by Kailin Gow
I didn't even realize I was staring until Chance
coughed out a distinctive a-hem. “So I take it you made it
home safe and sound,” he said in a disdainful tone. As I
looked up at him, I almost imagined that I could see the
flames lapping at his face once more.
“So you were the dancer from last night.”
“So, you figured it out. Clever girl.”
His words stung, and my cheeks grew hot. “Even
without the mask, I could recognize that stuck up tone
anywhere!” I shot back.
“Oh, look, she has a sense of humor.” He raised his
eyebrows, speaking to nobody in particular.
“Oh, look,” I glared at him, “he has imaginary friends
to talk to.” I looked him up and down. “I guess I shouldn't
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be surprised. If I talked to people the way you do, I wouldn't
have any friends either.”
Varun's soft chuckle interrupted our discourse. “See
that, Chance? Guess you finally found a girl who doesn't
worship the ground you walk on.”
Dr. Newton was judiciously ignoring all of us,
working furiously on a set of papers, evidently far too old
and jaded to care about high school sparring matches.
“Sorry, Chance,” I laughed as I took Varun's bait. “I
come from Angel Island, Southern California. I've seen my
fair share of cocky jerks, and believe me – they were every
bit as handsome as you were.” This wasn't strictly true, but I
was too annoyed by Chance's aloof act to care.
Chance glowered at me, but by now my attention had
turned to Varun. “So how about that tour of Aeros
Academy?” I said, ignoring Chance's stare, the prickling in
my blood that reminded me of last night's flames. I slipped
my arm through Varun's.
Suddenly, the prickling disappeared. Instead I felt a
cool force – calm, as gentle as the lapping of the ocean under
the fool moon – overtaking me. My attraction to Chance, my
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anger, my frustration seemed to vanish. Instead, as I touched
Varun's arm, I felt only serenity, only calm. Then, all at once,
the serenity turned to chaos, as what felt like enormous tidal
waves washed over me.
I staggered back. “What was that?” I looked around.
“What was what?” Varun helped steady me.
“I just felt waves of...” I laughed at how silly I
sounded. “Something.”
“Probably nerves, eh?” Varun patted my arm.
As I looked up at Chance, he seemed even angrier
than before. His arms were crossed and his eyes were dark
with hatred. And as I stared at the shadow that he cast on the
wall behind him, I noticed something very strange indeed.
His shadow seemed to be surrounded by flames.
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Chapter 4
Varun led me back out into the receptionist's office.
“So, you ready to see the brave new world of Aeros
Academy?” He laughed. “It's not that scary, I promise. Not
everyone here's like my cousin Chance. Speaking of
which...” He looked up, waiting for Chance to follow us. But
he had vanished – seemingly skulked off while we hadn't
noticed. “Typical,” he said. “I guess Chance thinks he's too
cool for orientation. Never mind. It'll be his own fault when
he can't find the room for AP Post-Erosion History.”
I smiled back at him. I could definitely see shades of
Antonio in Varun – far more than I could in his biological
son, Chance. I understood now what my mother had said
about Antonio only having one 'true' son. Where Chance was
aloof, snobbish, and rude, Varun had the same laid-back
sense of humor as his uncle. He certainly wasn't the type to
insult a girl while dancing with her. If Antonio had asked
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Varun to dance with me, I thought defensively, he would
have done it like a gentleman, and never let on that he was
only doing it out of obligation.
I felt more at ease with Varun than I had with anyone
since I had arrived in Aeros. His affable, easy charm was like
balm on my fears, quenching the anxiety inside me. Even if
Chance didn't turn out to be the friend I had hoped for – a
fact that was looking less and less likely the more I got to see
of him – it looked like at least one Cutter cousin would be
there for me.
We walked through the hallways as Varun pointed
out for me the classroom numbers (ascending, clockwise)
and the locker numbers (counterclockwise). He made an
imitation of Ms. Weaver, the English teacher, speaking in a
high-pitched British tone. Then he imitated Mr. Cook, the
physics teacher, shuffling his feet and looking down as he
talked to the class. I laughed. Varun knew how to break the
ice and make me feel more at ease. I was glad I was stuck
taking what could have been a routine tour, with Mr.
Gorgeous and down-to-earth Varun. Everybody seemed to
like Varun, or at the very least, respect him – he said a jovial
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“hello” to every group of people we passed, and they all
responded in kind.
“You don't have to be so nervous,” said Varun,
patting my shoulder. “Everyone's nice here. Or at least they
will be – once they get to know you. We're not all cliquey
here. It's a friendly place.”
“I'm sure,” I said with some trepidation as we
approached a group of girls lounging langorously by the
water fountain. They were the most dressed-up of any of the
girls I had seen so far today – immaculately slathered in
layers of makeup, each strand of hair individually
highlighted, no doubt, by an expert stylist. Their eyes fixed
on me in a unified plan of attack – rather, I thought, like the
approach of feral wolves.
Varun seemed blissfully oblivious to their suspicious
stares. “Hey, girls!” he waved broadly. “Skipping class
again?”
“Va- rooon!” The tallest of the girls, a slender blonde
with blood-red nails and heavy mascara, reached out her
arms like tentacles, ensnaring him in something between a
hug and a caress. “Va- roon, I haven't seen you in for- eev-er.”
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“Haven!” Varun patted her back. “Been busy with the
swim team! How've you been?”
“Oh, you know.” She laughed, a laughter that died
away when her eyes fell upon me. “Who's this?” said Haven,
looking as if Varun had presented her with a dead cockroach
instead of a live girl.
“My new girl! Meet Mackenzy Evers” said Varun.
“I'm Orientation Leader this year.”
Haven's dark lips curled in a smile. “Oh, that's so
sweet! Helping the little lost newbies find themselves some
friends.” She turned to me, her smile turning to treacle. “You
must be so grateful having someone take pity
on you to show
you around. I know I'd be so scared if I turned up here on my
first day – not knowing who to talk to, how to dress...” She
gave a pointed look at my sun-dress. “Is this what's in
fashion where you're from? I think you're so brave for
wearing orange. I don't know anyone who can get away with
looking skinny in orange...but apparently you're willing to
take the risk, right?”
“Technically, it's coral,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“Oh, coral?” Haven put a finger on her necklace – a
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gorgeous coral choker. “I can see that. Of course, I wouldn't
have imagined that you'd want to wear it, with your skin
tone. Green and orange, you know. But good on you for
trying!”
I decided not to take the bait. “Thank you!” I said.
“Your necklace is so beautiful. I love the color of coral – it
really reminds me of the ocean. Swimming off the east coast
of Angel Island...”
“You like to swim?” This appeared to change things,
and Haven's false saccharine sweetness shifted rapidly to
dispassionate professional interest. “Would you say you
swim at a JV level? A varsity level? Have you ever been in
Archipelago?” All honeyed tones were gone as she looked
me up and down, evidently assessing the various muscles it
took to make a good butterfly stroke.
“Haven's the captain of the girl’s swim team,” one of
the girls said. “You should try out!”
“We're really serious about our swimmers here,”
another chimed in. “Like – really serious. But ever since
three of our best girls graduated...”
Haven looked slightly sour as Varun disentangled
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himself from her arm and took my hand. “Come on,
Mackenzy,” he said. “We've got to get through half of South
Campus before class starts.”
Haven's lips were now in a full pout. “But we've just
started getting to know her,” she crooned softly. “This
mysterious Mackenzy Evers – we have so much to learn.”
Varun led me away. “Just ask her to sit with you at
lunch!” He patted me on the shoulder. “I'm sure Mackenzy
would love to get to know you girls a bit better too!”
“Oh, sure,” I said. But while my voice was definitely
tinged with sarcasm, Varun's evidently wasn't. It was clear, I
thought, that poor Varun hadn't the foggiest idea of the
gauntlet Haven had thrown down in the form of her false
politeness. He probably thought she was being genuinely
friendly.
Boys, I thought grimly. Angel Island or Aeros – they
were the same everywhere. They were uniformly blind to the
subtle machinations that went on among groups of teenage
girls.
And it looked like Varun in particular was blind to
Haven's nastiness. I thought once more of her arms around
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his shoulder and my heart sank. It was too early to even think
about dating, I told myself – I wasn't about to get my hopes
up on anybody. Still, I couldn't help but feel a slight twinge
of disappointed.
“Your girlfriend seems nice,” I said, trying to conceal
my real feelings.
“My girlfriend?” Varun let out a big belly laugh.
“Haven? No – gross!” He stopped himself. “I mean – not
gross-gross but...we grew up together! I've known her since
I was picking my nose and she was cutting the hair off Barbie
dolls.” He sighed. “That's the problem with a place like
Aeros. We've all grown up together, pretty much everyone's
already awkwardly dated everyone else by the time we
finished junior high. It's a pretty incestuous kind of place.
Especially with our parents being...” He sighed. “My uncle's
not like that, of course, but a lot of parents want to make sure
we don't mix with – you know, outsiders.”
“Public school kids?”
“I wouldn't put it that way, but...”
“But?”
“But...yeah. Some of the families here can be really
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exclusive when it comes to who's in or who's out. Which
makes for a pretty awkward dating scene here at Aeros.
When you've practiced your first kiss on someone during
Spin-the-Bottle and accidentally gotten your braces stuck
together, it's pretty hard to think of them as legitimate dating
material.” He sighed. “Haven and I...well, let's just say she's
a lot happier once she got that retainer removed.” He patted
me on the shoulder. “Be prepared to be treated like fresh
meat for a while,” he said. “You're probably the only girl
most of these guys haven't known through the girls-have-
cooties phase.”
“I'll keep that in mind.”
“So, new girl,” we had by now ended up at the gym,
where a group of uniformed students were already running
laps around the perimeter. “What do you think of the
hallowed halls of Aeros Academy so far?”
“It's...definitely different from my old school,” I
admitted. “We didn't have a plush school lounge with a
cappuccino machine during recess – that's for starters. We
had a couple of ratty old couches on loan from the theater
department and a water fountain that always served rusty
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water...plus, I didn't know schools ever even had marble
sinks. Or “pan-seared tilapia” on the lunch menu. I got used
to my diet of mystery meat.”
“Well, mystery tilapia isn't so bad,” said Varun.
We were interrupted by a pair of loud shouts coming
from the gym.
“Is someone hurt?”
“Let's go!”
Varun and I ran back into the gym, looking for the
source of the cries of pain. Someone was lying on the
ground, his face pressed into the mat, his arms and legs
pinned back by another boy who knelt triumphant above
him.
“Nice job!” A male voice boomed through the gym.
“Not bad at all.” The owner of the voice jogged over to the
mat, pressing his stopwatch with a loud beep. “Just under ten
seconds,” said the coach. “That's record time, especially
when it comes to beating Daniel here.” He looked down at
the fallen boy from beneath the visor of his baseball cap.
“Daniel, you're going to have to work a little harder to
maintain your number-one standing with this new kid
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around.”
Daniel groaned and grumbled as he forced his way
back up from the mat. “Yeah, Coach,” he muttered
indignantly. “I'll try harder, yeah...”
But as he rose, I caught sight of the victorious boy,
who held out a hand to help Daniel up off the mat. When I
had seen him before, he had been perhaps too carefully
dressed in a black cashmere shirt and fitted trousers. But
> now, in his gym clothes, he seemed unconstricted, powerful,
free. His broad shoulders and powerfully sculpted chest
tapered into black track pants the color of his hair, that
outlined muscular legs. He was shirtless and sweat glistened
off his smooth tanned skin, and I couldn’t help staring.
I had known lust before, but this was lust at first
sight. I blushed as my mind almost wandered off into an area
I did not want to share with the rest of the class. As gorgeous
as he was dressed, he was definitely the kind of guy who
would outshine all the guys when he wasn’t. I had felt how
strong his arms could be when he pulled me close to dance
with me at the luau, and his chest was wide enough to hug
two of me. As much as I hated myself for doing so, I felt
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myself grow weak at the knees, my anger for him mingled
all the more with desire. It was not fair that the most perfect
male body in the world had to belong to a guy who seemed
to want nothing to do with me. I let out an involuntary soft
sigh, and he turned his head around to look at me with those
razor-sharp blue eyes.
It was Chance.
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Chapter 5
Varun let out a noticeable sigh of annoyance – the
first time he'd betrayed anything other than relaxed affability
all morning. “Chance,” he muttered under his breath, just
loud enough for me to hear. “Do you always have to be such
a show-off?” He shrugged and took my hand gently as
though he had always held my hand before. “Come on,
Mackenzy,” he said. “I don't think Chance needs any more