Cassidy Jones and the Seventh Attendant (Cassidy Jones Adventures, Book Three) (3 page)

Instantly, my woes were forgotten.

“You gotta be kidding me!” I huffed. “That’s supposed to be waterproof.”

Emery busted up. I spun to the mirror to a truly horrific sight. It looked like my eyelashes had melted and were running down my cheeks.

And Jared will be here anytime.

“Must we always have a crisis?” Emery sighed when he finished laughing. He kicked back on my bed and grinned at the sight of me scrubbing the mascara off my face with a sock I had swiped from the floor. It was probably clean.

“Make yourself comfortable,” I retorted, barely resisting the urge to spit on the sock. The mascara clung stubbornly to my skin. “This is more like crisis diverted. Who’s going to notice my eye color if I can’t get this stupid stuff
off
?”

“Frankly, an even better diversion is what you’re wearing. A birthday gift?”

I paused while scrubbing my skin raw to glance down and admire my new black yoga pants and tank top with a cool lavender stripe slashed across the front. I had even painted my toenails lavender to match.

“A birthday gift from me,” I confirmed proudly before resuming my task. “I bought it with my mom last night. Good thing I have a
job
.”

My job was a sham, like everything else in my life. Supposedly I cleaned house for Serena weekdays and Saturday afternoons. In actuality, she ran a battery of tests on me in her basement laboratory where she secretly studied my virus, fostering the slim hope of an eventual vaccine. Emery’s role was lab technician. He drew my blood two to three times a week. So we weren’t being totally deceptive, I did some housework for Serena, which she paid me for—generously—calculating in my lab rat duties, too, I supposed.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Emery offered, fiddling with his cell phone.

“Yeah, a real happy birthday. I’m a fifteen-year-old mutant with spooky eyes.”

“Beautiful eyes,” he corrected, scrolling through email. “Just remember to blink.”

I barked a cynical laugh. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m a freak and my eyes are already cat
-
ish. So what do you think? Do you like it?”

“Your latest purchase?”

“Yep.” I watched him in the mirror as he looked me over.

“Very much.”

I beamed.

“Now change into sweats and a T-shirt.”

My smile flipped. “What? Why?”

“Because I won’t be the only one who likes your outfit,” he said, returning to his email.

I got what he was driving at and turned back to the mirror to see my cheeks burning crimson. To cover my embarrassment, I began scrubbing the mascara again.

“You really don’t understand the inner workings of the teenage male mind, do you?” Emery continued. He didn’t embarrass easily, unlike me.

“I assume you’re going to enlighten me?”

“No, you’ve been traumatized enough for one day. Just take my word on it. We’re a reprehensible lot. If you understood to what degree, you’d grab your baggiest sweat clothes and run to the bathroom to change.”

“
Or
I could kick you out of my room.”

“That’s always an option.”

“You’re not serious, are you? Yoga pants and a tank top? Yeah, real risqué—” I stopped short, my ears picking up what I had subconsciously been waiting for: Jared Wells. By the frequency of his voice, I guessed he was coming up our front walk.

My heart shifted into high gear, which would be a normal heart rate for the average human. An extremely healthy heart meant one that didn’t have to work so hard.

“Oh, man!” I said, forgetting decorum and spitting on the sock. I had to get the mascara off.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see that,” Emery said. “I’m assuming my students have arrived.”

His students were boys from school who met Saturday or Sunday mornings for Fight Club, as they called it. It had been Nate’s inspiration after their soccer games got rained out in the beginning of January a few weeks ago. Emery had become their natural instructor, since he was the most skilled in martial arts—or so they all thought. I was more Chuck Norris than Emery. Heck, I was more Chuck Norris than Chuck Norris.

“Yes, Sensei,” I answered, finally getting my face clean. I dropped the sock on the floor and grabbed the mascara tube to reapply.

“You always were one to tempt fate,” Emery teased.

The doorbell rang. Anxiously, I swiped mascara on my lashes.

“Isn’t that the part of your face you
don’t
want to bring attention to?”

“Are you now saying my eyes are spooky?” I challenged, painstakingly brushing the wand over my lower lashes. Those were always so hard to get.

“Dudes!” Nate, my twin brother, answered the door. Their voices were like a crashing wave—in other words, loud.

“No, I stand by beautiful,” said Emery. “But either way, it won’t be your eyes they’re looking at.”

“My friend,” I said, moving the wand to my other eye as the boys clambered up the stairs, “if I wasn’t trying to beautify myself, I’d kick your butt.”

Nate drummed my door. “Cass! Em! Fight Club!” he shouted.

“No duh!” I yelled back, my stomach twisted into knots. Knowing Jared was just on the other side of my door made me feel like hurling. My nerves calm down after talking to him a bit—usually.

“I’ll meet you up there,” Emery told me as he rose from the bed. “Up there” was our attic, the perfect place for some friendly sparring.

“’Kay,” I replied, tapping bubblegum-scented gloss on my lips. I hated the taste and smell, but it looked nice.

“Don’t take too long beautifying—” Emery’s cell rang. He glanced at the screen and answered the call. “Hi, Riley.”

I rubbed my well-glossed lips together and smiled. Bail bond agent Riley was Emery’s former college mate, current employer, and a redhead—a very hot one, I suspected. I didn’t know for sure, since I hadn’t met her yet. Every time I queried Emery about her looks, he just laughed, confirming that his boss was, indeed, hot. Why else would he avoid answering the question?

“Say hi to Riley for me,” I sang softly, opening my door.

Emery nodded, but didn’t comply. Instead he pointed at my hoodie on the floor, wanting me to cover up. I really wished he would give it a break.

“You’re like my dad,” I whispered.

He shrugged, his finger on the hoodie.

I rolled my eyes, which reminded me of my new problem.
Are you sure?
I mouthed, pointing at my eyes.

Emery gave me the
A-OK
sign, saying to Riley, “Employment records should turn that up.”

They’re discussing a client who didn’t show for court
, I deduced, which meant the client was now a fugitive. Emery did skip tracing for Riley, which meant he located possible places where a fugitive might be holing up by searching credit card reports, phone records, and whatever else he could dig up—or
hack into
—online. Once he located the fugitive’s whereabouts, Riley sent her bounty hunters—Mickey, Marky, and Marty—to track down her delinquent client. I had never met them, either, though I did glimpse Mickey once—burly, red Mohawk, leather and tats, thin scar across the right side of his freckled face like a slash from a knife blade . . .

Emery cleared his throat to get my attention. He tapped his ear, signaling me to stop eavesdropping on his conversation.

I smirked, because he was so wrong. My ears weren’t nosing around his business—this time.

“Have fun.” I winked at him to throw him off and then left him to continue his conversation with his hottie.

Two

Boys Will Be Boys

Darn it, Emery
. I hesitantly climbed the attic stairs, listening to the boys hassle one another, breathing in their scents, and feeling very self-conscious about what I was wearing.
Yoga pants and a tank. Big deal. Why’d you have to make me all insecure about something so stupid?

Part of me suspected Emery had intentionally undermined my confidence. He hadn’t been exactly thrilled about my reconciliation with Jared, viewing him as a potential threat in regard to my secret.

Jared was smart, but not
that
smart. In a million years it wouldn’t have crossed his mind to think,
Ah-ha! Cassidy Jones is a mutant.
Despite Emery’s qualms, I owed Jared an apology, so an apology is what he had gotten. Rekindling our friendship was the natural result, and we were
just
friends—frustratingly. Whatever romantic feelings he’d had for me prior to the horrendous 210 days that we weren’t speaking had definitely evaporated. But I had my friend back, so I should be happy. Right?

Before going up the last few steps, I smoothed out my ponytail and my lip gloss with a finger, while rolling my eyes at Bobby Neigh’s bragging about his latest romantic conquest. The guy was so full of himself. Taking a deep breath, I dismissed the idea that my outfit was anything other than totally cute and patted my stomach to calm the butterflies fluttering about. I continued up the stairs, sporting a manufactured smirk.

“Hey, gossips,” I said in greeting. The boys congregating on the sofa side of the attic looked at me. “You’re like a bunch of old women.”

The cut received much approval. Amid the “oohs,” the laughter, and “takes one to know one,” Bobby demanded, “Dude, what did you hear?”

“Everything,
dude
,” I quipped, my eyes avoiding Jared. “But nothing worth repeating.”

Nate grinned with pride at the slam.

“Burn!” a few boys shouted as I strode toward them. I worked up the nerve to peek at Jared. Tousled, dirty-blond hair; perfect nose; rounded jaw; expressive, soulful, chocolate-brown eyes fringed with thick black lashes; sculpted lips; and a smile that started real slow at the corners of his scrumptious mouth.
Heavenly,
I sighed inwardly, careful to mask my succulent eyeful of Jared.

“Birthday noogies!” Bobby shouted, and before I knew what was happening, the big oaf had me in a headlock. If Jared’s beauty hadn’t enraptured me, there’s no way I would have missed Bobby launching his stringy body off the sofa.

“Bobby,” I growled. I fought the urge to sink my fingers into his mop of brown curls and flip him—a move Nate’s wannabe-Kung-Fu-master-twin-who-could-hardly-throw-a-punch wouldn’t know, let alone be able to perform.

“One,” Bobby jovially counted, scraping knuckles across my scalp and messing up my hair.

“What are you, five?” I snarled through my teeth, mentally beating down the beast. “You were even a pain back then.”

“I love you,
tooooo
.” His knuckles grated again.

“Okay, Bobby,” Jared said while the other boys snickered, deepening my humiliation. I could only imagine how ridiculous this looked.

Enough!
I jammed my heel into Bobby’s foot.

“Dang!” he yelped, letting me go.

I whipped around and shoved him, though not as hard as I wanted to.

Laughing like an imbecile, he lost balance and fell on top of Nate on the sofa. Nate enveloped Bobby in his arms and made loud kissing noises. My brother wasn’t one to pass up on an opportunity to harass anyone.

“You wish!” Bobby shouted, flipping over on Nate and yelling the next genius inspiration to strike his pubescent mind: “Twin noogy!” Within a second, ten boys were piled on the sofa, noogying my brother.

“Animals,” I shouted and dropped down on my backside, yanking the scrunchie from my disheveled hair—and I’d had it
perfect
!

“Just so you know,” Jared said, scooting up next to me, “I was about to rescue you.”

“Why are my heroes always
almost
?” I combed frustrated fingers through my hair. Being placed in a headlock by an overgrown child had embarrassed the nervousness right out of me.

Jared chuckled.

I shot him a sidelong glance and recognized another reason why I shouldn’t feel embarrassed.
Buddy
was practically written on his face.
No secret crush, no unrequited love, just friends
. I sighed and gave up on my hair. What did it matter anyway? Friends don’t care how your hair looks.

“Maybe I should get a hose?” Jared suggested, grinning as his friends made complete idiots of themselves.

“Tell me, why is it the more of you there are in a room, the more your IQs plummet?” I asked as I gathered tangled locks to the back of my head.

Jared forced a vacant expression. “Huh?”

“Funny.” I turned to him, smiling, my hair in a messy ponytail. He smiled back, looking me fully in the face. I recalled my jade-green freakazoids and quickly looked away.
Better not let anyone get a close look at these babies
, I thought, directing my eyes to the boys, who were pushing, shoving, and laughing their heads off. You would think they had mutant in them, too.

Emery appeared at the top of the stairs. No surprise to me, since I had heard and smelled him coming.

“Dudes,” he said to the boys, palms up. “Do I need to get a hose?”

“Ha!” I punched the lean muscle of Jared’s upper arm. You didn’t have to see him play sports to know he was a stellar athlete. “That’s what you said.”

A hose turned out to be unnecessary. With sensei present, the boys disengaged on their own and migrated to the workout side of the attic, which featured an extra large gymnastic mat, treadmill, and exercise balls that they couldn’t resist kicking at one another.

Nate strolled across the attic, his dark red hair sticking up every which way after having been properly noogied, apparently pleased with the good licks he had gotten in, too. He, Chazz, and I shared the hair color of our mom, Elizabeth, as well as her wide-set eyes and fair complexion. We all had the same eye color, too—up until about ten hours ago, that is. Our dad, Drake, was the odd one out, with golden blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and a million-dollar smile. He looked every bit the successful newscaster he was.

Emery led us through warm-ups. As we were wrapping them up, the attic door at the bottom of the stairs opened.