seemed like a bizarre way to approach a girl who had caught your eye.
He let out an irritated sigh when I didn’t respond. “That is why you’re here, yes? To celebrate your eighteenth birthday.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Why are you asking?”
He nodded. “Good. Can I see your ears?”
My mouth almost dropped open. “Can you see my ears?”
He took a step closer, a move I matched with a step away, forcing me closer to the wall behind me. I didn’t dare move too far back. If I did, I would quite literally be backed up against a wall, and I was feeling more than a little freaked out—and, oddly, a little excited—by this strange guy who had cornered me in a women’s restroom at a club.
Where the hell was Bree?
“Yes.” Another impatient sigh. “I need to see your ears.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so, buddy.” I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes, hoping the stance made me look a lot more confident and in control than the trembling heart in my chest suggested. “I’m flattered, but I’m not interested. Now, if you don’t mind, could you leave the women’s restroom? I have some business I need to tend to in the toilet.”
Inwardly, I groaned. I have some business I need to tend to in the toilet? Why the hell did you have to say that?!
His lips quirked, but the intensity of his gaze didn’t falter. “Just let me see your ears, and I’ll leave you to tend to your business. In the toilet.”
For a moment, my resolve weakened, despite every logical bone in my body telling me to get the hell away from him. He was strange and unsettling. He’d followed me into the restroom, demanding to see my ears for reasons I didn’t understand. And he wasn’t being at all friendly. Instead, he seemed almost irritated, as if this entire exchange was some kind of chore, one that was very much beneath him.
But I still had this strange, inexplicable urge to give him whatever he asked. I felt almost drawn to him, as if my body recognized him even if my mind and my eyes did not. Had we met before? He wasn’t someone from school, not unless he’d graduated several years before.
He stepped closer. This time, I did not take a step back. His cool hand brushed my cheek as he slid my long, blonde hair behind my ear. My heart hammered, so fast that I could barely breathe. Everything within me felt tight and tense, and a strange scent whispered into my nose. A combination of mint and frost and night.
“Ah, just as we thought,” he murmured almost too low for me to make out the words. “It is you.”
“Just as who thought?” My eyes were locked on his face, at the way his skin glistened underneath the yellow glow of the fluorescent lights.
He stepped back, and the strange magic of the moment vanished as he pulled the hood back over his head and the door swung open to reveal Bree. Her eyes bugged out of her head, and her grip on the water glass tightened, but the strange guy—whose name I still didn’t know—completely ignored her presence.
“Don’t take that pill.” And with that, he strode away, leaving me gaping after him. I slid my hand over my ear and gasped. It had a small bump near the top in the shape of a tiny pointed tooth. A bump that hadn’t been there this morning. A bump that hadn’t been there in all my eighteen years on this earth.
Was that what he had been looking for? And if so, why?
I needed to go after him and find out.
Chapter Two
“Who the hell was that?” Bree stared at the door as if it had grown a pair of wings. “And why did he tell you not to take the medicine?”
“You know what? I wish I knew.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. “Come on. Let’s follow him and ask.”
But her feet didn’t follow. Instead, she stayed rooted to the spot, her lips curled down into a frown. She held up the water glass and raised her eyebrows. “You need to take your anxiety medicine, Norah.”
“I’ll take it later,” I said. “If we don’t go after him now, we might lose him.”
For a moment, I didn’t think she would budge. Bree, as much as she was my best friend, had always had a protective streak when it came to me, more so than my parents.