I’ve seen it before. An angry Jennika is a scary Jennika, and she was—correction, is—undeniably angry.
But I’m angry too. And unlike Dace, I’m not the least bit intimidated by her.
“Seriously—why’d you have to be so incredibly rude?” I throw my bag on the kitchen table and head for the sink, where I retrieve a blue handblown glass from the cupboard, fill it with water, and down it in three easy gulps in an attempt to calm myself.
“Oh, well—excuse me for embarrassing you and acting so rude. Please accept my most heartfelt apologies.” She shakes her head, clearly not meaning a word of it. “Maybe you can tell me just exactly what is going on around here? Maybe you can explain how you’d like me to react upon finding you parked in a beat-up wreck of a car with a boy who’s up to no good—at one thirty in the morning—on a school night, no less?”
I lean against the counter and stare hard at my boots. Struggling to get a rein on my emotions—arguing with her won’t solve a thing. But I’m far too annoyed to take my own advice, so I lift my chin and say, “Well, for starters, you really didn’t have to yell. That was completely uncalled for. And for another thing, you really didn’t have to jump to conclusions. Nothing was going on. It wasn’t at all what you think—you misread the whole thing. I only just met him today! He gave me a lift, nothing more. But instead of trusting me, you just go off on a rant and assume the worst. Way to go, Jennika. Seriously.”
“Oh, so now I’m supposed to trust you?” She fumes under her breath, surveying Paloma’s home as though she’s suspicious of everything in it, most of all me. “How can I trust you when you go for days on end without returning my calls? How can I trust you when you renege on our deal?”
I sigh. Roll my eyes. Hardly able to believe we’re back to this—the same argument we’ve already had over the phone. Twice. But apparently she’s gearing up for round three, and once she gets started, she’s hard to contain.
“That was one time, and it was only for three days, as you well know—”
But I barely get to finish before she’s shaking her head, practically shouting, “It was four days, Daire. Four.”
“That’s only because of the time difference and you know it,” I mumble, thinking how sad it is that after weeks of not seeing each other, this is the way she chooses to greet me. But now that she’s started, I’m not in much of a hugging mood either. “The point is, it was just once, and there were special circumstances involved since I was”—enduring a vision quest/full-body dismemberment in a remote cave—“not feeling well … due to my injuries from the accident and all.”
“Yes, so you say.” She looks me over, brow quirked, eyes appraising. “And ever since then, you’ve been very good at keeping our conversations to a minimum and evading all of my questions. And the ones you do choose to acknowledge are answered in a way that’s intentionally cryptic. While you may not believe it, I was once a teenager too. You’re not pulling anything with me that I didn’t pull on my own parents. So if you think your coming out here is a free pass to party, well, I hope you enjoyed it because the party just ended.”
“A free pass to party?” I scowl. “Surely you don’t mean that?” I eyeball her carefully, seeing she does indeed. “Have you even seen this place?” My voice rises in outrage. “Out of all the places I’ve been—Paris, London, Rome, Mykonos—heck, even Miami—why on earth would I chose to rebel here—in barren, boring Enchantment, New Mexico?”
I chase it with some additional phrases I mutter under my breath not meant for her ears, which is why I’m caught by surprise when she says, “Good. I’m glad to know you see it that way. That means you won’t miss it when you go.”
I narrow my gaze, my skin prickled with cold.
“You’re out of here. So take a good look around and say good-bye to this place because after tonight, you’ll never see it again.”
“You can’t be serious?” I stare. There’s no way I can leave. I’m a Seeker—the town needs me—and tonight I saw all the proof that I need to convince me it’s true. While I have no idea what Cade’s up to, he’s definitely up to something, and it’s up to me to stop it. I’m the only one who can.
Jennika nods, a self-satisfied smile hijacking her face. “I’ve taken a TV gig, which means no more traipsing the globe—”
My eyes go wide, my mouth hangs open and dumb, while my mind replays her words again and again until they begin to make sense. “But you hate those,” I say. “You always say that—”
She flashes a palm, letting me know that’s just the beginning. “And, along with the new gig, we have ourselves some new digs. I’ve rented a two-bedroom apartment in West L.A. But it’s just a temporary arrangement until we can find the right place to buy. I’m considering Venice or maybe even Silver Lake. We’ll look around—see what feels right.”
I stare at her without really seeing—my mind’s too busy trying to catch up with my ears. I have no idea what to say—no idea what to think. Everything she just said stands in direct opposition to everything I thought I knew about her.
“Yep.” She nods, one hand tracing the seam that runs down the side of her black, leather leggings, the other pushing through a chunk of hair that used to be pink but is now bleached platinum to match the surrounding strands. “It’s all taken care of. So go pack up your things so we can get a move on. I’ve got a rental car waiting with a full tank of gas. And for once in my life, jet lag seems to be working for me—I plan to drive through the night.”
She flicks her fingers, gesturing for me to get crackin’, but I just stand before her, rooted in place. “No,” I say, hating how small the word sounded. I chase it with a much stronger chorus of, “Forget it, Jennika. Uh-uh. There’s no way.”
She tilts her head, eyelids squinching as she appraises me. “Is this about the boy?” The tone of her voice implying she’s convinced that it is.
“What? No!” I shake my head, assuring myself it’s not at all about the boy—has nothing to do with Dace. It’s about my duties as a Seeker—something I’m not about to confide to her. For one thing, she’d reject it outright, refuse to believe—wouldn’t even try to understand. For another, she’d fear for my safety, end all negotiations, and insist that I leave. As long as she doesn’t know, there’s still hope—and when she’s acting like this, hope is all I can cling to.
She moves toward me, her face softening along with her tone. “Daire, you can tell me. I get it. Believe me, I do. It’s not like I didn’t see him. It’s not like I’m blind. He’s gorgeous. Exactly what teenage dreams are made of. Falling for a boy like that is easy to do. But make no mistake, a boy like that has heartbreaker written all over him, and the last thing I want is for you to get hurt—or worse.”
I glare, my face a mask of defiance, hating her words. Partly because I don’t want to believe them and partly because I fear that they’re true. “By worse, you mean pregnant? Like when you got knocked up with me at sixteen?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Is that such a bad thing?” She fiddles with the long line of small silver hoops that hang from her multipierced ear—a sure sign she’s searching for just the right words. “Look, Daire, as much as I don’t regret having you—not for one single second—I don’t want you to end up sixteen and pregnant like I did. Is that such a crime?”
I roll my eyes and look away. We’ve had this talk countless times, starting way back when I was too young to hear it and it bordered on wildly inappropriate. “It’s not like that,” I say. “He’s not like that. You’ve got it all wrong.”
But no sooner are the words out when I realize I waltzed straight into her trap. Her eyes widening, lips curling in triumph when she says, “How would you know? I thought you just met him today?”
I turn away. So annoyed I have to fight to keep quiet—keep the storm of angry retorts confined to my head.