7.  MAKING CONNECTION

“Do you need to see a counselor, Cooper?” Mr. Allred, my physics teacher, asked. He was the second teacher to ask me that very question since the assembly, and it was becoming annoying. My problems couldn’t be solved by talking to a school counselor.

“No, I’m fine.” Or I was going to be once I knew how and why my new neighbor had runed me. Marked me. Turned me. It didn’t matter how I said it. I was a freak. The only thing stopping me from a total meltdown was what he had said. “I won’t let you become like me.”

He’d better keep his word.

Cora didn’t mention the leather jacket or my tank top after school. Grief-stricken, she barely talked to me before taking off with Keith. Eirik was more observant. Even though I removed the jacket before entering his car, his eyes narrowed on it. He didn’t say anything until we pulled up outside my house.

“Is that Torin’s?”

I nodded, feeling guilty even though I had no reason to be. “I had a nose bleed and bloodied my shirt when I went outside during the assembly.” I pulled out the shirt and showed him. He made a face. “I know, disgusting. Torin loaned me his jacket to cover up my tank top. You know school rules. No tank tops.”

“That explains why you disappeared. I checked the hall, but didn’t see you.”

Weird. He should have been able to see me through the window. The others, according to Ingrid, were invisible to everyone but me. Yeah, lucky me. “Are you coming in?”

“No.” He glanced at his watch. “I have my physical in thirty minutes.”

“For the swim team?”

“Yep. Want to come and hold my hand?” he teased.

I grinned, forgetting my problems. “You poor baby. Sorry, I can’t. Mom hasn’t made my appointment yet, and you know how it is. If she’s not there, the nurses won’t let me past the waiting room.” I stepped down from the Jeep and closed the door.

He rolled down the window. “Listen, Raine. Be careful around Torin.”

I frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“I know my parents know his family, but I get weird vibes from him. Just be careful.”

Vibes didn’t begin to cover it. “Okay.”

I watched him drive away, then removed my cell phone. I called Mom and reminded her about my physical. After she promised to make an appointment with the doctor, I grabbed a bag of spicy Doritos, soda, a notebook, and a pen, and headed back outside.

Homework would just have to wait. I needed answers, and since I couldn’t summon the runes to appear on my skin without hurting myself first, that left the ones on the car.

I sat on the curb and copied the garish writings. The roar of Torin’s Harley filled the air after a while, and my heart leaped. I pretended not to hear it and didn’t glance over when it stopped. I continued to focus on the runes. There appeared to be six of them in a repeated pattern of threes, but the middle one was the same in all of them.

“What are you doing, Freckles?”

My stomach did that annoying flip-flopping thing. I wanted to ignore him. I really did, but I just couldn’t. He slid next to me and peered at my book, bringing with him his warmth. It wrapped around me so deliciously I wanted to purr.

Don’t let him get to you. He was the rude and cocky Immortal with superhuman abilities who’d runed me. He smelled good, too. Okay, so there was something about him that called to me. I could either whine about it or just ignore it. I needed his help.

“I guess you’re ignoring me now,” he said. “What happened to the gutsy girl who begged me to bite her in the school parking lot?”

“I did not beg.” Only he could take something said in anger and flip it. “I’m copying the runes before you remove them.”

He chuckled. “Who said I can remove them?”

“Me. One of your people painted them.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because she hates me.” I glanced at him and wished I hadn’t. Without his wraparound sunglasses, his eyes drew me in. He really had beautiful eyes and incredibly long eyelashes. My eyes strayed to his chest. He hadn’t changed his shirt from earlier, and the blood from the stabbing wound was still there.

I pointed at the spot. “Can you get rid of that by drawing runes on your shirt?”

He glanced down and frowned as though surprised it was there. “Yeah, or I can do this.”

He stretched his T-shirt so it plastered against his masculine chest, and my inner hound wagged its tail in appreciation. The blood on the fabric quickly disappeared. He grinned, looking pleased with himself. What a show off.

“How do you do that?”

“I control the runes on my body; will them to do my bidding. Unlike the others, I don’t need to sketch new ones all the time.”

Yep, he was definitely showing off. “Can you look at any rune and know what it means?”

He rolled his eyes as though the task was too mundane for someone with his abilities. “Before I answer that, how are you planning to decipher the codes?”

“Codes?”

“The message behind the rune patterns you have so, uh,” he leaned closer, his arm touching mine, “sloppily drawn.”

I sucked in a breath as I adjusted to the sensations shooting through my body from where our arms touched. My heart pounded. I wanted to move away and break the contact, but I couldn’t. Truth be told, I longed to wrap myself around him and greedily absorb these new sensations. Now if only I could breathe before I passed out.

Then what he’d said registered. He’d called my sketches sloppy. Somehow my mind tended to process things a lot slower whenever I was around him, and it had to stop.

“Well?” he asked.

I exhaled and muttered, “I’ll check online.”

He laughed, and I wasn’t sure whether he knew the effect he had on me or if my squeaky voice was the cause. Either way, he was laughing at me. Anger boiled to the surface. One minute in his presence and I wanted to deck him.

“Go away, Torin.” I got up.

He jumped up. “It amazes me how Mortals think they can decipher messages from the gods.”

I cocked my brow. “As in I’m the Mortal and you guys are some kind of gods?”

“Close, but yeah.”

I counted backward until I was calm enough to speak without hurling my notebook at his head. “Why are you such a douche?”

His brow shot up. “Me? I’m the nice one. You’re the… impossible one. One minute you’re thanking me for healing you, the next you’re yelling at me for doing it.”

“You marked me with your stupid runes,” I said through clenched teeth.

He pretended to think about it. “If I marked you, Freckles, I’d be under your skin. You wouldn’t think of anything or anyone but me twenty-four-seven.”

I’d thought of him nonstop ever since we met. Heat warmed my face.

A low grin spread across his face. “You’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you?”

“You wish.”

His eyes twinkled. “Bet you think about me when you kiss Seville.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it with a snap. I didn’t think I could speak without saying something I’d regret. “I loathe you.”

“There’s a thin line between—”

“Leave me alone.” I marched toward the house, trying to escape my feelings.

“I can tell you what the runes mean,” he said, following me.

“Yeah, like I’d believe anything you say now.” I opened the door, entered, and turned. “Nice chatting with you, Torin. I’d say don’t ever speak to me again but that would be pointless because you’re always around, stalking me, waiting to play the hero. Whatever game you’re playing, it’s not working. I already have a hero, and he’s… he’s Mortal and amazing. When we kiss, I don’t think. I feel.” I slammed the door on his face and grinned. The grin turned into laughter. The play of emotions on his face as I’d berated him would go down in history. Shock, confusion, and amazement. I’d bet no girl had ever slammed a door in his face.

I threw out the empty Doritos bag and soda can and headed upstairs. While my laptop rebooted, I settled on the window seat. As though he’d been waiting for me, Torin sat on his window seat and studied me across the space. When he smirked, I faked interest in my computer and clicked on a browser.

“You know you’ll eventually ask for my help,” he said.

I ignored him, wishing our houses weren’t so close.

“I will make you beg,” he added.

Yeah, good luck with that.

“Most runes are not even found in Mortal books, let alone on the Internet,” he continued.

It wasn’t what he’d said, but how he’d said it that got me. “What are you?”

“What do you think I am?”

Annoyance coursed through me. “You have a nasty habit of answering my questions with questions.”

He pushed the lock of hair from his forehead and grinned. “How else will you learn anything if I don’t challenge you?”

On Saturday he couldn’t even admit he’d healed me. Ignoring him, I Googled runes and clicked on the first link that popped up. It took me to a page with more links. One particular title caught my attention, and I pressed it. The article focused on the meaning of runes, but it was more detailed than the ones I’d read before.

The words under each symbol were in a language I didn’t understand. In parenthesis were translations in English. The words wealth, joy, and gift popped out at me. I studied the symbols on my notebook and compared them with the ones on the screen. I found one that matched. It meant goddess, but no name was given. Which goddess?

“So what am I, Freckles?” Torin asked, sounding awfully close.

I glanced out the window and found him under my tree. “Annoying.”

He chuckled. “You’re cute.”

I winced. Puppies were cute. Kittens playing with a ball of yarn were cute.

“You can do better than that,” he said.

I sighed, hating myself for being curious enough to give in. “A witch?”

He made a face.

“Demon? Wizard? Warlock? Am I getting warmer?”

“Colder than Hel’s Mist.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll tell you after you guess what I am.”

I kept a straight face. “Rumpelstiltskin?”

He rolled his eyes. “Be serious.”

“Werewolf? No, that might have explained the superhuman strength if I didn’t know about the runes. Vampire crossed my mind, but you don’t sparkle.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Sparkle?”

“Yeah, like Edward. He’s superhot and perfect.”

Torin scowled. “You have seen vampires?”

“Of course. On the screen, in my dreams. What are you doing?”

“Climbing your tree.”

I swallowed. “Why?”

“I like getting close and personal when talking to a beautiful woman.”

My cheeks grew warm, and I looked behind me. “Who?”

“You, Freckles.” He stopped at one of the top, sturdy branches, leaned against it, and studied me. “You should see yourself through my eyes, Raine Cooper. Gorgeous, fascinating, stubborn, funny, but I wouldn’t have you anyway.”

Oh, wow. No guy had ever complimented me with such conviction. My cheeks shot past warm to hot, which meant my face was red as beets. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. Don’t you think you’re beautiful?”

“I meant does that old line really work anymore. I like getting close and personal when talking to a beautiful woman,” I repeated, imitating his deep voice and wiggling my brow.

He laughed again. I found myself smiling.

“Like I said, you’re a hoot,” he said. “FYI, up close and personal has gotten me a lot of play.”

“Dimwits.” The conversation I’d overheard between him and Andris flashed in my head. They were after the swim team, and it wasn’t to help us win state. “Are you a merman?”

“As in male mermaids?” He made a face as though he’d swallowed a rotten egg. “Have you seen the weeds on their feet and hands, their slimy, green skin? I’d rather live in the Mist.”

Okay, so mermaids and mermen existed in his world, wherever that was. “Where’s this Mist, and what makes it so terrifying?”

“Land of Mist is where the un-heroic go when they die.”

“Un-heroic?”

“People who die of old age and diseases.”

Weird belief. “Have you ever dealt with a terminally ill person?”

Torin shuddered. “I try to stay away from hospitals. Sick people give me the willies.”

What a baby. “They’re the bravest and most heroic people in the whole world.”

He frowned. “You’ve worked with such people?”

“No, but I visited Cora’s grandmother before she died. She had cancer. If there’s a place for heroes, that’s where she belongs.”

Silence followed my outburst. When I glanced at Torin from the corner of my eye, he was frowning. “Can I, uh, climb over to your balcony?”

“Why?”

He pulled something brown from his back pocket. “I want to give you this.”

Jumping on my balcony and crawling through my window was Eirik’s thing, and I wanted to keep it that way. “Come around to the front door.”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

“Front door it is.” He pushed the book back into his back pocket and jumped to the ground. It was a long drop with thick branches, but he didn’t hit anything and landed gracefully like an alley cat.

He was leaning against the wall when I opened the front door. The way he handed over the book, it was as though he was giving me his most precious possession. “It has all the runes known to the gods.”

“Thank you.” The brown leather cover had an intricate symbol. Carefully, I turned it and flipped through the pages. The pages were made of light-brown, leathery material. The black ink was starting to fade, but I could still make out the runes. There was no numbering, but I’d say the pages were less than a hundred. “Which gods are you talking about?”

“I’m not going to make things easy for you.”

“Meanie,” I mumbled, still studying the pages.

The first pages had about a hundred runes, but the rest showed combinations of some of them in twos, threes, fours, and fives, their meanings written in a weird language. There was no English translation.

“What language is this?”

“Language of the gods. Once you find your runes, I’ll explain what they mean.”

Could I trust him? Half the time I wasn’t sure whether he was mocking me or testing me. “Can we get rid of the ones on my car?”

“Sure, but you might not want to once you know what they mean.”

“That means you know what they mean.”

“Yep.”

I groaned. “Why can’t you just tell me?”

“If I do, you won’t learn anything.”

He was right. Dang it. “Why is it important to you that I learn anything at all?”

“So you can understand the ones inside you and how they got there.”

“They healed me, and you put them there,” I retorted. He didn’t respond. “You’re not going to deny it?”

He shrugged. “What’s the point? You won’t believe me.”

“Damn right.” He continued to watch me with an expectant expression as though waiting for something. “Do you, uh, want to come in?”

“Oh no. I want my jacket back.”

“Oh. Just a second.” I grabbed it from the table by the door where I’d left it and checked the inner sleeves. There were some spots of dried blood. “I should take it to the drycleaners first to remove the bloody smudges.”

“I’m not scared of a little blood, especially yours.” He took the jacket, then reached out and touched my nose like he’d done the first time we met. “Later, Freckles.”

“A quick question,” I said, wanting to detain him a little longer, even though I knew I shouldn’t. “Which god rules the Land of Mist?”

“Hel.”

I scrunched my face. “If you didn’t want to answer me, you should have just said, ‘I’m not telling you’ in your usual pompous way. Thanks for the book, but you’re still on my douche list.” I started to close the door, but he blocked it with his foot. “What now?”

He grinned as though enjoying a private joke. “Land of Mist is ruled by a goddess, and her name is Hel with one L.”

“Oh.”

He cocked his brow. “Am I still a douche?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Oh, yeah. Did you rune Frank Moffat and force him to apologize to me and Cora?”

He grinned.

“Did Maliina mess with the lights at the substation?”

He stopped smiling. “No. I checked it. It was a glitch.”

“Then why were you fighting Andris? I assumed it had something to do with the lights and Kate getting hurt.”

“It had. Can I go now?” He walked backward, a wicked smile lifting his sculptured lips. “Or if you want me to stay, just say the word.”

I snorted and closed the door, but I still heard his laughter. Shaking my head, I went back upstairs to my computer and research.

Hel with one L…

Hel was the daughter of Loki. Her home, named after her, was cold and misty. She took care of the souls of people who died of old age and diseases, just like Torin had said. I also found a nice article on Odin and the origin of magical runes.

Odin had gone in search of wisdom and became trapped by a tree. For nine days and nights, he’d hung upside-down, helpless to free himself. Maybe he’d meditated or something, but finally he’d found enlightenment and wisdom in the form of symbols. After sketching these signs on the trunk of the tree, Odin had freed himself. Back in Asgard, the god taught the knowledge of runes to his loyal companions and Mortals who fought the forces of darkness.

I sat back and grinned, savoring my accomplishment. Finally, I was getting answers. Torin and his people believed in Norse Pantheon and used rune magic. I guess that meant they were the good guys. I wished I knew more about his people. Greek mythology was big in literature. Norse? Not so much. Other than the stories of Odin, Thor, and Loki my parents had read to me when I was a child, I had zero knowledge about Norse gods and goddesses. It was time to re-discover Norse mythology, but first things first. I needed my car back, which meant understanding the meaning behind the runes on it.

I opened Torin’s book and got busy. Once again, I could only identify the symbol of a goddess. She might be Hel for all I know.

An hour later, I was ready to throw the stupid book across the room. Without the translation into English, the book was useless. Going to Torin for help was like waving a white flag and screaming surrender. I wasn’t ready to beg for his help yet.

Taking a break, I went downstairs, shoved a tray of frozen lasagna in the oven, grabbed my backpack, and started on my homework.

***

My cell vibrated hours later. “What are you doing?” Cora texted.

“Just finished homework. You?”

“I haven’t started. Don’t feel like it. Want to go to The Hub for lattes?” she asked.

“Sure, but I can’t drive.”

“I got my keys back. I’ll be over in a few.”

I changed my top and put on some gloss, before grabbing a jacket and heading downstairs. The scent of lasagna filled the air. I reduced the temperature to keep it warm. The French bread would wait until I got home.

Cora honked her car horn, and I ran outside to join her before Mrs. Rutledge came out to complain about the noise. Cora looped around our cul-de-sac and took off with squealing wheels.

The Hub was a video store at the corner of 2nd West and Baldwin Street. As usual, it was packed with students, including the ones from Walkersville. The store also sold books and was thriving, despite the disappearance of national bookstore chains. The fact that it sold comics, manga, offered free wi-fi, and sold beverages was a big draw.

A couple left a corner table just as we arrived, and we hurried to claim it, placing our jackets on the chairs and bags on the table.

“I’ll get