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I stared and stared at Walker’s white ceiling. Exhaustion weighed on my body. I’d expended a lot of magic today and needed to recharge, but my mind refused to settle. My chest threatened to burst.
Alone in the dark, I cried.
*
Walker
“Walker!”
I rubbed my eyes and flipped over. Maybe whatever disturbed me would go away if I ignored it.
Cold water splashed across my face. I sat up, gasped, and swung blindly.
“Hey!” Cadence reprimanded. “Watch it! You gave me no choice. I tried to wake you nicely.”
Cadence stood over me with an empty cup in her hand. She shot daggers at me with her burning gaze, then wagged her little fingers at my bed.
Oh, shit. Freya.
“Why is a girl in your bed?” she whisper-yelled.
“It’s a long story,” I said. One that I couldn’t explain to her.
“Mm,” she dragged out the syllables, “Hm. I’m sure.”
Great. Ever since her one day of sex education, Cadence loved innuendos.
“I slept on the floor,” I pointed out.
“Or did you hear me coming and move?” she argued.
“Yeah,” I said, “because I was so alert.”
“Maybe you’ve taken up acting,” she said, then sighed. “Okay. I’ll admit—that one was a little far-fetched.”
Freya whimpered in her sleep and distracted both of us. I wondered how someone so scary could have nightmares.
“Mom,” Freya whispered.
Damn. Even the wicked witch missed her mom. Cadence frowned.
“Is she like us?” she asked. “Is her mom gone too?”
I nodded and shooed her out of the room. With one last sympathetic glance at Freya, she scurried away. I stood and wondered how best to wake the witch. I definitely wasn’t stupid enough to try Cadence’s trick on her, but I didn’t exactly want to get in her space.
I couldn’t see her face under her pile of hair. My brown sheets were twisted around her creamy skin. She’d grabbed some pajamas and a change of clothes she kept at Josephine’s apartment. It unnerved me to see her in a sweatshirt and shorts. The mundane look didn’t match her wild appearance, but I guessed witches slept like everyone else—comfortably.
Freya whimpered again.
I cursed myself for being afraid of a sleeping girl and picked up my pillow. I lightly tapped her legs with it and braced myself. She didn’t budge. I tapped her again with a little more force, and she shot up. An invisible force pushed me against the wall, but as soon as her wide-eyed stare met mine, the force released me. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, but I didn’t think it would leave a bruise.
“Oops,” she said and frowned. “Did you hit me with a pillow?”
“Lightly,” I answered and rubbed the spot on my back that had collided with the wall. She rolled her eyes at me and stretched like a cat. Her sweatshirt slid up and exposed a strip of her toned stomach. Before she caught me staring, I quickly looked away. Maybe Cadence was right—having a girl in my bed was weird, no matter the circumstance.
I grabbed a few things from my closet and headed into the bathroom to shower and change. I wasn’t sure when or if I’d get to do so again. I also wasn’t sure how to break the news to Cadence. No version of the truth or lies was believable.
“Breakfast is ready!” Cadence called. “I have some for you too, girl-in-my-brother’s-bed!”
