Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(12)
"How is your family, Georgina?" Niko asked gravely as he slowly swirled a straw through the vanilla soda. "Your father?"
She touched the back of her hand to her mouth, blushing slightly under faintly freckled, caramel skin, and reached for a napkin. "He's doing okay," she replied with equal gravity.
George's father was sick, so sick that okay was the best that could be hoped for. Full-blown AIDS. He hadn't been such a great father to George or her brothers and sisters when they were younger. But he'd shaped up, pulled himself out of the deepest pit of hell, and given up the drugs. It just turned out it was too late. George and her family had gotten him back only to be on the verge of losing him again, this time permanently. Still Georgie was Georgie and she saw things in a light most people were blind to their whole lives. At least that's what Niko said. I was one of the nearsighted. If there was a light, I hadn't seen it, not even one dancing mote of it. The light was the big picture, the whole enchilada, life's puzzle. And I had two, maybe three pieces, none of which fit together.
"I'm very glad to hear it." Niko, a solid corner piece if ever there was one, laid his hands flat on the table. "Georgina, we need a reading."
"I know," she said simply before giving him a cheeky grin. "I am psychic after all."
Niko curled up one side of his mouth in a rare smile. "So you are." He held out a hand. "Shall we begin?"
Wiping her hand carefully on the napkin, she then laid it on Niko's, palm to palm. Her small hand dwarfed by his, she closed her eyes and hummed softly under her breath. It was a familiar process, one I'd seen several times before… with other people. This was our first reading, a fact that hadn't seemed to surprise Georgie at all. I'd considered, God knew how many times, finding out if George could see where I'd been those two years I was missing from my life. But in the end two thoughts always stopped me. The first being, wherever I'd been, whatever had happened to me, I was damn sure it was nothing she should have to see. And the second, I wasn't sure I even wanted to know. Maybe the Grendels had made sure I wouldn't remember or maybe I had. Whatever my life had been in that missing time, you could bet your balls it hadn't been all wine and roses. If my mind was the one refusing to remember, there had to be a helluva good reason. A helluva good one or a thousand god-awful, mind-shredding ones.
"Misty, water-colored memories," my ass.
George's humming had drifted away to a still, vibrant silence. Then one word, a distant bell, dropped into that silence like a stone down a well. "Ask." Niko didn't waste any time. Succinctly he asked if we should leave the city, if our enemies had caught up with us. George wasn't quite as quick with a reply. Eyes still closed, she tilted her head as if in thought or as if she could hear someone… someone just a little to the left, a little back, a little ways off. Maybe that's what the future was… a place just off from ours, just the tiniest bit askew. After a long moment she straightened and shook her head.
"No," came her light voice. "You are safe. The Grendels can't see you here. Too many people. Too much noise and light. You're just one grain of sand on an endless beach, one leaf in a vast forest, one star in the distant sky." She opened her eyes and dimpled. "Literature was sixth period."
"Very poetic," Niko complimented with dry amusement. He didn't comment on George's pulling the Grendel name out of nowhere. Grendels they were to us, so Grendels they were to her. I wondered if she could see what they looked like in our minds or if they were just a word she'd seen painted in our thoughts. I also wondered, more than I should, if she looked at me and saw something less than human. If she did, she didn't say anything and the smile she gave me was just as sweet and open as always.
Ah, Jesus.
We finished our sodas while George chatted about girl things. Cute guys and clothes. Cute guys and her impossible brothers, not to mention hopelessly vain sisters. Then finally back to cute guys again. And all the while she would watch me with reassuring eyes. See? she seemed to say. You don't have to worry. I'll be a child for you. I'll be safe and distant in the normal soap opera world of high school romance. You don't have to worry. You don't have to be afraid.
And she was doing it for me—to ease my mind. I suspected it was an exaggeration at best. I'd yet to see a potential boyfriend around the soda shop. With someone like George—a high school stud would crap his pants at the thought of approaching her. She was… hell, she was a glory. It was the only way to put it. A glory.
Even with his so-called iron discipline, our glory had finally pushed Niko to the edge with her faux teenage chatter. My brother was beginning to look amusingly glassy-eyed by the time we managed to polish off the ice cream. He thanked George as politely and precisely as any British butler, while I gave her a casual wave and a "So long, Freckle Queen." She scowled cheerfully at me and waved back as we passed through the doors, the bell overhead giving a rusty tinkle. I felt better about the Grendel. When it came to news, good or bad, George was as reliable as they came, better than CNN any day. If she said we were safe, then we were. My belief in George was as firm as any I was capable of.
At least it was until I turned my head for one last look at the little seer. She wasn't smiling anymore. She was crying. Head pillowed on her arms, her shoulders shaking, she was crying in eerie silence behind the plate glass. Weeping as if she'd lost a friend or family or maybe even a piece of her soul.