And he didn’t trust the flicker of mischief he saw in hers. “Lila, whatever you are considering, don’t?—”
Then, maybe to annoy him, maybe because she was someone who still needed to have eyes on her, always desperate to be noticed, Lila gathered her energy and projected herself onto the mirror behind Wren.
A few seconds of mayhem passed and then she collapsed, in a graceful heap, at Silas’s feet.
* * *
Wren screamed, slapped her hands over her face, and screamed again. Who the hell was in her mirror? She was about to scream again when Dane pulled her into him, his hand holding her head to his chest, his back to the room, shielding her from the kids’what-the-effgazes. She opened one eye, saw that the mirror was empty of whatever she’d briefly glimpsed, and gripped Dane’s shirt in her hands, feeling like an absolute idiot. Heat flowed into her cheeks and warmed her goosebump-covered skin. She heard the rising murmurs of the kids behind her and banged her forehead against Dane’s hard chest. Man, she was losing it, big time.
“Tell them I am okay,” she asked Dane. “I just need a moment to gather myself.”
Dane did as she asked as Wren eased back a fraction, buther grip on his shirt refused to loosen. She needed him like air—his solidity, his realness, was the only thing keeping her from spinning. Her chest heaved, her mind thrumming. She couldn’t allow herself to become attached. She’d decided, after getting the message that the men she loved always left her, that she was going to live in the present, in the fun.
Clinging like this wasn’t fun; it was embarrassing.
But … what the fuck wasthat?
Because there was no freaking way she’d seen a ghost inthe mirror. Because despite the numerous ghost sightings and the lore and the town’s active promotion of everything spooky—people wanted to believe there was an afterlife, but ghosts were a figment of society’s collective imagination—ghostsdidn’t exist. Not in H-Town, notanywhere. So the quick flash of a woman with black hair cut into a blunt bob—wearing a leotard sparkling with sequins, silk stockings hugging giraffe-long legs, and dyed ostrich plumes behind her headdidn’t happen. Not really. Sure, she’d looked utterly fabulous—wild, untouchable, and defiant—but she hadn’t beenreal.
Wren turned her head slightly, closed one eye, and squinted at the mirror. As expected, there was nothing there but her holding on to Dane’s big frame, his expression puzzled, his confusion echoed by the kids. The music still pumped, but they stood around, obviously wondering why their dance teacher released a banshee-worthy scream in the middle of practice.
She wouldn’t mind knowing the answer either … but it definitely wasn’t because she’d seen a freaking spirit!
Wren swallowed and sent them an embarrassed smile. Still gripping Dane, she grimaced. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night, and I got a fright. So silly.”
Dane steered her over to the bench. “Sit down,” he told her. He squatted down in front of her and placed his fingers on her inner wrist. “Your pulse is a bit fast.” Noshit, Sherlock.
“You had quite a bit of caffeine before practice. It can raise your pulse, trigger anxiety, and nervousness.”
She’d lived on coffee for years now and knew she was nowhere near her limit. But if she admitted that, then she would have to find an alternate explanation for her brief hallucination. And she didn’t have one, so she latched on to his explanation as an excuse. “That must be it,” she quickly agreed.
Dane narrowed his eyes at her, before glancing at his watch. Then he swiveled around, looked up at the curious group gathered around them, and took control. “We only have about five minutes left, why don’t we call it?” he said, and everyone in the room, including Wren, knew it wasn’t a suggestion. They all nodded, turned away, and started gathering their belongings.
But Hadley didn’t move; she just looked at Wren with big eyes and shifted from foot to foot. Wren, her wrist still in Dane’s grasp, sent her a smile. “I’m fine, Hads,” she said.
Hadley didn’t look convinced. “Your scream was really loud, and you turned white,” she said, frowning. “You are still a bit pale, actually.”
“I didn’t eat much this morning,” Wren lied, not wanting to worry the girl. “I’m going to go home, eat, and rest, and I’ll be fine.”
Hadley didn’t look convinced. “Okay, not eating might be one explanation,” she said, lifting her foot to rest it against the back of her calf. “The other could be the ghost you saw in the mirror.”
Wren stilled. What the—? Her brain tried to catch up, but a dozen thoughts collided and tripped over each other. Had Hadley really seen a woman in the mirror? How was that even possible? Especially if the figure was just a trick of her imagination. Besides, how could she possibly have glimpsed something that had flashed for no more than a heartbeat or two?
“Hadley…”
“Have you forgotten I’m an indigo kid?” Hadley asked.
“An indigo kid?” Dane asked, seemingly unaware his hand was resting on Wren’s knee.
“Kids who are said to possess special, unusual, and sometimes supernatural traits or abilities,” Hadley explained.
Pfft.Okay, Hadley had an excellent imagination, and as a kid had a couple of imaginary friends. That didn’t mean she saw ghosts. Oh God, Wren hoped she didn’t. Being a teenager was difficult enough. A teenager who saw ghosts was next-level-hard. Not that she believed in ghosts…
Aarrgh!
“Youarespecial, but there are no such things as ghosts,” Wren assured her, pleased that she sounded calmer than she felt. She knew this; she’d spent a great deal of time with Luna, and she’d watched, sometimes in disbelief, sometimes in awe, how her godmother floated between being the most fervent of True Believers and manipulating the supernatural trope to create a booming small-town economy.
Hadley looked at Dane. “The adults around me have been telling me that since I was three,” she told him. Yeah, Hayes hadn’t wanted Hadley’s already active imagination stoked by a town that embraced the supernatural a little too hard.
