The Greyest of Blue Skies

The Greyest of Blue Skies - 5

Chapter 5

Despite the warnings from Bryce, I somehow wind up hanging out with Julian and Selene for much of the week: a lot more than I thought I would. They managed to monopolize my time. It's Thursday afternoon and I'm sitting in the Sunburst cafe with the two of them, nursing a mocha between my palms as I idly watch the customers around us. Julian's talking, but I lost their conversation a long time ago.

"Do I have to remind you of Havenbrook? That was a disaster."

"Don't be petty, Julian. How was I to know?"

"You were too busy being your narcissistic self. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have had to leave Detroit."

"Well, everything turned out for the better, didn't it?" Selene's voice hits a shrill note, and she stops herself in a rare moment of self-consciousness. They look at me almost guiltily when they find I've been paying attention on the last few exchanges.

"Sorry, Claire, we're boring you with this ancient history."

"No, no, it's OK. Don't let me stop you."

"Don't be ridiculous," Selene interjects, "it's rude of us to leave you out."

With that in mind, the conversation then turns to the football game on Friday night and whether the visiting Raptors stand a chance at winning against our school's Hunters. Apparently, while the Hunters have had a good season, the Raptors' new star player was making big news elsewhere.

A waitress passes by our table and suddenly I feel a burst of heat blooming on my thigh.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" the girl gasps, mortified, as she quickly sets down her tray and rights the fallen cup which was rolling around in its spilt contents. Thankfully, the tray caught most of the coffee, although a good deal of it ended up on my jeans.

She whips out a table cloth and presses it to my leg to soak up the spill, all the while babbling apologies and growing red in the face from embarrassment. "Are you OK? Did it burn you? Oh Christ, I'm really sorry, I should have been more careful!"

"It's OK, I'm not hurt," I tell her. I've got tights on under the jeans, so it's diffused some of the heat. I peer at the stain; it isn't too obvious on the dark jeans. At least it didn't land in the middle of my lap. "Um, I'm going to go wash up -- where's the restroom?"

"Right behind this wall, down the corridor." The waitress stops dabbing at the stain and steps back, apologizing again before taking her tray and retreating to the kitchen.

"Wow, that sucks," Julian remarks, mildly concerned. "Did she get a lot on you?"

"It could be worse," I shrug. I notice Selene wearing a look of distaste, aimed at the clumsy waitress. "I'll be right back."

I excuse myself from the table. A decorative lattice screen extends out from a partition wall at our corner; behind it is the corridor that leads to male and female toilets. I wet some paper towels and wipe at my jeans, squeezing out the excess which hopefully takes some of the coffee with it. It still feels damp on the inside, but there's not much more I can do.

I leave the restroom. On the way back, I'm just coming up to the lattice screen when I hear my name carried on hushed voices.

"Claire doesn't know." That's Julian.

Selene responds, "Then you need to find out. Her father must be the key."

"How am I supposed to do that? Go digging through their house?"

"Use your brain, idiot. Theo's counting on you."

What the holy hell is going on? A chill sweeps through me as I'm frozen on the spot, still hidden by the partition wall. Bryce was right. There's something not right about these two and now I'm caught up in the middle of it.

I'm so busy eavesdropping and peering at my table through the edge of the lattice screen that I've forgotten I'm in an open corridor. And when I finally realize there's a presence close behind me, the quiet voice that speaks in my ear nearly gives me a damn heart attack.

"Watch your back."

I jump.

I bite my tongue in trying not to let out a sound -- I'm supposed to be keeping a low profile, after all -- and spin on my heels to see who has caught me off guard. The first thing I see is a smirk, followed by the palest gray eyes I've ever seen as my gaze travels upward. A young man stands in the hallway about two feet away from me -- not as near as he sounded. He seems familiar.

"Didn't scare you, did I?" His eyes twinkle like mercury with a hint of mischief.

I feel my face grow warm. "Um, well, I... I kind of set myself up for that one."

"Just a friendly warning," he smiles. "My pranks are harmless, but they're not." He cocks his head in Julian and Selene's direction.

I glance that way also: they've gone back to talking about normal school things, expecting I'll be back any moment.

"See you later."

I see movement in the corner of my eye, but when I glance across, he's already disappeared. The corridor is empty, no doors are swinging shut, and he's not outside in the main seating area. How is that possible? Nobody can move that fast.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts; I must be more rattled than I thought I was, what with my two so-called friends plotting behind my back. But how am I supposed to draw any clues from them without letting on that I overheard their conversation? This is way too much for a sixteen-year-old to deal with.

Taking a deep breath, I return to the table and paste on as relaxed a smile as I can fake.

"Ah, you're back," Selene purrs. "Listen, I'm having a small get-together this Saturday at my place; would you like to come?" Her eyes drill into me, blue as the ocean and captivating, and I feel like there's nothing I'd rather do more than go to this party.

Then I blink, and immediately recall my innate distrust of these people. "Uh... I probably have a --"

"It's a really casual thing," Selene presses, fixing her stare more intently on me, "just some cool people, pizza, movies... I wouldn't want you to miss out, is all."

Innocent sounding words, but I'm positive that's not really the case. At the same time, a plan is forming in my head. If there's a secret behind all this, I stand a better chance of finding out by visiting Selene's home than sitting in the dark.

"Well, I guess I could make it."

Satisfaction lights up Selene's face and she leans back in her chair with a Cheshire grin. "Excellent."

The grin gives me chills.

After ten or so minutes of idle chit chat, I excuse myself on the pretext that I should clear through my accumulated homework now that my weekend is booked. I actually do have a fair amount of study, but I also need some time alone -- more importantly, away from them -- to think and process everything.

Once out of the warm embrace of the Sunburst Cafe, the winter cold grips me with a vengeance, throwing blustery winds to sting my cheeks and icing up the damp patch on my jeans to numb my knee. I don't know how I'll ever get used to this. I wrap my scarf in another loop around my neck and ears, and start walking home. The main road is still active at this hour, just before dusk properly sets in. People have begun leaving work, and older school kids are still hanging around in the cafe, bowling alley and shopping center.

I pass the apartment block with the huge antenna. The last time I walked this route, I got lost and completely freaked out. Looking up, I still don't know how I could have thought this was a church...

Something else triggers in my memory. There was somebody on the street watching me on that day I freaked out. He was too far away for me to see his face, but that somebody had a vanishing act a lot like the guy I met today in the cafe corridor. Was that why I got a sense of deja vu back then?

A creeping paranoia sets in again and my eyes scan about for any sign of a tall man with light brown hair. There are a few, but none matching my target. I need to be more vigilant. Everything that's happened feels like they're leading to something major, something that could be a danger to me and Mom, and I don't have a lot of time to get to the bottom of it.