Second Skin (Skinned) (10 page)

“Um, are you feeling okay?” I asked, trying not to gawk—but it was hard.

Paige looked at me sideways. “I’m fine. I’m excited about all we’ll learn at school today.” She flashed me a mechanical smile. “Aren’t you?”

The hairs on my neck trembled.

Eww
. That was weird. Okay, now I was thinking
Stepford Daughters.
Either that or a bounty hunter was lurking in Paige’s body, waiting to make its move.

No putrid egg smell though.

Paige reached for her keys, cranked the starter, and this time when the car’s engine flared to life, the accompanying music was—well, cool.

Indie thrash metal? Screamo? Maybe a bit over the top with the vocals at some points, but overall, I liked it.

This was so wrong.

We shot down the street, sliding on the ice. “What’s with the pity tunes?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Paige tapped her finger on the steering wheel, not quite in time with the booming bass.

Yeesh
, how could you not be in time with that kind of beat? “The tunes.” I pointed to the dash as I pressed against the

armrest on the door. Keeping my distance, waiting for Paige to go demonic like her parents. Or for her head to spin around and spew green vomit. “Where are the cowboy, you-done-me-wrong songs?”

She shrugged. “Change the station if you like.”

I studied my cousin for a second. She wasn’t kidding. “Change the station?” I echoed. “But you always listen to country music.
Always
.”

“Do I?” Paige’s brow furrowed. “I guess I forgot.”

Damn, this was creeping me out. Ever since Kate had wiped our werewolf adventures from Paige’s mind, including her crush on Wade, the fact that he was a vampire and had been using her as a bloody juice box, the sight of Brit in full-on dark sprite form, the Logan showdown—pretty much the last few months of her life—my cousin just hadn’t been…Paige.

I actually missed her off-key singing in the morning. It had become a kind of a horrific tradition. A necessary evil. Like flossing.

This whole day was getting
Freaky Friday
. And it was only Wednesday. I’d been enjoying the less-annoying version of Paige, I confess, but I was feeling guilty about the whole thing. She was supposed to forget paranorm stuff.

Not forget
herself
.

“I’ve got to talk to you. Something happened this morning. Something big and bad.”

“Isn’t it always?” Brit riffled through her backpack and then slammed her locker shut. “Is it about Blake? You found something useful?”

“Ah, no.” I paused. “But I’m pretty sure I saw the night mare last night. He’s definitely scary. Oh and I had breakfast with two bounty hunters after my head. They were playing Body Snatchers with my aunt and uncle.”

Brit grimaced. “Okay, let’s meet in the cafeteria for lunch.”

“I might not make it that long,” I said, only slightly joking. Fine hairs on the back of my neck stood upright, little spikes with rigor mortis. I shifted my shoulders, working away the tension that had settled there. These were not good signs. In fact, these were signs of imminent attack or maiming.

Something stalked us. Right here in the rotunda of Redgrave High, where innocent students laughed, joked, and groped each other in semi-dark corners.

I pivoted, lightning fast. Scanned the area. There. A few feet away. Pure evil.

My breath hitched. I elbowed Brit. She didn’t notice. I elbowed her again harder, and this time she grunted, shooting me a glare.

“Look,” I said, jerking my chin toward the thing giving me the willies. “It’s watching us.”

Brit glanced from me to the glass display case located outside the library.

“What is?”

“That.” I pointed to the antique Victorian doll behind the glass. About two feet tall, it wore a tattered muslin dress. Black ringlets gleamed under the strategically placed track lighting. Its pert mouth tipped in a knowing grin. But the worst thing—its eyes. Roll-back-in-its-head icy blues staring out at us like we were burgers under a heat lamp and she hadn’t had a thing to eat…in forever.

Ugh. I hated dolls. Especially creepy old ones. We had history—of a voodoo nature. Let’s just say my father’s hunts were many and varied. After a particularly nasty takedown involving graveyard dirt, wax dolls, and a scythe, I swore never to stay in the same room with the rotten things.

And now with the night mare lurking and bounty hunters able to inhabit those I loved, I stood on guard.

Dolls were always trouble.

“What’s the big deal?” Brit took a few careless steps toward the case. “A little haggard, sure, but she’s beautiful.”

“She just looks that way.” My father had taught me to look beyond the surface, that just because the wrapping was fancy as all get out, the gift-wrapped box on your doorstep could still hold a stink bomb.

I grabbed Brit’s arm and tugged, but she was stronger than her sickly goth appearance suggested. She spun out of reach, swift and agile. As a dark sprite, Brit had lots of subtle power in her human form, if you knew what to watch for. She just couldn’t run—not if her life depended on it. Well, not in public. Not if she didn’t want to change.

Brit was like a thunderbird needing a running start to take off. If she ran, it triggered her instinct to fly, and to fly she needed her wings. A sight civilians couldn’t ignore.

“You have a doll phobia.” Brit laughed. “Oh, that’s priceless.” She waved her hands in front of the floor to ceiling display case as if trying to get the thing’s attention. “It’s not watching
us
”—she lowered her arms—“it’s watching
you
.”

Brit was right. The whole time she flailed before it, the doll in the case remained motionless. Yet one minute shuffle of my feet, and I swear its aged eyes tracked the movement.

I’d thought my creep counter had hit its peak earlier that morning.

Clearly I was wrong.

Fighting back the urge to growl a warning, I stepped closer to the glass. Inhaling deeply, I scented the invisible layers of window cleaner and a musky odor, likely from the memorabilia lining the small shelves around the doll. My keen sniffer came in handy.

The objects in the display case smelled of life and death. I breathed in the past that lingered deep within the fibers of the vintage material. The whiff of hopelessness that clung to the surface of the antique water pitcher and old coins. The dreams, the trepidation of the humans who were once drawn to the weathered immigration poster.
Rich soil. Fertile land. Come to Alberta, the land of plenty.

How ironic.

Redgrave was having its own little housing boom, and the buyers snatching up all the land planned to do more than till the soil and plant roots. These were paranormal beasties looking to score the last bit of unclaimed territory.

Maybe even do some reverse window shopping for prey. Trapped inside, standing on pointed black shoes with her arms at her sides, the doll stared out at me with cunning eyes.

This time, the hairs on my neck were not only standing, they were doing Morse code twitches for holy-freaking-hell-this-is- BAD. And it had nothing to do with my little doll phobia. The sour gas smell emanating from her confirmed that.

The bell pealed, making me jump.

“That’s our song, Miss Paranoia.” Brit grabbed my arm and hauled me away from those aged eyes. “Get going, you poor, gutless chickenshit. You can’t keep Mr. Phillips waiting. You’re already on his hit list.”

I was on a lot of hit lists, and it seemed I’d made the top of yet another. I glanced back. The Victorian doll’s half-hooded eyes had dipped toward another object in the display case.

A rusted shaving knife.

I kind of wished Brit hadn’t called me
gutless
.

The Mind Is a Dangerous Place

“It’s apple juice,” Kyle Barton said, handing me a black coffee cup, his eyes alight with mischief. “Drink it, don’t think about it. Just take a big sip. Everyone likes apple juice. Come on, drink up.” Inside, the clear liquid sloshed against the rim, taking on the color of the mug.

It could be anything.

The rest of the experimental science class watched with bated breath.

I’d walked into class, seconds after the bell. Stupid. The last person to enter the class usually became the subject of Phillip’s psychology experiments.

And thanks to that freaking doll, I was the guinea pig this time. Lovely. As if I hadn’t played that role my whole life.

I glanced into the cup. “You didn’t spit in this, did you?” I asked. The class erupted in laughter.

Phillips silenced them with a glare. “I assure you, my dear Eryn, the juice is spit free.”

I studied both Kyle and Phillips for a long moment. Apple juice, huh? I inhaled sharply. Could be. The liquid was clear, not cloudy, but the dark cup made it impossible to detect the amber tinge of apple juice. And I couldn’t get a scent.

You only live once.

I tilted my head back and gulped down half the contents, vaguely concerned that Phillips had gotten sick of kids and planned to end his teaching career in a blaze of poisoning-a-student glory. I waited for the contrasting sweet-tang aftertaste of the apple juice to hit.

Nothing.

Puzzled, I glanced at the remaining liquid in the bottom of the mug.

“It’s water,” I said finally.

“But you
thought
it was apple juice.” Kyle pointed in my face. I wanted to bite his finger off. “I guess,” I said and shrugged. Phillips walked forward and plucked the mug from my grip. He turned to address the class. “And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” he said with a slight bow. “The power of suggestion. Kyle told Eryn the cup was filled with apple juice, and when she drank, she expected apple juice. An example of what the mind is capable of. A psychologist friend of mine once told me,
The mind is a dangerous place
.” He let the sentence hang for a moment, and then lowered his voice. “
Don’t go there alone.
”

The class laughed, if a bit uncertainly. Phillips and his eccentricities could be off-putting.

“Thank you so much for participating in today’s experiment, Eryn. You and Kyle may take your seats.”

I gladly sought out a desk at the back of the room, ignoring the snickers as I passed Paige’s three blonde minions, Janie, Jane, and Jan. Apparently they’d legally changed their names in junior high so they’d match…
forever
. How Paige had resisted the blondilocks peer pressure, I could only guess.

Assholes.

“Is this like that story about the guy who snuck onto a train?” Kyle asked from his keener desk at the front of the room.

Phillips raised a brow.

“You know, he hops into an empty container thingy and discovers it’s a freezer unit. Only, it isn’t. He just thinks it is. When they find his body, he’s frozen to death.”

The class tittered.

“That, my young friend,” Phillips said, shaking his head, “would be an urban legend.”

Hmm, teach was wrong about that. My father had been in on that case. The victim had been bitten by an Italian Toranto, a spider creature notorious for freeze-drying its victims, preserving them for later consumption. The poor guy probably hadn’t seen it coming. Torantos usually assume the form of a beautiful woman, luring men into caves, or in this case, an abandoned train car, and then delivering a killing bite and eventually sucking out their innards.

Urban legends were kind of like that low-carb vegetarian food Sammi insisted on feeding us—all the nutrition with none of the meat. The legends presented some of the facts, but left out the good stuff.

I slunk low in my chair and left my textbook unopened on my desk. The feeling of eyes on me lingered. As if the whole class had swiveled in their seats and were staring me down, even though I was the one looking at the backs of their heads. I wrapped my arms across my chest.