Sentinel [Covenant #5] (3 page)

only became aware of how slowly we were walking because there was a good distance between us and the crowd ahead. The cord was spazzing out. Maybe it was reaction to my anxiety levels or something, but sights and sounds were amplified. The calls of the birds were shrill. Leaves rustled like a thousand papers crinkling. The sun was too bright, conversation from the mass of people too loud. Gods, the pressure came out of nowhere, clamping down on my chest—holy crap, it was hard to breathe—like someone had put vise grips on me. A sharp, hot tingle swept up my spine and spread along my head. There was something definitely wrong with me, and it wasn’t of the panic attack variety. Running through my head on repeat was one thought: why couldn’t I really feel anything other than this? Where was the grief? Why did my chest feel empty and cold unless I was angry or scared? But last night, when I’d been in Aiden’s arms, the numbness hadn’t felt so bad, like the lid had been unscrewed just a bit more. And I was normally a pretty emotional person. In any given day, I experienced a hundred different things like I was trying ice cream flavors. This wasn’t right or normal, and it terrified me. I stopped suddenly, and so did Aiden. Holding onto my hand, he looked over his shoulder at me. “Alex?” My chest hurt. “I can’t feel anything.” Facing me fully, he cocked his head to the side, brows lowered. “What do you mean?” I placed my free hand on my chest. “I can’t feel anything in here.” Aiden started to let go of my hand, but I held on for dear life. “What’s happening?” “I don’t know.” I took a shallow breath. “I can’t feel anything except—except fear and pain. Everything else feels muted. I can’t cry—I didn’t even cry when I saw my mom.” Shock flickered across his striking face. “You saw your mom?” “See!” Panic dug in with rotten claws. “I didn’t even tell you about that, and I tell you everything. I haven’t even thought about it, not really. I’m like meh. Everything is meh.”Concern replaced the surprise as he shifted closer. “Do you think it’s Seth?” I shook my head so fast the choppy hair smacked my cheeks. “He’s not talking to me.” “But that doesn’t mean it’s not him,” he reasoned, and anger flashed among the concern. “It doesn’t make sense. What does he have to gain from doing this? Then again, does it have to make sense?” I pulled free then, tugging the hair back from my face. “What if I’m broken? What if this is how I’m always going to feel? What—” “Whoa. Slow down, Alex.” Aiden cupped my cheeks. “You’re not broken. You’re not going to always feel this way. You’ve been through some crazy stuff. It’s going to take time for you to process everything. Take a deep breath. Come on, just a deep breath. Inhale, and let it out slowly.” I gripped his wrists, barely able to get my fingers around them, and did what he said. “Okay. I’m breathing.” “Good.” The silver hue of his eyes was my entire world. “Keep breathing with me.” I kept breathing, but I also started moving. I don’t know why I did what I did next. Maybe it was because if I didn’t really feel this, I was screwed six ways from Sunday. Rising up on the tips of my toes, I kissed Aiden. Yeah, totally not appropriate after-funeral behavior. But I kissed him. I needed to feel something other than numbness, pain, and anger, if only for a little bit. And when Aiden kissed me, I’d always felt so many emotions I was dizzy from them. Aiden lifted his head slightly. “Did you feel that?” “Yes,” I breathed, shivering as our lips brushed. His lips curved into a one-sided smile. “I was kind of hoping you’d say you didn’t so I’d have a really good excuse to kiss you again.” My fingers dug into his arms. “You don’t need an excuse.” And I didn’t have to wait long. His lips were on mine again, an incredibly gentle sweep that sent another tremble through me. It was slow and soft, kicking my heart rate up. The tingling in the back of my neck resided and returned, spreading across my belly and lower, but it was a different sensation. I felt Aiden—I felt love in his arms, and I didn’t want to lose that feeling. Desperate to keep the numbness and colder, darker feelings at bay, I pressed against him, practically stepping on his shoes. He was so much taller than me, but we made it work. Well, Aiden did. The arm around my waist tightened, and I was lifted onto the tips of my toes. He supported most of my weight as I reached a hand up, threading my fingers through the hair resting against the nape of his neck. Heat swept through my veins; it felt like it had when Seth lent me his energy. Like I was opening my eyes again and coming alive. Glyphs rushed to the surface and spread across my skin. So all I needed to do was kiss Aiden to feel something real and good? Sign me up for that. But in the back of my mind, I knew that wasn’t normal, or right, or half a dozen other things. I ignored that annoying voice because, seriously, that voice wasn’t helping right now. I deepened the kiss, parting his lips and sweeping my tongue inside his mouth. A deep, sexy sound rose up from his chest, and his other hand wrapped around the back of my head. “Alex.” There was a soft warning in his voice. “What?” His head tilted to the side, causing his nose to brush mine. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” I almost laughed. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” “Gods…” Aiden cradled my cheek as he shifted my hips closer to his. My stomach dipped in such a pleasant way. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re still healing and—” “And what?”“I’m not perfect. I only have so much control.” His eyes were like heated quicksilver. “And if you keep kissing me like that, we won’t even make it somewhere private.” Oh, me likie the sound of that. “And there’s something wrong with that?” “No. Yes.” He pressed his forehead to mine, and the once-wonderful dipping motion suddenly twisted. “You’ve been—” “I’m okay. I’m better than okay when I’m like this with you.” A desperate edge rose to my voice as I clutched his arm. “I need this. I need you, Aiden. Please don’t—” Aiden’s mouth crashed into mine. Whatever I had said was like finding the map to a treasure. Bam. Right there. His kiss swept me up into a place where I wasn’t thinking. There was no Ares. No looming battle to plan for. No Seth. No pain or fear. All I felt was warmth and love and Aiden. All I felt was him. We made it into the closest building—the training center. Aiden opened the first door he found unlocked. A supply closet. It would work. Our gazes locked. His were like liquid pools of silver, and his chest rose sharply. “We need to talk about what you told me,” he said. “I know.” “But not right now.” A breath caught in my throat. In one powerful lunge, he was on me. Our mouths came together as he backed me up. My hip bumped into a cart. Folded white towels toppled to the floor. There was an ache in my bones, but a deeper one drove me to ignore the pain. “When you were in that room, I thought…” He kissed me again as his hands dropped to my hips. They trembled. “I thought I’d never have this with you again. Gods, Alex, I…” I brought out mouths together, silencing both our fears. Aiden’s fingers were tight on my waist as he lifted me up, placing me on the now-cleared cart. My heart skipped a beat as his lips trailed across my forehead and my cheek. There was a lot we should be doing, but at the moment, nothing seemed more important than this. We kissed like it was the last time we’d have the luxury of drinking each other in. My breath caught again. Coldness seeped into me like a chilly, rainy day. My insides numbed. The moment that thought formed, I realized how true it was. There was no promise of tomorrow or the next hour. Ares could find a way in. Seth could show up. Aiden could— “Hey, where’d you go?” Aiden asked softly, holding my cheeks with the tips of his fingers. When I didn’t answer, he brushed his lips over mine, coaxing them open with infinite patience. He pulled me back into the moment, away from the coldness building in my chest. He gently tilted my head back. “Stay with me. Okay? Stay with me.” I curled brittle-feeling fingers into the front of his shirt, grounding myself in the feel of him. His lips touched mine, pushing away the invading numbness. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss and— A shrill, eardrum-bursting alarm went off from somewhere within the campus, starting as a low hum that increased, causing Aiden and me to jerk apart. Sliding off the cart, I glanced up at the flashing red light above the doors. I recognized the sound, knew what it meant. My muscles tensed as my wide eyes met Aiden’s. There was a security breach, and just like at the Covenant in the Catskills, I knew this wasn’t a false alarm. We were under attack.CHAPTER 4Aiden flipped from sex god to warrior god in about two seconds flat while I just sort of stood there, rooted to the floor like one of the many statues outside. My lips still tingled in a pleasant sort of way, but the ball of ice was back in my chest, spreading like a winter storm. He spun toward me, dipping his head and kissing me quickly. “We’ll have to pick this back up later.” Then he started for the door. I forced myself to follow him out of the supply closet and down the empty hall. Sirens continued to scream, and the whole time all I could think was that Ares was back and trying to get past whatever wards Apollo had thrown down. It couldn’t be Seth, because I didn’t feel him. My steps were slow, but Aiden’s were long, purposeful strides. He was ready to face whatever waited outside. I wasn’t. In my chest, my heart was throwing itself against my ribs, and my palms were sweating again. The rush of nervous energy made me feel sick. An image of the shattered aquarium and the vibrant-colored fish flopping on the floor filled my head, followed by the sound of Ares’ cold, taunting laugh. I can’t do this again. Air punched from my lungs in an unsteady rush as Aiden pushed open the heavy double doors. I had to do this. Battle was what I’d prepared for, and as a Sentinel, we could be walking into a fight at any given moment. That was why two Covenant daggers were attached to Aiden’s legs, hanging from his black tactical pants. The same were secured to my thighs, their weight so familiar that I’d forgotten them. A Sentinel never left home without them. Reaching down, I curved my fingers along their slender handles. This is what I’d trained for. Well, kind of. I’d trained to face daimons, not a cray cray God of War. I have to do this. Outside, we headed toward the front of the campus. Several Guards had taken up defensives stances outside the coliseum-style building that held the common rooms and cafeterias. Most of the campus would be in there right now for the feast, but as we rounded the building, pure-blooded students were being ushered inside, their faces pale and fearful. I wondered if I had the same look on my face. If so, I bet that wasn’t very reassuring to them. “What’s going on?” Aiden asked one of the Guards. The half-blood shook his head. “Something’s going down at the wall. We’ve been ordered to get all the pures into one safe area.” “It can’t be what they said,” another Guard said, eyes wide as he gripped the handle of his Glock, his attention being pulled toward a group of pures who appeared from the side of the building. “Hey! You all need to get inside. Now!” “What did they say?” I asked, happy to hear my voice didn’t crack, but there was no answer. The Guards were distracted with the lagging group of pures. “Never mind, then,” I muttered. Before I could start forward, though, Aiden turned to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “You should stay back.” “Huh?” It was the only thing I could come up with. Determination flashed in his gunmetal gray eyes. “Alex, you’re not completely healed, and we have no idea what the hell is happening up there.” A big, really irresponsible part of me wanted to say “okay” and skip into the building to join the frightened masses, but no matter how scared I was, I would not fall apart. “I’m fine, Aiden. I—”“You are a lot of things, Alex. Strong. Brave. Beautiful. Incredibly sexy,” he said with a quick grin. “But you are not fine. You and I both know that.” Okay. He had a point. “You’re right, but you don’t understand. I can’t hide. If I do…” I took a deep breath and decided to be honest for once. Go me. “If I don’t go out to that wall and face whatever’s there, I never will. You get that? And I can’t let myself do that. I have to…I have to get over this.” And that was true. So much was riding on me. I needed to face Seth and transfer the power of the God Killer from him to me, and that was going to require a major throwdown between us. Then I’d have to face Ares. I couldn’t wimp out because I got my ass handed to me. I needed to pick myself up and get going. I’d done it before. But this time is different, whispered that annoying voice that sounded so much like me. I ignored the voice. “I have to do this or…” Or I would hide again. Aiden looked away, drawing in a deep breath. His shoulders tensed, and I knew he was going to argue with total Aiden logic. He let out the breath. “Okay. But stick close to me. If it gets out of hand, and if I think you can’t handle it, I’m throwing you over my shoulder. Do you understand?” Color me surprised—and a little annoyed—about the high-handed statement, but I got that it was coming from a good place, and the sirens weren’t shutting up anytime soon. I nodded. “Deal?” I sighed. “Deal.” “Then let’s do this.” Picking up my pace, I forced my tired muscles to work as we jogged down the pathway. As we got closer, we were joined by several more Sentinels, and I could already see a couple dozen near the wall. The sirens eased off, but the thick, unnatural tension hanging in the air like heavy clouds told me that whatever had happened hadn’t ended. Scanning the grounds, I felt my stomach dip. To our left, a small group of Guards and Sentinels crouched, circling something. I recognized Luke, Olivia, and Solos, and I wasn’t surprised to see them in the thick of things. They didn’t hesitate. Even though Luke and Olivia hadn’t technically graduated, they were Sentinels. I, on the other hand, was a poser in black. Solos straightened, tucking back a strand of shoulder-length brown hair that had escaped his low ponytail. He turned at the sound of Aiden’s voice, and the jagged scar stood out against his abnormally pale cheeks. I didn’t hear what he was saying. My gaze was
fixed on what the other Sentinels were staring at. A body was on the ground, totally unrecognizable. Male? Female? No clue. It had been a Sentinel, that much I could tell from the tattered remains of the black uniform. The skin and clothing looked like they had been pecked away until only thin slices of flesh and muscle remained. Even the eyelids and eyeballs were removed. My stomach turned. “Good gods…” Olivia rose, smoothing her hands along her thighs. That’s when I saw the other Sentinel on the ground, knees bent and hands clenching over her stomach. Blood streamed across them. Deep, vengeful cuts tore through her cheeks. Her left eye was a bloody mess. Moaning softly, she was trying to stay still as another woman wrapped white gauze around her face, covering her destroyed eye. “They were out doing rounds, down by the burnt-out cars. They’re saying they came out of nowhere,” Olivia told me in a hushed voice. “She almost got taken out by them pulling him back to the gate.” I tore my gaze from the body. “What came out of nowhere?” Olivia opened her mouth, but the eeriest high-pitched squawk I’d ever heard cut her off. It was a constant crescendo of harsh screeching. Several shots boomed and my chin jerked up. Beyond the wall, a dark cloud zoomed across the horizon, heading straight for us. Except it wasn’t a cloud.I took a step back, my hands going to the daggers. The cloud arced up and shattered into hundreds of mother-freaking crows. My jaw dropped open. “Holy crows…” “There’s a couple of eagles mixed in there,” Luke commented. “And a few hawks,” Aiden added. I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Holy birds of prey! Is that better?” “Much,” Aiden murmured. The birds blanketed the sky, so thick they eclipsed the sun for a moment. I’d never seen anything like it. They swirled overhead, a dark, ever-expanding funnel. They changed course suddenly, flying down toward us like little, winged torpedoes with sharp claws and beaks. I thought of the flayed body and almost hurled. “They’re possessed!” shouted a Guard. Dirt streaked his white uniform. I wanted to thank the guy for the obvious. I wasn’t an animal specialist, but I knew birds didn’t go psychotic for no reason, which meant there had to be daimons nearby…either them or a god. A god could influence our feathered friends. But my smartass response died on my tongue when the birds from hell swooped. They were on us in seconds. Dipping down, Olivia shrieked as she batted one away. “Ah! Birds! Why did it have to be birds?” I smacked one before it got its gross little claws in my already jacked-up hair. How in the hell were we supposed to fight a swarm of birds? Talons grazed the back of my hands, and the pain was sharp and quick. Solos spun around, his arm arcing gracefully. A dagger flew across the space, tip over handle, and embedded deep into the back of an eagle that had attached to a Guard’s shoulder. Well, that was one way—a little time-consuming, but effective. However, I had a better idea. Waving my arms like a deranged crossing guard, I darted toward Aiden. He’d grabbed a hawk off a fallen Sentinel. Tiny red scratches bled on his cheeks. “Fire!” I yelled. “Light the sky up!” Luke was swinging at the sky with his blades like a cracked-out chef. “Olivia and I will cover you two!” Sheathing the daggers, Aiden raised his hands, brows lowered in concentration and the line of his jaw tightened. Sparks flew from his fingers, and a second later, his hands were on fire. I reached over, wrapping my hands around his wrist. I took a deep breath, ignoring the wings that came awfully close to my cheek and the willies the feeling gave me. Closing my eyes, I used the air element and pictured the flames moving up in a steady stream and then spreading like a ceiling of fire. Aiden could get the fire into the sky, but not as quickly and at the magnitude he could with my help. “That’s it,” Aiden said, his skin hot under my fingers. I opened my eyes. For a moment, I was awed. Using the elements was still new to me. Fire, a vibrant shade of blood-red, pulsed over Aiden’s hand and exploded outward in a massive ball. Wind blew my hair back from my face as the inferno licked into the air, rolling toward the wall and back to the campus, consuming the birds in its path. The blaze wasn’t natural, but a product of the aether that Aiden carried inside him. It ate the crows up, leaving nothing by a fine sprinkling of dust behind. When most of the birds were destroyed and only a few were left to dive-bomb us, Aiden closed his hands into fists and I let go of his wrists. Only then did I see the faintly glowing glyphs on my hands. No one but Seth could see them, but they still made me feel a little weird when they came out to say hello. “That was so Resident Evil,” said Luke, his eyes wide. “Awesome.” I cracked a grin, a little breathless. “It was kind of Alice awesome, wasn’t it?”Luke started to nod but stilled when a Guard flew past us, arms flailing as he tried to get one of the remaining birds off his back. He frowned. “I’ll never look at a bird the same way again.” Shooting him a look, Aiden stepped forward, snatching what I guessed was a hawk off the back of the yelping Guard. The hawk twisted in his grasp, and I got a good look at its face. The thing’s eyes were all black—no pupils or irises, just like a daimon’s. I turned away from the sickening crack that followed. Once the animals were that far under the control of a daimon or god, there was just no undoing it. Several Sentinels staggered to their feet, battered and cut, but no one had gotten it as bad as the two who’d been by the burnt-out cars on the access road and were most likely blindsided by the birds. A shiver snaked its way down my spine, and my hands automatically went to the daggers on my thighs. Tiny hairs rose on my body. All around me, halfs and pures reacted to the peculiar tension seeping into our skin. My glyphs swirled, changing patterns and forming new ones. “They’re coming!” yelled a Guard near the top of the wall. His white robes flapped like wings in the wind. I was kind of expecting a griffon to come out of nowhere, but that’s not what slammed into the iron gate with enough force that it rattled the massive structure and split open the skin of the assailant. It was a daimon. Face as white as the Guards’ robes and veins as thick as black snakes, the daimon backed up and charged the gate again. Wiping blood off her hand, Olivia shook her head. “What is it doing?” “Other than rearranging its face?” I flinched as it slammed the gate once more. “Maybe it’s really hungry.” Daimons were pure-bloods that had become addicted to the aether in the blood of pures, and only within the last year we’d learned they could also turn halfs. They were what originated the whole vampire myth without the hotness. It started eons ago—something Dionysus had done, most likely when he’d been bored. Most of our problems stemmed from the gods’ boredom. Another daimon joined in, then another, and another. Each time they whacked into the gate, I flinched. Their exposed flesh was mangled and bloody. Solos was at the gate, able to pick off two of them by shoving daggers through the gaps. Daimons were highly allergic to titanium. It cut through their flesh as though it were water. They burst into shimmering blue clouds, one after another, but more joined in, bouncing off the gate. My gaze went to the sides. The hinges were weakening. I moved, seeing dozens and dozens of daimons behind the ones at the gate. Aiden summoned fire, catching several of them ablaze, but they kept coming at the gate until the fire consumed them. This was so not good. But a frightening realization occurred. When I’d been all Team Seth after I’d Awakened, I’d learned he and Lucian were working with daimons, feeding the monsters pures who weren’t siding with them. The daimons could be here because of Ares, or they could be here because Seth was coming. Either way, it was unlikely that this many would just show up in the middle of nowhere, like it had been during the Council meeting in the Catskills. “We have to do something.” Luke unhooked his daggers, eyes narrowing as he turned to me. “Can you do your Apollyon thing? Like you did with the automatons?” Figuring I should do the same as Luke, I unsheathed my daggers. My hands shook, and I hoped no one noticed. “I can’t promise I won’t take the gate out in the process. Maybe if I could get outside, slip up behind them.” “Not happening.” Aiden stalked forward. “They’d be on you in seconds.”With all the aether in my veins, it would be like ringing the dinner bell, but if I did get out there, I could do something. I could end this before it got out of hand. My mouth stayed closed, though, which was so unlike me that I wasn’t sure I was me anymore. A week ago, I would’ve been scaling those damn walls. Sentinels don’t show fear. All I knew right then was fear. More slammed into the gate, causing the center to bulge dangerously. “Open the gate!” shouted Aiden, grabbing a shoulder of a Guard. “If they break the gate, then we will have an open wound to protect.” “That’s insane!” argued the Guard. “If they get past us—” “They won’t get past us. Have half of us form a line several yards back,” Aiden ordered. “The rest of us will stay here.” Luke shook his head and muttered, “That would be the oh-shit line.” Beside him, Olivia snorted. Her fingers opened and closed around the handles of the daggers. “You know, this isn’t too bad.” “It’s not?” I asked. She shook her head. “This could’ve happened during the funerals.” The gate rattled like dry, angry bones once more, and then the Guard sprang into action, shouting orders. Letting the daimons in sounded crazy, but Aiden was right. Even if we stopped this attack, we would be vulnerable with a giant hole where the gate should’ve been. Half the Sentinels and all the Guards moved back, forming the ohshit line. Olivia and Luke remained by the gate, ready for battle. I forced my lungs to inflate as two Sentinels volunteered for the near-suicidal mission of opening the gate. Aiden stalked to my side, lowering his head and speaking low enough for only me to hear. “This is about to get crazy. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you should go back to the common area. Find your uncle and—” “I can do this,” I said, and then repeated it in my head about five times. “And you guys need my help. I can do my Apollyon mojo without worrying about the gate.” His eyes turned into a dark, tumultuous gray. “Alex, I really—” “Too late,” I interrupted as the Sentinels threw open the gates. Aiden whirled, and before I could take another breath, the daimons were inside the gate, swallowing the two Sentinels in a massive wave. He cursed and glanced back at me. I didn’t need him distracted. Daimons couldn’t kill me, but they could kill him. “I’m okay.” I tightened my grasp on the blades. “Go do your thing.” He appeared to want to protest more, but there really was no time. Dipping down at the last possible second, he caught a daimon in the stomach with his shoulder. The force of the blow flipped the daimon over onto his back. Aiden spun, thrusting the dagger deep into the daimon’s chest. Within seconds, it was nothing more than a shimmery pile of dust. Aiden whirled, shoulders taut and mouth pressed into a slash of a line. He took out another daimon and then another. If Leon/Apollo had been here, they would have been keeping count. I turned at the sound of pounding feet. A daimon was gunning for me, eyes as black as midnight oil and skin leeched of color. My muscles tensed the way they did in the seconds before engaging in battle, but it was different this time. They locked up completely. My mouth dried. My heart went straight into cardiac territory. It was like when I’d seen my mom in that alley back on the island. I was immobile. You can’t fight. You can’t do this anymore. You’re broken. My internal voice was such a shit-stirrer. I was frozen. Around me, the sounds of metal clattering and grunts of those fighting amplified until it was all I heard.The daimon drew to a halt, sniffing the air, and then its mouth dropped open, revealing a row of sharklike teeth. It howled. My mind…something was wrong with it. I knew it was a daimon before me, and I knew I didn’t even have to use my daggers. I could use fire or wind. I could tap into akasha, the fifth and final power that only that gods and the Apollyon could wield, but I didn’t see the daimon. In its place, I saw one pissed off, seven-foot god. I saw Ares. My breath burst from me in short pants. I took a step back, swallowing down the rise of bile. “No.” The daimon slammed into me, knocking me flat onto my back. The daggers flew from my hands, skidding along the dry dirt, kicking up plumes of dust. “I gave you the easy way out,” Ares said, digging his fingers into my shoulders. “But you chose this, and everyone you love will die because of it.” Someone shouted my name, and the image of Ares blurred around the edges. Ropey black veins bled through in his cheeks. Jagged teeth appeared behind a cruel mouth. A powerful shudder worked its way down my body, and the glyphs on my skin started to go crazy, like there was a god… A flash of white light blinded me, and then the daimon exploded into cloud of blue dust. A silver arrow plopped down on my chest. “What the…?” I picked it up, squeaking as it stung my fingers. “I’ll be needing that,” came a soft, musical voice I’d heard only once before. The arrow was plucked from my fingers. “Thank you!” I looked up and discovered why my glyphs were doing a cracked-out version of the electric slide on my skin. Decked out in her bubble-gum-pink camo, she stood above me, silver bow propped against a shapely hip. Her red hair was pulled up in a ponytail, but the long, curly mass fell to her waist. Static crackled from her all-white eyes. “Are you trying to get a tan?” Sort of stupefied by her appearance, I pushed myself to my feet. “What are you doing here? Is Apollo—?” “My brother is currently getting chained to some rock by our father because of Ares.” She loaded another arrow. “Zeus is mighty upset, and of course is blaming Apollo for the mess. Like how was he supposed to know what Ares was up to?” She let go of the arrow, and it zinged past my head. A fleshy grunt told me she had hit her mark. “It’s not our fault Ares got hit with the crazy stick about a hundred times.” Another arrow flew from her nimble fingers. This time it blew past my head, and I was pretty sure I was centimeters from having my ear pierced. “And you need to buck up, buttercup,” she said, her full lips