Hannah Jayne - Under Attack

I started to stomp toward my bedroom when I felt Alex’s soft hand on my shoulder. He squeezed gently and pulled me toward him, curling me into his chest. I kept my stern, angry composure for all of a millisecond while I melted into his warm, firm curves, while his arms slid around me, hands resting at the small of my back. Alex inclined his head so the tip of his chin brushed against my nose. His familiar cocoa-bean and cut-grass scent comforted me and I tried to remind myself that it was the safety of a trusted friend that was warming my heart; that the slow, delicious churning in my stomach had nothing to do with the way his body molded so perfectly against my curves. I stiffened immediately when I felt the hard coldness of Nina pressing up against me, her arms splayed in group-hug format, her head resting on my shoulder. “This moment is just so beautiful,” she murmured.

I broke away from our threesome and stared at Nina.

“You know, I think I am going to take this warm, fuzzy feeling outside.” She grabbed her purse and disappeared out the door, leaving Alex and I alone together in the silent apartment. We were still in a loose hug. I flushed and Alex straightened, then smiled. He pulled me close.

“This feels good,” he murmured.

I wanted to resist, but his arms around me were like warm chocolate. “It does,” I said finally.

“Look, Lawson, I—” Alex looked down at me and his cobalt eyes were deep, and soft. He licked his lips. “I just couldn’t take it if anything ever happened to you.”

I smiled. “I think I’ve proven I’m pretty resilient.”

Alex’s lips pushed up into his trademark half-smile and my stomach fluttered. He brushed my bangs from my forehead. “That, you have.” Alex leaned close to me, his soft curls lolling over his forehead. I drank in his warm scent and rolled up on my toes as his arms tightened around my waist, his lips brushed against mine, and then he was kissing me.

My head spun in delicious chaos as Alex’s palms caressed my back and he kissed and nibbled my lips, my ears, my neck. My heart thumped and I started to lose my breath and Alex broke away, raking a hand through his hair. His curls resettled in that perfectly tousled way.

“I should go,” he said quickly.

I looked at him, deflated, rejected. “Oh. Okay.”

He took my hand, squeezed it softly. His eyes were warm, sad. “I’m sorry, I just—I need to go.”

I hugged my arms to my chest, forced a smile. “Hey, no problem. Thanks for the information. I should go to bed now anyway.”

“That’s a good idea. We can take this up tomorrow.” Alex strode to the dining room table, began unzipping his backpack and stacking the books to go inside.

“Alex,” I started, once his back was to me. “What’s it like?”

He turned slowly. “What’s what like?”

I studied the carpet. “Heaven.”

The slow smile of memory spread across his lips, but his eyes were far away. “I can’t describe it.”

I sat down at the table and Alex followed suit. “Why?” I asked. “Are you not allowed or something?”

Alex slowly wagged his head from side to side and then looked at me. “There are no words.”

“Do you miss it?” I asked, my voice sounding small. “So you miss Heaven?”

Alex slid the leftover Chinese food boxes closer to him and plucked out a fortune cookie. He broke it, popped a piece in his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. “Of course. It’s home. It’s all I’ve known for”—he shrugged, swallowed—“forever.”

“Oh.” I picked at a glob of solid grease on the dining-room table. “Is there anything you like about being here?”

One corner of Alex’s mouth turned up into a wry grin. “I like you.”

I blushed, went back to studying my table. “Thanks.”

“And the food.” Alex pushed the last bit of fortune cookie into his mouth. “I absolutely love the food. We didn’t have Chinese takeout like this when I was there last.”

I crumpled up a napkin and threw it across the table at him. He started sliding the books into his pack again until I put my hand flat on the table, pinning a single volume under my palm. “I’m keeping this one,” I said, my eyes firm and holding his.

Alex looked at the book. “You don’t need to ...”

I picked up my father’s journal and held it against my chest. “Yes, I do.”

I slammed my hand against the nightstand again, trying to quell the infernal racket of the morning-show DJs cackling on my alarm clock. Instead I managed to knock the whole thing over. “Crap,” I muttered, sitting up in my bed.

It was just after six-thirty and the last time I looked at the clock—just before I fell asleep in the greying light of dawn—it was five-forty. My eyes stung and my eyelashes were clumped with bits of post-sleep goo. My cheeks felt tight from the hours of inexhaustible tears and the spine of my father’s journal was wedged into my rib cage, leaving an angry—though impressive—red indentation.

I made it to the bathroom without completely opening my eyes and yawned through a hot shower. It wasn’t until I was showered and pink and standing in front of my fogged-over bathroom mirror that I noticed it. In the snatches of clear mirror my reflection looked odd—my fire-engine red hair had a noticeably silver hue and rather than the usual wet-rat look of my post-shower curls, my hair fell in elegant long waves. I yanked off my towel and used it to scrub the steam from the mirror.

I looked at my reflection.

It looked back at me.

I ran a hand through my hair, patted my cheeks, leaned forward, and scrutinized myself.

My reflection did the same, and then it started laughing.

I jumped back, slipped on my discarded towel and steadied myself by ripping down the shower curtain. I landed in a naked vinyl heap on the bathroom floor, jaunty electric-blue shower-curtain fish swimming over my naked stomach.

“What the hell?” I screamed.

“Now, Sophie Annemarie Lawson. Watch your mouth. Hell is a heck of a place and you don’t want to mention it too much.”

I scrambled to my feet, steadying myself with both hands against the bathroom sink, then used one finger to poke at the offending mirror.

“That is so annoying. Now I know what all those poor fish feel like at the dentist’s office. Poke, poke, poke.”

I watched my grandmother’s index finger poke against the mirror glass, watched the windy ridges of her fingerprints smudge the inside of my mirror.

“Grandma?”

“Ah!” Grandma said from behind the glass. “She remembers me!”

I rubbed my head, looking behind me, trying to recall if my naked acrobatics had resulted in a head wound.

No such luck.

“Grandma, are you in the mirror?”

Grandma nodded slowly, her expression a combination of amusement and annoyance that I remembered from breaking curfew in my teen years.

I swallowed. “But you’re dead.”

“That’s my Sophie,” Grandma said, snapping her fingers. “Smart as a whip.”

“No,” I said again, my hands on hips. “You’re not here. You’re dead.”

Grandma crossed her arms in front of her chest, her lips set, her expression indignant. “And you’re naked. Really, Sophie, you amaze me. Is seeing your dead grandmother in your bathroom mirror really all that unbelievable? Really? Maybe we should ask your vampire roommate. Nina, is it? Nina ...”

Witches, I’m used to. Banshees, vampires, werewolves, trolls, hobgoblins, and other —provided that “other” was a corporeal being. My dead grandmother showing up in my bathroom mirror (and me being buck naked to receive her)—was odd. Very, very odd.

I pulled my bathrobe from the hook and yanked the belt tight around my waist. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I wrapped my hair in a towel turban. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you. Where are you?” I leaned in closer, peering around the sides of the mirror, trying to see behind her. “Are you in Heaven?”