Page 47

Pressure swept over me, so sudden and complete that my ears popped. Cold raced over my skin, immediately chased by a wash of heat.

I gasped.

Barrett staggered.

I grabbed his forearm. “Barrett?”

Light flashed beneath my hand, and I snatched my fingers away. For a second, I thought my headlamp had caught water on his fur.

Then it happened again. Tiny points of light moved across the dark fur covering his forearm.

I stared. “Don’t move.”

Barrett’s head turned toward me. “Why?”

I stepped closer. “You’re sparkling.”

The shimmer traveled beneath his rolled sleeve and appeared again across the exposed skin at his throat. It wasn’t a glow. It was sharper than that, hundreds of tiny diamond-like flashes catching light that didn’t appear to come from anywhere.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “You’re doing the Edward Cullen thing.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Who the hell is Edward Cullen?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

A magical—or potentially magical; the scientist in me was desperately clinging to proven facts—phenomenon was occurring directly in front of me, and my brain had apparently decided Twilight was the appropriate frame of reference.

“You’re a giant sparkling bear.”

“Hazel.”

“I’m sorry.” I bit my lip, trying to get myself under control. “Although in my defense, this may be the strangest thing I’ve seen since I got here, and that’s an extremely competitive category.”

His expression turned deeply unimpressed. “We had sex twelve times in three days.”

A laugh escaped me anyway. “Fine. Top three.”

Barrett looked down at his arm. “I don’t see anything.”

My amusement disappeared. “You can’t?”

“No.”

I switched off my headlamp, and darkness swallowed us. The shimmer remained, faint but unmistakable.

I turned my headlamp on again and reached for him more carefully this time. When my fingertips touched his forearm, light fractured beneath them, tiny diamond-bright flashes scattering through the dark fur.

Barrett sucked in a breath.

I immediately released him. “Pain?”

“No.”

“What did you feel?”

His pupils had widened until only a thin ring of amber-brown remained. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking at the wall. “Like something knows I’m here.”

The humor vanished completely.