What the hell had happened last night?
I searched her eyes for answers, and she finally stopped squirming underneath my hold. She clutched at my wrists, and I moved my hand from her mouth.
“What the fuck, Amari? What are you doing here?” She wiped her mouth and squirmed some more. Something brushed against my crotch.
“I fell asleep?” I was so confused. I sat back on my heels and rubbed my hands over my head. “I wasasleep.”
She pushed herself up on her forearms and stared at me. “I thought gargoyles didn’t sleep.”
She looked as if she’d gotten twelve hours of sleep and like nothing at all happened the night before.
“We don’t.” I narrowed my eyes. She had something to do with it.
We stared at each other for a moment before her eyes went wide. “Did I...” She took a breath. “Go toward the storm last night?”
Did she really not remember any of it? How often did she throw herself in front of the bolts?
“You did. It hit you five times. The squirrel brought you back here.”
She nodded solemnly and ran her hands through her hair. It was even more vibrant than it usually was.
“You can’t breathe a word of this.” Her eyes pleaded with me to guard her secret.
“Don’t worry. Your squirrel already talked to me.” I stood and stretched my arms over my head. Her eyes traveled overmy body and settled on the spot where my shirt had lifted, revealing my stomach.
Her eyes stayed locked on my abdomen, and I pulled my shirt down. She shook her head as if she were snapping herself out of it, and then she met my eyes. “You need to stop calling him squirrel. He has a name.”
“Isn’t that what he is? I’m called ‘gargoyle,’ and Val is called ‘vampire.’”
“It’s said as a jab. I’m curious about what I’m referred to as?” Her eyes held a challenge, and I bit the inside of my cheek.
I desperately wanted to call hersomething, but what? I’d heard the squirrel call her Peanut, and Val referred to her as princess or bruja.
“Are you a witch?”
She certainly looked like a witch, not that witches had any distinctive features. There was a magical aura about her.
She slid out of her sleeping bag and stood in front of me. She wasn’t wearing any pants, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking down at her long legs. I shoved my hands in my pockets to resist the urge to run my hands up them.
A smirk formed on her face, but there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. “I’m not a witch, but I don’t exactly know what I am.”
If she was nothing, why had I fallen asleep next to her? It was as if I were drawn to her, and she had somehow gotten past my curse.
There was an awkward moment of silence, and it had suddenly grown very claustrophobic. Where was the damn squirrel, and why hadn’t he kicked me out?
I turned and left the tent before I did something stupid.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAMARA
The storms were using me. Once, I’d been strong enough to turn away, to feel the pull and dig in my heels. But something had shifted. Now, when the lightning called, I answered. A puppet on electric strings, blank-minded and powerless. And whatever the skies were orchestrating, I was dancing right into it.
Not long after the first bolt of lightning had struck me the first time, I started to think of the storms as sentient beings. They knew what they wanted.
Me.
The second time one chased me down, I thought it was just a fluke and bad luck. My family had always been on the receiving end of such good fortune. I figured it was our time.
