"Still," Jade replied. "It’s nice. Way better than my deathbox. At least yours is new."

I backed out of the garage, coming dangerously close to clipping my side mirror on the garage door, a fact that I hoped she missed. She didn’t say anything, so maybe it went unnoticed.

We were quiet for a while as I drove and the silence wasn’t at all uncomfortable. I knew this girl inside and out and she knew me, too. She just didn’t remember it. Minor detail. But I sensed that she was comfortable with me, too.

She hadn’t been lying. She only lived ten minutes away in a quiet little neighborhood to the south of me. I turned into the driveway of a cozy little cottage with blue shutters. It was a tiny little house, but the yard was immaculate and full of blooming colorful flowers. An elderly woman knelt in a flowerbed, crouching over a bed of pink tulips- my favorite.

As I got out of the car, I called, "Your tulips are beautiful!"

She turned and offered me a crinkly grin.

"Thank you, dear. They are an enjoyment to me." She glanced at Jade. "Hi, sweetheart. I didn’t know we were having company. Or I would have cleaned up." She sounded just the slightest bit disapproving and I wondered at it. But then she smiled again, so I dismissed my thought. I must have been mistaken.

"Grandma, this is Macy Lockhart. She volunteered to drop me off so that I didn’t have to bother you with it."

I paused at her lie, but decided it wasn’t a big deal. A giant Buick was parked in the driveway. She probably just hadn’t wanted to ride around in a grandma car. I couldn’t blame her.

"Well, I’m glad to you meet you, Macy," she smiled. "I’m Gladys, Jade’s grandmother. I’m happy that she’s met a new friend. California is a big place." She turned to Jade. "Jade, take this poor girl in. She shouldn’t be standing around after her troubles yesterday. Are you feeling better?" she peered at me.

"I feel much better, Gladys. Thank you for asking. They think it was just a bad case of indigestion."

She peered at me again. "No doubt from all the junk you teenagers eat. You really should eat more fruit. It’s good for you."

Jade scowled good-naturedly at her grandma. "Gran, you don’t even know how she eats.

Maybe she’s a health nut. You don’t know."

"Well, take her inside anyway. And get her some lemonade. It’s fresh-squeezed," Gladys added.

Jade led me inside the tiny house and the inside was just as neat at the exterior. Crocheted doilies, flowered wallpaper, yellowed still-lifes on the walls. All of the quaint things you would expect from a grandmother’s house. My grandparents had all died before I was born, so I didn’t have any real experience with them.

Jade poured me a glass of lemonade and led the way to her room. I trailed behind her, taking everything in. There were pictures of her grandpa on the wall, but there was no sign of him at all in the house. He must have already passed away. It was just Jade and her grandma in this house.

She pushed open the door to her room and I gasped.

"Holy crap! It’s like a whole other world in here!"

The entire room was full of state of the art technologya huge flat screen was mounted on the wall, surround sound speakers were hanging from the corners, a brand new laptop adorned a sleek mahogany desk. Her furnishings were modern and plush and starkly out of context in the quaint little house. I turned to her in amazement.

She shrugged her shoulders. "My parents live in Switzerland and they want to be able to chat with me every night via webcam."

"Um, my crappy old laptop has a webcam. This is this is" I gestured toward everything in her room. There were no words.

"Yeah, I know," she muttered and she actually blushed. "It’s serious overkill. But my dad is a scientist and he likes gadgets."

"Why do you live here, if your parents live in Switzerland?" I asked curiously. "Am I being too nosy?"

She smiled. "No, of course not. It’s a valid question. My dad works for a biological engineering company and their corporate office is secluded in the mountains. My parents didn’t want me isolated up there so they left me here to go to a normal, American school."

"Just now? When did they leave?"

"Oh, no. They’ve lived there for years. I was going to a private school, but my grandma just decided that a public school would be good for me. And so here I am a brand-new student in my senior year at San Marino."

"Don’t worry," I murmured comfortingly. "You’ll be fine. You know me now  and Jenn, Jess and Gavin. And tomorrow you’ll known Noah. Don’t blame me though when he bores you to tears."

She grinned. "I think somehow I’ll manage. You know, what with being blinded by that smile and all."

"He is pretty," I agreed. "I’ll definitely give him that."

"So you’ll call me about tomorrow?" Jade asked hopefully, as she showed me to the front door.

"Yep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow." I walked toward my car. "Thank you for the lemonade,"

I called to Gladys. "It was delicious."

"You’re welcome, dear. It was very nice to meet you. I’m glad my Jade has a new friend."

She waved and went back to weeding her flower bed. I turned up the volume on my stereo as I backed out of the driveway.

As music dulled my senses, I thought about what I had just seen. It was very, very curious.

Why had her parents left her at her grandma’s like that? Knowing my Daedal’s propensity and not to mention biological inclination toward all things out of the ordinary, I knew there had to be a reason. And it was probably an essential key to our path in this life.

"And you would be correct." Ahmose appeared in my passenger seat, just as breezy as could be.

I startled, but maintained my grip on the steering wheel. He looked the same as he always did with his shaved head and thick, kohl-rimmed eyes. I briefly wondered why. Why did the Aegis persist in wearing ancient clothing- long robes and traditional make-up, when it was so obviously out-of-date? Apparently, fashion wasn’t a priority for them.

"You know I hate it when you do that, priest," I gritted through my teeth. "One of these days, you’ll give me a heart attack."

"What would you have me do? Make an appointment?" he asked innocently. I rolled my eyes.

"Thanks for bringing my bloodstone back," I acknowledged.

"You’re welcome," he nodded.

"Now tell me what’s the deal with Jade? There’s something different about her this time.

And I had a vision that she was strapped to a hospital bed."

He nodded again, but ignored my question.

"Jade’s father is a very important man in scientific circles, Macy. He’s a molecular engineer. And he left Jade in her grandmother’s care to keep her safe."

My eyes flew to his onyx ones. "Why? Is something threatening her?"

"Nothing yet. But once word gets out about what she is the whole world will want her and there are those that would prevent that from happening."

Confusion clouded my thinking. "What do you mean? What is she?"

At just that moment, a deer bounded into the road and I screamed, yanking on the wheel—

the exact opposite of what I should have done. My efforts were futile, anyway. With a sickening crunch, we plowed into the deer before the car careened into the ditch. On impact, my air bags exploded, throwing my head against my seat with such force that I felt my nose snap.

As the car settled to a stop, I sat there stunned. I lifted trembling fingers to my face and they came back bloody. I glanced into my rearview mirror. Blood gushed from my broken nose and I gingerly wiped at it.

I looked at my window. The deer was a bloody motionless mess on the side of the road.

"Oh, crap," I whispered, putting my fingers to my head again.

Ahmose laid his bony hand on my arm. "Are you alright?"

He was perfectly calm, almost as if he had expected the deer’s surprise entrance into our lives.

"Yes," I muttered. "I mean, I think so. Better than him, at any rate." I gestured toward the dead animal.

Ahmose turned my chin around with his fingers and then pointed at my bloody face. I literally felt the throbbing pain suck out of my body as the bones and cartilage of my nose realigned. He dropped his hand and I looked at my wound in the mirror. It was no longer there. Blood was smeared on my cheeks, but my nose was straight and no longer gushed blood.

He gestured toward my steering wheel and the airbag refolded itself and molded perfectly back into the way it had been five minutes ago. I gasped.

"Just think, Macy. Think what would happen if the world could get its hands on a person who could heal in such a way," he instructed.

My mind flashed to the pool, when Jade’s arms suddenly had no scrapes on them. I looked at Ahmose in alarm.

"You mean Jade "

But I was talking to myself. My passenger seat was suddenly empty and I was left with a head full of questions and no one to answer them. As I looked in surprise out my window, the deer jumped easily to its feet and stared at me for a moment with clear, miraculously lucid eyes.

Its legs were no longer broken and it bounded out of sight into the wooded brush next to the road.

Chapter Five

My bathroom looked like an F5 tornado had blown through it as Jade and I stood in front of the mirror getting ready for our double-date. The quartz countertops were littered with creams, ointments, cosmetics and hair products. As I spritzed spray-shine onto my hair, I glanced at Jade and found her fidgeting with her earring. She was clearly nervous.

"Calm down," I encouraged. "Seriously, Noah is nothing to be nervous about. He’s gorgeous, sure, but he’s got the personality of a Labrador. He likes everyone. He’ll practically wag his tail when he meets you, I promise."

She smiled back and appeared just a little bit calmer. Her chestnut hair was pulled into a sleek low-ponytail and her makeup was perfect. She just needed a little pinch of color. I handed her a tube of cranberry colored lip-gloss.

"Here, this would look great on you."

She carefully applied it and I was right. It looked perfect on her. She handed it back to me.

"Thanks, Macy. Is Gavin picking Noah up or?"

I smiled at her anxiety. This was the first time I’d ever seen her being so nervous. She had always been perfectly cool and unflustered. When she was Cleopatra, she made a point of it.

She thought that anything less was ‘un-queenly’.

"Yes," I answered. "And don’t freak out but they should be here any minute."

As if on cue, my doorbell rang. Jade groaned and I laughed.

"You’ll be fine," I assured her. "You look gorgeous."

I dragged her out by the elbow and she dropped behind as we walked to the door. I threw it open to find Gavin and Noah waiting for us with flowers.

"So you robbed a florist on your way over?" I asked with a grin, reaching for my boyfriend and kissing him on the cheek.

"I’d do anything for you. You know that," he grinned back as he handed me the flowers.