"Really?" she asked skeptically.

I nodded. "Really. I just, I don't know. It gave me a weird visual when I thought about it."

"Pink tutus?" she asked.

I swiveled my head toward her in surprise.

She laughed. "It's what I think of too when I hear the word ballet. I didn't like... peek."

Good thing. She may see some images that didn't have anything to do with dancing.

We got to the dojo and Jade got out of the car before I could open the door for her. "Knock it off, Jade. Let me help you," I said, kinda pissed.

She plugged her hands onto her hips. "Don't be pushy, Caleb, I'm not an invalid. I got beat up, it's over. He's gone. Ya don't need to baby me."

We sorta glared at each other. Finally, I said, "You don't make being your boyfriend easy sometimes, Jade."

She searched my eyes. "I know that you want to help. But I don't need this much," she waved her hand toward the door and at her body, "body guarding. I just don't."

"Give a guy a break, Jade. Any dude that wasn't a dick would want to keep ya next to him after that effin' mess. Right? You gotta feel me on your safety here," I said, my hands on my hips, my gaze steady on hers.

She came closer, my anger at her stubbornness dissipating the closer she came, her hold on me that strong. Jade wrapped her hands around my forearms, my hoodie sleeves jacked up to my elbows and I realized too late that she would feel my unease.

She gasped a little. "You're worried."

I nodded. No use hiding it now.

"It's not just what happened."

I shook my head, sighing. "I don't know what it is. Been feeling it all week. It's like, there's something just out of reach that doesn't make sense."

"Parker," Jade pressed her eyes closed, searching. Searching my consciousness.

Her eyes sprung open. "It's that creepy attacker. The one that almost got Sophie."

I shrugged. "Maybe. If I knew, I could figure something out. Plan a defense, be prepared."

"Sounds like you have a little overlap ability."

It was possible. But if that was the case, I wasn't diggin' this. It was too vague to do anything with. Except maybe call in the undead troops again and get my ass in trouble for nothing. Yeah, like I needed that.

I heard a jarring noise and sprung away from Jade, moving in front of her protectively and burst out laughing when I saw who it was.

Bry rolled up in his hunk-o-crap car. It was a testimony to its powers of perseverance that it still ran. John, Alex, Jonesy and Tiff rolled out as Mia's toaster pulled up, Archer riding shotgun.

Jade reached behind her and pulled on her pink puffy, it consumed her shape. She looked like a big piece of candy in the thing.

I got a pulse-vision visual on that one. X-rated. I grinned and Bry came over and gave me a knuckle-bump. "Whatcha ya thinkin' about, Hart."

"Stuff," I said. Like I'd say.

Tiff came up in a bright orange hoodie (hunter orange, Gramps would have called it) and said, "We have to hang out through your boring practice Hart?"

"No Tiff, beat it. We'll watch Hart own the mat without ya," Jonesy said, coming to my manhood defense.

"Why don't you show us your moves, Jones?" Tiff said, goading him.

He shrugged. "I don't need any of that martial arts shit. I can give a reckoning with my fists alone," Jonesy put up his fists like a boxer.

"Nah, you'd shit an orangutan if you had to go toe to toe with someone."

"What's an orangutan?" Alex asked, interested.

"It's some kind of monkey, animal-whore," Jonesy said, without rancor, eyes on Tiff.

"Really, Mark. Alex can't 'whore' anything if the pimping is being done by an animal," Archer clarified.

That made too much sense for Jonesy to figure out and he glared at Archer. "You... we saved your ass from a fate worse than death. Now you need to side with me on everything, it's an honor thing."

Archer crossed his arms over a perfectly ironed button-down. "No. Alex was part of the group that came to my rescue. Your brutish tactics were effective but in this instance, you're not being logical."

I put up my hands, Jade's arms wrapped around me from behind to stay warm, her cold hands buried against the skin underneath my hoodie. How she was not a boiling inferno in that puffy I couldn't figure out.

"Orangutans aside," I began, immediately getting the crooked mouth, "I'm gonna be late while you guys are out here posturing."

"I'm not posturing, Hart. I don't think Jonesy's got it," Tiff said and I frowned at her. What was this about?

Jonesy walked over to her. "What's your real problem?" his black eyes held hers. He wasn't threatening but he'd gotten John's and Bry's attention.

"Ya know, Sophie's my friend too. And you running around, chasing every skank in the school has turned her to Buddy. You're so busy trying to show everyone how you're all that, that you missed the coolest girl there was," she huffed, folding her arms over her chest.

"Ya know, I don't care who she dates!" Jonesy said, sounding as false as I'd ever heard him.

"Do the self-lie tune all day and into the night. The rest of us know the truth." She stalked off just as Sophie and Buddy pulled up.

Marvelous.

Tiff had poured the fuel before the flame and right now, the edge of it was igniting.

Sensei Anderson appeared at the front door, throwing his arms out to his sides. Crap. I looked down at my watch and realized I was already three minutes into class time.

I brought Jade around gently by her hand, feeling how cool it was. "You okay?"

She smiled and looked behind her to where Jonesy was glaring at Buddy and Sophie, Tiff smiling triumphantly.

"That nap is sounding good."

I got it. She'd leave the rest of the gang to hash it out while she slept.

I stroked her jaw. "K, you stay in the car and use that thermal blanket." As an afterthought I said, "I'll pulse the lock."

She scrunched her nose. "Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I won't be able to concentrate if you're out here unprotected while you sleep."

"Caleb... " she began then looked at my face.

Whatever she saw there must have been enough to convince her. "Okay," she said reluctantly. She slipped out of my hold and turned to the car. Once she was situated it was almost comical, her pink puffy like a cloud of roundness, then on top of that the plaid thermal blanket was over that. It smelled vaguely of vanilla from all the times we'd spent wrapped up in it together. I smiled one more time then closed the door, her eyes, the color of her namesake, already closing as she turned on her side.

I depressed my thumb against the square black pad that rode above the door handle, the clicking of all the locks a satisfying sound.

I walked past all the bickering, Buddy and the other guys with their hands in their pockets as Sophie and Tiff had words. I got that maybe Tiff had gone too far by saying what she had to Jonesy. I gave the guy nod to the troops and they followed me, relieved as hell to leave the girls to their arguing. I swung my head around one more time to look at my car. Jade was in there.

Safe.

She wasn't, but I wouldn't know that for another five minutes or so.

CHAPTER 25

I walked into the dojo and was met by a silence that was absolute. I looked around for Sensei, who had just been at the doors, looking like he was pissed at my tardiness. Usually, if I was tardy, I paid on the mat. But he was nowhere.

The dojo suddenly seemed ominous, the mirrors that reflected the friends at my back like a fun house. The feeling of infinity from all the reflections in the room swelling in a disquieting vibration, discordant and piercing.

I turned to John. We shared a moment, Lewis and Alex standing between us. "What's going on, Caleb?" Alex asked, his stance stiffening.

Lewis looked around, his eyes searching every crevice of the dojo. "Where are all the other students?" he asked logically.

"Where indeed?" a voice said from behind us. I whirled around and there stood Skinny-Smoker of the Graysheet fame.

Great.

My eyes slid past his and immediately took in my car, a sleeping Jade still inside, locked and safe.

I relaxed. Whatever these jag-ups brought I could handle if I knew where Jade was. I could sure use Sensei's help about now.

Maybe they had taken care of him, fear coiling in my belly.

Immediately I thought that if they'd killed him, he'd be hell on their asses as a zombie. I was mildly surprised at how practical I'd become.

Intensely practical.

That made me smile and John said, "This is not looking good, Caleb," as he inclined his head toward the direction of five more men as they poured out of the back of the dojo. Artillery was standing bare in their practiced hands. Not trained on us yet, but a beat away from it.

"Caleb... what's going on?" Archer whispered.

"Graysheet action," John replied, strain evident on his face.

I stared at him. "What do they have?"

John didn't bother to look at me. "Telekinetic for one... "

I realized that a Null in training would know what ability he was subduing. Right now, our asses were in a wringer if they had a high level Telekinetic on board.

"Pull the leash on your boy, Hart or we'll kill him," Skinny said, casually lighting up a smoke.

His absolute lack of concern while talking about the death of a J made me want to take a flock of zombies to rip his arms off but I sat on it.

Debating.

"Why are you here?" I asked instead, stalling. Giving myself time to think.

He smiled at me, the grin obscured by the wall of smoke. He pointed the cig at me and said, "You're a smart boy. I want you to think about it and tell me why this is a special place for you?"

One heartbeat

Two.

Three.

A feeling of unveiled horror washed over me in a sick adrenaline surge.

He laughed. "I see you are your father's son. Understand that we know you don't apply yourself at school. But your IQ scores are off the chart. You hide a fine mind behind that persona you perpetuate. But you haven't fooled us."

My power unfolded like shuffling a deck of cards. The play of them throwing out a call with trembling and spiky fingers of energy. There were no dead around us. I felt an absolute absence of them.

"The dead. I can't feel the dead," I said in a low voice.

"See? What did I tell you, high IQ."

"Answer me," I said softly.

"We want the girl. She's a liability. You stay out of our way while we handle the security issue of her." The group of Graysheets swirled around him like a loose-fitting garment, all in black, lethal.

My mind swirled. "And Jade?" I asked, my heart trapped in my throat.

"She's collateral damage. It's the Morris girl." He smiled a small smile, the cruelness like arsenic on his face. "She has witnessed some things that she should not have." He saw my face and said, "Don't worry, you won't be blamed, after all, what could you do?" He grinned, his nicotine stained teeth as obscene as his expression.

He laughed at me as he put his cigarette out in his hand, his singed flesh filling the studio with the smell of charred skin.

I gulped. I looked quickly outside and Buddy and Jonesy were beside a collapsed Sophie, their knees bracketing her body.

I whipped my head around, thinking furiously.

"There's nothing you can do. Just leave. Let the girl go. Both of them."

"I'll kill you if you touch her," I said and felt something vital clicked into place.

Intent becoming promise. If Jade had felt me now I would surely have been a DI. I was certain.

The kiss of his death like a taste in my tongue, a smell filling my nostrils, the fiber of my being coming alive.

His eyes narrowed. "I think Parker misjudged you. Misjudged you greatly."

I stalked toward him before I knew I'd moved. The gun rising to meet my chest. His eyes met mine, the irises yellowed. "You could kill. I think you're more instinctual than he gave you credit for." He barked out a laugh and with a signal one of his drones opened a storage closet.

I could feel the steel of the gun pressed against my hoodie, the coldness of it seeping through the layers. My eyes followed the Graysheet as the body of Sensei was revealed through bars.

Locked bars.

I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking about the death of my teacher.

Then they popped open. He wasn't dead. No way. I couldn't feel his death when I'd tested the area for it. But even from where I stood I could make out the frenetic movement of his eyes beneath his lids.