The Inner Circle, Book 3 of the Glass Wall ( A YA Urban Fantasy Romance ) (5 page)

Her shoulders stiffened and she looked a
little sheepish, but she took my words as an invitation and flopped
down belly first onto the bed. “Yeah,” she admitted with a grin.
“He kind of grows on you.” And then she surprised me with the
question, “What’s up between you and Rafael?”

I frowned.

“Come on,” Grace insisted, rolling onto her
back and propping herself up on her elbows. “I know you two like
each other. It’s obvious. Everyone knows.”

I just shrugged. The thought only made my
heart even heavier.

“Lover’s quarrel?” she asked, teasing.

I was saved answering by the musical ringtone
of her phone playing one of Jareth’s songs. I couldn’t help but
roll my eyes at that.

Glancing down at her phone, she announced,
“It’s Ellison.”

“Well then, don’t worry about me,” I said,
relieved to escape her questioning. Grabbing the nearest book, I
waved it in the air. “I’m just going to make a dent in this book
here and go to sleep.”

“
Pride and Prejudice
?” she said,
squinting her eyes to read the title. And then she laughed. “You’ll
be asleep in five minutes!” She moved to the door, but before she
left, she twisted around and added, “Oh, just kiss and make up with
Rafael. You two are a really good match.”

I scowled as she giggled, and with a cheerful
wave, skipped out of my room.

Rubbing my temples, I stared at my
handwriting scrawled across my notebook.

How was I going to spy on the Inner Circle
and outwit them?

Closing my eyes, I began to rub my temples,
when I suddenly realized that Grace had just given me my
answer.

Rafael had apparently been using me.

It was time for me to flip the tables and use
him.

Yes, it
was
time to kiss and make
up.

The more I
thought about the idea, the more I liked it.

Grabbing the hand mirror Rafael had given me,
I stared into it. I knew it was Fae technology, but I wasn’t sure
how to activate it. Hopefully, he hadn’t gotten my message from
before where I’d called him a jerk.

Finally, I just looked at my reflection and
said, “Rafael, we need to talk. I want to help. I’m sure you’re
doing the right thing, even if I don’t understand it.”

I stared at my reflection, a little surprised
at how genuinely heartfelt that had sounded, but I chalked it up to
burgeoning acting abilities, tucked the mirror back into my drawer,
and turned away.

With any luck, he’d get the message, and I’d
be able to start snooping on him.

After a while, I remembered my golden Fae
bracelet, and bringing it close to my mouth, I repeated the same
message just in case it worked along the same lines as the
mirror.

I tried to contact Jareth several times after
that, thinking to myself the sequence of numbers that had always
worked before.

But he didn’t come. I wasn’t really
surprised.

It was getting late, and everyone was getting
ready for bed. And as they settled down for the night, I decided to
quickly check on them all under the guise of asking questions about
minutiae.

Poking my head into Grace’s room, I inquired,
“And what time did Ellison say he was coming again?”

She looked pleased at the excuse to text him
again, and then grinned up at me. “Eight sharp!”

“Nite,” I said, closing the door.

Al and Betty’s door was wide open, and they
were both in bed reading.

“Need anything? Like water … or anything…?” I
asked them. It sounded a bit lame, but I was still kind of worried
about Betty, so it wasn’t all pretense.

“I’m fine, dear,” Betty said with a friendly
wave as Al peered up from his book with a strong, “Sweet dreams,
kiddo!”

I even wandered into the kitchen to check on
Tigger. As usual, he was snoring in front of the refrigerator.

Returning to my room, I sat there in the
darkness, hugging my knees and clenching Jareth’s protection rune
tightly in my hand.

Silence fell.

The protection rune was cool against my skin.
I supposed that meant the Mesmers were nowhere around.

After a few minutes, I got up to turn my lamp
back on before crawling back to huddle on the bed. I tried to think
of other things, but it was hard not to be afraid. Very hard.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep,
because I woke up feeling icy cold and as if fingers were creeping
up my arm.

With a strangled gasp, I leapt out of
bed.

But there was nothing there.

Again, I tried to call Jareth by thinking of
his numbers, but he didn’t show up.

My clock said it was just past midnight and I
frowned. I still had a long way to go before dawn.

I missed Ajax. As obnoxious as he was, I’d
always felt safe when he slept in my room.

But then, I
did
have Tigger.

Creeping into the kitchen, I found the old
bloodhound still snoring where I’d left him. Fortunately, he woke
up at the first whiff of hot dog, and I was successful in luring
him into my room with a trail of tiny hot dog pieces which led all
the way to the foot of my bed.

Devouring the last piece, Tigger happily
wagged his tail and sank down into the middle of the room, quite
content to stay and keep me company.

“I love you, Tigger,” I whispered, snagging
my pillow and lying down on the floor next to him.

He was soft and warm. And within minutes, his
paws were twitching and his mouth grinned. I knew he was dreaming,
but I didn’t think it was that cliché dog dream of running with his
tongue flapping in the wind. When he began to lick his lips I knew
for sure he was dreaming about a hot dog.

I didn’t feel quite as safe as I did with
Ajax, but then, Tigger exuded a warm, fuzzy feeling that I didn’t
get from the Doberman. I wasn’t entirely confident the old
bloodhound could protect me from Mesmers, but I hoped the Mesmers
thought he could.

I lay there listlessly on the floor, but my
mind refused to rest.

I felt like I was being watched. But there
was nothing there ... that I could see.

In the effort to relax, I forced my thoughts
to think of a bright future, one where everything worked out all
right. One in which the Mesmers were forced back into their
dimension, and humans on Earth realized they didn’t have to live
with so much fear. And one in which Rafael definitely was one of
the good guys.

I tossed and turned for what seemed like
hours. But whenever I checked the time, about only twenty minutes
had passed.

Still, I found the more I occupied myself
with that happy dream of the future, the less time I had to feel
afraid.

Finally, the night passed in a fitful jumble
of thoughts and dreams. And when the morning light finally painted
the sky, I sat up, my back stiff from sleeping on the floor.

Tigger was still cuddled up next to me, his
paws still twitching contentedly.

Lifting one of his long, droopy ears, I
whispered, “Thank you.”

And then I got up and dragged myself to look
into the mirror.

“So, this is what an insane person looks
like, Sydney,” I said, eyeing the big, purple rings under my
eyes.

It didn’t take me long to get ready for work.
Pulling on my scuffed tennis shoes and a gray hoodie, I went to the
kitchen for a piece of toast.

The kitchen was quiet. Everyone else was
sleeping in. The open doorway leading to the garage was
crisscrossed with Al’s ‘Crime Scene’ tape.

It leant such an eerie atmosphere to the room
that I gave up the toast idea and ducked outside to wait for
Ellison on the porch.

A quick peek across the street revealed no
sign of Rafael nor of the garden troll that had turned into the man
with the black top hat.

I stayed where I was, wondering if Rafael had
ever gotten my message. Or if he even cared.

But I refused to think too much about it.

My first order of business was to figure out
how to protect everyone from Mesmer mind control. Running back into
the house, I grabbed my notebook and rolled it into my sweatshirt
pocket.

I was going to do some more research on my
lunch break.

I heard Ellison’s Volkswagen long before I
saw it. And when I did see it, it was sliding all over the road.
Apparently, the slushy snow from the day before had hardened into
ice.

As he neared the driveway, Mrs. Patton
appeared at the door of her big pink Victorian house and waved,
calling out a ‘Good Morning’ in her raspy smoker’s voice.

I waved back, eyeing her
lawn-ornament-stuffed yard in consternation. I’d come to think of
it as a Mesmer playground. She watched me get into Ellison’s car
through glasses that made her eyes appear twice as big as they
actually were.

“Top o’ the morning to ye,” Ellison greeted
me with a grin as I slid into the front seat. “Buckle up, it’s
gonna be a rough slide.”

“Slide?” I laughed.

It
was
a slide. Ellison’s car was more
of an oversized skateboard than a real car. But we made it to the
coffee shop just in time for Ellison’s shift. Mine started half an
hour later.

“I’m going to make myself some iced tea,” I
said, reaching for the door latch.

But Ellison laid a restraining hand on my
arm. Looking at me with a sternness that didn’t match his easygoing
character, he said, “Grace told me that you might be going through
a rough patch. Anything I can help with?”

I stared up into his earnest brown eyes, and
I couldn’t help but smile. He was a true friend. “I’m fine,” I
said, forcing a bright smile.

The last thing I needed was Ellison getting
mixed up in all of this. I certainly didn’t want him getting
hurt.

“Helloooooo, secrets!” he said with a mock
resigned expression. But then added, “Seriously, if you need
anything, let me know. What else are friends for if they can’t get
your back?”

“I’m fine, really,” I insisted, hoping I
sounded strong and confident.

I didn’t think he believed me, but I took the
opportunity to escape into Samantha’s coffee shop.

Hanging my hoodie up in the backroom, I put
on my apron and headed up front.

Samantha’s coffee shop,
Bean There, Baked
That
, was a warm combination of modern art and good
old-fashioned comfort. The warm, chocolate-colored walls were
covered with abstract paintings, and each group of overstuffed
chairs boasted its own hand-blown blue glass lamp suspended over a
wooden coffee table.

An elegantly flocked Christmas tree with gold
ornaments stood in the window, and a string of matching gold
ornaments graced the espresso bar and pastry case.

I took a deep breath, savoring the aroma of
freshly ground coffee and then slipped behind the espresso bar.
After making my iced tea, I pressed the tall, cold glass against my
forehead and closed my eyes.

“Had breakfast yet?”

I looked up into Ellison’s irresistible
grin.

He thrust a toasted bagel with cream cheese
into my hands. “My treat,” he said.

I watched him walk away. “Thanks!” I yelled
belatedly after him.

It was then that I saw something out of the
corner of my eye.
Or I thought I did.
I could have sworn
that I’d seen a very tall man dressed in black, wearing a huge top
hat.

But when I whirled, I saw nothing.

I stood there, holding my breath.

“What’s up?” Ellison asked as he swept by,
balancing a bag of coffee beans on his shoulder.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. Too quickly.

Taking a bite of my bagel, I moved to the
nearest table and sat down, but I was so tense that I wasn’t sure
that I could swallow.

It took me a few minutes to convince myself
that it had just been my imagination. Mechanically taking another
bite of the bagel, I dutifully chewed, but I began to feel a lump
in my stomach and finally gave up.

Carefully wrapping the rest for later, I
watched Ellison with the customers.

He was a natural. This morning, he’d decided
to ask each of them what their favorite animal was, and then went
to great lengths to draw it on the paper cup before handing it off
to the barista. His drawings elicited laughs out of even the
grumpiest people.

Samantha loved him. Whenever she saw him, her
eyes crinkled up around the corners in her version of a smile. She
had come into the shop that morning, wearing a brown pantsuit and
with her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. And after
a brief inspection, she’d disappeared into the back.

I looked up to see Ellison watching me, drum
rolling on the register with his fingers. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
he asked with a quizzical smile

“Yeah,” I said, sounding as unconvincing as I
was.

His face shifted into an unusually serious
expression. “Do I need to do anything? Beat someone up?”

That thought made me smile. He was such a
congenial guy. “I could do that myself,” I said.

He eyed me up and down with a chuckle, and
then we both said at the same time, “Or we could call Grace.”

I started feeling better after that.

My shift started then, and I was happy to be
distracted from my thoughts. The baristas around me chattered with
Ellison. Listening to their cheerful banter, I began to bag the
pastries as directed when Samantha joined us from the back, her
arms full of pastry-order notebooks.

Catching sight of her, the baristas
scattered.

Pausing beside me, Samantha brushed back her
straight blonde hair and fixed her hawkish eyes at the door. “Here
comes trouble with a capital ‘T’,” she said with a shriveling
glare.

I glanced up to see Jareth stalking forward
amidst the sea of cyclists in their spandex outfits standing in
line to get their morning lattes.