Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) (30 page)

“You know what I mean.”

“And what if he
does
hook up with another one?
What if he decides to come after me for taunting him?”

“That’s what the sprites are for.” Mel moved toward
the car, used his fob to unlock it, and opened the passenger door. “They’re
under orders to watch him, to make sure he doesn’t gain any power he shouldn’t
have until it’s his time.”

“...his time? What does that mean? And what if he
decides to come after me then?”

“Well, you’ll be long dead by then, but we can tell
your children to watch out. Or your great-grandchildren’s kids, if I understand
the whole thing right.” Mel paused as I convulsed, swiping at the air when
another sprite lit up my peripheral vision. “Get in, Grandma. I’ll take you
home.”

A sprite came at me from my other side, making me
yip. I could see them when I wasn’t paying attention, but looking directly at
them was impossible; they were nothing but a phantom glow at the edge of my
vision. Lacking a better option, I darted forward and climbed into the car.

***

Once home, the first thing I did was check the locks
on all the windows and doors. Then I showered, put on my most comfortable
clothes, and checked all the locks again. Sonny perched on my shoulder working
at a hunk of broccoli as I eyed the poetry-covered door of the fridge and
wondered two things: what did I want to eat, and what the hell was I supposed
to do about this prophetic candy thief?

He’d been pretty helpful, all things considered. But
that didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t keep him out of my home, office, or
Twinkies.

Sonny and I went into my office, where I dug around
in my desk trying to find my pack of sticky notes. I found an old box of cheese
crackers, a pair of socks, a half-eaten candy bar (only half-eaten? Had I taken
a blow to the head I wasn't aware of?), and finally some purple sticky notes.
Setting Sonny on his perch, I hunkered over the note as I finished off the
candy bar, trying to decide what I wanted to say to the thief and if it should
include a thank you or two for the help he’d given me.

“No,” I told Sonny after a few moments. “That
bastard’s eaten enough of my sugar to thank him for a hundred helpful notes to
hot-ass men in suits.” Tapping the pencil on the desk twice, I sighed out an
oath and scribbled the only thing that was really important.

Dear Candy Thief,

Are you sticking around? Do I need to start buying
twice as many Twinkies?

—Gwen

Sonny and I headed back into the kitchen, where I
stuck the note to the fridge and pulled out some of the food Chloe had made me.
It was vegetables, but she’d saved my life; it seemed rude to let her food go
to waste.

***

The next morning I headed into work early. I had
missed too many appointments to count recently and I had a lot to catch up on.
I was planning on calling each of my clients personally and offering them
make-up appointments to help assuage my guilt. I was even willing to come in
early or stay late where necessary. If Loraine wanted to see me four days this
week, I would armor my empathy against her depression and give her all the
tissue in the office. Chloe insisted that no one had been outraged when she’d
canceled or rescheduled, but I still felt bad.

As I flipped on the kettle and stepped out of the
records room, I realized that I’d never actually dealt with the payment that
had been given to me by Laurel and Hardy. I eyed it suspiciously, wondering if
Chloe, with her sudden wealth of preternatural knowledge, would know what it
was or what I should do with it.

Deciding I was a little too nervous to risk opening
the box and having my face eaten off—which would not have surprised me,
considering recent events—I picked it up gingerly, carried it to my
office, and locked it in my file cabinet. I stared down at the wooden drawer
for what could probably be considered an unnecessarily paranoid amount of time
before I let my breath out and decided I was safe.

I turned my computer on, leaned back, and waited for
it to power up. My gaze fell on a pink sticky note on the side of my pen cup. I
grabbed the square and read it over without hesitation.

You should definitely buy twice as many Twinkies! And
you should memorize the fridge. I won’t be around all the time, but the fridge
has everything you need to know.

“The entire fridge?” I demanded, thinking of the
hundreds of messages that had been left. Rolling my eyes, I mumbled, “Fat
chance.”

Crumpling up the paper, I went to toss it in my
trashcan. Just as, I’m sure, the candy thief had meant it to happen, I noticed
another message stuck to the side of the bin. I grabbed it, sighing at the note
that said,
Don’t roll your eyes. You'd be dead several times over if it
weren't for me.

I crumpled that paper up, too, tossed it in the can,
and turned back to find that I hadn’t previously noticed my top middle drawer
was cracked open. There was a note there, too, and I had to pull the drawer
open to read it. The entire thing had been filled with unwrapped Skittles,
Tootsie Rolls, and a few wafer cookies. The scribbles on the note above said,
A
bribe, then. Trust me on this. I can’t be around all the time and you’re going
to need those insights.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” I said with a
gulp, glancing at the locked file cabinet in case the blue box got any ideas.
When nothing happened, I turned to consider how dusty my drawer had been before
buckets of loose sweets had taken up residence. Deciding I didn’t care, I
reached in and stuffed a handful of my free bounty into my mouth. I was on my
third handful when the outer door opened and Chloe called my name.

“In here!” I said, barely audibly.

I got two more mouthfuls down before Chloe stepped
in, noticed I was eating candy at seven in the morning, and sighed.

“Is that chocolate?”

“No,” I said around a hunk of the same. Chloe rolled
her eyes and I wished I hadn’t crumpled the candy thief’s second note. She made
her way around my desk, her eyes going wide when she saw my haul.

“What’s all this?”

Instead of answering, I handed her the third note
with one hand and reached in to grab more candy with the other. Chloe slapped
my reaching hand before she took the note, reading it over with a slight
crinkle in her brow.

“The candy thief left you... candy?”

“A bribe. He’s good.” When I reached for it again,
she knocked my hands away and shut the drawer with her knee, leaning against
the desk so I’d have to bump her leg to get at it again. I frowned down at the
drawer, willing the candy to teleport to my tongue.

“So you have a guardian angel now?” Chloe asked. I
shrugged, finished chewing, and swallowed the last of the candy before
speaking.

“Maybe. I guess. I tried asking it why it kept
bothering me and it gave me some nonsense about keeping me alive.”

Chloe's eyes went wide. “You don’t seem concerned.”

“You didn’t, either, remember? You wanted to feed it
peanuts. Which, if it wanted peanuts instead of Twinkies, I’d be thrilled.”

“Well—” Before she could get any further, I
spun my chair slightly to face her, pointing up into her face.

“Speaking of being concerned, what the
hell
,
Chloe? A few days ago you were squeaking in terror when Laurel and Hardy showed
up and then you’re pulling a gun on a demon and going Van Helsing on a vampire.
What happened?”

Discomfort rumbled like a storm, but her expression
remained mild. After a few seconds, she shrugged, her gaze focused on the floor
as if she’d spotted something worth considering. She reached to grab it before
I could see what it was and tossed it in the trash. When she leaned back
against the desk again, I couldn’t help but notice she wasn't blocking me from
my drawer full of candy anymore. I decided to play it cool, but I was itching
to get back at the mixture. The thief really knew his candy pairings. If there
was such a thing as a sugar sommelier, I was betting the thief was the best in
the world.

“I grew up in Bremerton,” Chloe said after a few
seconds, as if that explained it all. I frowned when she didn’t elaborate.

“And?”

“You know.” She waved her hand and I shook my head.

“I never know anything. I can’t even answer questions
on
Celebrity
Jeopardy
. Who do you think you’re talking to here?”
Despite the fact that I was convinced Chloe would stop me, I yanked open the drawer
and reached in. Chloe blew out a breath, her eyes roaming to the window for a
second before she shrugged and made a noncommittal sound.

“It’s weird up there. Portland’s got nothing on us.
If you know where to look, that is. I went to school with several kids like
you, actually.”

“Empaths?” I managed. Chloe frowned at my garbled
speech, plucked a tissue from the mini-box on my desk, and dabbed at my chin.

“You’re drooling.”

“Of course I am,” I managed before swallowing. “This
is delicious. I repeat? Empaths?”

“Only in one case. There were
two girls and one guy. Your kind seem to be mostly ladies, from what I've seen.
Now, Daniel could sort of see sounds, even when they were well outside his
hearing range. It was like synaesthesia.” I opened my mouth to ask. “
Google it,
” she said before continuing.
I shut my mouth. “But it was more than that. We used to play this game where
he’d write down three phrases in Morse code and we’d go to our classrooms and
tap one of the phrases out. Even though we were all several classrooms away
from him and we were just knocking gently, he could always pick it up.”

“And then one day you needed
to shoot him?”

“What? No
!
”
Chloe shook her head,
laughing fitfully as if she hadn’t expected my
comment to be funny
.
“I just knew from when I was
a kid
that there were other… things out there. It wasn’t
just them, either. I went to school with a werewolf and a troll, too.
Half-troll, so she looked mostly normal, but still.”

“
A troll?
”
I
demanded, my jaw dropping open.
“
Trolls exist?
”

“Pretty sure all sorts of
things exist.”

“
But
—”

“Once I saw you were in
danger,” she interrupted just forcefully enough to shut me up
,
“I had to jump in. I had a gun, I used it. You know
me.” She waved her hand like it was no big deal. “When things go to shit, I
really shine. I go into ass-kicking mode. How many insurance companies have
tried to stiff you on a technicality?”

“
But
—” I tried again. Chloe pressed on.

“What are you expecting me to
say, Gwen? That I’m covertly with the Secret Service and working for you is
only a cover? You see me nearly every day. Have I ever touched my ear and said,
‘
T
he Eagle has landed’ in a shifty whisper?”
Chloe grinned,
reaching down to shut the
drawer before wagging her brows. “Enough of this, now; my childhood is boring.
Let’s talk something interesting, like how you’re dating Mel.”

“
Ugh!
” I spat, snarling at the very idea. Chloe dissolved into a fit of
giggles.

“You two went on a date! You
spent the night at his house! That’s dating, my friend.”

“We didn’t date! It
wasn
’t a date!
We had some wine and we each
made a pizza. His was better than mine, so I took it. You don’t take someone’
s pizza if you
’re dating them.”

“So you’re saying he ate your
pie?”

I scowled up at her, yanked
the candy drawer out petulantly
,
and shoved at her with my
other hand. “Get out. I have candy to eat. You have insurance companies to yell
at.”

“Well, call me if you need
dating advice.”

“
I
’ll call you if I start to consider dating Mel so you can shoot me.”

“Think of all the homemade
pizza you could eat!” Chloe said, hopping to her feet. I swung out toward her
like I’d hit her, but she dodged easily, giggling as she skirted the desk. “You
have a nine-fifteen to start, but I’ll let you know if I have to go save the
president and can’t stay that long.”

“Get out!” I repeated,
grabbing for more candy. Chloe winked and danced out the door, pulling it
almost closed. I snarled after her, deciding that if she was dumb enough to
think I could be into Mel, she was much too stupid to be hiding some big,
secret life from me
.

As I munched irately on my tangy, chocolaty, wafery
bundle of deliciousness, I considered the last week, wherein I’d been hired by
fairies, bewitched by a demon, nearly seduced by a werewolf, kidnapped by a
vampire, and rescued by my gun-toting best friend. All things considered,
sharing pizza and wine with Mel hadn’t been the worst thing to happen, but I
wasn’t going to tell Chloe that.