Page 21 of The Déjà Glitch
Lila’s face whipped around. Gemma felt her eyes boring into her cheekbone, but she couldn’t look away from Clara. Her heart was suddenly in her throat.
“Stuck where?”
Clara’s amethyst earrings the size of quarters swung when she slowly shook her head. “That’s the thing. I can’t... see...” She trailed off, and Gemma feared what she wouldsay next. “The path is not... straight. It does not go forward or backward. It’s as if...” Her face scrunched in concentration. “It’s as if... it’s turning in on itself. Like a...”
Gemma’s heart was about to beat out of her chest. If Clara’s next word was what she thought it might be, she was going to lose it.
Clara’s grip suddenly tightened. She sat rod straight, making both Lila and Gemma jump. Her eyes flashed open wide enough to see the whites all the way around. And then she said the thing Gemma feared she would.
“Like a loop.”
Gemma tore her hands from her grip, and they slipped free, having grown slick with sweat. She stood up fast enough to send her chair tumbling backward to the floor. Before Lila or Clara could say anything, she turned and ran for the door.
She yanked it open and burst onto the sunny sidewalk. The light burned her eyes as she emerged from the dark cave. She threw an arm over her face and blindly ran straight into a wall.
“Oof!”the wall grunted. Then it proceeded to grab her arms to steady her.
Gemma blinked away the blinding light and refilled her lungs with the air that had been knocked out by the wall that was in fact not a wall, but a man. A man with shiny blue eyes and soft pouty lips that were bent in concern.
“You,” Gemma said.
“Yes, me,” Jack responded. “Are you all right?”
She was very muchnotall right, having had a psychic tell her wild, unbelievable stories about her own life, andshe hadn’t yet gathered herself before she ran smack into the source of those stories.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Really? You don’t look it.”
She realized he was still holding her arms. The warmth of his hands made her skin tingle. For a moment, she appreciated it, and then she had a concerning thought.
“Did you follow me here?”
“Yes,” he said factually and as if it were no big deal. “Did you just talk to a psychic?”
She moved out of his grip. “As a matter of fact, I did. And shouldn’t you haveknownthat because I’ve supposedly done it before?”
“I would have known, if you’d ever done this before,” he said as if the whole thing were baffling to him too.
Gemma pulled up short, confused. “I’ve never come here?”
“No.”
Right then, Lila burst through the shop door carrying Gemma’s purse, which she had abandoned inside. “Well, you stumped her, Gem. Lucky for you, she said the reading is on the house because she’s never seen anything like— Oh. Hello.” She stopped yammering and paused, replacing her sunglasses midway up her nose. She eyed Jack up and down and flicked a brow. “Is this the guy?”
How Lila knew that, Gemma didn’t know. Perhaps she too possessed some of Clara’s Sight, which Gemma was starting to wonder if she did actually believe in.
“Lila,” Jack said with the pleasant warmth of a friend. “Happy birthday.”
Lila took a dramatic step back with a hand over her chest and suspiciously eyed him. Then her face broke out in a smile. “I see. I’m part of this too. Nice to meet you.” She stuck out an arm to shake his hand, and Gemma smacked it away.
“Don’t encourage him!”
“Ouch!” Lila cradled her hand, looking affronted, and then she tsked at Gemma and reached out again. “Potentially delusional aside, Gem, you could do a lot worse. Nice to meet you, though I hear we’ve met before.” She said it all right to Jack’s face, and he took it in stride.
He shook her hand with a smile. “Indeed we have, but always a pleasure. Jack.”
“You can’t be serious right now,” Gemma muttered, feeling betrayed.