Madame Corinne's Club of Winged, Wand-Wielding, and Waterproof Teenagers

Chapter 2- Jenna

There were three things I knew about Natalie:

She is whip smart

She is my best friend

And, as far as I know, she is definitely not any sort of magical.

Of course, I had just found her listening in on a conversation between me and Bane. And I could tell, just from her face, that she had seen my wings.

Best friends could read each other like that.

"What are you doing here?" I asked again. My wings, which were now tucked away and folded up against my back, twitched nervously.

I really didn't want to believe she was a spy from the Monsters. She just didn't seem the type. Of course, there weren't a lot of other options. There had been cloaking. No regular person could see through cloaking. You needed some major paranormal skills.

"I-I saw you from Sweet Cups," Natalie said, "And I was going to say hi, but then, well..."

Right. Her favorite boba shop was only two blocks away.

"What... what was that?" she asked. She looked shaken. "In the alleyway, I saw... Jenna, I saw..." she trailed off, and made a little gasping sound. I could tell she was avoiding looking me in the eyes.

"Natalie, I um..." I mumbled. "Well, you see, it's hard to explain-"

"How did you see us?" Bane interrupted. His silvery hair glittered as he tossed it over his shoulder dramatically.

Natalie stared at him for a second, brows furrowed.

"You mentioned something about cloaking," she said at last, her voice a little shaky, "And I honestly have to tell you that I have no idea what that means. But I've seen Star Wars enough times to guess that you were probably supposed to be invisible."

Bane raised an eyebrow. "Are we just supposed to believe that you saw through an advanced spell by accident? You can't expect us to just go along with that flimsy excuse."

"Well, it seems that you're not going to have much of a choice," Natalie challenged, suddenly full of the confidence that I knew her so well for, "And even if you don't, there's not a lot I can do about it. It's the truth."

I tried not to smile at that. As much as Bane was my friend, it was kind of hilarious to see Natalie put him in his place.

Bane looked at me like, What are we supposed to do?

I shrugged.

"I'm guessing you saw everything," I said, "Or, at least, you saw enough."

"Yeah..." Natalie said, "Um, so like, are you going to explain that? Or are we going to just stand around here chatting like nothing happened?"

"Uh, I don't know where to start," I said.

Natalie looked at me expectantly.

For a second I was distracted by how, with her head tilted and her short brown curls and big eyes, she looked kind of like the tiny dog that my grandma used to have.

Natalie cleared her throat impatiently.

I shook myself. Right. I had things to worry about.

I dug through my bag.

"Here," I said, holding out a business card to her.

"What's this?" she asked.

Bane gave me a look like, Are you seriously doing this right now? Are you an idiot?

"It's, um, sort of our address," I said, ignoring him, "Our headquarters."

"Our?" she asked.

"My... um, organization, I guess," I said, "This is where the organization that I'm a part of meets."

"Why...are you giving this to me?" she asked. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Be there," I said, nodding at the card, "At three. Tomorrow. I'll, um, I'll try to explain then. And maybe we can figure out how, well, how you evaded Bane's spell."

Natalie paused, before shoving the card in her pocket.

"I'm gonna trust you on this," she said, her eyes intensely trained on mine. She took a deep breath. "Because you're my friend. And I trust you. I'm like 90% certain I'm going insane. And I would like an explanation to this so I don't start seriously questioning my mental stability. So I'll be there. You better be too."

"Thanks," I said.

"We really have to go," Bane said, grabbing my arm.

"Wait-!" Natalie cried out before we were ripped out of the scene with a teleportation spell.

"Idiot," Bane said to me as we fell through the swirling colors.