Indigo by Gina Linko Page B

true.” She gave me a look, eyebrows raised.
    “Really, I want to go,” I reassured her. Mom blew me a kiss then, and I surprised her by grabbing her hand and squeezing it. I think I surprised myself too.
    “You better hurry,” she said, glancing toward the door of Mrs. Twopenny’s room. “And Mr. Huskins said to use thecafeteria kitchen door.” I was kind of shocked that Mom was letting me go with Rennick, not really knowing him. It seemed out of character, but as I turned to follow Rennick toward the elevator, Mom called, “Tell your grandfather I’ll bring those seeds I promised him next week.”
    And then it all came together for me. Duh. Mom knew his family. Figured. And this made me feel a little better too.
    We walked toward the front entrance of Chartrain, and I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting a camera flash or something. I took account of my body, the way my skin felt, the normal, everyday feeling in my chest. It seemed almost difficult to recall the faraway feeling of the indigo flame under my ribs.
    We neared the front desk, avoiding Holly, who was on today, and I peeked out the front window. Sure enough, there were two news vans, and at least a dozen people in front on the sidewalk.
    We turned, facing each other for a second in an odd, what-do-we-do-now kind of way, and Rennick just laughed, easy and low. “Let’s go through the back,” he said. He stuck out his elbow for me to lock my arm through.
    I hesitated just for a second and was actually about to loop my arm through his when he thought better of it. “Oh, sorry,” he said, dropping his arm.
    We walked side by side toward the cafeteria. I lengthened my steps to keep up with him. “I’m parked in the back lot, so that works,” he said.
    “Why do you care about me? Why did you try so hard to help me?” The words came falling out of me just as we hit the cafeteria.
    I stopped, waited for him to answer. He looked back, a serious expression on his face, but one corner of his mouth rose into the slightest of smiles. “Your aura.”
    I waited, but he didn’t say anything else.
    “What about my aura?”
    He smiled fully then, a little bit embarrassed—flirting? Was he flirting? I smiled too, and my stomach did this flip-flop. God, he was hot. That tousled hair. And he liked my aura.
    “I can tell a lot about people from the colors, and I’m usually—no, always —right.”
    I told myself to settle down. How could I go from so abnormal right back to total high school girl in the amount of time it took to notice the ridiculous length of his eyelashes, the deep indigo of his eyes? I swallowed hard, rolled my eyes at myself. I started walking toward the kitchen again, and he fell in step beside me.
    “I have a lot of questions,” I said.
    We reached the kitchen, where Rennick said hello to a few people. Then he pushed the back door open, toward the alley. We stepped outside and looked at each other.
    “I really should say thank you. I mean, I don’t know what is going on exactly, but the possibility that I am not the Grim Reaper herself is pretty explosive. I can’t thank you enough for trying to help me.”
    “Of course I had to help you, Corrine. You saved my grandmother,” he said, shielding his eyes from the sun. He pointed toward the gravel lot on the left. “And you’ve got this inexplicable power, this sixth sense going on. We extrasensory loners gotta somehow look out for each other.”
    Oh, so that was it. I was part of some sliver of society with this gift or something. Of course that was it. Weird kinship. He had a duty to reach out a helping hand. I shook my head a little as I followed him to the car. Of course. I was silly for thinking it was something else. Something more personal.
    As Rennick chivalrously opened the passenger door for me, I actually swallowed a laugh. I wasn’t twenty-four hours back into the regular world. Not twenty-four hours back into interaction, talking, relating with others, and already