to my room. After checking myself in the mirror, I gathered up all my magazines, my mini-video player, and a couple of books. Then I tucked Tasey and the knife into my belt and headed for Lend’s room.
I turned the corner just in time to see Jacques walking away. Perfect. I ran down the hall and ducked in. Lend was sitting on the bed eating lunch, wearing an attractive black guy. “Don’t you look nice today,” I said. He looked up, surprised, then smiled.
“What’re you doing here?”
I dumped my armful onto the floor. “I’m bored, you’re bored. Thought we could hang out.”
He narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t some bizarre good cop, bad cop thing?”
I laughed. “I don’t care what you tell or don’t tell Raquel. But you’re the only semi-human person here that’s my age, and I thought it would be fun to, you know, just hang out.” I was hit by a horrible thought: What if he didn’t want to hang out?
I mean, sure, there were worse things. Like if he was actually a psycho paranormal assassin and had been waiting for the perfect moment to kill me. But I didn’t think so. And somehow that would hurt my feelings less than if a teenage guy didn’t think I was cool enough to spend time with. Especially a teenage guy who could be cute in so many different ways.
To my relief he smiled again. “Sounds good.” He got off the bed and walked over, glancing through the magazines. “You like reading this stuff?” He raised an eyebrow at all the girly teen and star-stalking content.
“Hey, don’t judge. I happen to like popular culture. There’s a reason it’s popular, you know.”
He shook his head but looked amused. Picking up the mini-video player, he sat down on the floor with his back against the bed and started it up. “Do you have anything besides Easton Heights on here?”
“Easton Heights is the best show on television right now, bar none. But if it’s not good enough for you”—I sniffed haughtily—“then find the movie folder.” He laughed and the black guy melted off to be replaced by none other than Landon, the freaking hottest guy in the world and conniving lothario of Easton High. “Shut up!” I practically yelled. “That’s awesome!”
He laughed at my reaction, then went back to looking up movies. Part of me was giddy that I was sitting in a room with Landon. And the other part was still looking at Lend underneath, and actually liking his face a little bit better.
“Is there anyone you can’t do?” I asked, curious.
He shrugged. “I can’t do some paranormals. I also can’t go up or down in height more than a few inches, so I can’t be a little kid. Bulk’s about the same as height when it comes to stretching, so I couldn’t weigh three hundred pounds. And I can’t do your eyes.”
“So you keep saying,” I muttered. I lay down on my stomach, propped up on my elbows as I paged through one of the magazines. Lend settled on something and we spent the next hour in companionable silence. It was slightly dull and utterly normal. It rocked.
After a while I looked up and noticed a bunch of papers under his bed. “Oh, are those your drawings?” I grabbed them.
“Oh, I—don’t—” he said, but I had already started looking at them. He was amazing. He had drawn a portrait of Jacques that was so exact it could have been a photo. Apparently he could copy people on his own body and on paper. I flipped through to the next page and stopped. It was me.
“Holy crap, Lend, these are amazing. You’re really, really good.” He looked embarrassed, shrugging. “I mean, with a subject as cute as me, of course it’s going to turn out well, but still,” I teased. He smiled. Gosh, was I getting good at flirting, or what? You’d never know I only practiced during daydreams. I went back to the papers. Now it was my turn to be mildly embarrassed since the majority of the drawings were of me. Mildly embarrassed and really flattered. One of the last ones was a close-up of my face, focused on my eyes, which he had left unfinished.
Turning to the last drawing, I was surprised. He had been trying to draw himself—his real self—with much less success than all his other portraits. “You’ve got a stronger jawline, and your hair has a bit of wave to it.”
“You really can see me that well.” He sounded awed.
“It’s what I do.”
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you. What do you do? Why are you working here?”
“I help identify and bring in paranormals.”
“Do you have any other powers? Super strength or anything?”
I laughed. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That’s why I nearly got killed by a room full of vamps yesterday. Because I’m such an awesome fighter.” He looked confused. I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t have any powers. I’m normal, I can just see a little better than your average person.” I didn’t explain that I could see through all glamours, since that was classified information.
“How did they find you?”
“Long story. Or not so long. Just boring. I’ve been here since I was eight. There’s this whole international treaty that I’m pretty much the star of.”
“So they own you.”
“No! They don’t own me.”
“So you can leave any time you want?”
I gave him a funny look. “Why would I want to leave?”
“I don’t know—it just seems like you aren’t very … happy.”
“I’m plenty happy!” I said, frowning. “Besides, I do a lot of good. I’ve neutered—” He looked horrified, and I quickly corrected. “Neutralized! Like, made hundreds of vampires harmless over the last few years, identified werewolves before they could hurt themselves or others, helped track down a troll colony, and done countless other things to make the world a safer and more organized place.” Had I just said I made the world a more organized place? Wow. Lame.
“Could you leave if you wanted to?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with the topic. I had been pretty happy here for a long time, but ever since Reth, I’d been wondering more and more what my options were—and kind of worrying that I didn’t have any. It was easier not to think about it. No one else ever brought it up, and hearing it so bluntly from Lend made my stomach clench. “I don’t know. It’s safer for me here.”
“Safer for you, or safer for them?”
“Just drop it, would you? This is my job, my life. I’m fine with it.”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. It just seems to me like you’re more of a possession than an employee.”
“They can’t hold humans,” I snapped. “Under international regulations they’re only allowed to detain or monitor paranormals.”
He gave me that look again, the one he was so good at. I watched his water eyes; they were sad. “Evie, you aren’t exactly normal.”
Standing up in a huff, I gathered my
