“Interesting style choice,” Reese mused, looking me over as I met him at the curb. Like an idiot, I had my left arm wrapped up in the fabric of the shirt I had changed out of as if it were a cast.
“I have to be inside in five minutes, and my jacket violates the dress code. I can’t go in there like this,” I said, flashing him a glimpse of my runes.
He regarded me, not with mockery or amusement, but with empathy. “Here.”
Reese drew back his shoulders, letting the rich damask fabric of his black blazer slide off his frame. I staggered back a step in bewilderment, but that didn’t deter him as he wrapped the jacket around me.
“Will this do?”
Letting my bound shirt fall away, I put my arms through the sleeves and hugged the blazer around myself. Overall, it was obviously too long and a bit too wide, even considering Reese’s slight build, but there was something charming about the look. A woman in a man’s jacket always had a certain chivalrous appeal to it, like a snapshot out of an old movie when a gentleman realizes his date is cold.
Even better, the patterns of the jacket complimented the design of my dress. Sure, it wouldn’t blend in with the convention of the club, but the blazer certainly didn’t look like street clothes either.
“Thank you.”
Reese reached into my/his jacket pocket and pulled out a chain. “Here.” He placed it in my palm, and I fingered the pendant.
“A cross?”
“It’s Celtic,” he confirmed, reaching around me and clasping the chain around my neck. “But more importantly, it’s silver. Always handy to have on your person. Only the purest of evil is affected by it. You touch a demon or Hellhound with that, and it’ll burn ’em like a roman candle.”
“Again, thank you.”
“Was this the emergency?”
My teeth gritted as I tried to find the words that didn’t make me sound crazy. “I saw someone get murdered when I was in English,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I was sitting in my desk, and the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of the woods. There was a group of guys I’m pretty sure were Hellhounds, and they killed a girl.”
“Did you recognize any of them?”
I shook my head. “The only name I caught was Will. And that hardly narrows it down. What happened to me? No one seemed to notice that I had vanished from class…”
“Did you fall asleep by any chance?” He didn’t need me to confirm, seeing the answer on my face. “I think you may have had an out-of-body experience, like astral projection. It’s a rare gift, even for a Mage. Could anyone see you when you were in the woods?”
“I…I don’t know.” I thought it had been my shriek that had caught their attention, but what if it had been the owl? And Will didn’t seem to notice me either. “What do we do? Should I tell Adam—”
He immediately shook his head.
“But I have to do something, tell someone. What if we could bring her back?”
“You can’t. To resurrect someone, you have to perform the enchantment on them immediately after they pass. And it’s not like whoever killed her is going to be hanging around the murder site, so it wouldn’t do us any good telling someone.”
“Something else is wrong,” I muttered.
“You’re not gonna tell me you see dead people now, are you?” He smiled slyly.
“No, smartass.” I gave him a light shove, and he laughed heartedly. Had I just been…playful? I shook the thought from my mind. “It’s hard to explain, but…it’s like I’m losing control of myself.”
His left brow cocked up. “Come again?”
“One minute I’m perfectly fine and the next…I’m saying things I’d never say in a million years.”
“This isn’t about what happened with Ava, is it? ’Cause she got under your skin?”
“You heard about that?”
“I’m invisible. Not deaf.”
“Okay, fine. Yes,” I admitted. “But it’s more than that. I’m worse than Ava. It’s like I suddenly don’t have a mental filter. Whatever comes in my head is coming out my mouth, and it’s not pretty. Not to mention, there’ve been other incidents.”
“Such as?”
“Things keep happening to people when I get pissed off at them. Like in English with Ava’s water bottle. Then in AP French, her friend, Diana, was giving me a hard time as well. Just as I made a remark back to her, the mount pole from the overhead projector suddenly fell off and smacked her in the head! Madame Maillard had to send her to the nurse because it hit her that hard!”