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than the
rest of us.
    And if Yuki had worn her feelings on her sleeve like Katie,
we probably wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
    “Look, Yuki’s gone AWOL and the Grabber’s probably in town,
but that doesn’t mean she’s in trouble,” I said.  I ignored my racing pulse and
forced a smile.  “She’s probably hanging out in one of the study cubicles with
her iPod and a stack of books.”
    “You really think so?” Katie asked.
    “I know so,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. 
“We’re just dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.  It’s good to know where your
friends are, especially when there’s trouble in town.”
    Gordy nodded in agreement, or approval.  He had been trying
to comfort Katie by remaining calm, but I saw his mask slip when a petite girl
dressed all in black rounded the corner. 
    Gordy started forward, raising his hand to get her
attention, but when she lowered her stack of books onto a low rolling cart, the
almond-shaped eyes and small mouth weren’t Yuki’s and her petite feet were
strapped into shiny red sandals, not boots.  Gordy’s face fell and the color
drained from his lips.
    He reached up to smooth his asymmetrical bangs, covering his
disappointment, but I’d seen the frightened face behind his calm exterior. 
Gordy was trying to hold it together, for Katie’s sake, but underneath that
cool façade was a guy in turmoil.  Gordy had come to the same conclusion that I
had—Yuki had a knack for trouble, and her disappearance had tragic outcome
written all over it.
    “That’s Rin from my history class,” I said.  “I’ll go ask if
she’s seen Yuki.”
    “Okay,” Gordy said around a mouthful of hair. 
    He was chewing his bangs again.
    “OhmygoshIcan’tbelieveshe’sreallymissing,” Katie said.
    Katie reached for Gordy with a shaking hand and he put his
arm around her, pulling her close.  I felt a pang of jealousy.  I wished that
Simon could be here right now, but we needed his tracking skills to find Yuki. 
I hoped that he was having more luck in his search than the three of us.
    I was beginning to suspect that Yuki wasn’t here in the
safety of the library.  But if she wasn’t here, then where could she be? 
    I didn’t like the answers my brain conjured in reply.
     

Chapter 24
Calvin
     
    T he west side
of town turned up nothing.  I wasn’t as skilled at tracking as Simon, but I
could often feel Yuki through our bond.  So far I sensed nothing.
    I tried to take that as a good sign.
    If Yuki was in trouble, I’d know it, right?  I sure hoped
that was true.  Yuki had mentioned feeling a strange tingling beneath the skin,
where her spirit tattoo twines around her ankle, when we needed each other in
the past.  I rubbed my arm, but my tattoo felt normal. 
    I also tried reaching out to Yuki with my wolf spirit, but
the search was fruitless.  No matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn’t sense
Yuki’s presence.  Was she too far away, or had our bond grown weak? 
    Simon’s words returned to me, as they had numerous times
since our argument.  Was I really bad for Yuki? 
    I drove slowly past the flea market on Elm Street, but
couldn’t feel Yuki’s presence.  Last autumn, I found the perfect gift for Yuki
in one of these market stalls.  Amidst disembodied doll heads, Beatles
memorabilia, and old issues of TV Guide, an antique compass had lain buried.
    I had been shopping with Yuki.  She’d dragged me to the flea
market after sitting through a chakra clearing workshop I’d wanted to attend. 
She said that shopping was my penance for making her tap her face for
hours—which was, of course, an exaggeration.  But I tagged along anyway.
    I didn’t share Yuki’s love of retro lunch boxes and vintage
clothing, but I dug through the detritus of people’s lives alongside her.  I
was looking for a small trinket to appease her, but found something more
romantic instead.
    We had been dating for nearly a month and I had