbs. It needs protein and—”

“I’ll eat whatever I can keep down,” I snapped. Who the hell did Nala think she was just coming in here and trying to tell me what’s best for me and my unborn baby? She certainly had a lot of nerve.

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem anymore, should it?”

“It’s probably a pretty good idea if you don’t remind me of the little bitchy move you pulled last night,” I said between clenched teeth.

Nala heaved a huge sigh. “Okay fine. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist. I don’t want you for an enemy, but I’m still not exactly your biggest fan.”

I eyed her wearily before slumping down into a chair across the table from her. “Yeah, I get it. I guess I can kinda respect the honesty.” She passed me a glass of orange juice and a breakfast cookie. “Today’s my
nineteenth birthday,” I mumbled around a mouthful of oatmeal and raison. I choked back a sob as I thought again how it’d be the first one without Bryn. And I wasn’t about to think about the fact that it would also be the first one without my parents. I was still in big time denial about their deaths.

“Happy birthday . . . I guess,” Nala said automatically.

“Yeah, there’s nothing happy about it.” Time to think about more important things I mentally chastised myself. “I had a vision about Cliff, that guy you met at my school, yesterday.” She nodded her head in confirmation that she was following me. “. . . And in it he pushed one of the Riders out of his body.” I paused to scowl down at my half-eaten cookie. “And yet he still has one inside of him. I don’t know what it could mean.”

She leaned towards me, her eyes gleaming a bright dragon blue. “How did he do it? How did he push it out of him?”

“I don’t know really. He was having some kind of battle of wills while he stood looking in the mirror, and then . . . bam . . . out the little bugger came. Of course, Cliff passed out cold afterwards, and my vision ended.”

Nala slumped back in her chair looking puzzled. “That doesn’t really tell us much.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I said as I picked up my glass of orange juice and drank it down with a crinkled nose. Orange juice wasn’t one of my favorite drinks, but I was trying to get something healthy in my system for the baby. Maybe I should take double the dose of the prenatal vitamins I’d picked up at the grocery store. Or maybe dragons didn’t need that kind of stuff. How was I supposed to know? I’d grown up thinking I was completely human. “I guess I’ll just have to continue on with my fake schooling and hope I figure out whatever it is my birth mother sent me here to figure out.” I set my empty glass back down on the table and stood. “What about you? I guess you’re going to be heading out soon?”

Nala shifted uncomfortably in her seat and flicked her gaze away from mine. “I think I’m just going to hang around here for awhile . . . if you don’t mind.”

A sudden bark of laughter escaped from my chest. “Afraid to face Khol, huh? You’re not fooling me.”

Her cheeks heated in embarrassment, which caused me to laugh again. “He’s kind of scary if you haven’t noticed. He might very well burn me to a crisp if I return without any real news of you . . . or with you.”

“I wouldn’t worry, his bark is much worse than his bite. I don’t think he would actually kill you, for this anyways. I mean he let you go, didn’t he?” Of course, when I had first met Khol he had scared me a little too, but that hadn’t lasted long. And underneath it all he’s just as human as I am . . . or thought I was . . . whatever.

She gave me a humorless laugh. “With
you
his bark might be worse than his bite, because he’s a male dragon in love, but with me . . .” Her voice trailed off as she obviously pondered her demise at Khol’s hands. “No thanks, I’ll stay here.”

“Suit yourself. Even if it is . . . well . . . you . . . I won’t lie that having someone else here with me in the Murder House is slightly comforting.”

Nala tilted her head at me with puzzlement much like a dog trying to understand its human owner. “Someone was murdered here?”

“Probably,” I said as I turned to leave. “I guess I’ll just see you later then.”

“Yeah, okay.” Nala’s voice still held some slight confusion when I left her sitting in the kitchen.

“You look like you’re feeling better today,” Cliff’s already recognizable voice stated from just behind me. When I didn’t answer and continued shuffling around the contents of my locker looking for my math book, he continued on. “I hope you remembered to bring your meds today so I don’t have to tote you around like yesterday. Not that I’m complaining or anything—”

“Look,” I started without turning around to look at him. If I could just manage to treat him like any other guy I wasn’t interested in and not like an alien leper, I’d be good. “I’m sure you’re real nice and all.”
For an alien,
I silently added. “But I have a boyfriend from back home that I’m
very
serious about.”

“Yeah, okay. Just tryin’ to be friendly to the new girl is all,” Cliff responded with cheer. His happy go lucky alien ass was really starting to get under my skin.

“Okay, good,” I grated.

“Hey, Paige.” I looked over to see Laila heading my way with a friendly grin on her face. “I’m so glad you look like you’re feeling better.” She paused long enough to briefly acknowledge Cliff, who I’d thought had already left. I guess the hairs on the back of my neck still standing on end should have been my first clue.

“Yep, I’m feeling much better.” Hopefully those herbs that Nala had brought for me would do the trick. So far so good. “Although I kinda wish I could have missed some more school than a couple periods.”

Cliff clearing his throat from behind me caused both Laila and me to swing our heads in his direction. Even though I was mentally prepared for the duel imagery of the Rider shining out from behind his face, I still had to fight the urge to gasp in horror. “I wanted to invite you, Paige,” he paused. “And you Laila, to my End of the World party this weekend.”

“Y-you’re what?” I sputtered unable to contain my complete and utter shock.

“My End of the World p—” He started to explain but Laila didn’t give him a chance to finish.

“We’d absolutely looove to!” she gushed with excitement. “Just text me the details. My number is still the same.” I just stood there in stunned silence. I’d just been invited to a party themed
The End of the World
by an alien who was living inside a teenage boy, who in fact wanted to take over our world and use up all of its resources. Were the Rider’s attempting to make some sort of sick joke? Laila elbowed me in my ribs. The pain caused me to refocus back in on the surreal reality that had become my life. “Right, Paige? We’d love to?”

“Um . . . yeah . . . sure,” I said numbly. Of course, I knew on some level it would be the perfect opportunity to observe the Riders even closer than I was able to at school. And I knew that’s the whole reason why I’d been sent here, to find out what I could about them, even if I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for. But a part of me wanted to say
hellz no
and high tail it back to Bryn as fast as I could get there.

“Great.” A huge smile spread across both Cliff’s handsome face and the pinched alien residing underneath his skin. Well, at least they seemed to be in accordance at the moment. Something that my body and I didn’t have in common. Despite the herbs that were supposed to help me with my morning sickness, I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of nausea sweep through my system. I had no other course of action but to make a mad dash for the bathroom. Yesterday was embarrassing enough with only one Rider as a witness, but half the school was not going to be privy to what I had eaten for breakfast.

I barely made it to the girl’s room and dry heaved over one of the toilets when Laila’s voice called out to me. “Hey Paige, sweetie. You okay?” The stall door squeaked open as she crowded in behind me. She gathered my hair up from my hand so I could better balance myself and locked the door behind us. “I thought you were feeling better.” There was more than one unspoken question in her voice. “You don’t have an ear infection do you?”

A feeling of ice slid over my heated skin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on sweetie. I may be country but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen you rubbing your belly when you think no one’s looking.” I didn’t know what to say. Should I try to deny it and risk alienating the only ally I had at this school? Or should I risk telling her the truth and maybe she could help me with my secret? “Does your guy back home know? What about your parents?”

Guess there was no point in denying it when she’d already figured it out. Or was I simply letting my fear of being alone on another level rule my decisions? “Everyone knows,” I mumbled. “I was just kind of hoping to finish out here before I started showing.” It was a partial truth, but it would do.

“Is that why you’re here? Did your parents want you away from your guy?”

“I guess.” My birth mom had wanted me on this mission by myself so in a way she’d wanted me away from my guy. “It’s all just a bit more complicated than that,” I said as I pushed myself up into a standing position and leaned against the stall wall.

Laila’s big blue, and very innocent looking eyes, looked up at me with a mixture of pity and sympathy. “Does your guy want you to have the baby? Or is that part of the problem?”

I thought about how Khol had reacted when he first found out I was pregnant; as opposed to the angst Bryn had delivered me. It kind of felt like Khol wanted me to have the baby, and Bryn wasn’t really sure how to react. “Which one?” I said without thinking.

Laila blinked up at me and gasped as if I’d just punched her in the stomach. “You mean—you mean—”

It was too late to take back what I’d just let slip out of my mouth unintentionally. “Yep. I don’t know who the father is.”

“But you said you were serious about your boyfriend back home.”

“I am. Both of them.” I laughed with a hysterical edge. “I’m in love with two guys, one who wants me unconditionally, and the other . . . well, the other I used to think did but now . . . I just don’t know. And I don’t know which one of them is the father of my unborn child.” But what about my dream conversation with myself last night? Was the love I felt towards Khol enough to even be counted against what I felt for Bryn? Was I going to just discount what my subconscious was trying to call to my attention? I thought this morning I had made up my mind to stop with all the damn wishy washiness of my adolescence.

I could see everything processing in Laila’s eyes, and like a light being switched on, I could also see when she fully accepted what I’d just told her. “Oh, you poor thing.”

I scowled down at her. “I don’t need or want your or anyone else’s pity.”

“No, of course not.” She waved me off and unlocked the stall door. “My lips are sealed.” She headed over towards the wall of sinks and paused. “Do you still wanna go to Cliff’s party this weekend?”

I had to bite back a laugh, but a sincere one this time. She reminded me of Jenna so much. “I just can’t drink is all,” was my response. “But since we’re spilling secrets, why are you so excited about being invited, and why are you being so nice to me? I mean you’ve kind of been hanging around with me, and not with a whole lot of anyone else since I’ve met you.”

Laila’s cheeks flushed briefly. “I—ah—well—most of the kids I grew up with around here . . . they’re just different. It started happening sometime around middle school. At first it was just a couple of them, and I just chalked it up to people changin’ as they grow up, but lately . . . I don’t know, it’s like I don’t even know half of them anymore.” Her shoulders slumped and she let out a huge sigh. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean some of them just creep me out somehow.”

I reached out and touched her shoulder briefly, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I don’t think it’s weird at all. But if they creep you out then why do you wanna go to the party?”