“Come on, Ara. Quit daydreaming, and shoot it.”
“Gimme a break.” I turned back to look at Mike, flicking just one finger toward the rock so I could watch his face as it exploded unexpectedly. And like I’d imagined the very expression he’d wear, the bottom of his jaw moved an inch apart from the top, and the whites dominated a larger part of his eyes. I didn’t need to see the damage I caused. I heard it—heard an almighty shatter, like lightning splitting the earth, felt the rock debris hit the backs of my legs, saw the wind of the blast rush past and sweep my hair toward Mike, the whole event ending in the shock on his face.
I folded over, laughing.
“Ara?” Mike yanked me quickly to stand. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I watched realization melt the concern on his face.
“You’re laughing, Ara. Why are you laughing?”
“You should’ve seen the look on your face.”
“Are you kidding?” He grabbed my arm and turned me to face the field. “Did you see what you did? It’s bloody lucky we tested you out on a rock first.”
I scanned the field for any signs of the boulder, but it’d been obliterated. All that remained was a small group of knights on the other side, each holding a dumpster between them—completely frozen in place.
“Take the dumpster back,” Mike called across to them. “We need something more hardwearing.”
They nodded once and shuffled away, looking rather relieved.
“Well, then.” Mike patted my back as if I were one of the boys. “Best you go clean yourself up and fill Jason in.”
I dusted my shirt off a bit and smudged a large smear of blood away from my chin. “Fill him in?”
“He’ll wanna know what you just did.”
“And you approve of that?”
He flashed a simple smile. “Baby, he just solved one of the biggest problems I’ve had on my mind since this whole thing began. He can have whatever he wants.”
I jumped onto my toes and wrapped my arms around Mike’s neck. “Thank you, Mike.”
“Ah, watch the shirt.” He pulled me off gently, motioning to my bloodied mess of an outfit.
“Sorry.” I wiped some of the blood away with my hand, but only smudged it worse. “I’ll go take a shower and come back down later, yeah?”
“Yeah. And I’ll have the knights run laps through the forest to find you more boulders.”
“Sounds good.” I nodded, then walked away with a huge smile on my face—my head completely pain free.
I lay awake, fully clothed, listening to the clock tick across the room. The manor was a lonely place without the echo of maids cleaning, footmen laying plates or the gentle but distant chatter of House representatives. Trouble was, at this hour it was too late to be night, and too early to be morning. I was stuck halfway between the world of the living and the dreaming. And worse, I couldn’t find the door to either.
I stuffed my hand under my bottom and pulled my phone from my back pocket. David still hadn’t called—or messaged. Nothing. If he was gonna fall off the face of the earth, the least he could do was let me know first. Then again, maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was me. Perhaps my phone had stopped working somehow and wasn’t receiving calls. But that didn’t explain why my inbox was empty. Not even my dad had replied to my emails, and he promised to tell me how his appointment with the doctor went this week.
“Quaid?” I whispered.
My door popped open and a line of yellow light spilled into the room, licking the wall, then the celling. “What’s up?”
“Have you got cell service?”
He lifted his phone from his pocket. “Yup. Why?”
Of course he did. That wasn’t the problem; that wasn’t the reason David hadn’t called. “Never mind.” I turned my face away, and the room went dark again. But my heart leaped into my chest when a very loud, very obnoxious song played suddenly from the device in my hand. I almost dropped it three times trying to run my thumb across the screen to answer the video call. And as the name registered in my head and a face showed, shadowed by an early morning, I ran for my closet and switched on the light, simulating daytime.
“Dad?” I almost cried, composing myself quickly.
“Ara? I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”
I motioned around my wardrobe. “Nope, just . . . getting dressed.”
“Heading out late today, huh?” He looked at his watch.
“Yeah. I had a study period before class,” I lied. “How’s things over there? You never emailed me back.”
Dad looked at my face for a long moment. “And you were worried?”
I nodded. There was a very slight delay in my movements from action to the screen, but Dad didn’t seem to notice. He looked as though he’d just woken up—still in his plain tee and pyjama pants, a coffee by his elbow and the kitchen all kind of dark around him.
“Well, we’re all fine here, honey,” he assured me. “I had my appointment with the cardiologist on Thursday, and he’s adjusted my medication. Says I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t look fine, Dad. You look . . . old.”
He laughed. “Oh, there’s that brutal honesty I missed.”
“Is that Ara?” Vicki said, gliding into the room. Her face lit up when she saw mine. “Ara, how are you? We’ve missed you so much. What are you doing up so early? It must be, like—”
“Eleven a.m., Vicki.” I plonked down on the ottoman by the shoe rack.
“Oh, right, you’re ahead of us in Paris.” She sat down beside Dad. “You look well,” she said, but it was a lie; even I could see how pale and grainy I looked on the screen. “Your face has really rounded out since you left.”
“Oh, great.” I rolled my eyes. “Is that Mom-talk for ‘you’re getting fat’?”
“No, dear. You look healthy, for once. Not that skinny little kid that left us a few months ago. They must be feeding you well.”
I drew my stomach in and readjusted my jeans. Maybe they were feeding me a little too well. “Yeah. Food here is good. How’s Sam?”
“He’s good. He got a dog,” Vicki said.
“A dog?” I looked at Dad. “You said we could never—”
“He doesn’t have a dog,” Dad said, his hand entering the conversation. “He’s got a follower, and that’s it. He’s not keeping it.”