The Sight Seer (20 page)

Chapter
Thirty-seven

At lunch on Monday I was cornered by Penny, who forced Harrison to sit with his other friends so the two of us could have some girl time. Which, I had to admit, was largely overdue. I mean, had I ever just sat there and gushed about a boy to her? Not in this lifetime, at least. Penny was super supportive and happy for me, but she noticed I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I should have been and asked what was wrong.

“Chloe,” I sighed.
A look of understanding flashed across my best friend’s face; she knew all about Chloe’s ways. I quickly filled her in on the Evan drama, and how she currently hated me for trying to protect her.

Pen wound a curl around her finger, looking thoughtful.
“Don’t get mad at me, but I can kind of see her point.” She held up her hand when I started to protest. “No, I mean, I get what you’re saying and I’m on your side, especially if Rafe says Evan isn’t good for Chloe. But that’s for Chloe to decide, isn’t it?”

“I just don’t want her to get hurt,” I replied.
“She still hasn’t gotten over Christian.” My gaze shifted across the lunchroom to where he sat, surrounded by his gang of loyal fans. Stacey was nowhere to be seen and I wondered if he had dropped her like all his other flavors of the week. See, that was what I was trying to protect Chloe from! Evan may not have been nasty or full of himself like Christian, but if he ever hurt her, I would never be able to forgive him. And that would create all sorts of problems considering he was best friends with Rafe. I definitely didn’t want to put Rafe in the middle of this.

“The girl needs to learn from her mistakes,” Penny said.
She picked up a carrot from her salad and munched on it thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, she didn’t learn from Christian, but a girl can get burned only so many times before she learns to stop chasing the playboys around.”

I stole a carrot and gestured dramatically with it.
“But I don’t want her to get burned!”

“Which brings us back to my original point of Chloe being right in regards to one thing.”
Pen leaned back in her seat. “You’re not her mother, Gabi.”

I felt my cheeks heat up in shame.
“I know that. I
know
, but sometimes I forget, anyway.” I smiled wistfully. “I just want to protect my baby sister. Is that so wrong?”

“Absolutely not.
And she’ll thank you for it someday. Just not now, when’s she an angry teen. Just back off and let her figure things out. When she realizes Evan isn’t interested, she’ll get the hint.”

And move on to her next guy of choice.
Which—no. It wasn’t my concern. I wasn’t her mother. Maybe if I kept repeating that to myself, I’d eventually learn to back off.

* * *

I listened to Pen and gave Chloe space, but that ended up blowing in my face as well. She came into my room on Wednesday evening when I was trying to finish my history homework and started accusing me of keeping Evan from her.

“First of all,” I said after I slammed my textbook closed with an extra loud bag, “Evan is not
mine
to give and keep. Second of all, has it ever occurred to you that maybe he’s busy? I haven’t seen Rafe since Saturday, and I’m not running around screaming at people, am I?”

Her hands balled into fists.
“Why won’t you just admit you’re interfering, Gabi?”

“God, you are so annoying!” I shouted, throwing my hands above my head in defeat.
“You saw the guy once and now you won’t shut up about him! What would have happened if Evan hadn’t shown up, Chloe? Would you be acting this way towards Rafe? Trying to steal him from me?”

Her face turned white.
“I would never do that.” But we both knew she had started flirting with him, before Evan had appeared, and it made me angry that she was lying about it. What, did she think I didn’t care?

I laughed bitterly.
“Is that so?” I turned my back to her, staring at the jumble of homework on my desk. “Look, Chloe, I don’t want to talk about Evan anymore. Just trust me when I say the right thing to do is forget about him.”

“You have no right to decide what’s right and wrong for me!
Something could have happened between the two of us, but now I’ll never know because you chased him away!” Her voice caught, and I turned to see her eyes wet with tears. “What did you tell him about me, Gabi? That I’m a slut?”

“What?
No!” I said, stunned. “Is that something you’d think I’d say about you? You’re my sister, Chloe; I love you!”

“If you loved me then you would be helping me instead of ruining my life!”

I rolled my eyes at her dramatics, which was absolutely the worst thing to do. Before I could stop her, she picked up a potted spider plant that was sitting on the top of my dresser and flung it as hard as she could against the wall. With a loud crash it broke into a million pieces, dirt and pottery scattering everywhere. I stared at her, my mouth open in shock.

A minute later Dad came tearing into the room, demanding to know what was going on.
I stood up abruptly, grabbing my phone, bag, and the baseball cap I had taken from Rafe after our trip to the mall. “I’m going out,” I told him, pointedly ignoring Chloe.

He looked from the
ruined plant to the two of us and blinked. “What?”

“I’m going out,” I repeated, my words cold and precise.
I didn’t even sound like myself. “If I stay in this house one more moment, I swear I will go crazy. Dad, please.”

“It’s a school night.”

“I know, and I won’t be any later than ten. Please, Dad.”

Dad wasn’t stupid.
He knew there had been tension after the dinner on Saturday night, and that as a result, Chloe and I weren’t speaking. I’m even sure he knew what we were fighting about. He hadn’t approached me about it, which was surprising, but I could see in the half a minute that it took him to answer me that he came to the decision that it was time to have a serious talk with Chloe. And after her, me.

So I wasn’t expecting him to let me go out (grounding me would have made more sense, even if I wasn’t the one to hurl the plant across the room), and yet all he said was, “Be back by ten.”
Then he marched Chloe out of my room and took her to her bedroom to talk.

I quickly texted Rafe one word: Help.

He called back immediately, probably thinking I was getting attacked by Boneless. “What’s wrong?” His voice was urgent, scared.

“Are you busy?
Can you come and get me? Right now?” Unshed tears made my voice break and I heard Rafe inhale sharply.

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

Putting the cap on, I didn’t even bother to check out my reflection in the mirror, so tired and upset that I was past the point of caring. I picked up my poor plant and replanted it in a spare, plastic pot I fished out of my closet. There were still large clumps of dirt on my rug, but I would vacuum it up later.

Grabbing my jacket, I went downstairs and waited on the porch for Rafe to pull up.
The moment he did, I was practically sprinting down the stairs and walkway, opening the door and diving in. I stared straight ahead, chewing on my lip so he wouldn’t see it trembling.

He was silent for a full minute before reaching over and taking my hand in his.
“What happened?”

“Can you drive?” I asked in a small voice.
“Can you just drive and drive and take me away from all of this?” I shut my eyes, hitting my head hard against the headrest. Rafe started the car, but didn’t let go of my hand. “God, you try to do the right thing, and it comes out wrong, anyway. What the hell is the point, Rafe?”

“You want to protect her.
There’s nothing wrong with that.”

How did he even know what I was talking about?
Then again, what else would I mean?

I sighed.
“Apparently there is. I should have just told Evan to have fun with her, and then stand around picking up the pieces after her heart was broken.”

“That wouldn’t have happened,” Rafe said.
“Evan would have never taken it anywhere.”

“And Chloe would have blamed me for that, too.”

“Maybe,” he said. “She’ll realize, someday, that you’re trying to keep her safe.”

I snorted.
“When? When we’re eighty?” I quickly filled him on our fight, ending with the plant throwing. “I just had to get out of there before I exploded.”

“How long before you have to go home?”
he asked and I told him. “So we have two whole hours to ourselves. I hereby declare a ban on all conversations involving little sisters.” He shot me a grin. “Alright?”

I nodded, giving him a small smile in return.
This was
exactly
what I needed.

We fell silent, watching the scenery as Rafe drove around town, finally ending up at a diner I sometimes came to with Dad and Chloe.
“This okay?” he asked before he turned the car off.

“Perfect.”

The air in the diner smelled of greasy hamburgers and fried food. Oldies were blaring from the radio, and a TV on mute hung from the ceiling, showing some old sitcom. The diner was mostly empty, but I spotted a few of my classmates as we made our way to a worn booth next to a large window that overlooked the darkened parking lot. We smiled or waved to one another, but no one approached us.
I guess Rafe and I are old news,
I thought ruefully as I flipped open my menu, going straight to the dessert page.

We sat on the same side of the booth, Rafe’s arm around my shoulders.
I took off his cap and placed it on the table in front of him, but he pushed it back to me with one finger. “I told you, it’s yours. You look really cute in it.”

Blushing, I realized I hadn’t kissed him yet tonight and quickly fixed that problem.

When the waitress came over, interrupting us with a polite cough, we ordered milkshakes and a slice of chocolate cake to share. She came back with the food and I took a big drink of my vanilla milkshake, instantly feeling better.

“Dessert solves everything,” Rafe said, watching me in amusement.

If only it were that easy
, I thought sadly. But he had banned talking about Chloe and I was determined to follow that rule. After taking a bite of cake and licking the frosting off of my fork, I said, “So I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. What’s been going on?”

He enthusiastically filled me in on an impromptu baseball game he had played earlier that afternoon.
His team had won in the last inning with one out left, thanks to him. He looked so proud that I couldn’t help but grin.

“I can’t wait to see you play in the spring.”

“I can’t wait to have my girlfriend watching me play,” he replied.

I lowered my voice.
“How’s the hunting going?”

He sobered immediately.
“There’s been nothing. No leads, no sign of, err, Boneless, and Evan hasn’t Seen any other demons in disguise.”

“What are the odds we’ll See one tonight?” I asked, sounding a bit grumpy.

“Didn’t you know? I’m off duty tonight. Taking my girlfriend out for a nice dessert, then driving her home before her dad comes after me with his shotgun.”

I poked him in the side.
“I told you, no gun!”

“Okay, then maybe a knife from the kitchen.
They
were
pretty sharp-looking.”

“You!
” I rolled my eyes before turning serious once more. “But is it weird that you haven’t seen anything? This town is crawling with demons and then…nothing?”

“The nest could have moved.”

“Does that happen often? I mean, you said a powerful sorcerer summons a lot of demons and creates the nest, right? Will the sorcerer move the nest?”

Rafe was silent for a moment, processing my question.
“It’s possible. If all these demons are from the same nest, then I’ve killed three so far, and wounded a fourth. Err, half of one? Not sure if Boneless counts as two demons or just one.” He shook his head, getting back on subject. “Anyway, if the sorcerer doesn’t want a confrontation, then the smart thing to do would be to move.”

“And the other option?”

“Luring me to the nest so we could fight,” Rafe said. “If the sorcerer doesn’t believe they can beat the hunter, they’ll move on. But if they’re confident in their abilities, which they usually are, then they would try to trap me.”

I shivered, pressing closer to Rafe.
“I hope they moved somewhere else.” Then I realized the implications of that. “No, wait—if they moved, then others would get hurt, because they wouldn’t have a member of Silver Moon protecting them.” I stared into his troubled eyes. “I don’t want that.”

“Neither do I,” he confessed, “which is why I’m trying damn hard to find their nest before they take off, if they haven’t already.
I’ll keep looking, extending my search to the neighboring towns, but if they got away—” He broke off, jaw clenched tightly. I wondered if he was thinking about his parents, and the demon that got away that day.