PARANORMALCY

KIERSTEN WHITE

FOR

MOM AND DAD

AND FOR

NOAH, MY LOVE

Contents

Cover

Title Page

OH, BITE ME

A POPULATION OF NIGHTMARES

NOT–ME AND I

LEND ME YOUR EARS … AMONG OTHER THINGS

HAVE A BLEEP BLEEP DAY

DEAD MEAT IN ANY LANGUAGE

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

FAERLY STUPID

DUMBBELLS, BOYS, AND OTHER DENSE THINGS

THERAPY BILLS

I CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU

POETRY AND HOLDING HANDS

LIGHT MY FIRE

BURN, BABY, BURN

HAGTASTIC

LOST SOULS

SELFISH IS AS SELFISH DOES

DON’T CALL ME

HEARTS AGLOW

OH, BLEEP

NOT OKAY

WHAT’S IN A NAME

GROUNDED

MY FIRST SLEEPOVER

GIRL TALK

LIKE A BAD JOKE

RUNS IN THE FAMILY

ONE OF A KIND

HIJINKS AND HIGH SCHOOLS

GIRLS, CRYING, WOLVES

HEY, STUPID

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

LIAR, LIAR, WRIST ON FIRE

SO ALONE TOGETHER

PINK, SHINY LOVE

IN YOUR DREAMS

DON’T MUSS THE MAKEUP

PARTY CRASHER

SOUL SUCK

PATHS AND POSSIBILITIES

HEAVEN, HELL, AND THAT LITTLE PLACE BETWEEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Copyright

About the Publisher

OH, BITE ME

Wait—did you—You just yawned!” The vampire’s arms, raised over his head in the classic Dracula pose, dropped to his sides. He pulled his exaggerated white fangs back behind his lips. “What, imminent death isn’t exciting enough for you?”

“Oh, stop pouting. But, really, the widow’s peak? The pale skin? The black cape? Where did you even get that thing, a costume store?”

He raised himself to his full height and glared icily down at me. “I’m going to suck the life from your pretty white neck.”

I sighed. I hate the vamp jobs. They think they’re so suave. It’s not enough for them to slaughter and eat you like a zombie would. No, they want it to be all sexy, too. And, trust me: vampires? Not. Sexy. I mean, sure, their glamours can be pretty hot, but the dry-as-bone corpse bodies shimmering underneath? Nothing attractive there. Not that anyone else can see them, though.

He hissed. Just as he reached for my neck, I tased him. I was there to bag and tag, not to kill. Besides, if I had to carry separate weapons for every paranormal I took out, I’d be dragging around a full luggage set. Tasers are a one-size-fits-all paranormal butt-kicking option. Mine’s pink with rhinestones. Tasey and I have had a lot of good times together.

The vamp twitched on the ground, unconscious. He looked kind of pathetic now; I almost felt bad for him. Imagine your grandpa. Now imagine your grandpa minus fifty pounds plus two hundred years. That’s who I’d just electrified.

Tasey’s work done, I reholstered her and pulled out the vamp-specific ankle bracelet. I placed my index finger in the middle of the smooth black surface. After a few seconds it glowed green. Grabbing the vamp’s ankle, I pulled his pants leg up to reveal the skin. I hated looking at these guys and seeing their pure white, smooth skin at the same time as their shriveled corpse bodies. I clamped the tracker on, and it adjusted to the circumference of his ankle. Two soft hisses sounded as the sensors activated and shot into his flesh. His eyes flew open.

“Ouch!” He grabbed at his ankle, and I backed up a few steps. “What is this?”

“You’re under arrest under statute three point seven of the International Paranormal Containment Agreement, Vampire Protocol. You are required to report to the nearest processing facility in Bucharest. If you fail to report within the next twelve hours, you will be—”

He lunged for me. Sidestepping, I let him trip over a low gravestone. “I’ll kill you!” he hissed, trying to pick himself up off the ground.

“Yeah, you really don’t want to do that. That shiny new piece of jewelry I gave you? It’s got two little sensors—think of them as needles—jammed into your ankle. And if your body temperature were to suddenly rise, say by the addition of human blood, the sensors would inject you with holy water.”

His eyes widened in horror as he tried to pull the bracelet off, scraping against its sides.

“Don’t do that, either. If the seal is broken, holy water, poof. Got it? And I activated the timer and beacon. So not only do they know exactly where you are, they also know your time limit to get to Bucharest. Miss it, and—do I really need to tell you?”

His shoulders slumped. “I could just snap your neck,” he said, but I could tell it was halfhearted.

“You could try. And I could tase you again so hard you wouldn’t wake up for six hours, giving you even less time to make it to Romania. So, can I keep reading you your rights?” He didn’t say anything, and I picked up where I left off. “If you fail to report within the next twelve hours, you will be terminated. If you attack any humans, you will be terminated. If you attempt to remove the tracking device, you will be terminated. We look forward to working with you.”

I always thought that last line was a nice touch.

The vamp looked dejected, sitting there on the ground and facing the end of his freedom. I held out a hand. “Need help up?” I asked. After a moment he reached out and took it. I pulled him up; vamps are surprisingly light. Having no internal fluids’ll do that to you. “I’m Evie.”

“Steve.” Thank heavens he wasn’t another Vlad. He looked uncomfortable. “Um, so, Bucharest? You wouldn’t happen to have money for a train ticket?”

Paranormals, honestly. I reached into my bag and handed him a bunch of euros. Getting from Italy to Romania wouldn’t be easy, and he needed to book it. “You’ll want a map and directions,” I called as he started to slink off through the graves. Poor guy. He was really embarrassed. I handed him the sheet of directions to the Bucharest Processing and Assignment building. “It’s okay to use mind-control tricks to get through borders.” I smiled encouragingly.

He nodded, still morose, and left.

Finding Steve hadn’t taken as long as I had worried it would. Excellent. It was dark, I was freezing, and my vampluring outfit of a wide-necked white blouse wasn’t exactly helping. Plus I stuck out like a sore thumb in Latin countries, with my platinum blond hair in a braid trailing halfway down my back. I wanted out of here. I punched in the number of the Center on my communicator. (Think cell phone, without a camera. And they only come in white. Lame.) “Done. I need a ride home.”

“Processing your request,” a monotone voice said on the other end. I waited, sitting on the nearest gravestone. The communicator flashed five minutes later. “Sending transport now.”

The trunk of a large, gnarled tree about fifteen feet in front of me shimmered, and the outline of a door appeared. A tall, slender man walked out. Well, not man, really. His figure was distinctly male, although it seemed stretched—a little too narrow. With delicate features and almond-shaped eyes straight out of an anime cartoon, his face was, simply put, beautiful. It made your heart ache with the desire to do nothing but stare at him for the rest of your life. He smiled at me.

“Shut up,” I said, shaking my head. Did they have to send Reth? Sure, the Faerie Paths were the fastest way from here to there, but that meant going from here to there with him. And unlike the happy fantasy of faeries as delicate, tiny winged things who love nature—yeah, not so much.Faeries are a lot more complicated than that. Complicated and dangerous. Walking briskly up, I held out my hand and clenched my jaw.

“Evelyn,” he purred. “It’s been too long.”

“I said shut up, didn’t I? Let’s go.”

He laughed, a silvery sound like bells, and traced one long, slender finger along my wrist before taking my hand in his. I tried not to shiver. He laughed again and we stepped through the oaken doorway.

I closed my eyes; this part always freaked me out. I knew what I would see if I looked—nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing under my feet, nothing above me, nothing around me. I put one foot in front of the other and held onto Reth’s hand as if my life depended on it. Since it did. No human could walk the Faerie Paths alone without being lost forever.

And then it was over. We stepped out into one of the cool, fluorescent-lit hallways of the Center. I yanked my hand away from Reth’s; his special brand of warmth had already spread through my arm and was creeping even farther.

“Not even a thanks?” he called after me as I stalked down the hall toward my unit. I didn’t look back. Suddenly he was right next to me. “We haven’t danced in so long.” His melodic voice was low and intimate. He reached for my hand again and I jumped back, pulling out Tasey.

“Back off,” I hissed. “And if you come out without your glamour on again, I’ll report you.” His glamour wasn’t much less good-looking than his real face, but it was regulation for faeries.

“What is the use? I could never hide anything from your eyes.” He moved closer.

I shoved down the feelings bursting through me. Not again. Not ever again. Luckily we were interrupted by a shrieking alarm. Something was loose. A hairy little gremlin, mouth open wide and acidic saliva dripping from sharp teeth, was booking it on all fours toward us.

I watched it as if in slow motion. The gremlin made straight for me, a rabid gleam in its eyes. It leaped into the air and I kicked out hard, sending it sailing down the hall, right into the arms of the containment worker chasing it. “Goal!” I shouted. Dang, I was good.

“Thanks,” the worker said, voice muffled through the mask.

“You betcha.” Reth’s hand had found the small of my back. I wanted to lean into him, let his arms wrap around me, let him take me away…. Then I remembered the time. “Oh, crap!” I ran down the hall past the worker and still-snarling gremlin. After a couple of turns, I put my palm on my door pad, bouncing impatiently until the door slid open. Reth hadn’t followed me. I was glad. Okay, maybe a little disappointed. And then mad at myself for being disappointed.

I dashed inside, grateful that my settings kept the unit at eighty-five degrees, and flopped onto the purple couch. Turning on the flat-screen TV that took up nearly the entire pink wall, I sighed in relief. My favorite high school drama, Easton Heights, was just starting. Tonight’s episode promised to be spectacular—a masquerade ball in which tiny masks somehow hid identities enough for everyone to make out with the wrong person. Where did they come up with this stuff?

A POPULATION OF NIGHTMARES

The vid screen next to my couch buzzed again. It had been doing that off and on for the last thirty minutes. Finally, my show over, I hit the connect button. I was staring into a pair of green eyes, right in the middle of a green-tinged face. The image wavered, like always, since Alisha was underwater.

“Why haven’t you checked in yet?” a monotone voice asked. I always wondered what her real voice was like. All we got was the computer program translating what she said into something we could hear.

“Got done early—my show was on.”

Her eyes crinkled up into a smile. It was good that she had expressive eyes, since her mouth barely moved. “How was it?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. It was a costume party. First Landon? He totally made out with Katrina. Who’s dating Brett, right? But then Brett thought he was with Katrina, but really it was Cheyenne, her sister, who knew that he thought she was Katrina and tricked him into kissing her, then took off her mask and he was, like, what on earth? And then Halleryn filmed Landon kissing that tramp Carys.”

Alisha blinked her transparent eyelids slowly.

“Man, high school must be awesome.” I found myself wishing I could be part of normal drama for once. Paranormal drama didn’t have nearly as much kissing.

“You need to check in with Raquel,” Alisha prodded, her eyes still smiling.

“Fine, fine.” I adored Lish. She was my best friend. Once you got past the weirdness of her robo-voice, she had a great sense of humor for a paranormal. Of course, unlike most of them, she was grateful to be here. Her lagoon had become so polluted it was killing her. Now not only was she safe, but she had something to do. Apparently being a mermaid is dead dull. I watched The Little Mermaid with her once a few years ago—she thought it was freaking hilarious. She couldn’t stop laughing about the shell-bra thing, given that mermaids aren’t mammals. Plus, as she put it, Prince Eric was far too hairy and “peach colored” for her taste. I always thought he was pretty hot, but then again, I am a mammal.

Leaving my unit, I walked down the cold, sterile halls to Raquel’s office. We could have just done follow-up over the vid screens, but she always wants to see me in person after a job to make sure I’m okay. I kind of liked that.

I knocked once and the door slid open. The room was white—white walls, white floor, white furniture. Can you say boring? Raquel was a nice contrast. Her eyes were so brown they were nearly black, and her dark hair, pulled into a severe bun, was streaked with just enough gray to be distinguished without looking old. I sat, and she looked up from a stack of papers on her desk.

“You’re late.” Her voice had a slight Spanish accent that I loved.

“Actually, I’m early. I said I’d need four hours; it only took me two.”

“Yes, but you got back almost an hour ago.”

“I figured I’d take a little personal time as a reward for a job well done.”

Raquel sighed. She was a professional sigher—the woman conveyed more emotions with a single exhalation than most people do with their entire faces. “You know how important follow-up is.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry. My show was on.” One of her eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “You want a recap, too?” Most of the paranormals didn’t care about my shows, but Raquel was human. She’d never admit it, but I was sure—sure—that she liked television dramas as much as I did.

“No. I want you to debrief.”

“Fine. Walked through the cemetery. Froze my butt off. Saw the vampire. Vampire tried to attack me. Tased the vampire. Tagged the vampire. Read the vampire his rights. Sent the vampire along. His name was Steve, by the way.”

“Any trouble?”

“Nope. Oh, wait, yes. How many times have I asked to stop working with Reth? Do we need to go for an even hundred?”

“He was the only available faerie transport. And if we hadn’t sent him, you would have missed your show.” A small smile played at her lips.

“Fine, whatever.” She had a point, after all. “Just, could you send one of the girls next time?”

She nodded. “Thank you for reporting. You may return to your room.” She turned her attention back to the papers. I started to leave, then paused. She looked up. “Is there something else?”

I hesitated. But what did I have to lose? It’d been a couple of years. Might as well ask again. “I was wondering, you know, about maybe—I’d like to go to school. Normal school.”

Raquel sighed again. This was more of a sympathetic, I know what it’s like to be a human wrapped up in all this nonsense, but if we didn’t do it, who would? kind of a sigh. “Evie, honey, you know you can’t do that.”

“Why? It wouldn’t be too hard. You could just send for me whenever you need me. It’s not like I have to be here 24/7.” Truth was, here was kind of nowhere. The whole Center was underground. Not much of an issue when you have access to the Faerie Paths. It did, however, lend itself well to the occasional overwhelming bout of claustrophobia.

Raquel sat back in her chair. “It’s not about that. Do you remember what it was like before you came here?”

This time I was the one who sighed. I remembered. I had been bounced through the foster care system my whole life, until that fateful day when I was eight. I’d gotten tired of waiting for my newest foster mom to take me to the library, so I decided to go by myself. I was cutting through a cemetery when a nice-looking man approached me. He asked if I needed help, and it was like he was two people at once—the nice-looking man and a withered corpse, both there in the same place, the same body. I screamed bloody murder. Lucky for me, APCA (the American Paranormal Containment Agency) had been tracking him and stepped in before he could do anything. When I started babbling about what he looked like, they took me in.

Turns out my ability to see through paranormals’ glamours to what they are underneath is unique. As in, no other human on Earth can do what I do. That’s where things got really complicated. When other countries got wind of what the APCA had, they freaked out. The UK especially—you wouldn’t believe the level of paranormal activity they deal with there. They hammered out a new treaty, forming IPCA (the International Paranormal Containment Agency), the key items in the treaty being international paranormal control cooperation and, oh yeah, yours truly.

So I had to admit Raquel was probably right. My life of containment sometimes sucked, but at least I had a home. One where I was wanted.

I shrugged, pretending I didn’t care about school anyway. “Yeah, cool, whatever. I’ll talk to you later.”

I felt her eyes on me as I walked out. It’s not that I’m not grateful to IPCA. I am. They’re the only family I have, and things are better here than they had been in the foster system. But I’ve been working full-time since I was eight, and sometimes I get tired. Sometimes I get bored. And sometimes all I want, more than anything else in the world, is to go on a freaking date.

I went back to my unit. I had a pretty nice setup. A small kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and the main room with my awesome TV. The white walls in my bedroom had long since been covered. One was dedicated to posters of bands and movies I liked. Another was draped with an awesome hot pink and black leopard-spotted curtain. A third wall was my canvas. I wouldn’t call myself an artist, but I had fun painting whatever came to mind—sometimes nothing more than just splashes of color—and changing it when I got bored. The paint was probably two inches thicker now than when I moved in.

I pulled on my favorite pair of pajamas and undid my thick braid. Somehow microwaving dinner and watching a movie won out over doing homework. I must have drifted off to sleep at some point, or maybe I was half asleep, I don’t know. But I’m sure I was dreaming, because I kept hearing a strange voice, almost singing. “Eyes like streams of melting snow, cold with the things she does not know.” Over and over again, that line, in the most haunting way. It was as if the voice was pulling me, calling to me. I wanted to answer. Just as I was ready to call out, another alarm jarred me awake.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and reached over to check my vid screen for an announcement of what was going on. I pulled the screen up, but all it showed was a flashing red WARNING. Lots of help there. I pulled on my robe, grabbed Tasey, and poked my head outside. I knew alarm procedure called for me to stay in, but I wanted to figure out what was going on, and now.

I ran down the empty hallways; strobe lights were going off to warn any paranormals that couldn’t hear the alarm, although you could feel the dang thing it was so loud. Reaching Raquel’s door, I palmed it. That’s the nice thing about being me—all access, all the time. I ducked inside; she was at her desk, calmly rifling through some folders.

“Raquel,” I panted. “What’s up?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” She looked up at me and smiled. Or rather, the thing wearing Raquel’s face looked up at me and smiled. Raquel’s face shimmered over—What? I couldn’t describe it. It was somehow featureless, with eyes the color of water. If it hadn’t been wearing Raquel’s face, it would be like it wasn’t there at all.

I forced a smile to mask my terror. “Woke me up from the freakiest dream.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve got some work to do. Why don’t you scoot along?” It went back to the files.

“Sure, as long as you don’t need me.” Turning toward the door, I casually walked closer to the desk. “Oh, Raquel?”

“Hmm?”

I flicked Tasey onto her highest level. “You dropped this.” The thing wearing Raquel’s face looked up as I lunged forward and jabbed it in the chest with the Taser. Its water eyes opened briefly in shock before it collapsed to the ground.

Horrified, I made my way around the desk. I had heard of things that could eat a person alive and wear her skin. The idea gave even me nightmares sometimes, and my life was populated by nightmares. “Please, not Raquel,” I whispered, trying not to throw up. Raquel melted away, leaving the strangest thing I had ever seen. Which, given my job, is saying a lot.

NOT–ME AND I

My eyes couldn’t seem to focus on the creature. They kept slipping down its sides, unable to find anything to hold on to. It wasn’t invisible, exactly, but it was as close as a physical being can be. Imagine trying to walk up an eighty-degree incline covered in six inches of ice. That’s what trying to look at this guy was like.

I was pretty sure it was a guy, at least. He kinda wasn’t wearing any clothes, and I was grateful that he’d collapsed in such a way as to cover himself. I was at a loss for what to do next when the door slid open and the real Raquel rushed in, followed by two security guards.

“He didn’t eat you!” I threw my arms around her, on the verge of tears.

The guards rushed by us, and Raquel patted me stiffly on the back. “No, she didn’t eat me. She just punched me very hard in the face.”

“It’s a guy,” I said.

“What is it?” she asked. We walked over to look at him. The guards stared down, perplexed. One scratched his head. Big guy, a hulking French werewolf named Jacques. Werewolves are a bit subtler to see than vampires. If the moon isn’t full, the only thing that gives them away to me is their eyes. Whatever color they seem to be to other people, I can always see the yellow wolf eyes underneath. Most werewolves are pretty decent people. And, since they’re extra strong all the time, we take a lot of them on as security. Of course, during full moons they’re on complete lockdown.

Jacques shrugged. “I have never seen anything like it.” He, too, was struggling to focus on the inert form.

The other guard, a normal human, shook his head.

“How did he get in?” I asked Raquel.

“She—he—it was wearing Denise.”

“Denise from zombie duty?” Denise was a werewolf whose main job was zombie cleanup. I never went on zombie missions—no glamours, so anyone could do it. Plus they weren’t ever hard to pinpoint, although agents had a heck of a time covering it up with the terrified locals. Just another service of IPCA: keeping the world blissfully unaware that most of the supernatural beings of myth are, in fact, real.

“Yes. It—it as Denise—called for a pickup. The zombie was a false alarm. I saw them as they came out of the faerie door. Denise turned and knocked Fehl, the faerie, back through. I pushed my panic button and went to confront her when she punched me and grabbed my communicator.”

“How did he know where your office was?”

“She—he—ran into Jacques and pretended to be dizzy, asked for help getting here.”

Jacques shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “How should we neuter it?”

He wasn’t talking about literally neutering it. Yuck. “Neuter” is just our little term for rendering a paranormal harmless. Werewolves get tracking bracelets with massive amounts of sedatives set automatically for the full moons. Vamps get the holy water bracelets. Faeries are easy once you know their true names, since they have to obey whatever you tell them to do when you use it at the start of your command. Well, easyish, since they always seem to find little ways to work around their strict boundaries. Never underestimate faerie ingenuity for deliberately misinterpreting commands.

Raquel frowned. “I don’t know. Just use the standard volt/sedative combo. When we know more about what it is, we’ll find something with more finesse.”

Jacques pulled out an ankle tracker. He looked hesitant to touch the thing and shook his head. “I can barely see it. Where is the leg?”

Raquel and the two guards frowned as their vision slid around the figure on the floor. I sighed. “I can see his leg. I’ll do it.” I held out my hand and Jacques, relieved, gave me the tracker. Kneeling down, I paused, nervous. Would my hands go right through him, like plunging into cold water? But he had to be corporeal, otherwise Tasey wouldn’t have worked. Suppressing a shudder, I put my hand on his ankle.

He was solid. His skin was warm and as smooth as glass—but no glass had ever been this soft. “Weird,” I muttered, activating the ankle tracker with my finger, then fastening it. It took the self-adjust mechanism several tries before it sealed around his ankle. He twitched as the sensors jabbed in but didn’t wake up.

I stood, still feeling his warmth on my hand. “Well, that’s that. And I’m not carrying him to Containment, if that’s what you were gonna ask next. You’ll be able to feel him even if you can’t see him. Besides, dude’s naked—I’m not touching him again.”

I held back a laugh at the looks on the guards’ faces. They reached out like they would get burned, grabbed Water Boy, and carried him out of the room.

“I’d better find out what happened to Denise. And Fehl, too.” Raquel gave her best why is it always me that has to deal with these things sigh (one I was well familiar with at this point), then patted me on the shoulder. “Good work, Evie. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found it.”

“Just—keep me in the loop on this one, okay? He’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I want to know what’s up.”

She smiled, a tight, noncommittal smile that I knew meant not a chance, then picked her communicator up off the desk. I walked out, seriously bugged. IPCA had a tendency not to tell me much more than where they needed me to be and what I needed to do. Screw that. I skipped my room and headed straight for Containment. If she wasn’t going to keep me informed, I’d just have to inform myself. I palmed the door and walked into the long, brilliantly lit cell-lined corridor.

My gremlin buddy from before was snarling and jumping at the electric field just inside the six inches of Plexiglas that lined its cell. Each time it hit the field, it yelped and flew backward, only to start the whole thing over again. Gremlins? Not smart.

Jacques wasn’t too far down the hall. Wrapping my arms around myself, I hurried toward him. I was always cold in the Center, but Containment was downright frigid. Jacques stood there, a disturbed look on his face as he stared into a cell. I turned and my jaw dropped in surprise. There was Jacques again, leaning casually against the wall of his cell and staring out. When he saw me, his expression changed. Agitated, this Jacques moved as close to me as the electric field allowed.

Not Jacques. I walked right up to the glass as well, my eyes narrowed in concentration. There it was—behind Jacques’s square face.

“It woke up right after I sealed the cell and has been doing that ever since,” Jacques whispered, standing next to me.

“Please,” Not-Jacques said, his voice identical. “That monster overpowered me and threw me in here! Let me out so I can help you!”

“Oh, sure,” I said, pleasantly, “because I’m stupid.”

The pleading look on Not-Jacques’s face fell, replaced by an enigmatic smile. He shrugged, putting his hands in his pants pockets.

“How do you do the clothes?” I was genuinely curious. No other glamours I’d seen were anything more than a second skin. Only a few species (like faeries) could put them on and take them off at will, but none could change what the actual glamour looked like.

“How did you know?” His transparent eyes stared intensely at me behind the image of Jacques’s.

Most of the paranormals have no idea what I can do. I like to keep it that way. “Raquel would never say ‘scoot.’”

Not-Jacques shook his head. He leaned even closer; I examined his face, trying to find his real features. The only things I had an easy time focusing on were his eyes. He stood up straight, shocked. I’ll give him this: He managed to make Jacques’s face more expressive than Jacques ever did.

“You can see me,” he whispered.

“Um, duh? You’re right in front of me. Wearing Jacques. Looks better on you than Raquel did.”

He smiled again. Then his skin rippled like water disturbed by the wind, and Jacques melted away. Now nearly imperceptible except for the ankle bracelet, he walked to the other side of the cell and, without warning, dropped flat to the ground.

I found his eyes staring right at me and realized too late that he was testing me, seeing if I could follow his movement when he was in invisimode. Color bloomed from his features and in a sudden shift of light I was looking at myself—myself exactly, right down to the bright pink fuzzy robe. “You can see me,” my voice, tinged with wonder, said from his mouth.

“Evie!” Raquel was booking it toward us in her sensible (read: ugly) black pumps, a frown etching a deep line between her eyebrows. Busted. “You should not be here.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m there, too.” I pointed at the cell. Raquel stopped short, surprise erasing her frown lines as she stared at Not-Me behind the glass.

“Remarkable,” she whispered.

“Lame.” Not-Me yawned and reached up to play with his—my—platinum hair.

“What are you?” Raquel was suddenly all business.

Not-Me gave her an impish grin. Watching myself do all this was really odd. I was getting angles of my face that I had never seen before—way different from looking in a mirror. Not-Me glanced at me again, then shook my—err, his?—head. “I can’t quite get your eye color.” He stood and walked right up to the field, staring at my face. I couldn’t help but check myself out. I was pretty. Too skinny, but I’d always been something of a beanpole. And, dang, really flat.

This was freaking me out. I frowned. “Take it off.”

He just stared at me with my face. I was focused on his real eyes when I realized that he was sorting through colors. “Not quite right,” he muttered. “Too silver. Now too dark. They’re so pale.”

It was true. My eyes were such a light gray they barely had any pigment at all.

“What color?” Not-Me mused. His eyes were flickering now, shifting colors like he was on fast-forward. “A cloud with the slightest hint of rain.”

“Streams of melting snow,” I answered without thinking.

He shot straight up and backed into the corner of his cell. I watched an expression of fear and mistrust spread across my features. “Yes, that’s it,” Not-Me whispered.

LEND ME YOUR EARS … AMONG OTHER THINGS

Where’s Denise?” Raquel demanded, glaring at Water Boy in his cell.

I breathed a sigh of relief as my face melted from his, replaced by Denise’s. “Right where I left her,” Not-Denise said. He kept glancing over at me.

“And where was that?”

“In the cemetery. You should be able to find her.”

“Find Denise or find her body?” Raquel’s voice was hard.

Not-Denise rolled his eyes. “She’ll have a headache. Honestly, it’s like you think I’m some sort of a monster.”His mouth twisted in an ironic smile.

“What are you?”

“So rude. We haven’t even been introduced.”

She gave a can I just start shocking him into submission now sort of sigh. I jumped in before he got himself into more trouble. “My name’s Evie. Raquel you already know—punched her and then stole her face, remember?—and Jacques over here is your new best friend, because he’s in charge of the feeding schedule around here. Assuming you eat. And you are?”

“Lend.”

“Lend?” Raquel asked.

“Yes, as in, lend me your self.” He shimmered into Raquel again.

“Why not Borrow?” I asked. “Better yet, Steal?”

“I’ll ask again,” Raquel snapped. “What are you?” Given what this guy had done, I didn’t blame her for being impatient.

“Good question. Maybe you could tell me?”

“Why are you here?”

“I love a nice dose of electric current in my body.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Answers.”

“Well.” Raquel gave him a thin-lipped smile. “So am I.” Her communicator buzzed. Relief flashed across her face as she read the message. Looking up, she nodded at her mirror image. “Tomorrow, then.”

She turned and started down the hall with Jacques. I was still staring at Lend-as-Raquel, watching his real face beneath hers. I could almost pick out features now. He stuck his tongue out at me and, before I could stop myself, I giggled. It was too ridiculous coming from Raquel’s face.

Raquel barked from down the hall. “Evie! Now!” Giving Lend-as-Raquel a final glare, I ran to catch up. “They found Denise, she’s fine. And Fehl got back, too. I don’t want you talking to that thing until we know what it is and why it’s here.”

No way, I thought. “Okay,” I said.

“What do you see when you look at it?”

“I don’t know. At first I couldn’t really see anything, I could just tell there was someone under your face. But when he’s not wearing anyone, it’s like—I can’t catch onto anything. I was getting better, though, staring at him in there. His eyes are the only things I can really focus on. Other than that it’s like a silhouette or a clear shadow or … I don’t know—a person made out of water and a hint of light.”

“I’m going to call in some researchers. First we find out what he is, then we find out what he wants.”

I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Cool, whatever.”

“You should be in bed.” Her voice was stern. You’d think the whole not-having-a-mother thing, or the whole being six-freaking-teen years old, would get me off the hook for bedtimes. But no. “And don’t forget your class tomorrow.”

“Fine. But if any more alarms go off, I’m going to ignore them instead of saving the day.”

She heaved a give me vampires and gremlins over pouty teenagers any day sigh and waved as she turned off down another hall.

After heating up some milk for hot chocolate, I curled up with a blanket on my couch. My mind was racing too much to sleep. Today had been weird. And for something to be weird in my day, it’s downright freaky. I popped in another movie and let my mind glaze over. The light from the screen flickered hypnotically. I didn’t notice the light coming from behind me.

“Come and dance with me, my love.” His voice was like the color gold—bright and sparkling with the promise of warmth. So much warmth. I smiled, closing my eyes and letting myself be pulled up off the couch and into an embrace. He rested his cheek against mine and the heat spread out, through my face and then down my neck, inching toward my heart. “My heart,” he whispered. I nodded against his cheek. His heart.

My vid screen beeped, jarring me out of the trance. I jumped back and shoved Reth off me. The heat slowly drifted away from my heart. It had been close. Too close.

Reth looked disappointed. He held out his arms. I swore. “What is your freaking problem? Get out! Now!”

“Evelyn.” His voice was a magnet with his warmth still in me. I leaned forward against my will.

“No!” Ripping myself away from the pull, I ran to the partition dividing the TV room from the kitchen and grabbed my communicator. “Get out.” I glared, my hand over the panic button. His beautiful face fell. I wanted to comfort him. Closing my eyes, I lowered my finger. “Out. Now.”

I could see the light of a door from behind my eyelids and waited until it faded to open them again. Reth was gone.

I went over to my vid screen and turned it on. “What good are freaking palm-coded locks when faeries can make their own doors any time they want to!” I shouted at Lish. Her green eyes widened in surprise and concern. I took a deep breath. It wasn’t her fault. “Thanks for the interruption,” I added.

“Reth?”

“Yeah. Can you file a report for me?”

“Yes, of course. We will try to make his instructions more explicit.”

I shook my head. He always found a way around them. My guess was when they told him to go get me today he applied it as a blanket statement rather than a simple onetime retrieval command. “What did you need?”

She looked embarrassed. “I wanted to ask about the disturbance. I will talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of exhausted. I’ll come visit and tell you everything, okay?”

“Do you want to spend the night here?” When I first came to the Center and had bad dreams, I would drag my blanket and pillow in and sleep on the floor next to Lish’s aquarium. She’d tell me stories until I fell asleep. I was tempted, but felt too silly about not being able to spend the night alone because of a stupid faerie.

“I’ll be okay.” I forced a smile. “Thanks, though. Good night, Lish.”

The mermaid’s eyes smiled, and the vid screen went blank. I plopped back down on the couch. Reth had been so close. Again. And—worst of all—part of me wished that we hadn’t been interrupted. But I had learned the hard way with faeries. It’s all about possession and taking advantage, and, unlike human boys on all the TV shows, they aren’t in it for sex. They couldn’t care less about that. They want your heart, your soul. I was never giving mine back to Reth.

Deciding that hadn’t stopped the ache of missing him, though.

I spent the rest of the night wide awake, wrapped in three blankets and freezing. When the clock read 4 A.M. I gave up. I got dressed in my warmest clothes and walked to Containment. Lend was curled up asleep on the floor. I sat against the wall and watched, fascinated, as his body flicked through identities the way I click through channels. After maybe an hour he went into his strange water-and-light state. I was so tired I could barely focus my eyes at all—and suddenly I could see him. It was like once I stopped trying so hard to look, he was just there. He actually had hair and normal features—cute even, if he had pigment. Even more surprising, he didn’t look much older than me.

After a moment his eyes opened and met mine. Color flooded through him—he was wearing me again. The eyes were still flickering, trying to find the right shade.

“What are you?” I whispered.

“What are you?”

Offended, I frowned. “Human.”

“Funny, me, too.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Funny, neither are you.”

I set my jaw and glared. What a jerk. “Why did you come here?”

My voice came from his mouth, disconcerting as always. “I could ask you the same thing. Are you going to kill me?”

HAVE A BLEEP BLEEP DAY

I–no, that’s not what IPCA does,” I said. “They don’t kill paranormals, they—”

Lend raised a hand to stop me and sat up, large eyes narrowing. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Why would I kill you?”

After a moment he let out a deep breath. “I don’t think it’s you.”

“What’s not me?”

Standing, he stretched. Did I mention how weird it was watching my body do this stuff? He even had the hair right—a little messy this morning, since I hadn’t bothered to brush it yet.

“Can you please go back to normal?” I wanted to look at him more now that I could see him better.

He smiled, flashing my perfect teeth at me. I had to go through three years of braces for that smile; no fair that he could copy it in a second. “Normal? What’s that?”

“How you really look.”

“Can you take off all your clothes?”

Okay, weirdest thing ever—I just asked myself to take off all my clothes. It doesn’t get much creepier. “Why on earth would I do that?”

“You asked me to be naked; I thought it was only fair.”

“I just meant stop wearing me. Be yourself. But yourself with clothes.”

“These are my clothes. But, if it bothers you.” I melted off him and he grew a few inches. In my place was a teenage guy. Black hair, dark brown eyes, olive skin, and, oh yeah, absolutely gorgeous. Like, belonged on one of the shows I loved so much gorgeous. “Better?” His voice had changed,

deepened, and I wished I was talking with an actual teenage guy.

“Definitely.” I looked closer. Still Lend under there. Even the dark eyes didn’t hide his water-colored ones; I could see him shimmering through.

“This seems to be a popular one.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Then I frowned, curious. “What does your real voice sound like?”

“What makes you think this isn’t it?”

“I think it would sound different. Softer. Like water.” I realized how stupid that sounded, but his smile dropped off and he gave me a considering look.

“If you didn’t come here to kill me, why are you here, Evie?”

Awkward. Here I was, no makeup, ratty hair, in front of the hottest teenage guy I’d ever seen, fake or not. Why was I here? “It’s my job.”

His smile returned, this time with the usual ironic twist to his lips. “Oh. Your job. Quite the career for someone your age.”

“You’re not much older than me.” Now that I’d seen him better, I was sure of it. Corrupted mortals like vampires show their real bodies’ ages—old and nasty—underneath. True immortals, like faeries, have eternal youth, but there’s something different in their faces. All those years don’t add lines; they smooth, like a piece of glass turned around forever on the ocean floor. No mortal has that polish. His face was neither old nor ageless.

The shift in his expression confirmed it. “Ha!” I smiled smugly. “I’m guessing … fifteen.” I went low on purpose.

He looked indignant. “Seventeen.”

“See? You told the truth. That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

Lend shook his head, then sighed. “Trouble.”

“You bet I’m trouble,” I countered with a smile. Sure, maybe I was flirting, a little. Could you blame me? The only guys I ever met were too old, half monsters, living corpses, or immortal creeps. At least Lend was close to my age, whatever else he was.

“No, you’re in trouble.” He looked and I followed his eyes right to Raquel, who was not happy. At all. She finished crossing the hall and fixed a steely glare on me.

I was about to apologize, but then I rolled my eyes. “What are you going to do, ground me?” Maybe I shouldn’t have been so flip about it, but really. After the night I had, the last thing I wanted was a lecture.

“Out. Now.”

I walked past her, turning my head to glance back at Lend. He winked at me and I couldn’t help but smile.

Instead of going to my room, I made my way to Central Processing. It was still early but that’s another great thing about Lish: she doesn’t sleep. I loved Central Processing. Unlike the rest of the Center, it didn’t look sterile. The entire room was a circle, with desks placed against the wall and everything based around Lish’s gorgeous aquarium. About fifty feet in diameter, it was fifteen feet high and a perfect circle. They even managed to transplant a living coral reef, complete with tropical fish in the crystal blue water. Way better than my unit.

Lish was staring at the series of screens that lined the front of the tank. She was like the ultimate personal assistant. No sick days, no vacations, no sleep, and she wanted to be there. A lot of the paranormals couldn’t be trusted with too much. Even though they’re neutered, most of them harbor a bit of resentment toward IPCA because of the loss of freedom. But Lish loved her job. She was in charge of scheduling, monitoring, transports, you name it. Girl knew everything.

Apparently not today, though. Her green eyes widened with interest when I walked up to the tank. I smiled. “What’s up, Lish?”

“How are you feeling? Are you okay after last night?”

Lish knew me better than anyone else at the Center. Raquel was in charge of me, but she was hard to talk to about feelings. After all, when the main way you communicate is through sighs, it makes it hard to relate to teens. Lish understood how bad a new run-in with Reth would mess me up. I could (and did) talk with her about everything.

“Been better. Didn’t sleep.”

Lish tried to swear—which is always funny, because the computer won’t translate it. It went something like this: “Bleep stupid bleep bleep faeries and their bleep bleep bleep obsessions. He had better stop bleep bleep bleep the bleep bleep rules or I will bleep bleep bleep the little bleeeeeeeeeeep.” All in a completely robotic monotone. Awesome. Lish could really get going sometimes. I loved her for it; she was like the big sister I never had. The big sister who happened to be shiny green and covered in scales, with a long, finned tail and webbed hands. But she was beautiful in her way.

I laughed. The robot voice tirades always cheered me up. “Okay, you bleep bleep do that.” She shook her head, still mad about Reth. Something on one of her screens took her attention and she waved her webbed hands in front of it for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure how all the tech worked in there, but it always looked cool.

Once she was done, she looked back at me. “So, tell me about what happened yesterday with the break-in.”

“What don’t you know?” Lish was usually the font of all information. Granted, most of that information was classified, but we were best friends. We told secrets, and kept them, too. Like the time when I was twelve and the Center was processing a load of pixies. Lish knew how badly I wanted to see them and slipped me the when and where information—even though Raquel had grounded me for wandering off on a bag-and-tag mission. Too bad pixies turned out to be dirty, ugly little things, even their wings coated with mucous. Yet another cartoon dream shattered.

“They are not releasing much intel. What is it?” She looked worried.

“Don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like him. Neither has Raquel.”

“Why was he here?”

“Don’t know again. I caught him in Raquel’s office, but he hasn’t said why.”

“And he can take the appearance of anyone?”

“Yup. Pretty freaky when you’re standing there talking to yourself.”

A small, wheezing laugh sounded. I looked over and noticed one of the office vamps standing close by, listening. “Something funny, Dalv?” I glared at him.

He glared back. “It’s Vlad and you know it.”

“You and half the other vamps out there.” Vlad—or Dalv, as I liked to call him just to piss him off—was one of my least favorite parts of the Center. After neutering, IPCA always set the paranormals up with some mandatory job. Werewolves had the most job flexibility, depending on what they were before. Vamps usually worked in the satellite buildings or did cover-up for sightings using their persuasion skills. Vlad was pretty useless though. I guess I can’t blame him for feeling bitter. Going from being the terror of Bulgarian nights to a janitor would kinda suck. And, since I was the one who had done the bag-and-tag, he especially hated me.

He shrugged as he swept the already spotless floor. His glamour was less flashy than most; he looked like a forty-year-old man, not handsome, not ugly, just thin and slightly balding. Underneath all vamps looked the same. Ugh. “He could be a doppelgänger,” he said, a sneer of a smile creeping onto his face.

“What’s a doppelgänger?” I immediately regretted asking as his smile spread.

“Good news for the rest of us, if he took your form.” Giving another wheezy laugh, he walked out.

I turned to Lish; she was already looking it up on one of her screens. Her eyes narrowed. “What?” The look on her face was making me nervous. “What’s a doppelgänger?”

“Doppelgängers appear to people as harbingers of—” she paused “—death. The tale was that if you saw yourself, it meant you were going to die. They were also bad spirits who would take your form and destroy your life, again leading to your death.”

I frowned. Not cool. “Wait, spirits?” She nodded. “Nope, dude’s corporeal.” I had dealt with a few ghosts and poltergeists in my time. The great thing about them is they can’t touch you. Their only power is fear. And there’s a whole lot you can do with fear—make people see, hear, and even feel things that aren’t there—but if you know that going in, it’s a lot easier to see past it. “Besides, if I’m going to die, Raquel, Denise, and Jacques are all going with me.”

She blinked thoughtfully. “And why would a doppelgänger want to look through Raquel’s files?”

“Exactly. Plus, he’s only seventeen.”

Lish tilted her head. “He is not an immortal?”

“Nope. Oh, whoops, probably should have told Raquel that.” I frowned. I’d tell her when she decided to include me. “Listen, don’t say anything, okay? I want in on this one, and info’s the only leverage I have.”

Lish closed one of her transparent eyelids at me in her best imitation of a wink. “They are not giving me research clearance anyway. I have no reason to tell.”

“You’re the best, my fine fishy friend.”

Lish’s eyes smiled at me. Different as we were, we were both exactly what the other needed—a friend. As was my custom, started when I first met Lish as a ten-year-old, I smashed my face against the glass and blew my cheeks out at her.

DEAD MEAT IN ANY LANGUAGE

I had finally fallen asleep later that morning when the alarm went off. I jumped out of bed, confused, thinking there was yet another break-in or emergency. Then I realized it wasn’t the Center’s alarms, it was my personal alarm. The alarm that meant my tutor, Charlotte, would be here in exactly ten minutes.

“Oh, bleep.” I hadn’t done any of my homework.

The last few years I’d tried to convince Raquel that I really didn’t need to study math, English, science, world history, and four—yes, four—foreign languages. It wasn’t like I was going to go to college or anything. Sure, I wanted to attend real high school, but that had more to do with being around actual teenagers than learning stuff. Besides, I doubted IPCA cared whether or not I had my GED. As long as I could keep seeing through glamours, I had a job for life. But every time I brought it up, Raquel looked at me with those almost-black eyes and heaved her patented I know you think it’s not important to know these things but one day you’ll appreciate that I’ve made you into a well-rounded adult sigh.

I pulled out my Spanish book, pretty sure that’s what I had this morning. Hastily filling in my irregular verb chart for morir, I wrote out example sentences. Tú eres muerta carne. Scratched that—adjective after the noun. Tú eres carne muerta. Oh, who was I kidding, I wasn’t even using morir in the verb form anyway. Yo soy carne muerta. Translation: I am dead meat.

Right on time my unit door beeped and I let Charlotte in. She was a pretty woman, looked to be in her late twenties. A couple inches shorter than me with shiny brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and these adorable rectangular glasses over her blue eyes, which were over her bright yellow wolf eyes.

Charlotte always smiled so sweetly. Teaching had been her life’s passion until she was infected. After she realized what she was and what she had done—attacked a family member—she tried to kill herself. Fortunately we found her before she could figure out the few things that can bring down a werewolf. I could never tell if it was my lack of motivation as a student or her pain and regret about the past that made her look sad even when she was smiling.

We sat down on the couch and pulled up a table. She glanced over my worksheet and suppressed a smile. “You are dead meat?”

I gave my best don’t get mad, aren’t I cute? grin and shrugged.

“That’s an American expression—the meaning doesn’t translate. And you didn’t finish your verb charts or the short story you were assigned.” She looked up at me with those sad, sad eyes. Those eyes killed me.

“I’m sorry.” I hung my head. “Yesterday was crazy. First I had a vamp job, and then there was the break-in, and then Reth paid me a late-night visit, and then I couldn’t sleep.”

“It sounds like you had a rough day. But you’ve had this assignment for a week. Perhaps next time if you didn’t leave it to the night before?”

“Hey, now, let’s not start talking crazy, Char.” That, at least, got me a less-sad smile.

We spent the rest of the morning conjugating (a word that sounds dirty but is, in fact, boring) and conversing in good old español. She stayed and ate lunch with me, and then it was time for my afternoon training session.

Bud, my self-defense and combat skills teacher, was still trying to get me to learn knife fighting. “Silver knives! Painful and sometimes deadly to nearly all paranormals!”

“Tasey!” I countered. “Hot pink and sparkly!”

“You can’t always count on technology.” Bud was human, but you’d think he’d grown up in the Middle Ages. In case you were wondering if he was cute, well, maybe thirty years ago. Now, not so much. “And, since we’ve had this argument before, I made you something.”

I perked up. “A present?”

He nodded, an annoyed look on his face. Pulling out a cloth-wrapped bundle, he revealed a slender dagger with a bright pink, pearlescent handle. “No way!” I yelled, taking it from him.

“I can’t believe I made a pink knife.”

“It’s so cute! I love it. Finally, a companion worthy of Tasey.” I gave him a quick hug. Hugs always freaked poor Bud out, but he was relieved I’d finally agreed to take a knife. “Oh, gosh, what should I name her?”

“Whatever it is, please don’t tell me. Just keep it sheathed and on your belt.”

I took the sheath—which was black. “Can you make me one in brown, too? And pink?” You’d think Bud was a werewolf by the way he growled as he shooed me out of the training room.

The rest of my afternoon free, I banked on the hope that Raquel would be in meetings. She was pretty high up in IPCA. I used to think she was only assigned to me, but it turned out she ran the entire Center and was in charge of all bag-and-tag missions. I guess I was just her favorite. That, or the most useful.

I had been thinking about Lend on and off all day. He was the most interesting person/thing in here right now, so I went to Containment. I stopped in front of Lend’s cell, then did a double take. He wasn’t there. And not in an almost-invisible way, in an actually-not-in-the-cell-anymore way. Not cool.

Jacques was at the very end of the long corridor. “Jacques!”

He walked down. “You are not supposed to be here, Evie.”

“Yeah, yeah. Where’s Lend?” What if they had let him go? Not likely, once I thought about it. He’d broken into the Center. I couldn’t remember that happening—ever. But what if he was in more trouble than I thought, and they were hurting him? That idea bothered me. Then the rational part of me wondered if maybe he was dangerous and they’d taken him to a higher-risk placement area.

Jacques shrugged. “Raquel wanted him moved.”

“Why?”

“We are not equipped for long-term holding here. No beds, no bathrooms.”

“Oh.” Made sense. “Where is he?”

The werewolf shook his head. “Sorry. You are not cleared to know.” Today his normally cute French accent was seriously bugging me.

“Not cleared?”

“No. Raquel told me not to tell you.”

My face melted into a pout. This was so not fair. I turned on my heel and stalked to Raquel’s office. I had just put my palm up to enter when the door opened.

“Oh, good,” Raquel said.

“What’s the deal with—”

“I’ve got a job for you. You need to leave right now. A transport’s waiting.”

I frowned. “What is it?”

“Vampire activity in Istanbul. We’ve got a location, but you have to hurry.”

“I—Okay.” We ran to my room and I grabbed my bag with the ankle trackers. I always had Tasey on me, and now she was joined by my dagger. “I’m not really dressed for vamping.” I was wearing skinny jeans and a long-sleeved V-necked tee, my hair back in a ponytail.

“You look fine,” she said dismissively. “Your neck is showing—that’s all that matters.”

We were almost to Transport when I remembered. “Hey, why can’t I know where Lend is?”

Raquel rolled her eyes and heaved an is this really the time sigh. “You don’t need to know.” The Transport room door opened in front of us to reveal the waiting faerie. I hadn’t seen her in years, and my stomach immediately clenched with guilt and nerves. All the human employees were required to memorize two faerie names, the faeries assigned at random so no faerie had too many people attached. This faerie was one of mine, and I couldn’t remember her name for the life of me.

Hers had been the first one they’d told me; I was ten. They also told me to never, ever use it unless I absolutely had to, then explained all the ways in which I could be killed if I screwed up. It was a little traumatic; can you blame me for forgetting? I knew I should ask again but was too embarrassed that I’d forgotten in the first place. Raquel would flip.

The faerie didn’t even look at me. “Do you have the location?” Raquel asked her. She nodded. Her skin was creamy white and her ruby hair contrasted sharply with it. Like all faeries, she was beautiful in a way no person could ever be. She held out her hand and blurred as her glamour went into place. The faeries were all required to tone down their looks during transports in case someone caught a glimpse of them. You don’t forget a faerie face. The faerie’s hair softened to auburn and her face took on more normal proportions, the eyes shrinking and moving closer together. She was still beautiful, but normal now. Unless you were me and could see right through it.

I walked forward and took her outstretched hand. It was warm, but not in the same way Reth’s was. The usual outline of brilliant light formed on the blank wall in front of us and we walked together into the black. I put all my attention on the feeling of her hand in mine and just moved forward. It surprised me when she spoke—faeries don’t usually deign to speak to mortals. Unless they’re trying to kidnap you, of course.

“Oh, you are Reth’s,” she said in recognition, her voice discordant but oddly lovely, like glass raining onto concrete.

I missed a step, almost tripping. Her grasp never wavered. “No, I’m not.” As if the Faerie Paths weren’t creepy enough already. Where did that come from?

She just laughed—more glass, falling faster. Then I felt cool night air on my face and opened my eyes. We were in a filthy alleyway between two old stone buildings. I let go of her hand and wiped my palm on my pants. She smiled at me, her faerie eyes glowing underneath the glamour. There was a cruel cast to her smile that made me shiver. She pointed toward the alley opening. “You should find the creature in this market.”

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered, turning and walking out of the alleyway. I hoped they’d send a different faerie for the return trip. Heck, I hoped they’d send a jet. I was sick of traveling by faerie. They were getting more and more intrusive.

The market was one of those sprawling open-air types, totally packed. The air beckoned with alluring spices, none of which I’d get to taste. Still, Easton Heights wasn’t on tonight, so I was in no hurry. Lucky for me it seemed to be a big tourist spot and I didn’t stand out too much.

I wandered around, pretending to look at the stalls but really scanning people. I liked this kind of job much better than the cemetery runs. There’s no real reason for vamps to hang out in cemeteries. They just do it because so many of them have bought into the whole pop culture concept of how they should act. Besides that, cemeteries are boring and lonely. Nights like this I could wander around and people-watch. People—normal people—fascinated me. Tourists and locals clashed in a wonderful mix of jeans and silk, baseball caps and black hair.

It was also nice to get out on my own. I used to always have one other person (usually a werewolf) go with me, but the last couple of years they’d sent me solo for the basic runs. Vamps weren’t a threat now that I knew what I was doing. If it was something more dangerous I’d always have backup.

A guy called out to me in broken English from a jewelry stall. He was Turkish, kinda cute in a stretched out, throes-of-puberty sort of way. I was about to stop and pretend like I really was a shopper when I caught a glimpse of something walking by. Something not human. Smiling my regrets at stall boy, I turned and hurried after the person. All it took was one good look to confirm—through the cover of the man’s thick, dark hair I could see the last stringy remains of actual hair clinging to his shriveled and spotted head.

It didn’t look like he was stalking anyone; he moved purposefully through the market. I almost had to jog to keep up until he entered a derelict building near the very end of the market. Waiting about thirty seconds, I went in after him. A small hallway led to a single door. I pulled out Tasey, walked forward, and kicked it open, striding into the room.

The vamp I was following turned and looked at me; so did the twenty other vampires in there.

“Oh, bleep,” I whispered.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

One vamp I could handle. Heck, I could probably even handle five at a time—shriveled corpse muscles and all. But twenty vampires? I was not liking my odds. What was going on? Vamps were solitary by nature. This was weird. And very, very bad.

I gave my best embarrassed smile. They wouldn’t know I knew what they were. “Whoops. I’m looking for the theater. Wrong building.”

Maybe if I made it back through the door fast enough, and then—click. Another four vamps had come in behind me and locked the door. I reached to my belt and hit the panic button on my communicator. Then I pulled out Tasey.

Taking a deep breath, I put on my best stern face. “You’re all under arrest under statute three point seven of the International Paranormal Containment Agreement, Vampire Protocol. You are required to report to the nearest processing—”

“You’re IPCA?” one of the vamps asked. The others were shifting nervously in place.

“Yes. I’m going to have to ask you to line up for tagging.” I waited for them to start laughing.

“You aren’t going to kill us?” the speaker asked, giving me a suspicious look.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Seriously, did I look like some sort of psycho assassin? Maybe it was the pink sneakers. Or the heart earrings?

The vampires turned toward one another, holding a whispered conversation. I inched closer to the door, Tasey at my side, as I pushed the panic button over and over again. Lish would see it. She’d send help. She’d never failed me before, but if they didn’t answer my distress call soon, I would have to do something I really didn’t want to.

Freedom was a foot away when they turned back to me. The one who kept speaking, a tall vamp with a handsome curly-haired glamour, shook his head. “Sorry.” He bared his fangs in an apologetic grin. “We’re glad you aren’t what’s hunting us, but we’re no friends of IPCA.And we’re all very, very thirsty.”

“What, no flirting?” I asked, trying to buy time. “Aren’t you going to at least try to be sexy? Think of all those vampire fans out there—they’d be so disappointed.” I pulled out my silver knife. Probably should have paid more attention during my knife training. “Tell you what. Let me go and I promise not to tell anyone that you aren’t suave.”

“Sorry, kid.”

“Okay.” I held up the knife in one hand and Tasey in the other. “Guess I am here to kill you then.” If I could get through enough of them—I just needed to get out of the room—I could outrun them.

Three jumped me and I flailed wildly. I hit two of them with jolts and they collapsed. The third tried to catch my arm, but I slashed at him with the knife and he drew back, howling in pain. I ran for the door but couldn’t get it open. I turned and put my back against it.

“Everyone at once,” the leader shouted, and then it was a mass of hands—nice, normal flesh over the decay underneath—all grabbing at me. I struggled, but even vamps are strong enough when they outnumber you twenty to one. It only took a few seconds for them to have me pinned against the wall; I managed to hold on to Tasey and the knife but couldn’t move to use them. The leader stood right in front of my face. I tried to look at his glamour, just his glamour, but the pure white eyes staring at me from sunken sockets were all I could focus on. He smiled. I wanted to cry.

My rescue would come too late.

“Aren’t you going to scream?” he whispered, leaning in and tracing my neck with his lips. His dead, dead lips. I felt his mouth open and closed my eyes. All the horror from my first childhood run-in with a vampire flooded back in. No one would save me. I was out of options. A single tear traced down my cheek.

“Lorethan!” I shouted. The vamp hesitated; clearly it wasn’t what he was expecting. “I need you! NOW!”

The pause was enough to save my neck. White light exploded into the room and the vamps jumped back instinctively. A pair of arms wrapped themselves around my waist from behind and pulled me into the darkness.

“You called,” Reth murmured in my ear as he held me in the nothingness. “I knew you would.” I could hear the smile in his voice, the triumph. I had sworn I’d never use his real name again, never call on him. Instead I’d just negated all the commands to stay away from me. And my wording—why had I said I needed him? He could twist that any way he wanted. But the memory of the vampire’s lips on my neck made me shudder. It didn’t matter tonight.

“Just take me home, okay?”

He tightened his arms around my waist, his torso pressed against my back. I could feel his heart through my shirt, its beat strong but far too slow. “Home then.” He laughed his silver laugh.

That should have warned me.

I kept my eyes closed, trying to ignore his body against mine. Faeries couldn’t care less about sex and physicality, but they did care about manipulation, and Reth knew how much I craved contact—any kind of contact. Growing up the way I had, there was never enough affection, never enough attention. More than Raquel, more than Lish, more than anyone, he knew how deeply lonely I was. I hated him for it.

I expected him to take my hand and walk; instead all I felt was a slight breeze, then it was bright and warm. I opened my eyes to a room. Not mine. The light was soft, emanating from an unidentifiable source. Elegant furniture was placed at random, and the walls appeared to be solid, pale rock. The fabrics were all silks and velvets; deep reds and royal purples with gold accents. There was no door.

“I said home.”

He laughed again. “You didn’t say whose.” Furious and too tired to deal with any more faerie crap, I opened my mouth to tell him exactly where to take me and where he could go after that. I wasn’t sure a faerie could obey a command to go to hell, but I was going to find out. Before I could say a word he lifted his slender hand and stroked my throat.

“Shhh,” he whispered.

My voice was gone. Not scratchy-throat-rasping gone. Completely gone. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even whisper. I wanted to find the genius who thought we could control faeries and kick him where it hurt. Twisting away from Reth’s arms, I rushed over to put one of the antique-looking couches between us. “Fix it,” I mouthed.

He smiled at me. His eyes were golden like ripe wheat and his hair shone nearly the same shade. Everything about him was gold, except his laugh. That had always been silver. I couldn’t look at his face anymore without risking never wanting to look away, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off him and let down my guard. I was so dead.

“Evelyn.” My name in his mouth was like a caress. “Why are you fighting me? You want to be with me. And I want no one else forever.”

I had goose bumps. Reth had probably taken countless mortal girls into the Faerie Realms. He knew we didn’t last forever. Either he was manipulating me again, which was likely, or was up to something seriously frightening. “Why?” I mouthed. I knew he was telling the truth—he wanted me. And that made everything even harder; not many people in my life ever wanted me. My own parents had abandoned me when I was a toddler.

He sat gracefully. A small claw-footed table next to his chair held a crystal bottle and two goblets. He poured a clear liquid into both of them, then held one up to me. “Drink?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t born yesterday. You never, ever accept food or drink from a faerie anywhere, especially on their turf. You’ll never get out again.

Nonplussed, he drank it himself. I racked my brain for what to do without my voice. Then, idiot that I was, I realized I still had Tasey and the knife. I was clutching them both so hard my hands ached. Glad my actions were hidden by the couch, I put Tasey away—not any good for more than a few seconds with faeries. With a hand free, I pushed the panic button again. I had no idea where we were, but really, really hoped it was somewhere Lish could send a retrieval.

“Aren’t you tired of being cold?” he asked, trying to draw me in. “Cold and alone. You don’t have to be. Our time grows short.” His eyes were pools of amber, deep and eternal. Pools you could drown in. “Dance with me again.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. He was right. I was tired. I had been alone my whole life. The foster homes, the Center—what was the difference? Why was I resisting him? I felt his hand on mine; he was so warm. The heat started to spread up my arm, slow and insistent. Why not give him my heart, my soul? No one else wanted them.

He could feel my surrender and pulled me close. “There is no one else for you, my love. Let me fill you.” There was no one else for me. I opened my eyes and looked into Reth’s golden ones—and the image of other eyes, eyes as clear as water, flooded into my memory. Why I thought of Lend right then I have no idea, but it was enough to pull me back. I lifted the silver knife and held it between us like a talisman.

Reth looked surprised, then angry. “What are you doing, child?” He hadn’t let go of my other hand, but I resisted the warmth. It was barely past my shoulder, now slowing. “Don’t you know what I’m trying to give to you?”

I shoved the flat of the blade against his chest and he let go of my hand, backing up a step. Iron is the best against faeries, but they aren’t fans of silver, either. “Enough,” I mouthed, pointing to my neck. Glaring, he flicked his hand and my throat tingled.

“Why are you fighting this?”

“Because you’re a lunatic! I don’t want this! I don’t belong to you! I never will!”

A half smile twisted his perfect face. “You’re wrong.”

“Well, I’ve got a silver knife that begs to differ. Now—”

“Take you home?”

I nodded.

His smile spread. “That wasn’t a command, and you’ve got to sleep sometime.” Before I could command him to take me home he disappeared, his silvery laugh lingering in the absence.

I was starting to miss the vampires.

FAERLY STUPID

I screamed for him to come back, then sat heavily on one of the couches. He was right. I was exhausted from not sleeping last night plus a very full day and rather stressful evening. And if I fell asleep, I couldn’t hang on to the knife. And if I couldn’t hang on to the knife …

It was a problem. I didn’t know what he was trying to do to me, and I didn’t want to find out.

Not surprisingly, there was no signal on my communicator. I didn’t even know if I was technically on the planet anymore. The Faerie Realms coexist with ours, but cross time and space and all sorts of other boring and weird physics things that I never cared about before now. I added Faerie Realms and knife fighting on my list of things to pay more attention to.

I could call for him using his real name again, and he’d have to come. But that worked out so well before. The phrasing I used still killed me. I need you? The way I figured it, he took that as the command and would now fill what he thought my need for him was. If I called him back and negated my command before he took my voice again, there was no telling how he would interpret it. If you give a faerie conflicting commands, they can’t fill them and therefore come up with something completely different (and always bad). I was so screwed.

Faeries are the slipperiest things in the world. IPCA (before it was IPCA and back when it was APCA and all sorts of individual country acronyms) worked for decades to find a faerie, any faerie, and learn his true name. Their plan involved using pretty young girls as kidnap bait. Dozens of pretty young girls, none of whom were ever seen again. Except one girl, who discovered a great secret.

Faeries are unaffected by alcohol, but much to her surprise—and the faeries’ undoing—they get very, very drunk on carbonation. Using copious amounts of Coke, she was able to discover a single faerie’s true name. With that she was able to force that faerie to do her will and reveal several other faeries’ names—who were forced to reveal other faeries’ names, as well. Thus followed the great Faerie Catalog and Control Operation of ‘95.

It sounds more impressive than it was. A whole bunch of workers on the project ended up dead or missing, and faeries guard their names closely even from one another, so IPCA only got a fraction of them. Here’s what IPCA should have learned, still hasn’t quite learned, and probably never will learn: you cannot control fairies. Can. Not. They aren’t logical or rational. They don’t obey the same laws (physical, social, emotional, traffic—you name it) that we do. They always have their own agendas and are just plain smarter than us. Plus, in finding and using their names, we were messing with paranormal magic deeper and more powerful than any of us understood.

I say us. I mean arrogant IPCA.

I pondered all this as I sat on Reth’s couch, trapped in the Faerie Realms and wondering how long I could hold out before I had to sleep, eat, or drink. Or pee for that matter, because I wasn’t seeing a toilet. Stupid immortals. Was faerie magic really worth all the mess and risk we incurred by working with them?

There had to be another option. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—call Reth back. I knew he would never let me out, and there was no way to escape other than the Faerie Paths.

Another faerie! It was perfect. The faerie names I had been assigned were to be used only in dire straits. These were dire enough for me. I opened my mouth and stopped.

I still couldn’t remember. The names were so strange, and I had been so scared I’d blocked it out. Lying back on the couch, I stared at the ceiling; it shimmered with crystals. I watched it and racked my brains for the ruby-haired faerie’s name.

The crystals reflected an unidentifiable source of light. It seemed like there was some sort of meaning, a pattern. And now I was detecting faint colors, too. They were telling me something. If only I stared long enough, hard enough, didn’t think about anything else … and if I closed my eyes and didn’t think, it would be even better and it would all work out….

“No!” I sat up, blinking to keep my eyes open. No more ceiling.

What was her name? I knew that I knew it. And then I remembered—she was the faerie Lend had hitched a ride with. Fehl! Fehl was her nickname. And her full name was …

“Denfehlath!” I shouted, triumphant. After a few seconds the outline of a door formed on the wall and she walked through, still looking bored.

“Oh.” She frowned.

I jumped up, giddy with relief, but stopped myself before I said anything stupid. This time I would be careful. Specific. “Please take me back to the IPCA Center where I live.”

She held out her hand and I took it.

“Stop!” Reth commanded from behind us. I didn’t let go of Fehl’s hand as I turned to look at him. “She’s mine.”

Fehl gave him a sharp smile. “It’s a named command. I have no choice.”

Reth’s golden eyes brimmed with rage. That’s another thing about faeries. Nasty tempers. I had seen him lose control once before—it was what finally shocked me into giving him up.

“Let’s go, now.” I pulled on her hand. The ambient light in the room had shifted; now everything seemed to glow with a red, menacing hue.

We darted through the door and into the Faerie Paths. More frightened of what was behind me than around me, I kept my eyes open for once. Fehl squeezed my hand so hard it hurt; the look on her face was pure fury, tinged with a hint of smugness. I wondered if there was something going on. Those two had a weird dynamic. Whatever. I didn’t care as long as I got home.

But then I had a brilliant idea. “Can you open a door to Lend’s room?”

She gave me a glare so cutting I was surprised I didn’t bleed. A few more steps and the white lines opened in front of us. She shoved me out and disappeared into the black.

The room was the same boring color scheme as the rest of the Center. A door to a small bathroom was open; other than that the room was a simple square with a gray bed against the wall. Lend, wearing me of all things, was sitting on it. He glanced over, surprise flitting across his/my features. Then he looked away, and I realized Raquel was talking.

I backed up against the wall. She must have been standing in the hallway, because I couldn’t see her and was pretty sure from the lack of reaction that she hadn’t seen me. Not busted. Yet. And now I knew where Lend was. Sometimes faeries came in handy, after all.

“… would all be much easier if you’d just give us some simple information. I’ll let you think about it.” Raquel finished and I heard her pumps tapping away down the hall.

Lend-as-me looked over and raised one eyebrow quizzically.

“Hey, no fair!” I whispered. I’d never been able to raise just one eyebrow at a time. And not for lack of trying, either. He looked confused, so I gestured to my own eyebrows and shook my head. He grinned in response and I melted away, replaced by the dark-haired dark-eyed hottie.

“What are you doing here?”

I shrugged, sliding down the wall and sitting against it. “Just thought I’d drop by for a visit.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. I was bored.”

“Me, too.” There was a long, awkward silence. “Are you planning on staying for a while?”

“Not sure. I think I’m missing.”

“Raquel did seem very on edge.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I should probably let her know I’m not dead.” I didn’t get up.

“You look tired.” He briefly shifted back to wearing me, showing me my heavy eyelids and the dark circles under my eyes.

“Gee, thanks. I love hearing that. Why not just tell me I look like crap?”

He laughed and switched back to the cute guy. “I still can’t get your eyes.”

“I’m an original,” I said cheerfully.

“More than you know, I think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “Just that I’ve never met a human I couldn’t replicate exactly.”

I stood, scowling. “Look, Water Boy, the only paranormal in this room is you.”

“If you say so.”

I was too tired for Lend’s nonsense. The doorway was wider than a normal door and totally open. “What’s the security on this room?”

He lifted the foot with the ankle tracker. “If I cross the threshold of the room, an alarm goes off and my ankle thing goes zap.”

No problems for me then. “Excellent. I’ll see you later.” I walked out without another word.

I didn’t spend much time in the security sections of the Center. By the time paranormals got here, my work was done. Guessing, I turned left and followed the hall to a familiar area. I was pretty close to Central Processing, so I went in and found Raquel talking frantically with Lish. “That’s not acceptable! The werewolves have to be able to find something!”

Lish looked up, saw me over Raquel’s shoulder, and promptly burst into tears. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. I’d never seen her cry, and there weren’t tears since she was already in water, but the facial contortions and shoulder movements were enough to clue me in.

Raquel turned around and yelped, then threw her arms around me. “They didn’t eat you!”

“No, they didn’t eat me.” I had to laugh at the odd symmetry, pushing back my own tears of relief. I was so glad to be back here, with Raquel and Lish. For a while there I’d honestly thought I might not ever see them again.

Regaining her composure, Raquel pushed me out to arm’s length, holding onto my shoulders. “What on earth happened? Where have you been? And why did you kill all those vampires?”

“I—Wait, what? Kill the vamps?”

She nodded, looking severe. Killing paranormals is not okay for employees of IPCA. All paranormals are classified as endangered; that’s why even the icky ones just get neutered instead of, well, dead.

“I didn’t kill them! They were one bite away from killing me! I tased a few and slashed around with my silver knife, but I’m sure I didn’t pierce any hearts.”

“How did you get away?”

I looked down at the ground. “I called for Reth.”

She let out a this is going to be an even bigger mess than I thought sigh. “Then who left twenty-five vampires dead?”

DUMBBELLS, BOYS, AND OTHER DENSE THINGS

Raquel’s vampire explanation came first. “When the panic team got there, they found all the vampires dead.”

“Were they staked?” I asked.

“We have no idea what killed them. There were no marks of any kind, no indication that any of the ways to kill vampires were used. What were they all doing there in the first place?”

“Not a clue. I followed my vamp and burst into the room to find them all waiting. A few more followed me and locked me in.” Frowning, I thought back. “They did seem to think I was there to kill them, though.”

“Are you sure you didn’t do anything?” Raquel asked, the line between her eyebrows deepening.

“Besides almost get sucked dry? Yeah, I’m sure.”

She sighed. Pretty much the same why me sigh as before. “Well, where have you been?”

I rubbed a weary hand across my eyes. “I messed up. Big time. No one was coming and I was gonna die, so I called for Reth.”

“That’s fine, that’s why you were assigned names.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t calling for him that was the problem. Everything was happening so fast, and I could feel the vamp’s teeth on my neck and I—When I called for Reth I yelled out, ‘I need you.’”

Raquel’s face went from understanding to seriously pissed. When IPCA gives you faerie names, they also make you take a yearly two-week—two-week—course on appropriate named commands and how to use them. “I need you” was about as open-ended and stupid as they get.

“‘I need you’? That’s what you said? That was your named command?”

“Don’t get mad.” I was on the verge of tears. “I already paid for it, trust me. I told him to take me home and he took me to his home, tried to take my heart again.”

“Evie, honey, I know you have a history with Reth, but he can’t just take your heart. It doesn’t work like that.”

This was too much. On top of everything else, she was going to tell me—again—that what happened was all in my head and wasn’t some sort of faerie freakiness. She had never felt the warmth, felt it sneak in and surround her heart, felt it consume her. She didn’t know. She couldn’t. And I was sick of her acting like I was some sort of stupid little girl, still mad over an ex. “Whatever,” I snapped. “I’m going to bed.”

I turned and stalked out of the room without saying good-bye to Lish. She would sympathize, I knew, but she still just didn’t understand.

No one understood. Well, that wasn’t true—Reth understood. Everything. And he was right, too. I was completely alone and it sucked. When I got to my unit, I went straight to my bedroom and dug around under my bed until I found the three-pound dumbbells I had stolen from one of Bud’s training sessions. They were iron, the best protection against faeries. Or at least, I was pretty sure they were iron. Okay, I really, really hoped they were iron, because my only other option was to sleep with my knife on my chest. Images of impaling myself during a nightmare flew through my head. Dumbbells it was.

Putting the weights on either side of me, I closed my eyes and was instantly asleep.

I woke up late the next morning; half-formed memories of a woman’s voice calling to me tickled the edge of my thoughts. Both dumbbells were still in place, tangled up in the covers, and my heart was still mine. The night appeared to be a successful one.

I took my time getting ready for the day, pretty sure it was Saturday. Sometimes it was hard to tell the days apart in the Center, but since none of my daily tutors had shown up wondering why my homework wasn’t done yet again, Saturday seemed a good guess.

After eating breakfast I went to talk to Lish. I felt bad about running out yesterday. When I walked in her eyes lit up. “Evie,” the monotone voice said, but I could tell that she was saying it with an exclamation point. “I am so glad you are okay. I was so worried about you.”

I gave her the best smile I could manage. “It was a bad day.”

“I am sorry.”

I wasn’t sure what else to say. “Any leads on the vamps?”

“None.”

Weird. Also, not my problem. I wasn’t especially heartbroken about it, either, so I shrugged. “How about Lend? Do they have any more ideas on who or what he is, or why he broke in?”

She shook her head. Then her eyes crinkled in a smile and she leaned toward the glass conspiratorially. “I did hear that he requested paper and pencils. Raquel thought he was going to write down information, but all he did was draw.”

I smiled. Whatever else he was, Lend was a professional at annoying Raquel. Usually that was my job, but I kinda liked sharing the duty. “Speaking of Raquel, do you know where she is? I want to talk to her.” Whether or not she believed me about Reth, she had to help me figure out how to negate my named command.

“She is in meetings all day today.” If anyone at the Center worked harder than Lish, it was Raquel. She lived here, too, and pretty much worked every waking hour of every day. I’d never known her to take a vacation. In a way it was nice. It would feel lonelier without her here.

I frowned, frustrated. But then it clicked: if Raquel was in meetings all day, that meant I was free to do whatever—and see whomever—I wanted. I smiled at Lish. “That’s okay. I’ll talk to her later. Thanks!”

I ran back to my room. After checking myself in the mirror, I gathered up all my magazines, my mini-video player, and a couple of books. Then I tucked Tasey and the knife into my belt and headed for Lend’s room.

I turned the corner just in time to see Jacques walking away. Perfect. I ran down the hall and ducked in. Lend was sitting on the bed eating lunch, wearing an attractive black guy. “Don’t you look nice today,” I said. He looked up, surprised, then smiled.

“What’re you doing here?”

I dumped my armful onto the floor. “I’m bored, you’re bored. Thought we could hang out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t some bizarre good cop, bad cop thing?”

I laughed. “I don’t care what you tell or don’t tell Raquel. But you’re the only semi-human person here that’s my age, and I thought it would be fun to, you know, just hang out.” I was hit by a horrible thought: What if he didn’t want to hang out?

I mean, sure, there were worse things. Like if he was actually a psycho paranormal assassin and had been waiting for the perfect moment to kill me. But I didn’t think so. And somehow that would hurt my feelings less than if a teenage guy didn’t think I was cool enough to spend time with. Especially a teenage guy who could be cute in so many different ways.

To my relief he smiled again. “Sounds good.” He got off the bed and walked over, glancing through the magazines. “You like reading this stuff?” He raised an eyebrow at all the girly teen and star-stalking content.

“Hey, don’t judge. I happen to like popular culture. There’s a reason it’s popular, you know.”

He shook his head but looked amused. Picking up the mini-video player, he sat down on the floor with his back against the bed and started it up. “Do you have anything besides Easton Heights on here?”

“Easton Heights is the best show on television right now, bar none. But if it’s not good enough for you”—I sniffed haughtily—“then find the movie folder.” He laughed and the black guy melted off to be replaced by none other than Landon, the freaking hottest guy in the world and conniving lothario of Easton High. “Shut up!” I practically yelled. “That’s awesome!”

He laughed at my reaction, then went back to looking up movies. Part of me was giddy that I was sitting in a room with Landon. And the other part was still looking at Lend underneath, and actually liking his face a little bit better.

“Is there anyone you can’t do?” I asked, curious.

He shrugged. “I can’t do some paranormals. I also can’t go up or down in height more than a few inches, so I can’t be a little kid. Bulk’s about the same as height when it comes to stretching, so I couldn’t weigh three hundred pounds. And I can’t do your eyes.”

“So you keep saying,” I muttered. I lay down on my stomach, propped up on my elbows as I paged through one of the magazines. Lend settled on something and we spent the next hour in companionable silence. It was slightly dull and utterly normal. It rocked.

After a while I looked up and noticed a bunch of papers under his bed. “Oh, are those your drawings?” I grabbed them.

“Oh, I—don’t—” he said, but I had already started looking at them. He was amazing. He had drawn a portrait of Jacques that was so exact it could have been a photo. Apparently he could copy people on his own body and on paper. I flipped through to the next page and stopped. It was me.

“Holy crap, Lend, these are amazing. You’re really, really good.” He looked embarrassed, shrugging. “I mean, with a subject as cute as me, of course it’s going to turn out well, but still,” I teased. He smiled. Gosh, was I getting good at flirting, or what? You’d never know I only practiced during daydreams. I went back to the papers. Now it was my turn to be mildly embarrassed since the majority of the drawings were of me. Mildly embarrassed and really flattered. One of the last ones was a close-up of my face, focused on my eyes, which he had left unfinished.

Turning to the last drawing, I was surprised. He had been trying to draw himself—his real self—with much less success than all his other portraits. “You’ve got a stronger jawline, and your hair has a bit of wave to it.”

“You really can see me that well.” He sounded awed.

“It’s what I do.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you. What do you do? Why are you working here?”

“I help identify and bring in paranormals.”

“Do you have any other powers? Super strength or anything?”

I laughed. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That’s why I nearly got killed by a room full of vamps yesterday. Because I’m such an awesome fighter.” He looked confused. I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t have any powers. I’m normal, I can just see a little better than your average person.” I didn’t explain that I could see through all glamours, since that was classified information.

“How did they find you?”

“Long story. Or not so long. Just boring. I’ve been here since I was eight. There’s this whole international treaty that I’m pretty much the star of.”

“So they own you.”

“No! They don’t own me.”

“So you can leave any time you want?”

I gave him a funny look. “Why would I want to leave?”

“I don’t know—it just seems like you aren’t very … happy.”

“I’m plenty happy!” I said, frowning. “Besides, I do a lot of good. I’ve neutered—” He looked horrified, and I quickly corrected. “Neutralized! Like, made hundreds of vampires harmless over the last few years, identified werewolves before they could hurt themselves or others, helped track down a troll colony, and done countless other things to make the world a safer and more organized place.” Had I just said I made the world a more organized place? Wow. Lame.

“Could you leave if you wanted to?”

I shrugged, uncomfortable with the topic. I had been pretty happy here for a long time, but ever since Reth, I’d been wondering more and more what my options were—and kind of worrying that I didn’t have any. It was easier not to think about it. No one else ever brought it up, and hearing it so bluntly from Lend made my stomach clench. “I don’t know. It’s safer for me here.”

“Safer for you, or safer for them?”

“Just drop it, would you? This is my job, my life. I’m fine with it.”

He held up his hands. “Sorry. It just seems to me like you’re more of a possession than an employee.”

“They can’t hold humans,” I snapped. “Under international regulations they’re only allowed to detain or monitor paranormals.”

He gave me that look again, the one he was so good at. I watched his water eyes; they were sad. “Evie, you aren’t exactly normal.”

Standing up in a huff, I gathered my magazines and pulled my mini-video player from his hands. “At least I know what I look like.” I stormed out of his room, furious.

Halfway down the hall I slumped against the wall, barely able to breathe. He was exactly right.

THERAPY BILLS

Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered as I stomped down the halls. I wasn’t sure what exactly was stupid, but it seemed like a lot of things were lately. Lend, for one, with his dumb questions, making me think about stuff I’d rather not. I stopped in front of Raquel’s office. She needed to believe me about Reth, do something about the command I’d given him. She still thought that faeries didn’t care about humans at all. Sure, she knew the histories, how they kidnapped mortals to take to their realm and dance (yeah, it’s as weird as it sounds), but since IPCA gave their faeries a named command not to, they figured it was a non-issue now.

I knocked and the door slid open. Raquel was standing at her desk, gathering papers and looking tired and stressed out. “What is it, Evie? I’m due back in five minutes.”

I walked in and sat down, scowling at her desk. I was all set to tell her about Reth, using as evidence the creepy comments Fehl had made about me being his, but when I opened my mouth the first thing that came out was, “What if I want to leave?”

She looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if I quit? What if I’m tired of doing this? What if I’m sick of stupid vampires and clueless werewolves and poltergeists and trolls and the Center? What if I’m done dealing with psychotic faeries? What if I want to go to college?”

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