She stood and went inside the guardhouse only to return with a blanket and a cup of water. At least I thought it was water. After draping the blanket over me, she handed me the cup, then sat back down. It was coffee. Steaming, scorching coffee, and it tasted like heaven.
Okay, it tasted like motor oil, but it felt like heaven.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” she said, utterly annoyed with me.
Before I could comment, the guard came back to us, cops pulled up with sirens blaring, and another guard was running across the grass toward us.
So much for sneaking out unnoticed.
A LOVE–HATE THING
I sat in the back of an ambulance still wrapped in the blanket Kenya found. She sat beside me, waiting for her parents to show up.
“I don’t understand,” I said to her as we watched the police interview the headmaster. He looked none too happy. This was very bad publicity for a school, so it was hard to blame him.
“What don’t you get?” she asked.
“You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, McAlister.” She started playing with her nails, the black polish shimmering in the glaring light. “I didn’t know how else to protect you.”
My brows slid together as I watched her. “Protect me? And how do you know my name?”
One corner of her mouth tipped up to reveal a dimple. “I know who you are. My parents are members of the Order.” The surprised look on my face made her giggle. “I knew who you were the moment you showed up. We’d been expecting you for days.”
“We?” I asked.
“Me, Wade, and a couple others. We had no idea Wade would be the one I’d be protecting you from. Then again, he always was a douche.”
Wade sat handcuffed in another ambulance. His anger when he woke up was astounding. I had no idea someone could turn so red. The guy wanted me dead. No doubt about it.
And then there was Kenya. “So you bully me?” I asked, appalled. “You threaten me every time I turn around?”
“I marked you as mine.” She lifted a shoulder and let it fall as though what she’d done was everyday. Normal. Ordinary. “No one else would bother you as long as you were my mark. I thought that would be enough to keep the sharks at bay. High school can be brutal, especially in a boarding school. I did not, however, count on Wade being a bigger douche than he already is.” She bit at a cuticle. “His real name is Paul, by the way. He makes everyone call him Wade. It’s not even his middle name.”
“Yeah, I figured that out after he told me who his parents were. But you knew?” I asked, outraged.
She nodded, unconcerned with my outrage. I wondered if Paul’s parents even knew he went by Wade. They never mentioned it to me when they told me to look him up.
I didn’t know what to say to Kenya. Did I thank her? She did save my life. But she’d also threatened it on multiple occasions and caused my eye to twitch uncontrollably every time she was near.
“You’re welcome,” she said, the dimple appearing again.
“Yeah, thanks.” I poured as much sincerity into the remark as I possibly could.
She laughed out loud, then sobered, her brows drawing together in concern. “What did you see?”
I turned away. “What do you mean?”
“This morning. When you rushed off to the bathroom and threw up. You had a vision, right?” When I didn’t answer, she continued. “What did you see?”
Before I could brace for impact, the memory of the visions rushed forth. The memory of her death rushed forth. My eyes stung with the emotions it conjured. “Nothing,” I said, my voice hoarse. I cleared my throat and started again. “I didn’t see anything.”
She scooted around until she was facing me. “Do you know that I’ve dreamed about you since I was a little girl?”
I frowned at her, discomfort prickling over my skin. Not another admirer. Not another starstruck member of the Order convinced I was going to save the world.
“My parents told me about you when I was five. I didn’t really understand at the time, but I knew how special you were, even if you didn’t. Even if you still don’t.”
Just as I was about to tell her exactly how wrong she was, I heard my name like a siren in the night.
“Lorraine!”
Crystal shot inside the ambulance like a laser-guided missile and drew me into a hug. I felt like a rag doll being mauled by a mountain lion, but her hug felt good. I laughed when she held the hug an entire minute too long.
She pulled back and gave me a once-over.
“Was that him?” she asked, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Did Wade send you that note?”
“Yes, he did, Crystal, and my name is actually Lorelei.”
“Your real name? You’re telling me your real name? What about your witness protection?”
“Witness protection?” Kenya asked, this time with a tad more sarcasm.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m not really in the Witness Protection Program.”
She gasped as reality—her reality—sank in. “You’re undercover?”
“Well, not really—”
“Yes,” Kenya said, patting my back. “She’s undercover, and we can’t tell anyone, okay?”
She nodded, her eyes glistening at Kenya then, as though seeing her there for the first time. “Are you undercover, too?”
“Yes,” she said again, fighting the comeback of the dimple. “My real name is Katniss Everdeen.”