I See You (Oracle 2) (13 page)

About fifteen or so students milled around, chatting or texting, between us and the two women at the end of the hall. Apparently, an evening session of elementary organic chemistry — if Ada had any idea what she was talking about — had just let out. I’d tried googling the university’s schedule but hadn’t been able to track down the location of the lecture while driving. Further investigation had been thwarted by Kandy, who preferred ‘quick and dirty’ tracking, which apparently consisted of wandering through high-traffic areas while inappropriately sniffing people, seating areas, and handrails.
 

“That’s her?” Kandy asked.

“That’s her,” I said.

Kandy focused her gaze on the two women as we approached. Ettie was wearing a white collared T-shirt and blue cotton skirt. Her shoulder-length blond hair was slightly wavy, and pulled back from her face with a headband that matched her skirt. The other girl, a brunette with her long hair pulled back in a braided bun, was wearing shredded gray jeans paired with a red and orange tie-dyed tank top.

“I thought you said she’s a blond?”

“She is blond. Dyed, but blond.”

“But the blond’s a dud. A normal.”

Beau shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “Yeah.”

“The brunette’s the witch,” Kandy said. “Well, like one-quarter witch.”

Ettie was shaking her head emphatically, though she was still smiling at the brunette. The quarter-witch — according to Kandy — shifted her feet, looking like she was ready to start begging over whatever they were discussing.

“But …” I said. “Ettie’s not an Adept?”

“Not a drop,” Kandy murmured.

I glanced over at Beau.

He looked chagrined. “Talking about it always equaled a beat down from Cy. But yeah, I thought she was just a late bloomer. But, ah …” He shrugged, turning his attention to his sister down the hall. “Apparently, she isn’t.”

Ettie pulled her phone out of the front pocket of a light-blue backpack, which was emblazoned with the university’s red, white, and blue ‘Ole Miss’ logo. She started texting.

“But the visions,” I muttered underneath my breath, knowing that Kandy and Beau could still hear me. “The visions are always about Adepts.”

“Not this time, apparently,” Kandy said. “Don’t you love it when magic gets all convoluted and obscure?”

The green-haired werewolf grinned at me, as if she wasn’t being sarcastic. Her smile widened as I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“No,” I said. “No one likes that.”

Kandy barked out a laugh. “And here I was getting bored.”

All the university buildings we’d entered while tracking Ettie appeared to be constructed as blocks of corridors running in a perimeter around and through classrooms and lecture halls. The individually placed buildings were sprawled across and surrounded by what seemed to be miles of manicured green space and a complex network of paved roads. We’d parked the Brave and the SUV in one of the large parking lots situated on the outskirts of the campus, passing by at least two massive sports complexes as we’d driven in.
 

The science building where we eventually tracked Ettie down — Coulter Hall — looked much the same as the other buildings. Its exterior was constructed out of red brick, though, and it didn’t have as many windows as some of the newer parts of the campus.

There weren’t a ton of students on campus. I imagined that was because it was summer break and early evening. Any high school acquaintances that I kept vaguely in touch with who’d made it into university had to take the summers off to pay for next year’s tuition. And university in the States was even more expensive than it was in Canada, at least as far as I’d ever heard.

“Ettie,” Beau called out. We were only a dozen steps away now.

Ettie flinched. Then with the same smile still plastered to her face, she glanced over to see the three of us advancing down the corridor toward her.
 

I caught the moment she recognized her brother. It took her longer than I thought it would. Her fake smile didn’t change.

“See you later then, Sara.” Ettie spoke to her friend without looking at her. Her accent was a thicker version of Beau’s sweet Southern tone, but not the more lyrical for it.

Sara bobbed her head, glanced at us, and spun on the spot to take off down a perpendicular corridor.

Ettie tucked her phone back into her backpack. “Hey, Beau.”

We stopped a few feet away, then stood there awkwardly. Though Ettie barely glanced at me, she eyed Kandy carefully. Resisting the urge to pull my sketchbook out of my satchel and see how accurately I’d captured her likeness, I noticed that she’d opted for a plain gold lip stud rather than the magnolia one I’d seen in my vision.

“This here is Rochelle,” Beau said, dipping his shoulder in my direction. “And Kandy.”

Again, Ettie didn’t even bother to look at me. “Claudette. Or as Beau calls me, Ettie.” She reached out to shake Kandy’s hand.

Kandy didn’t accept it. Ettie curled her fingers into a fist, glanced at me a second time, then dropped her arm.

“Why are you here?” Any pretense of friendliness was gone from Ettie’s tone. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“I wasn’t.” Beau spoke carefully. “Mom said you were —”

“Mom?” Ettie sneered, the expression suiting her much more than her previous smile had. I had a feeling that was the attitude she used around her family the most. I would have. “Mom said? She’s ‘mom’ to you now?”

“She’s your younger sister?” Kandy asked casually.

“By eighteen months.”

“Then what gives her the right to talk to you like that?”

Beau sighed. “Maybe now isn’t the time —”

“Now is always the time.”

“So what that I’m younger than him?” Ettie was glancing back and forth between Kandy and Beau. “He lost any respect I had for him when he left. That’s what gives me —”

Beau interrupted his sister, glancing at a few students who appeared to be settling into the study nook. “We need somewhere private to speak, Ettie. Then we’re gone.”

Ettie snapped her mouth shut, spun on her heel, and took off down the same adjacent hall Sara had used. We followed.

“There you go,” Kandy said. “Much clearer.”

Ettie glanced over her shoulder to glare at Kandy. The werewolf bared her teeth in one of her smiles that wasn’t really a smile. Ettie quickly looked away.

As we followed Beau’s sister deeper into the building, the air conditioning became oddly more oppressive than the heat. It was as if I was having sudden difficulty filling my lungs with the cool air. Or maybe I was drying out from the inside with each breath. Also, I was really cold in my tank top. The contrast between the extreme heat outside and the dry cold inside was screwing with my head, making me uncomfortable simply while walking down the hall.

I tried not to notice that Beau was limping.

Ettie led us through two sets of doors, one of which she unlocked, and into a lab. Though I’d never set one foot in a laboratory of any kind, the science equipment stacked on shelving along one of the walls was a dead giveaway. Long metal tables between the door and the heavily frosted high windows on the opposite wall were so clean they reflected the overhead fluorescent lights that Ettie flicked on as we entered.

Kandy, who was trailing behind us, glanced around the classroom and closed the door.

Ettie dumped her backpack on a table, then turned to Beau with her arms crossed and chin jutted out. “So?”

Beau cleared his throat but said nothing, eyeing Kandy as she walked the perimeter of the lab. She tested the door on the opposite corner. It was locked.

“Lecture hall,” Ettie said in response. She turned her attention back to Beau. “I work here.”

“Oh, yeah? First-year chemistry, huh? That’s —”

“Second,” Ettie interrupted. “Second year. Why are you here?”

“Are you sure it’s her?” Kandy asked me. She was leaning against a table behind and to the right of Ettie, effectively blocking Beau’s sister from bolting toward the lecture hall.

“It’s her,” I said, though I was seriously mystified as to why I would be having visions of anyone who wasn’t magical.

“It’s her what?” Ettie snapped.

“In my vision,” I said. “You know, getting … hurt.”

“Or, you know,” Kandy said mockingly. “Getting dead.”

Ettie snorted, then looked at Beau for confirmation.

“Rochelle’s an oracle,” Beau said. “She sees you.”

Ettie paled. “What?”

“Yeah, I see you dead.”

“When? How? What?”

“I don’t know. Soon, by the weather and the color of your hair. You dye it, right?”

Ettie reached up to touch her hair, seemingly more concerned that I’d accused her of being a bottle blond than by her impending doom.

“Brilliant.” Kandy laughed.

“There’s no need to be nasty about it,” Ettie said.

“No one is being nasty, Ettie,” Beau said. “We’re here to …”

“To help me?”

“Yes, ah … that’s Rochelle’s territory.” Beau glanced sideways at me.

“Do you own a sundress with blue flowers on it?” I asked Ettie.

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Burn it. Dye your hair brown. Don’t hang out in commercial areas, specifically around freshly paved asphalt —”

“I’m not dyeing my hair or burning my clothing because some crackpot says she sees my death,” Ettie said, dismissing me completely and returning her attention to Beau.

“That’s some really detailed and personal info for a supposed crackpot,” Kandy sneered.

I reached into my bag. “I could show her my sketchbook …”

“No,” Beau said, sharper than he’d ever addressed me before. “No one should see themselves like that.”

My heart pinched. Beau and I never discussed the vision I’d had of him dying. A vision I’d only managed to thwart through pure ignorance. I’d never shown him, or anyone else, those sketches. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t looked for himself.

I left my sketchbook in my bag. I’d pull it out as a last resort. “Okay, I get it sounds crazy,” I said to Ettie. “I’m just figuring all this fate, destiny, and future stuff out myself.

“Great,” Ettie said nastily.

I gritted my teeth. I just had to keep reminding myself that I had a function to perform and that with parents like hers I’d be an asshole too. “How about we … go camping somewhere cold. Hang out. Maybe the vision changes?”

“I can’t just hang out with you,” Ettie sneered, running her gaze up the length of me. It wasn’t a long look.

Kandy laughed again. “A fate worse than death, hey?”

Ettie rounded on the werewolf. “And just who the hell are you? Beau always had a thing for older women —”

“That’s enough!” Beau yelled.
 

A row of glass vials hanging in a metal test tube holder on the shelf beside us shattered. Ettie flinched, but I was pretty sure I was more shocked than she was. I hadn’t known that Beau’s voice could somehow break glass. Maybe that was some aspect of his shifter magic?

“You misunderstand the situation,” Beau continued, his voice low and steady now. “I don’t want to be here. I wouldn’t be here, not without Rochelle’s insistence that we try to help you somehow.”

Ettie stared at me, her brow furrowed with confusion.

“I imagine Cy is in some shit. And that shit is going to bleed over onto you.”

“But —”

“We’re not staying any longer than we have to,” Beau interrupted. “This is not a conversation. I would have preferred to call, but I didn’t have your number. You’ll stay quiet and listen.”

Ettie closed her mouth, shook her head, then lifted her arms in a ‘whatever’ sort of gesture.

“Finally,” Kandy grumbled. Pushing away from the table she’d been leaning against, she sauntered past Ettie toward the main doors. As she passed Beau’s sister, she leaned in and took a long sniff of her neck.

“Oh, ick!”

Kandy ignored her, locking gazes with me. “A dud,” she said. “Through and through.”

“How dare you call me that —” Ettie began.

The door behind me slammed open.

Kandy stepped in front of me as I spun around. Then Beau stepped to her side. They formed a wall, giving me just a glimpse of the men funneling into the room.

“Normals,” Kandy snarled. “Watch your strength. Guns.”

The men formed a semicircle about ten feet in front of Beau and Kandy, deliberately standing out of arm’s reach.

Beyond the broad shoulders blocking my view, I could see the two men nearest to us on either side. The newcomers were bruisers — previously broken noses, gold chains, hairy arms, and all. I was fairly certain there were five of them. They stood with their backs to the main entrance. If they had guns tucked underneath their loose shirts, I couldn’t spot them.

Ettie stepped up beside Beau. “What is going on?”

“Claudette,” some guy I couldn’t see drawled. His accent was an odd mixture of lyrical vowels and sharp consonants. French influenced, maybe? “A lazy birdie said I’d find you here. And you, Beaumont. It’s been too long … for my pocketbook, at least.”

“I don’t know where Cy is, Byron,” Ettie said. She didn’t sound remotely worried about the five guys who’d just occupied the lab as if it were a country they’d invaded.

Byron? I peeked around Beau’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of a beefy guy with a faded scar across the right side of his too-tanned face. He was wearing a collared, short-sleeved silk print shirt loose over his beige shorts.

“What you know, Claudette, doesn’t really factor into our visit,” Byron said. “You’ll come with us, and Cy will come get you. Ada will make him. You always were your mother’s favorite.” The men around Byron snickered.

Beau shifted his feet.

“Not yet,” Kandy said. Her voice was a low growl.

Ignoring Beau and Kandy, Byron continued, “And then he’ll have to answer a few questions about the new shit he’s dealing behind my back to get through the door.”

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Beau spat.

“Why don’t you introduce me to your friends, Beaumont?” Byron said. “Why hide the littlest one behind you? What’s so important about her?”

“Maybe we’re protecting you from her,” Kandy said.

“I doubt that. But since I’m not inclined to stand around a university campus for longer than I have to, why don’t we move this chat somewhere more … amenable to me.”