by Jami Klein
“I don’t think I have the brain for that right now.”
“Well, what do you want to do then?” There were notes of aggravation in his mind and I couldn’t blame him.
“I want to go buy one of those DNA kits and send them off to be analyzed.”
“Why don’t you see if you’re aunt and uncle can help?”
“I’d have to track down Grantaire for their number.”
“You’d be better off waiting for tomorrow for that.”
I hated when he was right.
“So what is it? Studying or back to your room for some much-needed rest.”
“Studying it is.” I hooked my arm through his. “Just not at the library.”
“Or maybe something fun?” Stefan took me over to the gym.
“I don’t want to do laps, or squats or whatever you muscle heads do when other people are out having fun,” I said.
But when we walked into the gym, there were a bunch of people there working on the Halloween wagon. There was a lot of noise as people were talking, yelling, and making a mess with the paint and spooky decorations.
A smile tugged across my face. “This doesn’t seem like your scene.”
“But it’s your type of scene. I’ll be over by the punch and cookies.”
“It’s tough to look scary and menacing when you’re stuffing your face full of snickerdoodles.”
That’s what you think.”
Of course, he was right. He managed to still look deadly while jawing on a cookie.
“What are you doing here?” Serena Bleak glared down at me from the top of the wagon.
“I’m here to help. What do you need?”
She hated me, but we still had a lot of things to do to get ready for the Halloween party. So she put me to work painting. There were even some teachers helping coordinate the decorations. I saw Mr. Urso and his cat Chumley over by to cookies.
Chumley was trying to start a fight with Stefan.
I quickly went over and scooped up the cat before Stefan decided that he’d make a tasty treat.
“Oh thank you, Ms. Bragg. Chumley forgets that he’s not the king of the jungle sometimes and gets a little testy when someone else lays claim to the title.”
“No problem.” I handed him Chumley who scurried up to Mr. Urso’s shoulders and hissed bravely at Stefan, who wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to it.
“What have you been up to?” Mr. Urso asked.
“Why? What have you heard?” I tried to sound like that was a joke and not the panicked dread that it was.
“You seem to be very busy lately.”
That wasn’t very reassuring. “I just started studying for my first aid test. I wanted to take it online this week, but there isn’t any internet.” I hoped he wouldn’t recommend taking it in FBMI headquarters.
“Is this CPR certification?”
“No, but I signed up to take that too. They’re actually offering that as an elective next semester. I’m taking that in person. This first aid exam is just the basic babysitter type course. I need it to join Tracy’s first aid team for the football games. I was hoping to have passed it this week, so I don’t miss out on the away game in Essex.” I supposed it didn’t matter now if I went to Essex or not, now that I knew my mother was truly not interested in hearing from me.
“When do you think you could be ready for the test?”
“Why?” I asked.
“I’ve got to go to town for a candy run. If you’re willing to take a ride to the warehouse stores and help me pick out a pallet of candy, I could swing by a public library for a few hours so you can take your test.”
“That would be awesome,” I said, resisting the urge to hop up and down, because my ankle was still feeling sore.
“Bragg,” Serena shouted from the wagon. “Get back to work.”
“Well, duty calls,” I said. “Thanks!”
“We’ll leave around noon on Friday. I’ll clear your classes for the rest of the day. If you pass the online exam, you can be on that bus for Saturday’s game.”
“Yes!” Of course, now I had to actually study.
I was practically humming on my way to the supplies closet to get a mop to clean up some spilled paint when Janine appeared by my side.
“You are worse than a vampire with your entrances. Do you know that?” I put a hand on my heart.
“It seems the unkindness is again in your debt,” she said.
“What did I do now?”
Janine cocked her head at me, and I could see the raven inside her looking at me. “You got rid of a dangerous predator.”
“Emile,” I whispered. “That wasn’t me. That was my fa—the guardian of the pearl.”
“Nevertheless, it was you who ordered him to fight.”
“How do you know that? We were the only ones down there.”
“No. You weren’t. Emile had a blood slave who was freed when he perished. He was a member of the unkindness.”
“Well, I’m glad he got away from that monster. But you don’t owe me anything. I was saving my own hide for my own purposes.”
“Nevertheless, the unkindness sees you and always pays its debts.”
She became a bird again in a flutter of wings and flew up into the rafters. “Take the feather,” Janine said. “Keep it with you always.”
I looked down and a large black feather was on the ground. Picking it up, I stuck it in the only place I could. I didn’t have any pockets, so I placed it in my bra for safe keeping. It wiggled and burned.
“Ah,” I said, trying to frantically dig it out. But it was gone. However, the spot on my chest still burned as if I had gotten a really bad sunburn. I made a beeline to the rest room and pulled down my shirt in the mirror to see if there was a wound.
A tattoo of a feather was on my chest. Touching it was painful, but it didn’t wash off with soap and water. It was on there as if I had gotten ink this afternoon.
“Well, at least I’ll be able to keep it with me.”
Chapter Ten
I boarded the football bus on Saturday in my cute white polo shirt with the Rod of Asclepius embroidered in red on the left and my name on the right. The shirt was a snug fit and rested uncomfortably near the black feather tattoo that I still couldn’t believe I had. My mother would lose her mind that I got a prison tatt. Except, she wasn’t my mother and I doubted she’d care anymore what happened to me.
But I wasn’t about to let that get me down. I had passed my first aid test with a perfect score. Mr. Urso let me eat a bunch of gummi bears as long as I saved him the green ones. They were his favorite. And I was on my way to getting Headmistress Magee to see that I no longer needed anti magic bracelets. And hopefully, she wouldn’t notice that I no longer wore them when it was time to take them off.
I waved to Stefan as I passed him, but decided to sit with Tracy and the first aid team. They were probably going to be my new coven and I couldn’t wait to get to know all of them. The only free seat was next to Serena Bleak, though. But as I was about to turn back and tell Stefan to shove over, she patted the space next to her.
“Come sit next to me,” she said sweetly.
I narrowed my eyes at her, but did what she asked. She was in a cheerleader’s uniform and I guess she decided to try out for the vacant position I left because of my ankle. I braced myself for a fight, but she merely pulled out a crochet hook and some black thread and started making spiderwebs.
“I’m so glad you were able to pass the test,” Tracy said. She introduced me to the other members of her coven. I already knew Kim, and I was glad everyone else had the same name tag that I had on because I was too distracted to remember their names. Unlike Priscilla, Kim’s coven had seven members. Ideally, every coven should have thirteen, but not enough witches wanted to work together to make that happen.
The bus ride to Essex went by fast and I was surprised that I could spring back to a normal conversation about normal things so easily. Back in my old high schoo
l, I hadn’t been much for extra curricular activities because I had to have all my homework done by the time my dad got home so he could home school me on magic. So this was all new and exciting to me. I wanted to whirl around in the October breeze free to move around a normal school for supernaturals. The Essex School for Witches and Weres had a tinier field and a small parking lot. There was no way I could sneak out unnoticed here. Not that I wanted to.
After all, where could I go.
Pushing that aside, I wished Stefan a mental good luck and got a grunt in return. In between watching the game, I made sure that all the players had plenty of water. Stefan was a brute on the playing field, but he made sure no one touched Brice, the quarterback. Maybe that was his way of apologizing for ripping his arm off or maybe it was because Stefan didn’t want to lose.
In one of the last plays of the game, however, War took a huge hit and went down hard. His knee twisted the wrong way, and everyone gasped. If he hadn’t been a shifter, he could have had an injury that would keep him out for the rest of the year. But luckily, with an elastic bandage wrap, War would be fine before the bus got back to Jewel Academy.
“All yours, rookie,” Tracy patted me on the back.
Ugh. War hated me. But maybe this would get me on his good side again. His pack had already helped him off the field and cut his uniform pants, so the knee was exposed. He had been icing it for a few minutes. I grabbed my kit and headed over.
“Not you,” he grunted.
“If you’re afraid of little ole me, I can have one of the other girls wrap your knee.” I said it sweetly and batted my eyes, but I felt Stefan prowling behind me, ready to step in if needed.
War glared at me and tossed the ice pack aside. “Just get on with it already.”
Opening the large kit, I found two big elastic stretch bandages and wound them like I had studied and practiced. It didn’t take long and I leaned back to get a better look at my handiwork. I frowned. “Is that too tight?”
The bandage shrunk even as I said it.
“Ouch. Take it off,” War snarled as his body jerked.
For an Alpha wolf to admit to pain it must be bad. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I could at least ease the pain of the bandage being too tight. Except, I couldn’t find the end to take it out. His leg was turning blue.
“What did you do to me?” He pushed me back, but Stefan was there before I could hit the ground.
War wrestled with the bandage, but he couldn’t rip it off either.
“Somebody get a knife,” I called out. And the first aid team who had been flirting with the football team came running over.
War was panting and his leg was swelling around the bandage.
Stefan’s hand shifted into a paw and he slashed at the bandage. It parted, but then immediate went back together.
“What happened?” Tracy asked, trying to elevate his leg to reduce the swelling.
“I don’t know. I put the bandage on, and it had a mind of its own.”
“You did this. You cursed me,” War said. He shifted his hand to a paw and couldn’t get his claws to budge the bandage at all.
The pack started circling me, growling. If they shifted, I didn’t think Stefan and I could stop them from hurting us.
“Stay calm,” Tracy said holding out her hands. In the distance thunder rumbled. When a weather witch got upset, bad things happened to the weather. All we needed right now was thunder and lighting.
“You stay calm,” I said.
War shifted into a wolf, but the bandage shifted with him.
“He’s going to lose the leg,” Kim wailed.
“Bite it off,” War snarled, speaking while in wolf form. Only a powerful shifter could do that. One that should have been able to shred an elastic bandage like it was a piece of paper.
With a roar that had everyone backing away from War, Stefan shifted into his full lion form. I could hear the crowd react to that instead of what was going on on the field.
“Not you!” War screeched out in a growly order.
Two wolves jumped on Stefan, but he shrugged them off. They tumbled off a few yards away. They scrambled up for another attack.
I flung out my hand and put up a force barrier. They hit it snarling and clawing. It wasn’t going to hold for long and if they calmed down long enough, they’d realize they could go over or around it.
Closing his massive jaws around the ends of the bandage, Stefan bit down and yanked up while slashing at the bandage with his claws. It came free in pieces. Stefan spit it out as the bandage coalesced back together and lay still on the ground looking like an innocent Ace bandage again.
“What in Hades is going on here?” Coach Kramer snarled, a heartbeat away from shifting himself.
The wolves turned back into boys. I dropped the shield spell. The first aid team tossed towels and averted their eyes as the team had shredded their clothes when they shifted. I still sat on the ground trying to figure out what just happened. Stefan literally stood over me, still in his lion form.
“She tried to cripple me.” War pointed at me.
“That’s not true. I was trying to help. It was that thing.” I pointed at the bandage. “Don’t touch it.” I said to the coach when he squatted down next to it.
He poked it with his pen and the bandage attacked it. It was only because he had the speed of a shifter that he was able to get his fingers out of the way. We all watched as the bandage ate the pen. It snapped it in half and pulverized it into dust.
“That’s no bandage,” the coach said, which was pretty obvious. “Where did you get it?”
“It was in the first aid box.” I pointed.
“Well, we’re going to have to have that box examined before anyone else uses a thing out of it. Tracy, I blame you for this.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not her fault.”
The coach turned to me. “It’s her responsibility to check every object that goes into her kit.”
“I understand, Coach,” Tracy said and went to take the kit from me.
“Wait!” I tried to get up, but Stefan put a heavy paw on my back and pushed me back into the turf.
“It’s not Tracy’s fault,” Serena said as she came in with her pom poms dangling. “That’s not Tracy’s kit. It’s Lola’s. Lola packed that box herself. Didn’t you?”
Tracy blinked down at the kit.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s my kit. Not Tracy’s. But I didn’t have anything dangerous like that in it.”
“Sure you didn’t,” Serena said. “You’ve hated War and his pack from the first day you came here.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s true. And if you weren’t wearing bracelets that stopped you from mindbending, you would have controlled War and with him the entire pack.”
The boys were growling even though they were still in wolf form.
“All right,” Coach Kramer said. “We’re not going to do this here. Let’s get back to the Jewel Academy and have the Headmistress settle this.”
“I’m not getting on the bus with her,” War said. “She can find her own way back.”
“Call the FBMI,” Serena said. “They’ll take care of it for you, Coach. Otherwise, you’re going to have a blood bath on your hands.”
“That may happen anyway,” Stefan said, grumbling a roar low in his chest.
Serena flinched back behind the pack. “See. See. She was able to wrap her mind around that feral beast.”
“Everybody just calm down.” Coach Kramer pulled out his cell phone, but before he could dial, a large black bird snatched it out of his hands.
Suddenly, the sky was filled with them and then just as suddenly the entire team was surrounded by fully clothes shifters.
“Shoo,” Coach Kramer said. “And give me back my phone.”
Janine stepped forward. “Who stands for Lola Bragg?”
“I do,” Stefan snarled and roared loud enough to clear the rest of the seats around the football field.
“Do the witches stand with her?” Janine cocked her head.
“Tracy, please,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said to me. “My coven is peaceful and good. We don’t do things like this.”
“Neither do I,” I protested, trying to get up but Stefan still had a paw on me.
Tracy straightened up. “My coven does not stand with Lola Bragg.”
“My coven sure as Hades does not,” Serena smiled.
“The wolves file a formal complaint,” War said, massaging his leg.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Why is everyone sounding so formal?”
“It means the FBMI is the least of your worries right now,” Stefan said. “Don’t do this War. I will rip out your throat first.”
“You can’t. She’s not pack. You do that and you suffer her fate.”
“So be it.”
“But she is pack,” Janine said.
“I told you, one lion does not make a pride,” Serena snarled.
“She is unkindness.”
“What in Hades is going on here?” Coach Kramer said.
“We have marked her and she is ours. Show them Lola.”
“What’s this?” Stefan asked in my mind.
“I’m not sure,” I answered back. But then my tattoo started buzzing under my skin.
“She can’t be pack. She’s not a shifter,” Tracy said. “She’s a witch.”
“Show her,” Janine said.
“Show her,” the entire unkindness surrounded us said in a creepy chorus.
I pulled down my shirt to show them the tattoo, but then my entire body erupted into agony. “Stefan!” I screamed.
He roared again as everyone dove for cover.
My bones snapped and broke. I was being crushed into a cube and it hurt. So much pain and fear. I didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not in front of Stefan. He didn’t deserve it. But then in an explosion of pain, I shot out from between Stefan’s paw and stretched out… my wings?
I flew up and up and then dropped like a stone, only remembering that I had wings at the last moment. I darted over and above the football field. I was free. They’d never catch me now, but I saw Stefan gaping up at me and I knew I couldn’t leave him. I let the thermals coast me one last spiral and I landed on top of his leonine head.