On my to-do list, I write out my next task: confront Theo. If anybody was watching me, it was him. Enough to notice that I skipped class. I caught him coming out of his room on the eastern wing. He drew back with a start.
“God, you scared the shit out of me,” he complained with a groan. It was odd to see such a large guy scared of someone like me, but I wasn’t there to be distracted.
“Do you have a message system between one another?” I asked quickly. “How did they know I was skipping class?”
His eyes clouded with anger. “It’s not a system. I—” He slammed his mouth shut as he realized that he said too much. Good. This was what I wanted. I pounced and drew myself closer to him.
“Why are you spying on me?”
His mouth flapped between open and closed. “Spying?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
And in the same way that I could hear the voice from my vision with Dracus, like it was with Jasper, I see the man again clearly in my mind. He’s opening the gate. He’s leading me by the hand. To water. Water that looks familiar.
“One day, you’ll go here, Fiona.”
Theo’s face came back into view. I stumbled backward, clutching my head. He reached out for me.
“Fiona—”
“No,” I said and threw my hands up. “I don’t trust you.”
It’s the cruelest thing I could think of to say. I stalked down the hall, where I saw a glimmer of blonde hair in the garden. Good. My second task on the to-do list.
***
I downed one of the calming agents and headed for the resident flirt of the Core Council. He was outside, sunning himself like a cat. Shirtless. My eyes glazed over as I caught sight of his glorious tanned skin.
Nope. Not to be distracted.
“You’ve got great hair,” I told him, standing over him so that I cast a shadow on his face. He squinted upward with a scowl.
“I know,” he said. “What do you want?” His smile broke into something more devious. He lifted himself up to recline back on his arms. “Already pining for me?”
I dropped down to him. “I found a blonde hair on my desk after my room was broken in.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Jasper.”
“He’s got a red tint to his, and an innocent person would’ve argued more before blaming another person,” I sniffed. “What did you find?”
To my utter annoyance, he smiled languidly. “Nothing.”
In a moment, as I suspected, his face was gone. Again, the stain of black encircled me. Again, I saw the man’s face. Again, I saw him leading me out further to the water. Now, I saw myself turning to regard a familiar-looking wall…
“Dad,” I heard myself call out.
This man. Could he really be my true father?
I blinked and Enrique was back, staring at me with the same unhurried beauty. These boys were frustrating. I stood, giving him a nice view of my legs as I stalked away. Before I get too far, I made sure to call over my shoulder, “I was bluffing, by the way.” I heard him curse underneath his breath.
In truth, I realized that I smelled Enrique’s signature cologne that night, but I didn’t want him to know that. Maybe he would slip up again someday.
When I got back to my room, I noticed that the air was different. Not Enrique’s cologne. No, a familiar smell, yet something I couldn’t place. I wanted to bang my head against a wall. What was happening to me lately? These visions, my memories…Everything seemed mixed up.
The shifters that rescued me from the fire and those murderers…They said that my parents likely adopted me.
Was that man from my visions my true father?
Something was different about the room, I realized with a start. My eyes swung from my bed to my study area.
A note sat on my desk. My heart thundered in my chest as I reached for it. Short and sweet.
◆
Meet me in the garden at midnight.
Yours,
Mr. X
◆
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