potential serial killer? Let me focus on the flying and the shapeshifting and kissing you.”
I nodded. We sat in silence for a long moment. I spoke again, softly, calmly. “I think we need to change into people—specifically Malcolm and Aunt Nicki.” Unclipping my seat belt, I faced Zach. “You can do me first. She has an angular face with a chin that juts out farther than her lips. Her nose is narrower than mine, nearly to a point, with a prominent bridge. Her eyes … brown with thin eyebrows, dark brown and plucked.”
Zach held up both hands to stop me. “It’s okay. I’ve seen her before.”
“You have?”
“At the library. She dropped you off once.”
I didn’t remember that. It must have happened during the days I lost. But for the first time, my memory didn’t matter. Only his did. “Can you do this?” In response, he leaned forward and breathed in my magic, then furrowed his forehead and concentrated. I felt my face begin to itch, and then my skin bubbled and stretched. I described her typical all-black pantsuit with the fake knuckle-size pearls that Aunt Nicki liked. Sweat beaded on Zach’s forehead as he changed my clothes. When he finished, I flipped the visor down and looked at myself in the mirror.
For a brief instant, I expected to see the antlered girl.
Aunt Nicki stared back. Or almost Aunt Nicki.
“Shorten the hair.” I mimed where it should be cut. I watched it shrink and flatten. “And her skin has more olive in it. I think that’s … yes, that’s it.” He flopped back into his seat as I touched my face. Its shape felt wrong under my fingertips, and I had to suppress the urge to yank and tug my skin back into its familiar shape.
“I am going to have to close my eyes when I kiss you,” he said.
“Your turn. Do you remember Malcolm?”
“No one could ever forget Malcolm,” Zach said. His skin and bones shifted and moved as I watched. He then changed his height and the width of his shoulders, as well as his hair, skin, and eye color. Lastly, he added muscles and darkened his clothes to a black suit.
“Perfect.” Staring at him, I felt marginally better. Safer. As if Malcolm himself approved this insane plan. Opening the glove compartment, I found a pair of sunglasses and handed them to him. There wasn’t a gun, but there were insurance and registration cards for the car. “Can we change these into agency IDs?”
“Sure. Can you describe them?” His lungs, nose, and vocal cords were a different size, so his voice had deepened with the new body, but the inflections were pure Zach.
I’d seen the IDs, but I hadn’t memorized them. I tried to picture the position and size of the photo, the words and the logo. Zach transformed the cards to match my directions. “I wish I could remember them better,” I said.
“Just … wave them fast or something.”
I couldn’t remember if Aunt Nicki and Malcolm handed the IDs to the guard or just displayed them. I hoped the latter. I tucked the IDs into the cup holder between us and wondered if we’d be caught before we’d even begun. I wished there were time to make a better plan. But the longer we waited, the more likely we were to be found. And the more likely I was to lose my nerve. “Are you ready?” I asked.
“I think this is where I’m supposed to say I was born ready.” Zach flashed me a smile. “But I was born ordinary.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Disparage yourself.” I twisted in my seat to face him fully, and I tried to see Zach behind Malcolm’s face. “You think just anyone would come with me like this? You say you dream of the extraordinary, but
He stared at me for a moment, then blinked. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m awesome. Let’s go.” Driving out of the parking lot, he ran over the curb. The car jolted up and down. I braced myself on the glove compartment again.
“Look calm,” I instructed Zach. “Malcolm always looks calm.”
As we drove closer, I pointed to the agency’s garage doors. Gray and plain, the doors looked like they belonged to a nondescript office building. Zach hit the brakes too hard at the guard station—the car jerked as if we’d hit a pole. Taking a deep breath, he rolled down the window.
The guard leaned in. “Car trouble?”
Zach nodded.
I waved our IDs from the passenger seat. The guard glanced briefly at them, but he frowned at me. I wondered if we’d gotten Aunt Nicki’s face wrong. Maybe her nose was flatter, or her eyes smaller, or her hair darker. “I could’ve sworn you’d … Never mind. Go ahead, Agent Gallo, Agent Harrington.” He hit a button, and the garage door rumbled up.
“Have a nice day!” Zach called out the window. He stepped on the gas before the guard could change his mind. We shot into the garage. “Probably shouldn’t have said that.”
I looked behind us, but the guard wasn’t following us. The garage door was closing. Daylight disappeared with it. “I think we’re all right.”
Pulling into a parking spot, Zach stopped the car. “At least he didn’t shoot us on sight. I’d call that a win.” He tried to smile, but it disappeared quickly.
“Zach … If things turn bad, I want you to take a breath of magic and run.”
Zach opened his mouth, and I knew he was going to say something flippant or brave.
“Please, Zach. I don’t want to have visions of your death haunting my memories. Promise me that you’ll run. Or I tell that guard who I am and let them capture me right now.”
“Fine,” he said. “But you run too.”
“Or fly.”
“Definitely fly.” He kissed me, and I wasn’t sure if it was for the magic or just to kiss me. It didn’t matter. I kissed him back, and his lips felt different, broader and softer. He tasted the same, though—like Zach, sweet and minty.
He broke off.
He looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what. I opened the car door and stepped out into the garage. He did too. “Eve …”
“Gallo,” I corrected. “He calls her by her last name.” I headed for the door. Taking the ID cards from Zach, I held them up to the scanner. Nothing happened.
“I doubt we accurately replicated the magnetic strip,” Zach said. “Is there another—”
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the surveillance camera trained on the door. If anyone was watching the feed … but we didn’t have much choice. “Quick. Walk us through the door.”
He hesitated.
“I walked through a wall before.”
He grinned suddenly, stretching Malcolm’s cheeks abnormally wide. His expressions weren’t the same as Malcolm’s, even using the same face. “You’re always full of surprises.”
Zach put his hand up, and it melted into the door. He drew it back, took my hand with his other hand, and then we walked forward. Using the magic from the kiss in the car, we passed through the door. The cool metal sank into my skin and deep into my bones. I felt myself shiver and then shudder as we emerged on the other side, inside the hallway.
There were cameras in this hallway too.
Releasing Zach’s hand—Aunt Nicki wouldn’t have held Malcolm’s—I strode toward the elevator. Zach kept pace beside me. He didn’t have the same walk as Malcolm. His movements were jerkier, and he picked his knees up higher like a stork. Malcolm had a glide to his gait. I hoped that no one else knew Malcolm’s walk the same way I did. Only a few steps to the elevator.
At the elevator, I pushed the button and we watched the numbers flicker down. The doors slid open. And Lou stood there.
I felt my bones harden into place. I couldn’t breathe.
“Up?” Lou asked.
