Seeker (Shadows) (10 page)

“Pentagram?” Landon stares at the design, and his mouth is turned as if the word felt dirty going across his tongue.

“Fool.” Tevin shakes his head. “Don’t let semantics bother you. This is just to direct energy. The rest, you do by instinct. If you can’t figure it out, then you not supposed to be doing it.”

“I’m gonna check on the girls.” I move toward the door.

“They’s pissed at you boys, but they fine.” He chuckles again.

“Thanks, Tevin.” Landon puts a wad of hundreds on the desk, and I try not to stare. I’ve never been around people who have money.

I’ve hoarded a twenty for a month before, counting quarters at the end, but still managing.

“Can I call you if we get stuck?” Landon rests his fingertips on the wad of cash.

Tevin shrugs. “If ye want. But you know it’s not science, Landon. You gotta do what you gotta do. And you gotta trust yourself. But if you want just a few of you to set all them people’s free? You gonna have to focus some energy. And you gonna have to find the place where it happened.”

“How am I going to do that?” Landon asks.

This is getting more complicated all the time. Direct energy, find the location, hide from The Middle Men, do we trust the shadows…

“Long Island, Exumas. You’ll know.”

If this guy calls us fools or tells us we’ll have some great instinctual revelation and know how to do some creepy magic we didn’t know existed a few days ago, I might strangle him. I glance at Tevin’s broad frame again. Or, maybe just leave.

“But aren’t there a million ways this could go wrong?” Landon asks as he folds the paper in his pocket.

“Prob’ly. An’ I don’t know the answer there. I’m not one of you. I don’t have energy that comes from the same place as yours.” Tevin shrugs. “You two know more than me about your kind of energy. Mine is diff’rent. Come from a diff’rent place.”

“Great,” I mutter.

Landon gives me another slap on the shoulder, trying to show maybe that I should shut up, but that we’re still okay. “Thanks, Tevin. We’ll be running, and thanks again for your time.”

Tevin picks up his bills with another too-wide smile.

I half scramble down the stairs, just wanting out of that room.

“That was…” Landon starts.

“An experience,” I say.

“Yeah.” Landon throws his arm over my shoulder again. “An experience.”

I’m half tempted again to try and make Landon “do” something. We played with it on the boat a little, but I’ve never gotten through.

“Dude. I can even feel it when you’re
thinking
about doing it.” Landon grins and drops his arm.

I chuckle with him and glance over at him again. Landon and I wouldn’t be friends in a million years if it
weren’t for this. I’m the kid with the shaggy hair in the back of the classroom drawing the teacher with horns and a pitchfork. Landon’s the kid who walks in ten minutes late and the teacher apologizes for starting without him instead of sending him to detention.

But here we are, and in a way trusting one another with our life. I thought I’d be spending this summer looking for work and getting ready to take some art classes at the community college, not running through The Bahamas on a boat that costs as much as a house with a senator’s son and sleeping with the daughter of Mr. Prince.

Wonder what’ll happen next week?

Micah and Addie are sitting on a bench just outside the shop talking, both a little rigid, and maybe they shouldn’t have been left out of the conversation—though, I don’t love the idea of those two girls in a small room w
ith creepy-guy either. I half-expected him to pull off a mask that looked like his face.

“One more thing.” Tevin steps up behind me, making me jump. He’s well over six foot, something that was lost when he was sitting.

“Yeah?” Landon turns around, and I feel Addie walk into the room and step behind me.

Landon reaches back to take Micah’s hand, and I guess we’re all right.

“Tha woman whose Voodoo dolls turned those people is legend. No one knows how to re-create that magic. You be car’ful. All of you with talents from her are connected, whether you see yourself that way or not. Whatever you decide to do—you’ll be decidin’ for everyone. All that power and all those people. You could be making a whole big mess.” Tevin doesn’t grin or tell us we’re fools for trying, which I sort of wish he would.

With that
said, he turns and walks back up the stairs.

Landon frowns.

Anger stirs up inside me. “We all have to be in the loop Landon. You’re not happy he came down and said that in front of the girls.”

“I’m not happy he said it at all. I’m the one who can cross into their world. I’ve seen where these people have been living for hundreds of years. It’s like hell there, Dean. We’ve got to change it.” At least he believes what he’s saying, and I guess that’s something
. Now I have to decide if the shadows are smart enough to pull one over on him—or just keep going with my gut, which keeps telling me to do things I’m not sure I want to…

“But what if
the things we do just make a big mess?” Addie steps forward.

“And what are we in now?” Landon
snaps as he throws his arms to the side.

“Hey.” I step between them. Landon doesn’t need to talk to Addie that way. “Why don’t we all meet on the boat later.” I glance outside. “Looks like we might be stuck weathering another storm anyway.”

Tensions between everyone are high right now and maybe we all need a little space. With Landon being the owner of the boat, he’s really been the one driving the train, and it’s not that we haven’t agreed on where we’ve gone or what we’ve done, but at the same time, it is different when one person is so distinctly in charge—even though he swears he’s not.

“I thought we came here to get caught?” Micah nudges Landon with her arm, and Addie leans into me further.

“We’ll have a chance.” Landon pulls her close. “Don’t worry.”

I’m not sure whether I’m annoyed or relieved at Landon’s relaxed attitude about the whole thing. But we definitely need some de-stress time.

ELEVEN

Kara

“We’re in Nassau, Kara. Almost nothing but locals this time of year. Loosen up.” Ocean touches my shoulder just long enough to give me a little shake as we walk down the half-deserted sidewalk.

“But—”

“We’ve talked to like ten people at the harbor to watch for that boat and the people on that boat. They haven’t been there all day. Please. Come eat with me. Come dance with me. Let’s use our mad skills and just find them.” His eyes are so open and pleading, and our task feels too huge to think about, and instead of trying to stay away from his energy, I grasp his hand as we walk up the street and just enjoy feeling him. Also, I would sort of like to prove to myself that I can be around him and touching him without my brain fuzzing out.

It’s not working.

I’m not supposed to feel this until I feel it with Landon, and he’s so close now that I’m running through all the millions of scenarios I dreamed up as a kid as to what it would be like. How he would react. How it would feel to touch him.

So many of the shops are closed this time of year, and it’s almost like walking through a town that’s half-asleep. We fall into step, the hot sun blazing down on us and not a breath of air
—though, I can see the storm clouds from here so it won’t be long. I let my eyes close and try to ignore how perfectly our hands fit together.

“Hmmm.” He breathes out.

“What?” I ask, not wanting to open my eyes.

“You are so damn sexy when you trust me like this.”

My cheeks heat up, but I’m determined to just keep my eyes closed, and pretend I’m one of the girls who knows what to do with a compliment like that.

I stop when the most incredible smell hits my nose.

“No place does Bahamian peas and rice like them. Oh…” he groans. “Can you smell the spices? I bet they have
shrimp
cooked in those spices…”

My mouth starts to water, and I open my eyes to see a small restaurant, half outside, half inside. Music from the bar carries from next door, and I get that little panic in my chest that tells me I need to be hunting, not screwing around.

“Can you feel them?” he whispers. “The group?”

I relax and try to use him to stretch out my feelers, but don’t sense anything. I’m not the one who doesn’t feel. I’m the one in his position. I’m the one who feels everything. Sees everything first. Being around Ocean is really damaging to my ego.

He puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me a quarter turn. “Close your eyes, and focus that way. They’re not far, and my guess is that they’re eating, just like we’re about to do.”

“But…” I do feel them now. Two. I d
on’t know which two, but the group of four has definitely split up. I focus on their energy. “Neither is Landon.”

“Right.” He grins. “Let’s eat and stay focused on that energy and maybe we’ll run into them on the streets. If we can just get them talking, Kara. We might be able to get them all to come with us without a fight.”

“But the timing. If we miss them. If they make it to Long Island…”

“No one’s leaving the harbor for days. Not if they haven’t already left.” He glances up at the blackening sky, only half from evening and the rest from the clouds moving in. The wind has already picked up and he’s right. They haven’t left yet, so they’ll be stuck here waiting out the storm with the rest of us.

His words are itching their way into my resolve, and I relax into the idea. “A quick meal, and then we walk again and find them. Okay?”

He nods. “And if they move, we’ll know and we’ll get up and follow.”

He holds the back of a chair on the sidewalk for me to sit, and I take it. This is the closest thing to a date that I’ve ever been on. Once the thought goes through my head it feels so pathetic. I’m eighteen and never been on a date.

My phone rings as we sit, and
OFFICE
flashes on my screen.

“Kara,” I answer.

“He keeping his hands off of you?”

“Samson.” I smile
as I immediately relax further.

“What’s up?” I can see his grin from here.

“Taking the non-direct approach,” I say as I widen my eyes at Ocean whose mouth kicks up in a half-smile.

“So, Ocean’s not driving you crazy?” he asks.

“Oh no. He’s making me crazy.” It feels so good to talk to someone I’ve known who isn’t judging me and who I don’t feel the need to constantly watch myself around.

“You like him.” Samson’s voice has a smug quality I’m not sure I appreciate.

“I don’t hate him….” I stare at Ocean, and know how
much
I don’t hate him, which surprises me. How even though we’re not touching, I’m not minding him being here. This is already miles better than I thought it would be when I found out we were partners.

“Nice try, Chica.” Samson laughs. “Okay, well. Be safe down there.”

“Is there something you know about our job that I don’t?” I ask, my mind going back to the conversation with my dad and wondering what the purpose of Samson’s call was.

“I got nothin’. Just checking in and making sure Ocean’s doing like he said, that’s all.”

“Oh, right. Hands off.” Talking to Samson on the phone is almost like a shield to openly flirt with Ocean. I wink and smile a little, again, trying to show I’m braver than I feel.

“I just want you to be careful.”

“With him or on the case?”

“Both.”

“Always. Thanks.”

“Later,” he says just before the line goes dead.

I slide my phone back into my small bag, a little sad for the lost connection from home. I rest my hands on the table between Ocean and I. With all of the training I’ve had, he’s still better than me, and it makes me a little crazy.

“How do you find them so easily…” I start. “I’m not used to…”
being second best.
I’m such an idiot.

“I don’t have the training that you do, but I had a mom with my talent and I used it all the time.
All the time
. There are a lot of people out there whose brains just operate on a higher capacity, and you learn to sort of read those waves. And sometimes people performing on the street. When they hit that moment where they’re completely lost in the song, their brain waves change and I can feel that rhythm on a different level than I think most people. So now. When I’m tracking people with,” he uses air quotes, “’magical abilities’, it really hits me hard.”

“You have a girlfriend at home? Wherever that is?” The second the words are out, I know he’ll get the wrong idea so I hold his gaze and will myself to stay relaxed. It doesn’t matter if he does. At all.

“Why Kara.” He leans his elbows on the table. “Do you want this to be a date?”

More of his southern accent comes out than I’ve heard yet, and it tingles its way through me.
I will not blush. I will not blush. I will not blush.
But flashes of us together in the hotel room hit me anyway, stealing my breath.