"Where are you from?"
"Under your bed," he says without pause.
"How old are you?"
"Older than you."
"Like twenty years older, or a hundred?"
Would that creep or freak me out? I doubt it.
Smoke begins to expand from his body, and I know he’s uncomfortable, trying to cover himself up. I wonder if he knows he’s even doing it.
"Why do you want to know?"
My legs start to pump, forcing the swing forward. "You know everything about me." Or almost everything. I add the addendum in case any psychic lawyers are aware of my arrangement with David. It always happens during the day, when Shadow can’t come.
"It’s my job."
"What do you mean, it’s your job?" I ask, ceasing the pumping and just letting myself swing back and forth. My stomach flips, but it’s not from the air I’m catching.
"Nothing," he murmurs.
"You don’t tell me anything," I complain.
"You know enough," he says.
My heels dig into the ground, sending gravel flying as I bring myself to a stop. "No. I don’t. Do you blip out of existence when you aren’t here? Do you have a house somewhere else? Do you have a girlfriend?"
I can hear the childlike petulance in my voice. I sound like the whiny girls from my class, but I can’t help it. Tingles of energy rush through my forehead and body as my insides twist up tighter with each question he won’t answer.
"Do I have a girlfriend?" He repeats the question, and I detect dark amusement.
I instantly hate how he’s keyed into the one question that matters most to me. It makes me feel like an absolute idiot.
He comes to stand in front of me, grasping the chains on either side of my head. He walks forward, pushing me back into the air. "There is another place I go. I do not have a house, as I rather feel my home is with you." He pauses, as if contemplating whether he should go on. "I do not have a girlfriend," he confesses, and his mouth splits into a fanged smile.
"Aren’t there girls where you go? Or boys?" I rush to add, feeling as foolish as Jean probably does, asking me.
Shadow’s smile disappears into a dark, blurry mask. He’s still holding me in the air where I sit on the swing. If he moves away and lets go, I’d rocket forward. "I am not suited for such things."
My nose wrinkles. "What does that mean?"
He sighs. "It means I have no inclination for such things."
"Oh," I say, my heart spiraling down an endless elevator shaft.
With that, he disappears and I’m launched into the air. It’s not until then I realize I hadn’t been gripping the chains well enough, and I lose my place on the seat as I fly away from the swing.
Quick as a blink, I’m caught in Shadow’s arms. Holding onto his shoulders tighter than is necessary, I find it difficult to catch my breath.
Those white misty eyes remind me of a portal to another world. I wish I could step through them and into his mind.
"I know why you are asking," he murmurs.
My chest wrenches in panic, and I can’t breathe.
The pounding of my heart against my ribs at his touch and intimate words is so intense I fear he’ll hear it and know everything.
