Auracle. Part 25

"No."

"Okay, then. Let's declaw me and go for a walk."

It's a sunny, warm day and everything is green. I love green. It's my favorite color.

"How's your head?" I ask as we walk down the path between our houses toward the woods.

"It's fine."

"Still hurts, huh?"

"A little," he admits.

"Okay, let's see if I can still do this." I close my eyes and stand very still, pulling energy from around me. The trees seem happy to share with me; I tap into the sunlight and I discover I can still access the good stuff from s.p.a.ce. It's not as easy to absorb it with this wall of flesh around me, but soon, I feel it tingling all over. I concentrate the tingle to my fingers. With both hands, I reach up and feel around Rei's face for his temples. I feel him smile under my fingertips.

I purge a little at a time, until he says, "You did it."

I open my eyes. "Is your headache gone?"

"Gone. I'm telling you, Anna. We have to tell my mom you figured this out."

"I don't want to think about your mom right now," I start walking again. "Where shall we go?"

"Where else?" Rei asks. "The falls."

The falls is the last place I want to go right now, and I think Rei knows that, but Rei is a face your fears kind of guy, and he's right. I can't start avoiding the falls just because of what happened. I can't let Taylor have that kind of power over me.

"We need to figure out what you're going to tell the district attorney now that Taylor's gone," Rei points out as we walk down the path. Oddly, I can still see a faint blue glow around the trees, and when Rei moves into the sunlight, I can make out a soft orange hue surrounding him, too.

"How about I just tell him the truth?" I'm only half kidding. If nothing else, they'd just think I was bonkers, and I don't think they put crazy people on the witness stand.

"How about we just lock you up now and throw away the key?"

"Hey, other people astrally project and write books about it and n.o.body locks them up. So did I tell you I let the district attorney see me when he was questioning Taylor?"

Three seconds to impact ... two ... one ...

I love that face Rei makes when his eyes get all big and his mouth gapes like a fish. It's so adorable. "You what?"

"You heard me."

"Anna. Why? Why?"

"Look at it this way. It's not like he can tell anyone; they'd think he was crazy. And if I tell him the truth, he just may believe me now that he's seen me. Either way, they've lost their star witness, so they have no choice but to let Seth go."

"Yeah, well, in theory that should work, but you know nothing is ever simple."

"Oh, ye of little faith."

"Anna," he reaches over and takes my hand. "We really need to decide this before you do anything ... impulsive."

"Impulsive?" I squeeze his hand before I let it go. "You mean, like, stupid."

"No, I mean impulsive. We have to think about Seth."

"I am thinking about Seth."

By the time we reach the ledge, the rush of water is loud in my ears. I step up and close my eyes. I need to return to the falls one sense at a time.

"You okay?" Rei asks as he steps up behind me. His hand gravitates to that place at the back of my neck reserved only for him.

I nod. I'm fine. I just need to do this slowly. When I open my eyes, the first thing I notice is the graffiti. Some of our local juvenile delinquents have decided to pay their condolences to Taylor by spray painting huge red letters on the boulders that border the falls. "You know..." I begin in exasperation. "What jerks!" I walk toward the edge to see just how much damage they've done, and Rei is on my heels. When I still have three steps to go before I run out of rock, he hooks his arm around my waist.

"Close enough."

"Rei, I just want to..."

"Close enough," he says firmly. He wraps his other arm around my waist, pulls me right up against him and rests his chin on top of my head. "So what do you think?"

Think? How does he expect me to think with him holding me so close? I feel like I'm caramelizing here.

"Anna?"

"Hmm? Oh. Why are we here again?"

"To see if you can think of anything to tell the district attorney."

"Oh, right."

I look around, reliving the events of last week. I give Rei a play-by-play of what happened where, and the closer I get to the part when Taylor falls over the edge, the tighter Rei holds me to him. I think he's afraid some small part of me will slip over the edge, too, now that I'm back here to face what's happened.

My lack of sleep is beginning to catch up with me, so I lean my head back against his shoulder and point to a spot on my right. "And this is where Seth was standing when Taylor slipped."

Rei says something so quietly, I can't hear him over the thundering of the falls.

"What?" I twist my head to look up at him and he leans down like he's about to repeat himself, but now that he's moved his head, the sun is right in my eyes so I squeeze them shut to block the light just as something soft brushes against my lips.

Um ... not that I have anything to compare it to, but that felt suspiciously like a kiss.

I let the sensation linger for a moment before I open my eyes. He's staring at me with an intensity that turns my knees to jelly.

"Did you just ... was that..." I stumble over this simple question because what if I'm wrong? What if he was just brus.h.i.+ng away a mosquito or something? How stupid would I feel if I asked if he kissed me and the answer was no?

"I'm sorry," he's quick to apologize. "I just ... I didn't mean..."

I turn within the circle of Rei's arms to face him, but what startles me is the sight of another face, murky and menacing, hovering right behind him.

Taylor.

CHAPTER 36.

It makes sense that without a human body to contain our energy, size is no longer relevant. I had only recently figured out I could stretch my energy far enough to knock pencils off desks or type on Rei's keyboard, but it never occurred to me I could stretch twenty feet tall when I was out of my body. It looks like a cool trick that I'd love to try if I ever do leave my body again, but now that Taylor's towering over Rei, it's just plain scary.

"What the..." Rei looks up in alarm and wraps me like a burrito in his arms just as a whirlwind of grit and leaves spins up around us.

"You're the one who killed me this time!" she yells. "I hope you rot in h.e.l.l, Rei Ellis!" Her voice sounds like she's talking through a paper towel tube, but I'm surprised I can hear her at all since Rei could never hear me when I was out of my body.

Rei braces himself to keep us from blowing over. How is she this strong? She is sp.a.w.ning some serious wind here, and the sand stings my skin and buries itself in my hair. Just as quickly as it started, it stops. I look up cautiously, but she's gone.

"Could you hear her?" I ask Rei, who is carefully brus.h.i.+ng sand away from his eyes.

"No, could you?"

"Her voice was distorted, but yes. That's strange."

"So what?" He is starting to recover from the shock of a super-sized Taylor and he's understandably p.i.s.sed off. "Is she going to haunt us for the rest of our lives?"

"Not if I can help it. Come on, let's go back."

My mom waves a pink sticky note at me when we get back to my house. "The district attorney called to see how you're feeling."

I would find that very considerate if I didn't know what a hurry he was in to prosecute Seth. "Okay. Does he want me to call him back or something? I mean, it's Sat.u.r.day. Don't these people have a life?" I take the paper from my mom.

"Yes, I told him you'd call him when you get back."

Rei and I never decided what I would say, except that the truth was not an option. Now we have to make a decision quickly.

"You don't remember anything that happened," Rei points out for my mother's benefit. "It seems like you lost your memory when you hit your head the first time and the allergic reaction triggered your memory to come back. How would you even remember what you were going to testify?"

"I don't know."

"So maybe your mom can ask your doctor for a note or something."

"Oh, I can do that," my mom a.s.sures us.

I call the district attorney at what turns out to be his cell phone, and he is less than pleased with this information. "What do you mean, you can't remember anything about last week?" he asks.

I repeat my spiel about my many medical woes from the past week, but he's not letting me off the hook so easily. "All right," he says, "bring your doctor's note to the judge on Monday morning before nine. I will meet you there, and I want a statement from you right after."

No pressure there.

Not more than five minutes after I hang up my phone, Rei's mom calls his phone to remind him he's helping with inventory at the store all day tomorrow, plus he still has to do his laundry and other fun stuff tonight. I'm actually glad because I am tired, that curl-up-right-where-you-are-and-nap kind of tired. I'm still afraid I might pop out during a dream, but I know I get grouchy when I'm overtired and Rei's taken enough abuse today.

"Come on, I'll walk you out." I want to say goodbye away from my mom, just in case he may want to try that kiss again.

"I'm not comfortable leaving you alone with Taylor on the loose," he says as we make our way slowly across my barren yard.

"I'll be fine," I a.s.sure him. Plus I hate to point out to Rei that despite his years of martial arts training, there's not much he could do to stop a metaphysical attack.

"But what if she comes back? Who knows what she'll do next?" he worries out loud.

"How about I watch TV with my mom tonight. I doubt she'd show herself when my mom's around. And then I can try to convince my subconscious not to pop out when I'm dreaming."

"Do you know how to do that?"

"No, but I thought it might be like meditating. I was hoping you could teach me."

Rei cracks a small smile. "It's a lot like meditating. When you go to bed, relax and get yourself comfortable, then clear your mind of everything except that one thing you need to know."

"Okay." It sounds easy enough. "So I just chill out and repeat 'I will not pop out during a dream. I will not pop out during a dream.'"

"Exactly." His phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out, checks the caller ID, silences it and shoves it back into his pocket. "I don't know how long it will take to finish inventory, but if I can come over when I'm through, I will. And I'm planning to take the day off from school on Monday to go to the courthouse with you."

"Won't your mom get mad if you miss another day of school?"

Rei shrugs. "So she gets mad. What else is new?"

"I don't want her mad at me. She made it crystal clear she doesn't want me distracting you."

"Yeah, well," Rei keeps his eyes on the ground as he walks, "distracting me isn't on your agenda, anyway."

I stop short. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rei shrugs. "Nothing. Forget it."

I bet the entire neighborhood can hear Yumi's irate voice echo across the yard. "Rei!! Let's go!"

I can't tell if he's annoyed or relieved. "Call me if she shows up."

I hang out with my mom for the rest of the evening. We microwave frozen dinners, then we watch some show about bada.s.s women detectives who chase down s.e.xy bad guys while wearing stilettos. It's amazing how fast these women can run in those shoes. At eleven o'clock, my mom yawns, which makes me yawn, too.

"You ready for bed, sweetie?"

"I don't know." I surf over to Animal Planet where there's a show about adorable kittens. "I think I'll watch this. Maybe dad will want to buy me a kitten when he gets home."

"Oh, honey." She laughs half-heartedly. "It's good to have dreams."

Ha. No it's not, at least not while Taylor's around.