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Don’t let yourself get too comfortable with this.

Don’t trust this.

Don’t trust him.

With every thought, Grayson had gotten stiffer and stiffer in Ryder’s arms, his passion cooling, until he stepped out of Ryder’s grasp altogether, feeling like he couldn’t breathe properly. He needed to be free and loose for when things happened.

What things? He didn’t know. Hadn’t the Vampire woman and Lawson shown him there were plenty of reasons to be prepared for anything? Things were more dangerous here than they had been on the streets. Back there he’d been the only one with powers, but here? Here he was just one of many. So he couldn’t be weighed down. He needed to be able to get away or act immediately to protect himself.

He had felt the reluctance in Ryder’s arms in regards to letting him go. He shrugged off the regret at how he suddenly felt chilled without Ryder’s warmth. He clapped with the rest of the students at the end of the parade, acting as if he’d lost nothing.

“Are you all right, Grayson?” Ryder asked softly over the clapping and the cheers.

“Fine. That was pretty cool. The parade. Not what I thought it would be,” Grayson said neutrally even as his stomach knotted when Ryder lifted his hands to touch him again, but dropped them at the last moment. “I thought it would be cheesy, but it wasn’t. All those powers. Pretty impressive.”

“Yes, it was,” Ryder said equally neutrally. “But some of the gifts can be… overwhelming. Kaly’s gift--”

“I wasn’t scared,” Grayson shot out and immediately pressed his lips together. The disbelief that flashed in Ryder’s eyes for that moment though told him how foolish he sounded. “I was just… I don’t know.” He turned his head and saw Ryder’s handsome face, looking just like he’d imagined and he swallowed. “It’s going to sound crazy, but maybe not. You guys say that reincarnation is real so maybe...”

Ryder’s eyebrows drew together. “Maybe?”

“It was a memory. The spirits… the way they rose up like mist and then came towards us… for a second, I remembered that,” Grayson said.

“You remembered that?” Demos asked and he shared one of those quick glances with Ryder.

But Demos couldn’t possibly understand what had happened in just a few seconds. It wasn’t something that Grayson could really explain.

“You thought you’d seen spirits like that before?” Ryder asked almost too casually.

“I don’t know. I…”

Grayson’s eyes went unfocused as he recalled what he’d seen or imagined or remembered or whatever it was. He had been in a dark field. The tall grass had been mostly beaten down around him as if a great number of people had walked that way. A whole army of them.

There was blood on the crushed stalks and he thought that, in the distance, he could see bodies on the ground. Black mounds among the tall grasses. And then there was this mist that filtered through the stalks that were washed of all color by the moons.

It had drifted slowly towards him like that old line about a cat on creeping paws. He remembered or imagined that he had gathered his power inside of him. His power was a burning, roaring fire far greater than he’d ever built within himself before. He’d used the air, thickening it by pushing molecules together, and sending it towards the mist, trying to disperse it. But it hadn’t worked.

The mist kept coming.

He remembered–or imagined–the dry sound of the stalks as he started backing away from the mist, still slashing at it with his power, still looking for something--or someone--more substantial to attack. But there had not been anyone in view.

He’d remembered–or imagined–thinking that maybe one of the black mounds, one of the seemingly dead bodies, wasn’t really dead, but was just pretending to be to evade his power. But none of them stirred to alert him to their charade.

The mist kept coming.

He was moving more swiftly then, turning and running but still glancing back to check on the location of the mist. It was the thin crawling strands anymore between the stalks. Instead, it was a white wall behind him. There were voices, so many voices, and then he was surrounded by the mist as if it were a wave that had crashed down upon him and there was silence. So quiet. Like the sound had been sucked out.

He remembered–or imagined–stopping running as he could not see where he was going and that was dangerous. He built the fire inside of him higher, preparing for something or someone. And then the mist looked at him. It was then he understood that it wasn’t mist at all, but spirits with faces pressed tightly together. They were the mist.

They came for him…

And that was all he remembered… or imagined. He’d snapped out of it in that moment as he’d turned from the spirit and found Ryder’s chest.

Grayson raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I mean. I can’t remember something that never happened to me. I mean unless… I don’t know.”

Ryder though just nodded as if what he was saying made complete sense. Grayson didn’t feel that Ryder was simply patronizing him. That chill filled him again and he rubbed his arms. The air wasn’t that cold and his sweater, as much as he disliked it, was warm. But he was still cold.

“Perhaps we should get you back to your rooms,” Ryder suggested. “You look a little tired.”