Dream Walker

Chapter 32 | Purple Haze

As usual, Callie found a way to screw everything up. When she first woke up to the smell of eggs and the sound of a sizzling pan, she had been confused again. She never slept on the living room couch, so that seemed an odd place to wake up. Even stranger, she was supposed to have another day alone until her roommates returned.

The sun was streaming through the windows, unlike the previous night, so she assumed it was already almost noon. She had been sleeping like the dead again, and her body finally felt rested. Her muscles were stiff, though, and in need of a good stretch.

It took a few seconds to extricate her arms from beneath not one but two thick blankets. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then looked over her shoulder at the man standing in her kitchen. Of course it was Alex. Who else would it have been?

Though she had fought hard to keep her walls up around him, he always found ways to wiggle his way into her life and make her feel emotions that seemed foreign at times. He looked at ease in her apartment, cooking breakfast. She could see the string knotted around his waist and knew he was wearing an apron, like the time he and Quinn had cooked dinner together. He probably did it to make her laugh. That thought only strengthened her resolve.

She slipped quietly off the couch, padded into the kitchen, and stood on the other side of the island. Without preamble, she asked, "Who did you talk to on the phone last night?"

Startled, his arm jerked, and some egg spilled out over the edge of the pan. She liked catching him off guard. It gave him no time to put up any false fronts. When he turned to look at her, his eyes were full of apprehension. She ignored the guilt that thrummed in her chest and stared at him with a cold determination.

"Oh, uh," he stuttered. "Just someone I work with."

Her eyebrow raised. "So another Guardian? Someone else from your mysterious Order?"

She saw his throat constrict with the force of swallowing. He turned his eyes and hands back to the task of preparing the eggs. "Yeah," he agreed, "another Guardian. I thought sh—I mean, that they might know how to help you recover from the effects of the magic. I guess you just needed a good meal." He laughed, but it sounded strained.

"Why would this person know about that? I thought you said Guardians know little about other worlds, about magic, about my abilities. Or was that just another lie?" Her tone was accusatory, and she poured all her recent frustration into it.

"I'm being as honest with you as I can, Callie, I swear," he pleaded. The words dripped with desperate sincerity, but she wasn't interested in his excuses.

"That's bullshit and you know it," she seethed. "You've been following me for over a year, you claim to know everything about my life, and all I get is platitudes about how much danger I'm in and about the secrets you can't spill. This is my life, and I need more."

Filled with anger, no longer the pathetic mess she had been the day before, she wanted the truth out of him. He knew a lot more than he was letting on, just like Cyril, but at least Cyril was willing to trade information. Their relationship was transactional, and that worked out just fine for her.

Her frustration with Alex's reluctance—to be completely honest—stemmed from her belief that he was acting in some heroic way to try to protect her. She also understood he had a strong loyalty to his organization and was unwilling to betray what he held dear. She respected that. Yet, he was the one that had reached out to her. He was the one that gave her enough interesting morsels to make her curious but not enough to make her informed.

The shock and guilt disappeared from Alex's face, replaced by a mask of hard resolve. Even his eyes resembled cold steel. "You're not the only one in danger. You saw what happened the last time your powers got out of control. Innocent people died."