“I can sleep,” Brooklyn said. “I just prefer listening to music.”
“Really?”
Ah, Cameron. They must have come in after I passed out. I pried my lids open the best I could and looked at them through my mussed hair. Cameron was sitting on the window seat, back straight, alert as always. Did that guy ever rest?
“I have bad dreams,” Brooklyn said, “when it’s too quiet.” She was on her own twin bed that was tucked into the corner by the window seat. Grandma and Grandpa had bought it for her, since she practically lived with us anyway. “Can’t you sleep?”
“Not with him here.” He indicated Jared with a nod of his head.
I couldn’t help but peek over the side of my bed to study the boy sleeping so soundly beside me. He looked almost totally healed already. He had light bruises and scratches where deep cuts and swollen golf balls had been before. I glanced back at Cameron. The same. Healing quickly was definitely part of who they were. It would have taken a normal person days, even weeks to reach that point.
Trying not to be noticed, I raised up and peeked over at Glitch. He was on the floor in a sleeping bag. Pretty much every available inch of floor space had been confiscated.
“Have you slept at all lately?” Brooklyn asked. She had on her favorite pajamas, the ones with tiny turtles all over them, the ones that disturbed Glitch.
“Do you care?” Cameron volleyed.
She sighed and hugged a pillow to her. “Cameron, I know what you were doing, why you were following Lorelei. You saw him, didn’t you? You knew what he was.”
He rested back against the window and looked out of it. “I only felt it at first. Then, about a week ago, I saw it following her.”
“You saw Jared? He’s been here for a week?”
“No. At first, there was simply a fine dark mist. It was so unlike Lorelei, I knew something else was there.”
“What do you mean, so unlike her?”
He rubbed the back of his fingers on the cold glass. “Lorelei’s aura is bright, like fire. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You can see her aura?” Brooklyn asked, propping her elbows on the pillow.
“I can see everyone’s auras, ever since I was a kid.”
“Wow.” She pondered on that briefly before asking, “So, when you first saw them, when you were a kid, did you know what they were?”
“Not even,” he said, shaking his head. “I used to ask my dad why people didn’t glow in their pictures like they did in real life. That’s when it hit me. Not everyone could see them. My dad made me promise not to tell anyone.”
“That’s pretty amazing.” Pausing thoughtfully, she asked, “So, what color is mine?”
“Oh, no,” he said, turning to her with a wary expression. “Trust me. You do not want to go there.”
She gasped. “Is it bad?”
“Awful.”
Clasping her hands at her chest, she said bravely, “Go ahead. Tell me. I can take it.”
I knew from the tilt of his lips, he would give her a bogus answer. He leaned toward her and whispered. “It’s purple with pink polka dots.”
She threw her pillow at him. “It is not.”
He caught it easily. “How do you know?”
“Just tell me, butthead.”
He laughed and tossed her pillow back. “What are you gonna do for me?”
“What am I gonna do for you?” she asked, sitting up. “What do you mean, what am I gonna do for you? I can’t do anything for you. You’re, like, all strong and crap.”
With a grin more evil than before, he regarded her a long moment. She braced herself for whatever he might say. “You could tell me your deepest, darkest secret.”
She rolled her eyes in disappointment. “I don’t have any deep, dark secrets. Least not any that compare with the likes of yours.”
“Your aura speaks otherwise,” he said. Clearly, he knew something she didn’t.
“Yeah, whatever. So, do auras change color?”
“All the time. When someone gets mad or depressed. Pretty much any strong emotion will change a person’s aura temporarily. You wouldn’t believe how badly a laughing person can be seething underneath. It’s … intimidating.”
“I never thought anything could intimidate you.”
He looked at her in surprise. “I’ve been intimidated by you since the third grade.”
Brooklyn stilled, completely taken off guard. “Me? Get outta here.”
“No, really. Your aura was so different from any I’d seen before. I didn’t know what to think of you.”
“Wow.” She wiggled her shoulders. “I’m intimidating. That’s kind of liberating in a bizarre, dominatrix kind of way. So are you gonna tell me the color or what?”
“I don’t know if I should. I could use it as leverage someday.”
“Fine,” she said, feigning disinterest. I could tell she was dying to know—especially since it was so intimidating and all—but she decided to drop it for now. “I order you to get some sleep, then.”
“Another order?” He raised his brows, amused. “You gonna pull that water pistol on me again?”
With a soft gasp, she asked, “You knew that was a water pistol?” After he shot her a duh-like smirk, she said, “I can’t believe you knew it was a water pistol.”