We spend the remainder of the night laughing and drinking too many appletinis. It becomes easier to push the creepy dude out of my mind after my fourth cocktail. By then, my tongue is green, and the sweet apple-flavored alcohol has pushed away the murderous thoughts. Whatever that was all about at the bar, it's clearly between him and the bartender. They obviously know each other. Which means I must have imagined him in the mirror earlier. This has nothing to do with me.
Probably.
"Another drink?" says Josie. "Or shall we head to Apocalypse to get our"—she jiggles her arms—"dance on?"
"Can't," says Lucas. "Got an early morning Doctor Faustus rehearsal."
"Yeah?" asks Josie. "What counts as early morning for a theater student?"
The corner of Lucas's lip quirks up. "Eleven."
Josie laughs. "That's ridiculous. You're coming to Apocalypse. Rach? It'll be fun!"
"I dunno."
"If fun isn't your thing, babe, you can look at it as a 'help Josie not be single' mission." She waggles her eyebrows. "I called about the bartender job they were advertising. The guy on the phone sounded hot."
"How can someone sound hot?" I ask.
"His voice was all low and smooth and"—her eyes glaze over dreamily— "British."
I laugh. "Well, as fun as watching you flirt with your potential future boss sounds . . ."—I rise to my feet, wobbling slightly—"I actually do have an early morning lecture tomorrow. I'll catch you for lunch?"
Josie frowns. "You sure you're okay, babe? You seem a bit tense."
"I'm fine."
Her slightly unfocused eyes follow my hand as I pull my hair off my right shoulder. Then they widen.
"Oh, shit," she says, staring at my tattoo. "It's the anniversary, isn't it? Your brother. I'm so sorry, Rach. I forgot."
"No, not until next month. I just . . ."
I shake my head, wondering suddenly if the bad feelings of today are related to him. Applying to this internship feels like a step toward the future. A future without him. A future that would be different if he were still here.
"Maybe I have been thinking about him a bit lately."
Josie takes my hand. "He's watching over you, you know?"
She wants to make me feel better, but I've never been into the spiritual stuff—or, at least, not like she is.
I force a smile. "I'm fine. Honest."
As I take a step back, I brush arms with the blonde from earlier, who's eager to finally get a hold of my stool. We all scowl at her as I sling my sports bag over my shoulder.
"Don't get into too much trouble without me," I say with a grin, then I skirt around one of the potted apple trees on the way to the exit. But when I reach the glass door, I pause, feeling eyes burning into my back.
Eve the bartender watches me with a dark expression. When she catches me looking, she goes back to uncapping a row of cider bottles for a team of Trinity Falls College football players.
What's her problem?
A crow caws as I head back to campus.
I make my way up the six flights of tired stairs to my room. This whole dorm block is pretty old—peeling plaster, light bulbs that need replacing, and a lingering smell of damp—but I don't mind because I have a private room. Josie says it was a miracle; I think it's more to do with the fact this block is falling apart, and they don't want to put any more students in a place about to be under heavy construction. Hence the ladder propped up outside earlier.
Still, I've always admired how positive Josie is about everything. Although it bugs me a bit when she says things about Jonathon being in a better place or looking down on me from above. Even if that is true—and the jury's still out for me—I'd rather he was still alive.
When I reach my floor, I have to wiggle the key before the door finally clicks open.
My room is pitch-black, and I fumble for the switch.
There's a guy sitting on the edge of my twin-size bed, right on top of the checkered red-and-black comforter I'm fairly sure I left crumpled on the floor. My window is open behind him, and the half-open slats of the blind rattle in the breeze.
I make a weird yelping sound and stagger back into the wall. "What the hell?"
A sour look crosses the intruder's face. He looks about twenty, with red hair swept neatly up from his forehead, a pale complexion, and a sharp jaw. He sits perfectly upright as if there's a rod reinforcing his spine, and he wears a white blazer with the word "HALO" on the pocket. It's topped with an embroidered circle of gold.
"Finally," he says. "I've been waiting all evening."
"Are you lost?" I ask.
Frowning, he rises elegantly to his feet. "No. I'm Gabriel," he says. "And we have something of uttermost importance to discuss."
As if this day hasn't been stressful enough with my application due and the weird guy at Evie's, now there's a random dude in my dorm.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "If you're not lost, then you're trespassing, and you need to get out."
Gabriel folds his arms across his chest, clearly indignant. "Do you think I want to be here? No. But we need to talk about the broken mirror," he says. He points to the long one mounted by the door. I figured I must have bumped into it when I got up to go to the bathroom during the night.
I try to piece this together. "You're some kind of . . . mirror repairman? That's why you're here? In my bedroom? In the middle of the night?"
"Please. Take a seat," he says as though I've just entered his office rather than found him lurking in my room. When I don't move, he inclines his head toward the tatty desk chair near the foot of my bed.
I frown. I'm sure it was draped with clothes this morning. In fact . . .
I survey my boxy room. The framed Fight Club poster I hung on one peeling white wall is no longer lopsided, the glasses of lukewarm water have been cleared from my nightstand—and have the textbooks stacked beside my old boxing trophy been alphabetized? They have. They start with Business Law and end with Sociology.
"You tidied my room?" I say.
Gabriel is suddenly very interested in the murky glass of the light above his head.
"Seriously," I say flatly. "Get out."
When he doesn't move, I grab his slender wrist and make to drag him out into the hallway, but despite the fact I pull—hard—his feet remain firmly planted. His physique is willowy. There's no way this dude is stronger than me.
I wrench him again with no success.
Pulling his wrist from my grasp, he rubs it against his white blazer as though he's just touched something filthy. Now we're inches apart, I note that he smells citrusy, like the bath bombs they sell at the beauty store downtown.
Stop sniffing the creep, Rach. Get him out of here so you can go to bed.
"Look, what do you want?" I say.
"I need to talk to you," he says with a scowl. "I shouldn't even be here."
"No shit. So go away before I get campus security."
"You won't do that," he says.
"Why not?" I cross my arms.
"Because they're a group of bullheaded guys who like to assert the small ounce of power they have in an attempt to make other people feel small," he says. "And they are most certainly going to Hell."
"I would've just gone with 'they're a bunch of assholes,' but that works. You've had a run-in with them too, huh?" I raise an eyebrow, remembering the time Lucas, Josie, and I were yelled at for "loitering" in the campus square after a party. Lucas was belting out show tunes, to be fair. But still. "Was it because you were lurking around other people's rooms?"
"No," he says. "I threw a pebble at a bird."
"What? Why?"
"It was following me."
I sigh and fall back on my bed. This is pointless. He's not leaving until he's said whatever he has to say.
"Okay. Fine. Talk. Then leave. I'm tired."
He stares at me for a moment, then brings a large white phone out of his crisp gray pants. "I detected heightened Omen activity on the Trinity Falls College campus this morning," he says, starting to scroll. "I'm guessing from the broken mirror in your room."
"Omen activity?" I laugh but then recall my interaction with the bartender and the hot yet clearly dangerous guy at the bar. A bad omen, she said. "Is this some kind of weird college prank? Has Josie put you up to this?"
He looks up from his screen. "No."
"So the fact you and some weird guy who calls himself Crow have both bothered me in the space of a few hours is a coincidence?"
He curses under his breath. "Crow," he says sourly. "The bird was one of his. This is worse than I thought if he's getting involved."
"A friend of yours?" I say. A weird bird-owning friend?
His face darkens. "He's no friend of mine."
I rub my face, forgetting that I'm wearing mascara. After wiping the black smudges on my jeans, I sit up and lean forward.
"Can you just tell me what you want to tell me so I can go to bed, and you can get out of my life?"
He inclines his head, face devoid of expression. Then he goes back to his phone screen. "I've been monitoring the Trinity Falls area since I picked up on the Omen activity. I've been watching you, Rachel—"
"Who are you?"
"I told you. I'm Gabriel, and I'm an Angel." He looks up from the screen. "And at approximately seven minutes past nine this evening, you signed away your immortal soul to the Devil."