The Shadow Prince

“Simon?” Dax says. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were going out for the night.”

“So did I.” Simon takes a deep swig from his glass and sets it neatly on a coaster on the coffee table. He smiles at me, the red liquid staining his teeth. “I’m here because of what Haden did in the grove.”

Chapter eighteen

DAPHNE

“So let me get this straight,” the man in the blue uniform says. “You think Miss Perkins was attacked by a pirate with heat radiating off his skin and green eyes with fire in them? Would you like me to add fangs and wings to that description also? Maybe throw in some sparkles for a little flare?”

The security guard laughs, and his partner pats him on the back like he’s oh so funny.

“No, because then you would have a vam-pirate angel and not the person I’d described.”

The two laugh harder, and I feel like I’m about to kick someone in the shins. “Vam-pirate angels! You kids read too much, you know that? Your imaginations get the better of you.”

“I’m not imagining things,” I say. “And I’m not sure why I’m even talking to you right now. Shouldn’t the real police be here?”

Luckily, Tobin had a cell phone, since mine had gone who knows where with my tote bag. I’d sat next to Pear while he climbed to higher ground to call for help. I’d assumed he’d called 911 until about ten minutes later, when four Olympus Hills security guards came down the island slope to meet us, flashlights in hand. The only ways off the island are the two footbridges that lead to the lake’s jogging trails, so the guards had to carry Pear out, rather than bring a car in. Tobin and I had followed with my bike and guitar in tow as one of the guards cradled her body in his arms. She seemed as limp and heavy as the giant bags of topsoil I always had to help my mom heft back to the greenhouse.

We were met out on the road by the flashing lights of the security guards’ cars and an Olympus Hills Medical Response vehicle. A small group of bystanders had gathered on the side of the road.

Two of the guards loaded Pear into the medical van, while the other two pulled Tobin and me aside to get our statements about what happened. Tobin told them how we’d found Pear, but when the guards asked why we’d been in the grove in the first place, I confessed what happened in my encounter with the weird boy in the woods earlier today. They’d been following my story until I got to the guy’s description. Now they are acting like I am making it all up.

“Listen, miss,” the guard says, dropping the jovial tone. “You must be new around here, or otherwise you’d know that the county sheriff’s department contracts out our security firm for anything that happens within the gates of Olympus Hills. Which means we are far too busy for stupid teenagers looking for some extra attention …”

Tobin had put his arm around me as I told my story, his tone growing darker and stormier as he listened. He drops his arm from my shoulder now. He raises his finger at the guard, along with his voice. “Listen, ya rent-a-cop, my mother is Mayor Winters, which means she signs your paychecks. So how about you finish listening to my friend’s statement and take your job seriously, before I call her up and give a report on your performance? One of our classmates was just hurt, badly. Show a little respect.”

The two security guards exchange a look. The one taking my statement tells me to go on with my description of what happened. I catch a note coming off him that is pretty much the auditory equivalent of an eye roll when I tell him about how the guy’s slight touch had left marks on my arm—marks that are inconveniently gone now—but he doesn’t laugh again. When he finishes taking my statement and tells us we are free to go, I get the distinct feeling that everything he’s written down is going to end up in the trash.

“I’m not making it up,” I tell Tobin when the guards leave us standing by the trail with my bike.

“I believe you,” he says. I can tell by the stormy notes coming off him that he isn’t just being polite. “I told you, things aren’t as perfect as they seem around here.…”

I’m just about to ask him what exactly he means when I hear someone shout my name.

I look up and see a man, dressed in nothing but skinny jeans and a canary yellow bathrobe, wandering up the lake path. He’s barefoot. And carrying a golf club. He cups his hands to his mouth and shouts, “Daphne? Where are you?”

“Is that … Joe Vince?” Tobin asks.

“The one and only.” I sigh as I watch Joe poke at a row of bushes with his golf club as if he thought I was hiding in the branches. It’s a good thing paparazzi aren’t allowed past the security gates or I’m sure this little scene would be on the cover of next week’s OK! magazine.

“Why would he be looking for you?”

I bite the bullet. “Because he’s my father.”

Tobin makes a small popping noise with his lips. “You’re not a schollie, are you?”

“Goes to show you should never judge a girl by her clothes.”

“Daphne?” Joe calls again.

I decide I should probably respond before he brings out half the neighborhood. “Over here, Joe.” I wave at him.

Joe drops his golf club and comes jogging toward me. “Oh, Daphne, thank the bloody stars in heaven. You’re all right.”

“You were worried?”

“I heard there was a girl found unconscious in that grove you were talking about this morning. I tried calling you a dozen times and you didn’t answer. Those bloody security guards wouldn’t tell me anything. They only gave me a description of the girl they took to the hospital. And I thought … I thought … I didn’t know if …”

I realize then that Pear’s description would kind of match mine. Tall, tan, and blond. Though she is of the bleached variety and her tan probably comes from an airbrush—while mine is from living in the desert. Really, tall is the only thing we have in common, and I probably still have three inches on her.

“They said she was wearing pink and silver sandals, and I …” Joe gives me a stricken look. “And I had no idea what any of your shoes look like.” He covers his face with his ring-clad fingers. “I should know that, shouldn’t I? Why don’t I know that?”

Because you’ve ignored me most of my life is what I want to say, but when Joe drops his hands from his face, it seems as though he’s wiping away tears. Long, low, drawn-out notes come off him, and I realize that he really was worried.