Chapter 77

"Randolph!" I shouted.

"What?" he yelled from the kitchen.

I burst through the double doors, never as glad to hear the irritation in his voice as I was then, and gripped the shoulder of his orange vest tightly. "I need you to look at my wrist."

"Your wrist... Why?" His gaze snagged on my face and what must've been unease behind my eyes. The last of his color drained away. "Are you okay? Did you see...something?"

I shoved my arm at him. "Just tell me what you see."

"Okay." He gently took my arm, and that single action reached through my worried haze to remind me how much I missed Pop. "What am I looking for? Were you hurt?"

"In the elevator. I thought I saw..." I shook my head at the impossibility of it all. "Scales. Saelis scales."

His dark, bushy eyebrows drew together over his brown eyes as he gazed down at my wrist. "But...there's nothing there."

"I felt them, Randolph," I said, my voice low. "They were there, and then they weren't."