Page 13

13

Who’s to Say What Is and Isn’t Real Anymore?

K nowing Bobo was waiting for me, Brady drove us straight home. Of course, that decision was made all the easier by the fact that we couldn’t leave the campus anyway, and the rest of it was a ghost town.

For now, our surroundings were new and exciting. But how long could that last? How long till the bars of our prison started to squeeze?

Bobo must have recognized the hum of Bonnie’s engine; before Brady pulled up to the garage I heard his whine-bark through the open windows.

“Where is he?” I asked, panic riding my question at the thought of Magnum’s people having their hands on my dog. I wore my hair loose down my back today, and as I flung my head in every direction searching for him through the rear windows, the long sheets of chestnut-tipped violet slid along my back. “Where? I don’t see him.”

My friends were searching for him too.

“If that asshole’s done a single thing to hurt him …” I swore, still looking.

“Then we’ll help you string him up by the balls,” Hunt said, concern pinching his usually stoic features. He loved Bobo almost as much as I did.

“I’ll pull out his toenails,” Layla offered, before announcing, “There!” Her relief was palpable as she pointed. “I think I see the end of a crate behind the koi pond. Maybe they left him there so he could entertain himself watching the fish till we got back.”

“Only if Magnum thought it’d win him brownie points,” I said. “That man sees too much.”

“Way too much,” Griffin muttered from beside me. I sat in the middle between him and Layla. “It’s majorly unnerving.”

The moment Brady shifted into neutral and yanked on the emergency brake, I was pushing Griffin and Layla to hurry both along. Bobo’s whining and barking had grown louder.

I tumbled out of the car behind Griff, then raced for the staircase and the koi pond beneath it. Sure enough, there was a large kennel—with my sweet pittie inside it.

His whining intensified as his tail wagged so hard it thumped repeatedly against the wire of his cage. His cone-of-shame and cast were gone.

“There you are,” I cooed as I crouched in front of him. “Such a sweet boy, yes you are.”

The latch was stuck, but after some wiggling—and more desperate whining—Bobo was released. He raced from the crate and lunged at me, knocking me onto my butt. His front paws landed on my chest; I tumbled onto my back, laughing, all too ready to excuse him all the no-no ’s I’d trained out of him. He showered me with kisses, leaving a slobbering mess along my face and neck.

“Yes, yes, I’ve missed you too. I’ve missed you so much.”

The entire back half of his body wiggled, seeming out of sync with the non-stop wagging of his tail. I tried to hug him to me but he wouldn’t remain still. So I surrendered to accepting his loving—and the sure knowledge that I’d have to scrub off all the slobber once he was finished.

“My poor baby, you must’ve been really scared,” I mumbled into his neck as he continued his ministrations. “I’ve never seen you so excited to see me. I’m so happy to see you’re okay. I was worried about you too.”

Bobo dragged his tongue along my cheek; I hurried to clamp my mouth shut. Once he was snuffling along my chest, I whispered, “I love you too.”

Then, as if his stare were drawing mine, I looked up and straight into Griffin’s eyes. The hazel was bright, the colors seeming to intensify as I tried to decide which of all the colors was more predominant in them: the green, gold, or brown.

Hands in the pockets of his jeans, he was looking at me like he wanted his turn to roll around on the floor with me after Bobo.

I smiled up at him and he blinked, as if suddenly coming to after being lost in deep thoughts.

Bobo somewhat stiffly bent his front legs and appeared ready to settle in on top of my chest. I laughed, my breath constrained already by the weight of him. After running my hands along the length of his back a few times, I patted it.

“Come on, boy. You’re gonna have to get up. You weigh sixty pounds!”

Bobo only rested his snout against my neck.

“This probably isn’t good for your leg.”

Bobo rubbed his nose along my neck as if to insist, I’m fine.

Hunt lowered himself to the polished concrete beside us, crossed his legs, and made kissing noises. At the familiar sound, Bobo’s head jerked up. When he saw who waited for him with open arms, he scrabbled off my chest, scratching the shit out of me, and covered the few feet separating us in one leap, nearly knocking down Hunt, who oomph ed but remained upright while he started doling out pets and lovings.

“I guess he’s feeling well enough, then,” I said with a chuckle, drawing up to sit across from them while Bobo made his rounds. When every single one of us was covered in wet dog kisses and he’d peed in the yard, we led him inside. Bobo tore through the entire place at full speed, his claws scrabbling and sliding on the tiled and wooden floors, bumping into walls and corners in his eagerness to take it all in at once. He climbed the stairs to the loft two at a time. When he was finally finished, he lapped up the water that was already poured for him in a stand with two stainless-steel bowls etched with his name, then hopped onto the couch next to me, his head in my lap, preparing to nap.

The others dropped into seats around us.

“Damn,” Layla said with a smile. “Guess bringing him here with us was the right move, huh?”

I rubbed behind his ears. Hunt, who sat on Bobo’s other side, ran a hand along the length of his shiny black back.

“I hope so,” I said. “But it makes me hella nervous. It’s bad enough having all of you guys here with me at the mercy of some guy with more money than restraint. I just don’t know.”

I allowed my head to flop back onto the couch behind me. “What are we gonna do, guys?”

Griffin slid closer on my other side, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“We survive,” he said. “That’s what we do. We do what we have to, and we all get out of this alive.”

“After we all die again and again, of course,” Brady said from the other side of the large marble coffee table between the L couches, resting his socked feet up on it.

Griffin grimaced. “Yeah.” Then, “I still can’t figure out how we’ve found ourselves here. Just a few months ago our biggest concern was getting our parents off our backs with all their pressuring us to go to college. Now look at us.”

“Yeah. Without parents,” Hunt muttered with a frown.

“Good riddance,” Layla said from between Hunt and Brady, but her eyes were sad. “I can’t stop wondering what Celia’s and Porter’s names really are.”

“Me neither,” Brady said.

“Lynne,” I said with a disbelieving shake of my head that dragged my hair across Griffin’s shoulder. “Can you believe Monica’s name is Lynne ?” I shuddered. “Feels so freaking weird.”

Layla kicked up her feet too. “And that she screwed Wade’s dad?” She shook her head. Her hair was currently blond with frosted pink highlights. “And Xander Jones got her pregnant? Shit, I sure didn’t see that coming. Not in a million years. I wonder if Reece, whatever, knew it was going on. Like, were he and Lynne”—her upper lip curled as if the unfamiliar name were sour—“were they ever even a couple? Or was all of that a show too?”

I exhaled loudly, though it did nothing to relieve all the worries jostling for position in my chest cavity. “She got an abortion . Wade and I coulda been stepsiblings. Can you imagine that?”

Hunt frowned. “You would’ve had to really be Lynne’s for that to happen.”

My shoulders slumped. “Right. I keep forgetting. It’s like so crazy shocking that they aren’t really our parents and they lied to us all that time; I can hardly stop thinking about it. But then, somehow I forget, and think of them as my parents like always.”

“I’m having the same problem,” Griffin said. “Every time I see Tracy, it’s like a knife to the gut.”

I nuzzled my face along his shoulder in support before realizing I was probably wiping Bobo slobber all over him. He just laced our fingers together, a gesture that was becoming common with him.

“And my dad, Orson. His name is Tobias ?” He wagged his head along the back of the couch. “Tobias Andrew Dole.” He said it like he was testing out the words, his lips puckering just as Layla’s had. “I never even had a mom.”

Layla huffed. “Well, in fact, turns out none of us fucking did.”

“All that shit about my dad,” Hunt added. “I really believed Alexis was forever mourning him.” He shook his head, continuing to pet Bobo everywhere but the recently healed leg despite his anguish. “Just a sperm donor.”

“And to think now we’re gonna have to work with them,” Brady said. “Not sure I can stomach it. I might punch one of them straight in their ugly mugs.”

None of our faux parents were actually ugly. But their insides sure were looking questionable at the moment.

Layla crossed her feet at the ankles and her hands over her stomach. “Before we get to really crying in our Wheaties, gotta say I’m pumped as all get out about the other students. What kind of yummy paranormals is Magnum gonna give me?” She rubbed her hands together with a slightly manic grin. “Maybe some muscled-up wolf shifters who have to shed their clothes on the regular? Mmmmmm. I could handle standing around with some fine buck-naked shifters, that’s for sure. Or maybe some sexy-as-sin vampies? I’m thinking I could get into that whole bloodsucking thing. I can see how it’d be a turn-on in the right circumstances.”

Brady scoffed at her, giving her the stink-eye. “Seriously, Lay, you’re too much sometimes! You know that just ’cause those kinds of creatures are in all the books you like to read doesn’t mean they’re actually real, right? You get the meaning of fic-shun ?”

Layla only smiled more, her eyes taking on a dreamy cast. “We can die and come back to life, Brade. Who’s to say what is and isn’t real anymore? If we’d had this talk at the start of summer, you would’ve thought immortals didn’t exist.”

“So would you’ve.”

“Yeah, probably. But now?” She shrugged. “So who’s to say what’ll show up at the school? All I know is there’d better be some hotties for me.”

“Is that really all you can think about?” Brady accused. “We’ve got some major, major problems.”

“Of course not. But tell me you aren’t gonna get jelly when Joss and Griff start fucking their brains out and we’re stuck here staring at the walls.”

“No one says we’re gonna be fucking our brains out,” I said right away, but then quieted. We probably would end up having sex, and after the taste I’d already gotten of Griffin, I could see the temptation of going at it like rabbits.

“See?” Layla pointed at my face. “No matter what Joss says, she just all but admitted it.”

“What? How?” I asked, though even I could feel my cheeks flushing. What was up with all the flustering lately? It so wasn’t me. Keeping my face snugly tucked against his shoulder, I was careful not to glance up at Griffin.

Brady jerked to sit up straight, his expression thunderous, though I didn’t think his ire was truly directed at Layla. “I’m just a tad bit more concerned about the fact that we just agreed to let a maniac kill us, pretty much as many times as he wants, while he puts us on display and prods us to see how we tick. I’m the only one of us who’s died twice. Lemme tell you, this is one area where I was hoping the third time wouldn’t be the charm. Even when we come back, the dying bit still feels like dying.”

“Yeah, it does,” I answered miserably. “What are we gonna do, guys? I know I keep asking, but we’ve gotta have some better options.”

Seconds passed before Hunt said, “I’ve been racking my brain over it. I agree, there’s gotta be a better option than basically submitting to being guinea pigs. But”—he breathed in then out while scratching behind Bobo’s ears—“the only two options I currently see are us doing it ‘willingly’”—he hooked his fingers in air quotes—“or the even less fun way.”

Even more miserably, I muttered, “There’s gotta be another way.”

For long moments, the silence was interrupted only by Bobo’s deep, relaxed breathing. He was close to falling asleep.

Finally, Hunt added, “We’re severely outmatched in experience and resources here. And right now, I don’t see a single way around it, not when we have no one to lean on but ourselves.”

After that sank in for a bit, I grimaced. “Hey, at least we have each other though, right? We’ve gotten through all sorts of shit together before. We’ll do it again.”

Griffin squeezed my hand. “That’s right. We’ve got this. We always do.”

The others nodded, but surely they were thinking the same thing I was. Sure, we were stronger together. No doubt. And yes, we’d gotten through some shit over the years, all made easier since we had each other’s backs.

But we’d never been up against a challenge this significant or this dire. We’d never faced down a force as strong and indefatigable as Magnum Chase. The stakes had never before been this high or this terrifying.

“It’s us against the world, guys,” Layla said. “No different from before. We’ve just got to kick ass a little harder, that’s all.”

“Yeah, of course,” I replied on autopilot. I desperately wanted to believe it, but I didn’t. From the dour looks on my friends’ faces, not one of them did either.

Magnum coveted the power we had. And yet we’d never felt less powerful.