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She scoffed at him in all of her pre-adolescent dismissal.

“You don’t know what ashrugmeans?” She scoffed at him again. “I thought you were, like… smart?”

“And I know you’re a smartass,”he retorted.

Normally she would have giggled, but this time she didn’t.

“Why did Ms. James call?” she demanded.

“Why. Did. You. Scream. Tai.”

She exhaled in frustration with him, gripping the fuzzy pillow.

For a second, he wondered if she was contemplating throwing it at him.

Then something in her expression changed.

Briefly, her ice blue eyes slid out of focus.

She didn’t look away from his face, but Nick watched her skin grow pale. Almost as pale as she’d accused him of being. Her seer’s unearthly eyes never left his clear, cracked-crystal, vampire eyes.

Nick frowned.

He glanced over his shoulder at the stairs, then back at her.

Why did she lookafraidof him?

She never looked afraid of him.

Was she even looking at Nick at all? Or was she looking through him? At some seer thing he couldn’t see? Something in the ether that his vampire ears couldn’t pick up? Could she be talking to Wynter right now? Using that seer-to-seer thing they had?

She never usually dodged him this bad, either.

She never gave him shit about a serious question he’d asked her before.

“You know why I screamed, Nick. You already told Ms. James.” Tai bit her lip. “I had a bad dream.” Leaning back in the couch, she folded her arms. “Or Ithinkit was a bad dream.”

Nick frowned again.

“You think it was a dream?” he asked. “What else would it be, kid?”

“I don’t know. Someone else’s dream?”

Nick winced.

He also ignored the implied question.

“Whatkindof bad dream?” he asked instead. “You want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know.” Tai studied his face.“Youwere there, Nick.”

That cold feeling settled deeper in his gut.

She seemed to feel that, too.

Damned superhuman seer kid who could read right through vampire minds.

Nickstillhad a tendency to underestimate just how much Tai could pick up from his mind, how clear his thoughts were to her.