That Moment When: An Anthology of Young Adult Fiction

by A. M. Lalonde

  Meaning they were hideous and totally not my style.

  I made a face at the bracelet that was now on my desk. Hopefully I wouldn’t be expected to wear it after this practice session was over. Couldn’t she have at least warned us about this exercise ahead of time so we could bring in our own jewelry to practice on? It would have been the perfect excuse to buy the Tiffany charm bracelet I’d had my eye on for the past few months. It was much cuter than this ugly thing.

  She told us to begin, so I closed my eyes and faced my palms to the ceiling. One of the first things I learned in homeroom was that witches conduct energy through our palms, calling it into our bodies before sending it back out to the Universe. It was easy to get the hang of once I got focused.

  I wasn’t sure which color to use, so I chose my favorite—red. It was warm against my skin, like the glow of fire surrounding me. The center of my palms tingled, and the red energy flowed into them and entered my body—through my arms, up into my head, and all the way to my toes. It melded with my blood and pulsed through my veins, filling every inch of me.

  Once I’d collected enough, I opened my eyes and raised my hands above the bracelet, directing all of the red energy toward it. I thought about the energy filling the bracelet, although I wished it were the Tiffany bracelet I wanted so that I would actually be able to wear it after the fact.

  The energy rushed out of my body, leaving me cold when it was gone. The bracelet blurred for a second, and then came back into focus.

  Except now, instead of the chain Ms. Davis had placed on our desks a few minutes earlier, I was staring at the Tiffany one instead.

  Chapter Three

  Kayla gasped from her seat next to me. “How did you do that?” she asked, reaching forward and touching the bracelet.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But you see it too, right?”

  “Of course I see it,” she said. “Can you do that to mine also?”

  “Sydney and Kayla,” Ms. Davis said our names, silencing us immediately. “Would one of you like to share with the class what you are talking about that is more important than the assigned exercise?”

  “Sydney transformed her bracelet,” Kayla said quickly, picking up the shiny Tiffany charm bracelet and dangling it in the air. “Look.”

  “Let me see that.” Ms. Davis marched over to my desk and snatched the bracelet out of Kayla’s hand. She held it in front of her face, making a “hmm” noise as she studied it from every angle possible. “It’s not an illusion,” she said, her lips pursed as she placed the bracelet back down in front of me. “Did you swap out your chain for this bracelet when I wasn’t looking?”

  “No,” I said, fastening the Tiffany bracelet around my wrist before Ms. Davis could take it back again. I might not be able to explain what I’d done, but I knew one thing—that bracelet was mine.

  Luckily, the bell rang before she could say any more.

  “Come see me after last period,” she told me, turning on her heel and walking toward the front of the classroom. “And everyone please remember to go straight home after school.”

  Her final sentence was drowned out by the sounds of everyone packing up their stuff.

  I turned to Garrett to show him my bracelet, but he wasn’t looking at me—he was just staring down at his empty desk.

  “You must have hated that bracelet more than I did to get rid of it that quickly,” I said with a laugh. “Where’d you put it?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged and looked up at me, his forehead creased in confusion. “It’s gone.”

  Chapter Four

  “Thanks for agreeing to sneak out tonight,” I told Kayla as I fished through my closet to find shoes to match my dress.

  “I wasn’t going to miss Manufactured Superstars.” She coated her eyelids with a massive amount of glitter and then glanced at me, her mouth dropping open when she saw the shoes in my hands. “You could kill someone with those heels,” she said. “But they will look awesome with that dress.”

  “If anything’s going to be killed, it’s my own feet by the end of the night.” I slipped my foot into the five-inch stiletto ankle boot and zipped it up. Once both of them were on, I walked over to my bed and checked my phone. No new messages. I huffed and tossed it back down on the comforter.

  “No word from Garrett?” Kayla asked.

  “Nope,” I said. “I haven’t heard from him since he said the whole thing about his bracelet disappearing in homeroom.”

  “He might have made it up to compete with what you did to yours,” Kayla said. “I mean, he can’t have made the bracelet disappear. That’s impossible.”

  “It’s also ‘impossible’ to change an object from one thing to another,” I pointed out. “But I did it in class. Ms. Davis tried to get me to do it again when I met with her after school, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing happened. I think she thought I was just playing a practical joke on her this morning. But I wasn’t. You know I wasn’t.”

  “I know,” Kayla said. “You’ve wanted that Tiffany bracelet for weeks. If you’d gotten it, you would have told me.”

  I nodded, fiddling with the bracelet on my wrist. How had I done that this morning? And why hadn’t I been able to do it again?

  My phone buzzed with a text message, jolting me out of my thoughts. Garrett.

  “He’s on his way,” I told Kayla, texting him back to let him know I’d gotten the message.

  “Good.” She stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror, straightening out her dress. “I was beginning to worry that he wouldn’t be able to sneak out.”

  “That makes two of us,” I muttered, grabbing some perfume and spritzing it into my wrists. “You ready?”

  “Yep.” She checked herself out one last time in the mirror, smiling at her reflection. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Five

  Garrett was waiting for us outside my house in his black SUV, and I hopped into the passenger side before Kayla had a chance. Kayla huffed in the backseat, but I pretended I didn’t hear her. After all, I always took shotgun when the three of us drove together. I didn’t know why she was getting all hissy about it now.

  “Nice boots,” Garrett said, glancing down at them and smiling. “Those heels make you almost my height now.”

  “Thanks.” I crossed one leg over the other and turned in his direction. “So,” I started, needing to ask what I’d been dying to know since homeroom ended this morning. “What did you mean when you said your bracelet disappeared?”

  He pulled out of my driveway and peeled down the street, his gaze focused straight ahead. “It didn’t disappear,” he said. “It teleported.”

  “It teleported?” Kayla stuck her head through the center of our seats, some glitter from her eyes floating down onto the gearshift. “What do you mean?”

  “Teleported,” he repeated. “Also known as instantaneously moving from one place to another.”

  “We know what teleported means,” I said. “But how did you do it?”

  “I have no idea.” He shrugged. “At first I thought I’d made it disappear. But when I went to my locker after homeroom, it was right on top of my Chemistry textbook.”

  “Why would it end up there?”

  “When we were doing the exercise I was thinking about how I hadn’t finished my Chemistry homework yet,” he explained. “That must have caused the bracelet to end up there.”

  “And when I transformed my bracelet, I was wishing it was the Tiffany one I’ve been wanting for weeks,” I said, playing with the silver heart on the new charm bracelet secured around my wrist. “We’re somehow changing the world around us with our thoughts. Or at least it sounds like that.”

  “It does,” Kayla added from between us.

  “But no one else did anything like we did,” Garrett said. “And I’ve been thinking about it all day… we’re the only two who haven’t known we’re witches for our whole lives. Maybe that’s connected with our new powers.”

  “Maybe.” I c
hewed on my lip, glancing out the window as he turned onto Las Vegas Boulevard. We drove by the elegant Bellagio, which had a crowd standing in front of it to watch the famous fountains dancing to a classical song. Past the Bellagio was Caesar’s Palace, designed in the style of ancient Rome. Whenever I walked through it I marveled at the statues of the gods, amazed I was related to them, even if it was only in a small way.

  Finally we pulled up to the golden tower of the Diamond Hotel, and Garrett stopped at the valet drop-off. I got out and admired a red Lamborghini parked on the curb.

  “It sucks that the two of you have these cool powers and I have nothing,” Kayla sulked as we made our way through the busy casino toward Myst Nightclub.

  The entrance to the club was easy to find, due to the crowds of people around the velvet-roped walkway as they waited to get in. Occasionally a group of friends would stroll up to the red ropes, state their names to the bouncer, and be let right inside, getting glares from all of the others who had been waiting for who knows how long to get into the club.

  I tugged down the neck of my dress, pulled my hair over my shoulders, and pushed my way to the front of the crowd. A skinny guy who looked to be in his mid-twenties stood in front of the rope holding a clipboard. A large, muscular man stood behind him, like he was waiting to escort anyone out who caused trouble.

  I rested my hands on the rope, and the guy with the list glanced up at me. He looked me up and down and smirked, and I was already getting the vibe that he was preparing to turn me away for being underage.

  But keeping my gaze on his, I breathed in deeply, focusing on drawing blue energy from around me. It was more difficult in this environment because everyone was bursting with the excitement of red, orange, and yellows—but I managed to find the calm blue, allowing it to roll over my skin like waves lapping the shore on a sunny day. Garrett and Kayla stood on both sides of me, assumedly throwing their own energy into the mix, too.

  “We’re on the list,” I said, calm and confident, smiling at the man and projecting the blue energy in his direction.

  His eyes glazed over and he nodded slowly, pulling up the list. “Names?” he asked, sounding like he was in a trance.

  “Sydney Parker, Kayla Bell, and Garrett Ford,” I told him, even though he wouldn’t find our names there. He skimmed through the list, flipping over to the next page and doing the same. I forced more blue energy in his direction and added, “We’re on there.”

  He nodded again and lowered the list, refocusing on us. “IDs?” he asked, and then he yawned, so I pulled back on the blue energy. Calming a human down too much wasn’t a good thing—unless you wanted to relax them to the point where they laid down and took a nap.

  I removed my ID from my wallet, and Garrett and Kayla did the same. They were all New York IDs—fakes I’d gotten from a guy I met at a party a few months ago. They worked like a charm every time.

  The man jotted something on three slips of paper and handed them to us with our IDs. “All right,” he said, unhooking the rope and moving aside. “Go all the way down to the end and show your papers to the guy waiting there.”

  We did as he said—I snickered as a group of girls on the other side of the rope gave us the stink eye as we walked past them—and less than a minute later the three of us were inside Myst Nightclub. I inhaled the fresh tropical smell that was always in the club, due to the waterfall that dropped down all three stories and crashed into the pool below. Multiple dance floors and balconies overlooked the people swimming in the water. The floor above us was the most elegant, with VIP booths, bottle service, and a light up dance floor. Sometimes I went up there—even though it meant dealing with the snooty students from the Goodman School—but tonight wasn’t one of those nights.

  Because right now Manufactured Superstars was controlling the DJ booth on the second floor, the bass so strong that I could feel it vibrating through my chest. The two members of the DJ duo wore bright orange NASA spacesuits, their hands raised as they took in the energy of everyone dancing in front of them. The crowd moved in time with the music, packed as close as possible, cheering as the DJs switched from one song to the next.

  “I love this song!” Kayla squealed, grabbing my hand and pulling me onto the dance floor. Garrett followed us, and we pushed our way into the middle of the crowd. The dance floor smelled like a mix of perfume and sweat, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was the music.

  I moved closer to Garrett and Kayla, the three of us forming a tight circle. My arm kept brushing against Garrett’s, and every time it did, heat rushed across my skin at the contact. I wondered if he felt it too.

  “I need a drink,” Kayla announced a few songs later. Her face glistened with sweat, and she gathered her hair over her shoulder, using her other hand to fan the back of her neck.

  It was getting hot on the dance floor, so the three of us pushed our way through the crowd. I scanned the nearby tables to analyze who might be kind enough—or drunk enough—to offer to buy us a drink.

  “What about them?” I asked Kayla, motioning toward a table full of drunk college guys who looked like the fraternity type.

  A girl with long red hair appeared in front of us before Kayla could answer. “Looking for a table?” she asked, flashing us a huge smile that showed off her perfectly straight teeth. Her eyes set me on edge—they were such a light brown that they almost looked orange.

  “Yeah,” Garrett said before Kayla or I could respond.

  I glared at him, since he knew this worked better when we found a table full of guys. Plus, the idea of Garrett finding this girl attractive irritated me. She was a human, and witches and humans didn’t date—at least not seriously.

  “My friends are on the dance floor, so you can join me at my table.” She flipped her hair and smiled at Garrett. “It’s just me now,” she said. “And a bottle of champagne.”

  Kayla brightened at the mention of free champagne. “Sounds perfect,” she said, pulling me over to the girl’s table without asking for my opinion.

  Once there we scooted into the circular booth, Garrett on one side of the redhead and Kayla on the other. I sat on the end. The girl introduced herself as Megan, and Garrett and Kayla made small talk with her while I occupied myself by checking out the guys at the other tables. I spotted group of cute ones nearby who looked a few years older than me. Maybe after a few minutes I would excuse myself and join them. After all, I didn’t want to be stuck at Megan’s table all night watching Garrett flirt with her. The thought made me feel sick.

  I quickly shook the jealousy away. What the hell was up with me? I never had a jealous side—I’d never had much of a reason to be jealous of anyone. Megan was bringing out the worst in me.

  I wanted to get as far away from her as possible.

  “I’m going back on the dance floor,” I announced, placing my half finished flute of champagne on the table.

  “But you’re not done with your drink yet.” Kayla pouted. She glanced over at Garrett, who was sitting closer to Megan now, and her eyes flashed with annoyance.

  At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like seeing him so near her.

  “Come on, Syd,” Garrett said, leaning back in the booth. “Just wait until Megan’s friends get back, so she can stop guarding the table and come hang out with us on the dance floor.”

  “You don’t have to come,” I said, adjusteding the top of my dress and standing up. “Just meet me there when you’re ready.”

  “I really think you should stay here,” Megan insisted, and when she looked up at me, her eyes flashed yellow. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not—it could have been a reflection of the blinking lights—but still, it was freaky.

  “On second thought—Garrett and Kayla—come with me. Now.” I stepped away from the table, hoping they would understand that I was serious. Something was off with Megan. I didn’t want to be anywhere near her, and I didn’t want my friends near her either.

  “No.” Megan hoisted herself out of the boo
th and over the table. She landed in front of me, throwing an arm out to stop me from leaving. “Stay. All of you.”

  Then her face contorted, becoming more angular, her ears elongating and turning pointy at the ends. Huge wings grew out of her back, ripping holes in her shirt when they emerged. Her hands and feet mutated into yellow claws, and her irises turned yellow—for real this time.

  Only her long red hair remained the same.

  Everything else about her had transformed into a monster.

  Chapter Six

  I froze, unable to believe that this was happening. Because Megan wasn’t just any monster. She was a fury. A creature of vengeance. We’d learned all about them in our Greek mythology class.

  The humans in the club laughed and pointed at Megan, nudging their friends to look at her as if they thought they were at a show. Which made sense, since we were in Vegas. Of course they thought this was a show. I would have thought the same if I were them.

  But I wasn’t them. I was a witch descended from the Greek gods. And I knew that what we were seeing was real.

  “When I said you should stay here, I meant it,” Megan hissed, her eyes flashing yellow again. “This would have been easier if you drank up that champagne like I wanted. But since you didn’t want to do this the easy way, then I guess the hard way will work too.”

  Kayla squeezed my arm, her blue eyes wide as she stared at the Megan-creature. Garrett stood strong, like he was about to go into battle. Which I supposed he was—or we all were.

  The only problem was that we didn’t know how to fight. Especially not something as monstrous as her.

  We had to get out of here.

  The Megan-creature leered at us, her sharp features contorting. “How convenient that the two demigods in the area decided to leave their houses when they were instructed to stay in tonight,” she continued, taking a bird-like step in our direction. “Not like that surprises me. Your kind always is the most impulsive.”