Reborn Read Free Page B

summer sun. I should have left the charred, lifeless remains alone. Now I’m
going to have to break things off with him in person.
    “Unfortunately,
the teaching assistant for this course is bad news,” I hear Dr. Mars saying and
glance up from my phone back to the front of the room. “He’s a huge slacker.
You’ll be lucky if he even shows up for office hours.” He smiles at someone
sitting in the front row as if sharing an inside joke and gives a rich, hearty
laugh. “He knows I’m just kidding. You are actually very lucky to have Mr.
Jasper Hart as your TA for this course. Mr. Hart is a third-year PhD student in
the history department, and a very bright young man…”
    Dr. Mars is
saying something else about the perfect Mr. Jasper Hart, but now I’ve
completely tuned him out. Our teaching assistant stands to face us and nods his
head politely. My heart has leaped into my throat. I can’t breathe. I
really…can’t…breathe. A flood of terror overwhelms me, and I won’t recover
unless I run out of this room. No, unless I jump out of my own skin. It can’t
be. He was dying. It can’t be.
    Jasper Hart is
the man from the woods.

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
    My
shoulder blades are itching, my sudden rush ofpanic awakening my wings.
God no. Not here. I scoot to the edge of my seat, prepared to get up and race
out of the room. I squeeze my eyes shut as though that will stop them. Please
no.
    When
I open my eyes again, Jasper Hart has taken his seat. I think I can see the
back of his head out of the corner of my eye, but I look steadily ahead at Dr.
Mars. My heart rate slows, I catch my breath and as my body relaxes the feeling
that my wings are about to spring from my back goes away. I spend the next half
hour trying not to think about Jasper Hart instead of listening to Dr. Mars
introduce the course. Since it’s the first class, he assigns some reading and
lets us out early. I’m the first one out of my seat, and I take the back exit.
    My
next class isn’t until one, so I flee to the library where I can grab a bagel
and coffee at the café and rearrange my thoughts. Confusion over the identity
of Jasper Hart pushes my uncertainties about Max to the back of my mind.
    It
had to be him, right? Now that I’m out of that room, I’m not sure. Maybe it was
just some other guy with shoulder-length dark hair, chiseled cheekbones and a
marble-white complexion. I didn’t get a good look at his eyes—the man in the
woods had intense, midnight blue eyes, so dark they were almost black. And of
course there’s the obvious absence of broad, black feathered wings.
    Even
if it is truly him, why did I react the way I did? It’s not so outlandish that
he could be at the same school where I’m working on my bachelor’s degree, is
it? Thurston University is a relatively small, private school only about an
hour away from where I grew up—an hour from where we found him.
    Then
again, how is it possible I dreamed of him before I ever met him? How did he
give me this freakish… “ ability,” and why?
What is he? Because whatever he is, Jasper Hart, World Myths and Legends
teaching assistant, isn’t human—if he’s really the same person.
    There
is one person you could ask. The realization pops unexpectedly into my
mind. Anna. Although we haven’t talked in six years, we both ended up at
Thurston. She could confirm his identity, although there’s also a chance she’ll
pretend to have no idea what I’m talking about. For Anna and Jimmy, that night
was like a really bad dream. For me, it had been a very real nightmare.
    Before
I can give myself more reasons to chicken out, I take another
confidence-boosting sip of coffee and bring up her name on my phone. Even
though she’s probably gone through several phones these past years, I’m pretty
sure she kept the same number. I hope she did.
    Anna?
It’s Siobhan , I text her.
    I
put my phone back on the table and, after a few minutes of staring at it, I
cram another piece of