Shift

NINE.1

Kayden woke up the next morning to the smell of Head & Shoulders shampoo.

It wasn't a bad smell—in fact, it reminded her of her father. When she was younger, she liked to pretend she was a hairdresser. Her father would let her stand behind him on the couch and drag a black comb against his scalp, and she would breathe in the remnants of his shampoo. 

The recollection that her father had moved out a few months ago made her open her eyes.

She half expected to see Lexi lying next to her, but instead she was greeted by an empty bed and foreign blue sheets. It took her a moment to recognize the room as Blaze's.

Okay, so being zapped to his apartment wasn't a dream, she thought, sitting up groggily and looking out a large window. The sun was already up, and yet the streetlights were still lit, their lights flickering and sputtering as if the city had decided to employ lightning bugs to save on electricity.

Or maybe fairies, Kayden thought, squinting. She wondered for the first time if perhaps there were more magical creatures in the world than just wizards. If there were, they did a much better job at remaining hidden than Blaze had.

She swung her legs out from under the covers and started to stand, but something lumpy yelped from beneath her feet. She jumped back onto the bed, suppressing a shriek as Blaze got up angrily from the floor.

"Ow," he grumbled, rubbing his back. His eyes were half-closed from sleep. "What was that for?"

Kayden noticed in that moment that Blaze was only wearing a pair of boxers; she averted her eyes. "I forgot you were sleeping on the floor," she said, wondering why Blaze had felt the need to strip down to nearly nothing as he slept.

Blaze didn't seem to realize that he was making her feel uncomfortable. "What time is it?" he asked. "We're supposed to meet Celery at the airport around nine."

Kayden dug through the sheets until she found her cell phone beneath the comforter. She pressed a button, but it didn't turn on. She cursed. "My phone's dead."

Blaze plucked an alarm clock off the floor. "7:42. Not too bad."

"Do you have a charger?" she asked, tapping the darkened screen. She felt strangely isolated with a dead phone.

"I don't have a phone."

Kayden stared at him in disbelief. "No way."

"Yes way. Is it that hard to believe?"

It was, in fact. It wasn't like Blaze lived in the Stone Age, and he owned a computer. "Why not?"

"What's the point of having a phone if you can use magic to contact anyone you want?" Blaze said reasonably.

"Well what happens when magic shifts?" She raised an eyebrow to emphasize her point.

Blaze rolled his eyes. "Well then I guess Verizon is going to have a great sales day today."

Kayden groaned.

"You'll survive without your phone," Blaze said, heading towards the door. "I'm going to grab us some breakfast. Can you throw some clothes in a bag for me while I'm in the kitchen?"

Kayden looked around the room and at the sea of clothes. "Isn't everything in here dirty?"

Blaze rolled his eyes and gestured to a dresser. "There's clean stuff in there. Just pick out enough stuff to get us through at least four days. Find some things for you too. And just shove them in my bag."

"All right."

Blaze nodded and wandered out of the room.

Kayden glanced around at her temporary living quarters. She spotted the messenger style bag she had seen Blaze wearing the first night he had come to her house; it had been shoved in the corner of the room. She opened up the snaps and rifled through it. It was filled with random junk—paper, pens, jars of dried plants—and the white spell book that Blaze had used to cast the Bonding Oath.