Little Spark

29 - Get The Picture

"Alright. You keep my cousin's secret from your hellish homies, and I won't tell anybody about your sensitive side, deal?"

When he looks at me again, his eyes are sparkling. "Deal."

We settle into a comfortable silence as we stroll on, but the moment the clearing comes into view up ahead of us, the gloom of our reason for meeting crawls up my throat. I swallow, and it slithers into my muscles, making them tense up involuntarily. "So about where we're going...."

Reign listens intently as I tell him about the murder nightmare. When I get to the part about the vision of Cole and the killers at the fountain, his eyes shift from dazzling emerald to the color of crocodile skin. He looks over my face, his golden brows drawing together. "B, that sounds a lot like a flash," he says. "River used to have them all the time. You sure you're not a Clai—"

"I'm sure," I say. "It's impossible."

"Okay, New Girl," he shrugs. "I'm not surprised about what you saw though. I'm still amazed that guy is our mayor. And the fact that Oskur was elected before him?" He shakes his head. "I hate to say it, but if the dynasty passes to Maur, we're all doomed."

"Maur? As in Mauro? What does he have to do with anything?"

He looks at me like I just crawled out from under a rock. "You're kidding right? Mauro Shetani?"

I smack my forehead, feeling like a complete ignoramus. "Oh my gosh! Mauro is Cole's son!"

"Duh."

"Hey, shut up. It's not easy living in a town where people suck your life out of your face and your nightmares are real." We've reached the clearing, and I nudge my chin toward the house as we step out of the woods.

"Classy," Reign say, continuing into the street.

He reaches the gate before realizing I'm not with him. "You coming?" he turns around and yells.

When I don't respond, he shakes his head and comes back.

"You alright, B? You look a little spooked." He cups my chin in his halfway-gloved hand and examines my eyes like he's some kind of doctor.

"It's a little hard for me to just waltz in there like I own the place," I snap, jerking my face away. "A couple was murdered inside by people like you."

He shifts back. "Hey, you brought me here, remember? I get that the killers in your dream were 'people like me', but I'm not the one who pulled the trigger."

As the fight goes out of me, I cross my arms and stare at the dirty windows of the second floor. For the first time, I wonder what life was like for my nightmare couple before it was taken from them. They seemed so normal, so content in the few minutes before the murderers opened the doors to their living room and ruined everything—like cancer. "I'm sorry for snapping at you," I say. "I'm just scared, is all. I've been having that nightmare since the night my mom died, and it never gets any easier to face the fact that it really happened."

For a moment, he doesn't respond, and I'm scared I've made a terrible mistake confessing my fear to a Shadow. But when I look at him, he's looking at me with a kind of gentleness in his face, and his eyes are shining again.

He leans forward and puts his hands on my shoulders just above my collarbones. "Don't worry, B. I'll protect you," he practically whispers. "I'm a bad guy, remember? Nothing in that house could be scarier than me." His cool breath makes my lips tingle, and the buzz between us upsurges. I feel like six jillion butterflies just burst from their chrysalises inside my stomach.