Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

The ability to think vanished from my toolbox. The spattering of rain gathered momentum, and even as her fragrance rolled across my tongue, I felt it beginning fade.

I chased it.

My blood pounded in my ears, and every time I shut my eyes, I saw her, burned into the backs of my eyelids, the gun aimed at the me in the mirror of my dream. Someone might have called out my name as I sprinted around the girth of the school, but my own sharp, shallow breaths clouded my brain.

I rounded the corner of the building and pushed against the current of students that filtered out from the other doors. The crisp sweetness of apples and the succulent cherry juice evaporated off the tip of my nose like a tendril of smoke, leading me by the fleeting breath in my lungs.

The next thing I knew, I had found the football field with the rubber track and steel bleachers wrapped around it. Rain gathered on my skin, soaked through my clothes, and pulled the chain of her aroma from my throat.

She had been here. She must have. It was against the treaty for her to do so, but things like rules had never stopped her before.

"Do you have a permit to be on the grounds after school hours?"

I froze. The heavy footsteps on the concrete pathway told me it wasn't simply another professor or a proctor who had spotted me.

It was one of the guards, armed and trained to identify the inhuman.

I turned. The man marched up, a glock packed into his holster.

"Um," I said intelligibly. "Sorry. I just...I thought..."

"Do you have a permit?"

"No, I—"

"Do you have an ID?"

"Actually, I just transferred, so I—"

"Then I'll have to escort you to the office. We have a strict no-tolerance policy here, you understand."

The voice of my savior came to my rescue. "I told you not to chase after that cat." Here came Yuuhi, leading both Toivo and Jason, and he played the part of annoyed brother so well that even I was almost convinced. "You can't keep pulling this shit. You know mom's sick of you coming home with strays." But when he shoved my shoulder, however, I nearly decided to shove him into a trash bin.

The best response I could muster was an eloquent, "Um."

Yuuhi turned his case to the guard, and to his credit, I'd never seen him pull off the act of a human teenager so convincingly. "Sorry, man. She saw a stray in the rain and tweaked with animal protection rage. Next thing you know, she'll be joining PETA."

Peta? Was that an insult, or...?

Toivo stomped up, reclaiming my hand with a yank, but I knew that the anger in his eyes was very real. "Come on. If you get sick so early in the year, I'm not taking care of you."

I pouted. There were no germs or bacteria that could infect demons, or vampires either. Demon immune systems were made of steel. But still, there was truth to those words.

Jason gave me a look as Toivo dragged me past. When I checked over my shoulder, I found Yuuhi chatting it up casually with the guard, a hand shielding his eyes from the rain. His eyes were what mattered. The guard might have been trained to sense and resist the compulsion, but Yuuhi was old and powerful enough that he easily crumbled those walls. It was frightening to know that nothing stopped him.