Reign Check

“Hi, Larissa,” Chris responded, although he didn’t look directly at her. He wasn’t looking at me, either. The floor currently held his complete and total attention.

“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked.

“No,” I said at the same time Chris said, “Yes.”

“I didn’t know you were still seeing each other,” she said.

“We’re not,” I said firmly.

“I …,” Chris began. “Look, I need to talk to Nikki in private. Do you mind leaving us alone?”

Ouch.

Larissa flinched before giving me the evil eye. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”

Exit stage left.

If I hadn’t been feeling a whole heap of uneasiness, I would have found it very difficult not to laugh.

Chris’s eyes flicked to mine for a moment before he looked away again. It was as if he couldn’t bear to maintain eye contact with me.

“Follow me,” he said, and started walking over to the dining room, where all the coats were piled on the table. He grabbed his coat and put it on.

“Where are we going?” I asked suspiciously, not inclined to go anywhere with him just because he told me to.

“Out to the backyard. I don’t want anyone to hear us talking.”

He didn’t want anyone to hear us discuss what he’d seen when I’d shifted to my Darkling form, thrown a big glowing ball of energy at him, and launched him out the side of the limo we’d been in when he’d forgotten what “no” meant.

Right. This was a discussion I had known was unavoidable, but now I’d finally decided how to handle it.

Denial. One hundred percent. I’d even worked out the convo in my head.

“Hey, Nikki,” Chris would say. “What was up with you turning all demonic during Winter Formal?”

“Demonic?” I’d respond casually. “Gee, sounds more like a nightmare than anything that could possibly have taken place in real life. I’m sure you were just dreaming.”

“But I saw—”

“YOU WERE DREAMING.”

“Well, okay.” He’d nod. “You’re absolutely right. Whatever was I thinking? Demons don’t really exist. Oh, and by the way, sorry for being such an unbelievable jerk to you in the limo. You deserve much better.”

And that would be that.

Feeling a new surge of confidence, I grabbed my jacket and went outside with Chris. The yard was large and snow covered, with tall wooden fences and lots of trees around the edges. In the center was a pool — covered, since it was December — with a big slide. We didn’t venture too far, instead staying on the patio near the doors.

Maybe it would be good to start this on a positive note.

“Here,” I said, thrusting the small wrapped box at him that I’d pulled from my jacket pocket. “I picked your name for the gift exchange.”

He hesitated before taking the present from me. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“It’s not a big deal. Ten bucks or less. Rules are rules.”

Ain’t that the truth, I thought. And I had to follow them all now, didn’t I? I hated thinking about rules, even little, meaningless ones. They only served to remind me why I was here at this party with Chris instead of anywhere else with Michael.

Chris cleared his throat and made quick work of the wrapping, revealing the stylish (not really) keychain with a Christmas tree on it I’d grabbed earlier that day at the mall. Could not have been more innocent or generic if I’d tried: $8.95 before tax.

“Thank you. I need one of these,” he said politely, and tucked it into his pocket. “I have something for you, too.”

“You picked my name?”

“Not exactly.” He reached inside his jacket and drew out a rolled piece of paper, which he held out to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a drawing I did. I … I do art sometimes.”

I looked at it skeptically. “You drew me a picture?”

“Uh, no, not exactly.”

“Then what is it?” I dug my hands into my pockets and tried to stay warm. Snowflakes were steadily coming down around us, and the backyard was dark except for one overhead light where we stood on the patio.

“Last week, at the dance,” he began. “When you … you changed …”

“Changed?” I repeated. Here we go. “Changed my mind about dating you? Yeah, well, these things happen. It’s not a big deal. It was our first date and it didn’t work out. Let’s just forget it ever happened, okay?”

He laughed a little shakily at that. “I remember exactly what happened.”

“Not so sure you do.”

“I do,” he said firmly. “It’s crystal clear in my mind.”

“You were drunk.”

“I’d been drinking, sure, but I wasn’t drunk. You changed into something else.”

“So did you,” I said pointedly.

He cringed at the reminder. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“You should be.” I felt a flare of anger then, but I willed it away. I had enough problems to juggle without turning Darkling in the middle of Melinda’s party. The mental image of the sword downstairs was enough to help me push any demon-shifting thoughts away.

“I didn’t change the same way you did, though.” He sounded so certain that it made me more nervous. “It was the most vivid moment in my entire life. When I saw you — your hair, your eyes … you had wings and horns, and … and a tail.”

Yikes. I had a tail, too? How had I never noticed that little detail before? I guessed because it hadn’t ripped through my clothes like my wings tended to do.

I forced myself to smile, but dread crept over me like an army of spiders. “Maybe you were dreaming. You might have hit your head on the pavement and knocked yourself out when you, uh, fell out of the limo. Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

“Of course it would.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“But I wasn’t dreaming that night.” He held out the rolled paper to me again. “I was dreaming just before I drew this.”

I studied him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “I think I’m confused.”

“I had a dream two weeks ago. It was so clear in my head that I had to get up in the middle of the night and draw what I’d seen in case I forgot it. Everything about it felt so real.”

Okay. I’d play along for now. I finally took the sketch from him and slowly unrolled it, moving it more toward the light so I could see. I stifled the gasp that rose in my throat.

The sketch was pencil, detailed, and it was immediately clear to me that Chris was a talented artist. It showed a girl in the forefront who looked a whole lot like me in full Darkling form, black wings stretched out behind her, with the unmistakable Shadowlands castle in the background, dark spires reaching into the gray swirling skies like scary black arms.

An ice-cold shiver not caused by the winter night zipped down my spine.

How had Chris seen this? How had he even dreamed about this? Though he’d seen me in Darkling form in the school parking lot outside Winter Formal, he couldn’t have ever seen the Shadowlands. It was impossible.

“What does it mean, Nikki? Why did I dream about you?” He sounded hoarse and upset and more than a little scared. “And what is that horrible place?”