Page 34 of Seer

We’d been idiots to come here, unarmed and with zero idea of who or what we were facing. Though we didn’t have any other way to find out. Cal couldn’t call his visions yet. My mother and Uncle Edgar were at TWIST, which was too far away for either of them to see anything happening in this park.

A branch cracked about fifty yards to my left. I whipped my head around and moved so I was between Cal and the threat. Slightly closer, a step crunched on the gravel of the path.

We waited. I wished I had a weapon. I was decent at hand-to-hand combat, but most Wonders had claws or enhanced strength. They could kill a human without much effort.

Something brushed against leaves, also in the same direction.

Cal leaned over so his mouth was next to my ear. I forced down the instinct to recoil away from his magic. He barely whispered, “I feel like it’s trying to get us to go searching for it.”

The shiver I suppressed was no doubt due to my magic brushing against his. I nodded and cupped my hand over my mouth so I could whisper back. “We’d be at a disadvantage in the trees.”

He nodded back and stood upright again. He panned his phone around without moving his feet.

We waited.

Shrubbery rustled.

Another footstep on the gravel.

I was so on edge that I flinched when car tires rolled onto the pavement of the parking area. Electric vehicles were more difficult to hear as they approached.

The car stopped. By the time the first door slammed, the birds and insects were tentatively making noise again.

Cal and I both let out huge breaths. He bounced on his feet a little, shaking the tension out of his hands.

I glanced at my watch. “It’s almost 11am. How do you feel about greasy food and something to drink?”

“Fuck, yes.” He reached out one of his huge hands and lifted the backpack from the bench. Then he turned and gestured for me to precede him back to the car.

On the way we passed a pair of women with three small children. They weren’t Wonders, but I still shuddered thinking ofwhat might’ve happened if they’d been inside the park when that thing had come hunting.

Whatever the fuck it was.

TEXT CONVERSATION

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 11:17AM

Cal

I definitely won’t be in the rest of the day today and I’ll need at least tomorrow off too. We stopped the attack I saw in my vision, but I need to pry some information out of Greg Shaw about everything that’s going on, and we need to figure out who or what’s attacking people. And Greg’s an asshole, BTW. I know Felix likes him, but he looks at me like I’m dirt and actively avoids touching me.

Steve

Ugh, what a jerk! At least you won’t have to talk to him again after this. Don’t worry about work. Take whatever time you need.

CHAPTER 10

CAL

Greg droveus to a diner in Bent Oak that I knew from experience had really good milkshakes. We didn’t speak during the drive.

This morning had been a mindfuck in the first order.

I hadn’t really expected anything of Greg before I met him. But the disdain on his beautiful face and how he’d avoided touching me like I had cooties or something had taken me right back to high school, when Butch and his football cronies had sneered at my weight and my sexuality. Greg didn’t even know me, and he was judging me.

And as much as I’d grown a thick skin over the years, being treated like that still hurt my feelings. I’d spent the rest of the morning painfully conscious of my plain face and my bulky body next to Greg’s stunning looks and gracefully lean frame.

At least until we’d been alone in the park with a scary monster. If nothing else, being afraid for my life had helped my brain rearrange my priorities. And what Greg Shaw thought of me got moved to the bottom of the list.