Rooming with the Wicked

29 | invisible what?

Haze cursed from my right and made to step in front of me, but not before I saw a cluster of three different flags—purple, blue, and white—floating toward us.

I closed my eyes and opened them. Nope. Still floating flags. Bobbing up and down rhythmically about three feet off the ground.

I risked a glance at Haze who, much to my surprise, didn't look caught off guard. Not one bit. If anything, he looked annoyed.

Annoyed?

"Please... Please tell me you're seeing this too?"

"Trust me, I wish you weren't," he breathed. If that wasn't weird enough already, he snapped his fingers and the flags flew right over to him.

I rubbed my eyes.

I was going crazy. That was the only rational explanation.

"Haze... If you don't tell me what the hell I'm seeing right now, I swear—"

"Cupcake, if you're gonna threaten me, at least put in some actual effort."

If there wasn't the off chance that we'd run into another team sooner or later, I would have tossed the vial of newly improved Crescetra I'd stuffed into my pocket earlier at him right here and now.

"Haze."

"It's just my pet. Her name's Susie."

Susie? That was...kind of a cute name.

"Your...pet?" I asked slowly.

"I don't know what you're so freaked out about," he sighed. "Never seen an invisible hellhound before?"

"Invisible... invisible—what?"

"Hellhound," he repeated nonchalantly.

Hellhound. Haze had a hellhound. A hellhound that was invisible. And her name was Susie.

"You..." I stared at the space next to him. "Have an... What?"

"Get it together, Cupcake. We're about to have company."

"Has... Has she been living with us the entire time?"

"Yes." He turned to the floating flags and got to his knees. "For some strange reason, she seems to like you."

Alright, so my demon roomie's invisible dog from Infernis liked me. Okay, I could accept that. Suddenly, Jake's reaction in alchemy class made so much more sense. And so did the paw print just outside of my niche. I'd obviously never seen a hellhound before and there was surprisingly little about them in most of the books I'd read, but they weren't pets. And as far as I knew, they didn't leave Infernis.

Wait a second...

"For some strange reason?" I echoed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

A soft splash sounded from behind me. The creek we'd just passed wasn't far, but that meant we were no longer alone.

Haze dark eyes snapped to me. His face an unreadable mask, he gave a slight nod to the fallen tree in front of me. If he thought I was about to hide behind that while he and his invisible pet—that still sounded insane in my head—did all the fighting, he was dead wrong. I didn't have my backpack, so what? I still had one Liquid Ice and the Crescetra on hand.

When I didn't move, Haze's nostrils flared.

Somehow knowing that he couldn't argue with me this time without exposing us both, brought me a tiny bit of satisfaction.

Not the time, Ariel.

His death glare said the same thing.

He whistled quietly and, with a snap of his fingers, the glowing flags were dropped at my feet.