Page 56 of Junk Magic

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I finally went inside, carrying the platter of grilled veggies and feeling half grilled myself, and barely managed to fit through the door. I found Aki dicing more peppers and onions at the kitchen table, Jen and Cyrus adding hot sauce to something they were concocting on the stove, and a bunch of Weres—like, entirely too many Weres—helping Chris to bring in the grocery order that had just arrived. And laughing over the sheer amount of food, because Caleb was nothing if not generous.

He didn’t like it to get out, but his family came from wealth. Like wealth-wealth, the kind with multiple houses and private planes and servants to do the cooking. Which probably explained why he had no idea how to buy pots.

I danced backward when the Weres started tossing a cantaloupe around like a basketball, and looked for a safe place to put down my platter. But I didn’t see one. Every surface was covered in dishes in the middle of prep; the fridge, when I finally elbowed someone aside and got it open, was stuffed full to running over; and I couldn’t even ask anyone to take the thing from me, because a radio was blaring as loud as a club.

Aki yelled something and I tried to pass him the dish, only to find him attempting to give me one. We shrugged at each other, a guy with dreads passed in between us and popped a cookie in my mouth, and another guy muscled in with a ladder, I guessed to fix the flickering overhead light. And I decided that my help was not needed here.

I passed off the tray to the first Were I could find with empty hands, and made my escape into the hall.

And found it to be an oasis of calm compared to the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly quiet, with the sound of the radio still loud enough to shake the floorboards, but it was empty. And dim, because I had a bulb out here, too.

I took a moment to get my breath back, and to eat my cookie. It was peanut butter—not a favorite—but my stomach didn’t care. My stomach demanded more after the first bite as it simply hadn’t with the zucchini.

And then roared at me to hurry up, in a way that had me staring down in concern.

I finished the whole thing, despite the fact that it was almost as big as my hand, then licked my fingers clean as I made my way into the living room.

Only to discover that it had been transformed, too—into a dorm.

“Hey.”

Someone greeted me, but I didn’t see who since my nice living room, with the bay window and the tasteful paint job, was now a shanty town of draped blankets, sleeping bags, and cots. There were also a few inflatable mattresses scattered about, along with more blankets, pillows, and personal items, denoting people’s individual spaces, which they’d already carved out. And they’d carved out a lot.

It looked like a dozen or so were camping in just this one room, which made me worried about the rest of the house. Although nobody was in residence except for the young blond Were from the camping trip. Noah, I thought, dredging up the name after finding him reclining on a sleeping bag and playing with a beat-up Switch.

He raised a hand when I peered over the blanket delineating his turf, and I raised one back.

“She’s in the bathroom,” he said, before I could ask.

“Kimmie?”

“Both of them. Her and the redhead.”

“Thanks.”

He sniffed. “You smell like peanut butter.”

“There’s cookies in the kitchen.”

“Really?” he thought about it. Then made the decision that I would have. “Not worth it.”

“Good call.”

“The bath in the bedroom, not the hall,” he clarified, as I started to backtrack. “The rest of us are using the hall one.”

I nodded and made my way toward the master, stopping to glance in the guestroom on the way. It and the room next door, which I intended for an office if I ever got around to buying furniture, should have been empty. But instead, they were filled with more sleeping bags and air mattresses, with the office also having a mound of backpacks piled high against one wall.

I had no idea why.

I had a handful of students, and most of the Weres had homes.

So why was I suddenly running a Motel 6?

“They’ll be gone in a few days,” Cyrus said, coming up behind me. I hadn’t said anything as I made my way through the kitchen, but of course he’d smelled me. “But Jace needs them right now, and I didn’t have room—”

“It’s okay. Where is he?”

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