Chameleon (Supernaturals) (52 page)

“Yeah,” Gina said brightly. “We’ll help you however we can.”

“Plus you have me.”

Gabriel looked up at me then. I was the one thing that could make him smile. “I do have you,” he said, taking me firmly in his arms.

“And you have me.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As always, I have to thank Josh—the great and powerful man behind the curtain. Thank you for the amazing covers, all the story notes, and especially for taking over some of the mommy hours so that I can have time to write. Without you my writing career wouldn’t be possible.

To my editor, Mary L. Holden, never stop leaving your tangents in my manuscript notes. I love them! Thank you for all of your hard work and encouragement. Your faith in me is astounding.

Thank you to my wonderful beta readers! To Robin and DeeDee—you’ll have to flip a coin to see who gets to be the captain of Team Russ. And to all the rest of the book ladies, thank you all for being my guinea pigs and loving me even though you always get the worst drafts of my books.

And a special thank you to Vonnie for hating the first ending. The new one is a bazillion times better!

EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK: MORE THAN JAMIE BAKER (Jamie Baker #2), coming January 2014!

CHAPTER 1

Hello, my name is Jamie Baker
, and I am not a superhero.

I repeat: I am
not
a superhero.

Sure, I may have more in common with your friendly neighborhood Spiderman than say, anyone else on the entire planet, but having superpowers doesn’t make you a hero. Superheroes use their power for the good of mankind. I only use mine to score excellent takeout and eavesdrop on entertaining conversations.

Oh, I tried to do the right thing once. I saved a guy’s life even. But in the end all that got me was a bruised up shoulder, and a lot of unwanted attention from an obsessed scientist who nearly killed my boyfriend. So, yeah, that was the end of my superhero career. Or, at least it was until I was involved in the third accident of my life. Well, I should say
wasn’t
involved this time, but for me that’s basically the same thing.

Oddly enough, this story starts with Mike Driscoll, the same moron who started all the trouble last time when he bet my now boyfriend, Ryan Miller, that he couldn’t get the school outcast—me—to kiss him.

Granted, that bet turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Not that I’d ever admit that to Mike, because for all the joy he indirectly caused in my life, he was also directly responsible for all the pain and suffering of my best friend. The same pain and suffering that we were coincidently talking about when we ran into the jerk a couple of weeks into our first semester of college.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Becky tugged on the hem of her skirt as if she could magically make it grow another six inches in length.

“Beck, we’ve been over this a million times. Cheering is in your blood. You’d be miserable if you didn’t do it.”

“But you said you would do it with me.”

“That was before I decided to go pre-law. There’s no way I’ll have the time for cheering with as much reading as I’m going to have.”

This wasn’t exactly true. You know that bit about superspeed? Yeah, it
so
works with reading. Can we say awesome? The
not
awesome part about it is that I have to keep up the pretense of being normal, which means that Becky has to think I’m still spending all my time studying.

“Everybody’s looking at me,” Becky whined, giving her skirt another tug.

“As they should be, you look hot in that outfit. In fact, maybe we should use this opportunity to land you a date tonight.”

I held my breath as I waited for Becky’s response to my statement. Just about a year ago she’d gone to Homecoming with Mike Driscoll and he’d taken advantage of her after the dance in the worst possible way. She hadn’t been on a date since then, but I knew she was ready to move on. She just needed a little push.

She rolled her eyes as if I were being ridiculous, but there was a slight tremble in her voice when she said, “A date? You sound like my therapist.”

“Really? Your doctor must be a genius.”

Becky snorted.

“Seriously though Becky, it’s time to put yourself out there again. You’re ready.”

Becky let out a long, heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I want to, but then I try to talk to some of the guys on the team and I freak out.” She sounded sad, defeated. “Maybe I’ll never be ready.”

“Maybe you’re just looking at it from the wrong perspective,” I said. “What if, instead of talking to football players, we find you a nice lovable non-threatening geek?”

I scanned the quad and found what I was looking for leaning against the side of the admin building. “Someone like him, for example. I mean, look at that guy. You could totally take him if he tried anything.”

“Jamie!” Becky gasped, horrified. “Don’t
point
at him!” She practically ripped my arm off trying to remove the offending finger. “Oh, my gosh, he saw you! He’s… Is he laughing at us?”

I looked over and sure enough he was laughing at us. Well, and why not? Becky was only
spazzing out
.

“What? It’s fine,” I said. “So what if he knows we’re talking about him? He’s probably flattered that a couple of girls like us are checking him out. Look, he’s kind of adorable. Let’s go ask him out. What guy could say no to a college girl in a cheer skirt?”

I turned the direction of the guy in question and Becky went into full panic mode. “No! Wait!” she pleaded, grinding her feet into the ground. “Please don’t. I can’t!”

She wasn’t kidding. Her heart rate had skyrocketed and she was starting to sweat.

I was torn between feeling bad for her and wanting to kill the jerk responsible for making her this way.

Becky misunderstood my frown and got defensive. “It’s a statistical fact that one out of every four girls will be sexually assaulted in college,” she said. “One out of eight, raped.”

I was familiar with the statistics. “I know,” I said gently. “But it’s also true that ninety percent of all campus rapes occur while the victim is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. You don’t drink anymore. Nor do you do drugs. You also know all the party safety rules, you carry mace with you everywhere, and we took self defense classes all summer long. There is no way it will ever happen to you again. You know it won’t. That’s why we’ve been doing all of this.”

Becky didn’t argue because she knew I was right. She’d loved the self-defense classes and had spent the entire summer telling me how much stronger and safer they made her feel.

“I know it’s scary getting back out there for the first time,” I said. “Remember, I’ve been exactly where you are.” I smiled and nudged her with my elbow. “Except I didn’t have an awesome best friend willing to kill anyone who looked at me wrong.”

Becky couldn’t hold her pout. The twitch of her lips gave away her amusement. She knew she was busted so she said, “If I
do
start dating again, you aren’t allowed to scare off anyone unless I give you permission first.”

I grinned. “No promises.”

Becky gave me a dry look but she finally cracked a smile. I was happy to see it. It was proof that she really was ready. “I’ve got your back,” I said. “You’re not in this alone. And I’m telling you, you should start by asking out Mr. Adorkable over there. He looks like the kind of guy that would hero worship his hot cheerleader girlfriend. You know, geeky but cute? He’d probably treat you like a princess, and, come on, with dimples like those, how could you refuse?”

We reached the edge of campus and headed toward the main intersection separating the school from the football stadium. Becky squinted back at the boy across the quad and asked, “Dimples? How can you possibly see that?”

Oops. I’m usually so cautious about not spilling the beans about my abilities, but ever since Ryan found out about them I’ve spent a lot more time being myself. It’s making me careless.

I’m a little worried about rooming with Becky. My parents suggested I get a single room, but Becky needed me and I couldn’t bail on her. I’m just going to have to be more careful. Or tell her. Honestly, that’s a possibility I’ve been thinking a lot about.

It’s been drilled into me since the day I realized I was different that rule number one is: DO NOT TELL PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR SUPERPOWERS. Not just from my parents. Watch any superhero movie. Read any comic book. Secret keeping is superhero safety 101.

But Ryan knows about me and that’s turned out okay. Well, except for that one time where someone almost killed him in order to get to me. But come on. How often can super villains really plague your life?

Anyway, I might be considering telling Becky the truth, but right now, on the way to her first game as a college cheerleader, would not be the time to drop that kind of bomb on her, so instead of explaining my excellent eyesight I gave her a dismissive shrug.

“Maybe the dimples were more noticeable when he was laughing. So adorable though. Look, he’s still watching us. Let’s go say hi. We can just talk to him. Take baby steps. You don’t have to ask him out unless you feel comfortable, and even then we can both invite him to some kind of group thing. You know, the whole he’d-be-there-and-you’d-be-there-but-it-wouldn’t-really-be-a-date thing.”

I tugged on Becky’s arm and she actually managed a few steps before putting on the breaks this time.

“Seriously, Becky, what are you so afraid of?”

“Mike,” she breathed.

I had to hold back a groan. I understood this was hard for her, but I’m not exactly known for my patience. “Did we not just go through all this like five seconds ago?”

“No!” Becky insisted. She tugged on my arm and pointed across the street. “It’s Mike!”

She was right. Mike Driscoll was entering the crosswalk, heading right toward us.

I didn’t need supersight to see the way he stumbled, and I definitely didn’t need heightened senses to smell the alcohol seeping out of his pours. The guy was wasted.

He reached the street corner at the same time we did and blinked twice when he recognized us. “Well, well, well,” he slurred, “if it isn’t the Prom Queen and her best friend the Ice Queen.”

Just so you’re aware, I may have been dating the Prom King, but I was not the one given a crown at the school dance. Becky’s the Prom Queen. My royalty status comes from my tendency to be cold hearted, aloof, and, temperamental.

Not that I enjoyed being a social outcast in high school, but I hadn’t had control of my powers yet and in order not to kill or be killed I was forced to exile myself. My classmates translated my behavior into the nickname the Ice Queen.

But, thanks to Ryan, I have control now, so I’m totally turning over a new leaf. Which I proved when I didn’t automatically hit Mike or zap him to death. I didn’t even sneer…much. “What are you doing here?”

“I
was
trying to go to my econ lecture,” Mike said. “But apparently the school has a ‘No Learning While Drunk’ policy, so now I am on my way to my dorm to sleep it off.”

Becky gasped in dread. “You
go
here?”

I have to admit I found the news highly disturbing as well. “I thought you were going to Connecticut?”

Mike tried to shrug. It threw off his impaired equilibrium enough to make him stumble back a step. “Blew out my knee over the summer. Lost my scholarship. Bye bye UConn. Hello Suckramento State.”

For a split second Mike’s face crumpled with pure regret before he plastered his trademark hard smirk back on it. The devastation, along with the public drunkenness, was almost enough to make me feel some sort of pity.

Almost.

Apparently Becky wasn’t as conflicted as me. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and gave Mike a glare that could destroy a person’s soul. I know because she used to glare at me like that. It was nice not to be on the receiving end of it now.

Mike attempted to sober up. “Beck.”

I don’t know what pissed me off the most, the soft tone of his voice, the use of her nickname, or the fact that he reached his hand out to her.

I reacted on instinct. A fistful of his shirt, and a sweep of his feet, and I had him on the ground before he got within an inch of her.

“Whoa,” came an unfamiliar male voice from over my shoulder.

I didn’t bother to see who was behind me—my eyes were glued to my target—but Becky gave him a nervous explanation. “We took self defense classes this summer.”

“Must have had quite the instructor,” the stranger muttered.

I heard Becky’s uneasy laugh at the same time that Mike groaned. “Geez, Baker. Take it easy!”

If he could still talk I was being too nice. I applied the tiniest bit of pressure to his chest—enough to make him feel the discomfort despite the numbing effect of all the alcohol in his system.

Okay, so some old habits die hard. My temper wasn’t perfect yet. But at least I hadn’t done any permanent damage, even though I
really
wanted to.