A Shimmer of Angels (12 page)

I glanced at Cam, trying to picture him without his wings, as just a boy. Under different circumstances, he’d be pretty darn perfect. Smart, friendly, attractive, willing to save a girl’s life. Without those wings, things would definitely be different. Almost normal. God, to just be normal. I shook my head and pulled myself out of that train of thought. No way any of that was going to happen.

“Rayna.” His voice sent ripples down to my stomach. Whether they were good ripples or bad ones, I couldn’t tell. “I have something important to ask you. It’s … about my reason for being here.”

Bad. Yep, definitely bad.

“Luke Harper may be in danger.”

The softness of his whisper sent a shiver up my spine, in a way that I immediately scolded myself for. I didn’t need any more of those ridiculous fantasies. “Luke? What? No he’s not.”

“He might be. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important, but I think you might be able to help.”

My jaw slackened, but I pressed my lips together to keep from saying anything else. If Luke was in danger, how would I be able to help?

“Can we talk after school?”

I looked down long enough for the bell to ring.
Finally.
Our tablemate, Cassie, took her seat, saving me from a response. She eyed Cam in a way I hadn’t noticed yesterday, like he was the newest purse in the Hot Topic store window. If she looked any harder, I swore drool would dribble down over her plum lip gloss.

I surveyed her low-cut sequined t-shirt, then compared it to my own deep-purple, crew-neck sweater. The dark sweeps of green eye shadow and eyeliner made her eyes stand out in all the wrong ways. And that huge, trendy purse wasn’t doing anything to help her style. Still, Cassie sure looked fancier than usual today.

“I don’t know how I didn’t introduce myself yesterday. I’m Cassie.” Her smile was the essence of just right, not too big, not to small.

Cam returned her smile with a polite one of his own. Cassie extended her hand. She was either being too formal or just wanted an excuse to touch him. Cam took her hand in his and shook it, while Cassie beamed at him.

Mr. Barnes started his lecture. Cam turned away from Cassie to watch the front of the room, but Cassie didn’t have the same train of thought. She stared at him, smiling to herself. My teeth clamped together.

Why should I care what way Cassie looked at him? I didn’t even like him. Really, I didn’t. Even if he didn’t have wings, he could be more involved than he wanted me to know.

Right. It wasn’t Cassie’s fault. It was Cam’s. Because of that crooked thing he does with his lip when he’s concentrating too hard.

Great, now I was staring.

My head was nowhere near the Revolutionary War.

He glanced up at me once or twice, but I pretended to be focused on our assignment, though I had no clue what it was.

***

To most students, the final bell meant one thing: freedom. Today, the bell meant something better than freedom: my first day at work and a chance to be normal. I hiked up my getting-heavier-by-the-day backpack and joined the tail end of the traffic filing down the hall toward the stairs.

“Rayna.” Cam’s feathers tickled the hairs on my arms, sending deathly chills through the riddled holes in my sanity. I stared at my arm. The ghost of feathers as soft as down brushed my skin there. I rubbed the touch away.

Wings passed through things. That’s what they did. But Cam’s had
touched
me. How could that be? Was it because I could see them?

There was so, so much I didn’t know.

I jerked away, stumbling several steps back.

“You left class so quickly. I really need to speak with you.” He took my hand in his and led me away from the crowd filing down the stairs. His touch was warm and gentle. His fingers were as soft as I remembered.

I studied the scratched paint on the lockers beside us to gather my thoughts.

Cam’s voice dropped when his hand did. “I need your help.”

I lifted my chin and found my spine. “How do you know I can help you?”

“Luke Harper is in trouble.”

“What do you mean he’s in trouble? How?”

He tilted his head to the side as if to say, really? His gentle demeanor slipped away, replaced by Business Cam. “I can’t say.”

I slanted a look at the remainder of the student body, desperate to be free of this building. “This is ridiculous.” I shook my head and crossed my arms. “I’m not buying it.”

His lips quirked to the side. “What is it you think you need to
buy into
? You can see what I am. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

“I’ve seen your kind for years. Not one of you has made my life anything but more difficult.”

He tilted his chin up a fraction of an inch. “You have.” The statement fell somewhere between a question and a fact, but it sounded like news coming from his mouth.

“You want help from me? Then I need to know a few things first.”

Walk away. Why didn’t I just walk away?

“Fine.” He brushed off his irritation with a flick of his wings. Patience was not in his wheelhouse. “Something may be watching him.”

Yeah, you. Oh, and well, me. “You seemed to be watching him pretty closely after lunch.” I never would have been this brave if not for the sheer number of witnesses still in the hall.

“The same way you were caught eavesdropping on his conversation with his girlfriend in the hall.”

Touché.

“But I’m not … well, I don’t have …” I waved a finger in the general direction of his wings.

His voice dipped again. “I thought after yesterday you would trust me.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” I balled my fists by my side to strengthen my resolve. “What is it you think you need my help with?”

He shook his head.

“Unless you can tell me something, I’m out of here.” I turned on my heel.

“Wait.” He leaned forward, his lips brushing the hair by my ears. “There are others,” he whispered.

He held our closeness. I resisted turning back to him and spoke louder than he had. “Others?”

He hedged, turning away to watch the last few students push past us and trickle down the stairs, leaving the hallway empty, except for him and me.

I glanced up and down the hall in case I’d need an escape route. Cam was blocking the main stairwell. The back stairs would be my only option. A different type of chill worked its way down to the inside of my sinking stomach as I relived the still-warm blood soaking into my jeans the last time I took the back stairs. I wouldn’t go that way again. Ever. I took a step back from him to gain an inch of personal space. Dragging one useful little detail out of him was like pulling teeth. And each word took all my nerve to spit out. “If you want to tell me something, now’s your chance.”

“Just … I need to know if you’ve seen any more of … my kind. Lately.”

“No,” I said, then curved around him, giving his wings a wide berth, and walked down the stairs, praying he wouldn’t follow.

“I meant, tell me if you do.”

I stopped on the landing between the third floor and the second, but I didn’t turn around. “Are you … expecting more?”

“Hopefully not.”

Sweat built on the back of my neck. I continued down the stairs, taking them two at a time, unable to get away fast enough. I didn’t know what more wings had to do with Luke, but nuh-uh. No way. I couldn’t handle any more wings. One way or another, I was out of this mess.

Chapter Eighteen

Still reeling from my conversation with Cam, I took out my frustration on the school’s front doors, throwing them open as hard as I could.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, and someone sprang out at me. “Hey.”

I jumped and pushed him back a good four feet before I noticed it was Lee and not a gorgeous blond boy with wings. “Lee, don’t do that! You nearly gave me a coronary.”

He caught himself just before tipping back over the railing. “Geez, sorry Ray. I was just tryin’ to lighten up the mood around here.”

“I’m sorry. It’s fine,” I said, but my thundering pulse didn’t agree. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”

“You almost cracked my head open with those super-spy skills, but it’s no prob.”

I was starting to wonder if he hadn’t been entirely joking yesterday, that part of him really did think I’d been a spy in Arizona. We began a quicker march than usual to Roxy’s Diner. Thanks to my detour with Cam, I was in danger of being late my first day on the job.

“Ya know, I never got a chance to ask you how things went with Cam yesterday.”

A frown tugged at my lips, and I tightened my grip on the straps of my backpack.

“Yeah, about that. Don’t try to set me up again. Ever.”

His cheeks boasted the slightest rosy blush. “I take it you two didn’t hit it off.”

We turned the corner and trudged up the Powell Street hill.

“The two of us have nothing in common. I will never have anything in common with him.” My tone was sharper than it needed to be, but I couldn’t help it; frustration still pumped through me. I shook my head, dismissing Cam from my thoughts. Lee didn’t deserve the wrath of Crazy Ray. I swore softly. “I’m sorry. Do you want to come to the diner, maybe we can hang out on my break?”

“No can do. Heading home today.”

He used his Bad Robot impression to separate every syllable of his speech. Or Star Trek. I could never keep them straight. “I’ll see you at Roxy’s tomorrow morning for H.C., though.”

His code for hot chocolate made me laugh the same way it always did, in little chuckles that rode up my throat. If anyone could get my mind off wings, it was Lee.

We climbed the rest of the hill in much-needed silence. When we reached Roxy’s, I went inside and waved at him from the window, then checked in with Daphne.

She towed me through the kitchen and to the beginning of a long hallway. The off-white walls shone with grease or steam or something I wanted to know nothing about since I actually enjoyed the burgers here. “The first door on the left,” Daphne pointed to a stainless-steel door with a pull handle, “is the walk-in freezer.” Rows of metal shelves lined the wall beside the walk-in, storage space for all the non-refrigerated items. “First door on the right is for employee storage, with a small break room. There are lockers, but I haven’t had time to clear one out for you. Next door on the right is my office. That’s the tour.”

Daphne ducked into her office to grab my uniform, which she promptly tossed to me. “Go ahead and get dressed, then I’ll have Shelly go over the menu with you. Let me know if you have any questions.”

I hugged the uniform to my chest and smiled. My first real job. My own space where I could create a more normal version of myself, away from the prying eyes of my family, counselors, and classmates. A place where I could be me.

I exited through the kitchen, rounded the counter, and changed in the ladies’ room—which wasn’t as easy as it sounds in a cramped stall. I shimmied into the bubble-gum pink uniform, complete with white collar and ruffled apron. The white nurse shoes and tan pantyhose fought for the title of Most Horrible part of the outfit. Until I saw the white, frilly cap.

Oh no. No, no, no.

Instead of putting it on, I returned to the counter where Shelly, the girl Daphne had assigned me to shadow for the day, stood, cap-less. “What’s the deal with the cap?” I asked, maybe a little too panicky.

“You know, I swear the owner put those in with the uniforms so he could walk in one day and just laugh and laugh at us. You can wear a headband or tie a cute little scarf over a ponytail instead.” She adjusted her black-and-white polka dot headband. “Your hair should be fine for today,” she flipped the bottom of my ponytail, “but make sure you have one for tomorrow, otherwise Daph’ll have kittens.”

Shelly glanced at the back of a soup spoon to check her jet-black hair, sweeping aside a thick streak of orange as she blew a watermelon-scented bubble with her gum. She breathed on the spoon, then wiped it with her apron so she could get a better look. With a tart smile, she dropped the spoon inside a cup of tomato soup at the pickup counter and delivered it to an elderly man at table twelve.

On her way back, she reluctantly picked up a check from the next table over. I’d noticed them trying to get her attention since before Daphne took me in the back. She rolled her eyes and checked her phone. “There’s just something about old people that really gives me the willies.” She set the check and money beside the cash register and leaned on it with her elbow. “I think it’s the wrinkles. But you wouldn’t know anything about that. Your skin is major.” She leaned in dangerously close, invading my personal space.

Great, I’d found the one girl in this city who was on more drugs than I was.

“Sorry, I have a thing for faces. With a little makeup you could really be a looker—I mean, that plain-Jane gig works for some girls, but there’s a lot of competition out there. How old are you?”

“Uh, sixteen.”

Her eyes lit up with a spark of yearning. “Ugh, to be young again. Let me just say, my high school experience was
top-notch
.” The way her voice changed with each syllable, it sounded more like she was singing than talking. But there was something about Shelly that you couldn’t ignore. She had too much life in her for one person—something I’d heard my mom say once. But it totally fit her.

She finally turned her attention to the check under her elbow, and I picked up a menu I almost knew by heart already. It took Shelly four minutes to make change for a bill that was $21.98, but in her defense, the girl never stopped talking. “The one thing you need to know about high school is to go for it. Whatever you have the opportunity to do, do it—and do it
a lot
.” She rolled her eyes and smiled this enormous, scary smile.

A blush crept up my cheeks at her innuendo, and I had to look away.

“What? Oh my God, did I embarrass you?” She set the change on the counter again and took hold of my shoulders, turning me toward her. “It’s Ray, right?”

I nodded, completely unsure how to interact with Shelly. She wore her hair like a fifties style pin-up, with thick, curled-under bangs and waves at the bottom. And those had to be tattoos snaking up both her legs beneath her stockings. She wore a lot of makeup over her eyes in blacks and grays, and a foundation that might have been a shade too light for her, all of which made her look older than she probably was. My guess was late twenties.