The next week and a half moves by in a blur of early morning runs, classes I can barely stay awake in because of said early morning runs, afternoon defensive and offensive training sessions with Sebastian, and evening crash courses in magic with Liv and Jack. All while squeezing in homework from school. By the time Friday rolls around, I’m basically a zombie wishing for Saturday. The one and only day Sebastian and my cousins have agreed to give me off. I plan to spend the entire day on a date with my pillow, blissfully sleeping.
“Are you ready for your presentation today in History?”
“What?” I pull my head out from behind my locker door. My gaze glides over the floor where it lands on a pair of stylish ankle boots attached to bare legs that lead up to a straight lined white dress matched with a thin purple jacket. Taylor shifts her books from one arm to the other, as my tired, heavy-lidded eyes finally make it to her face. She sweeps her bangs to the side with the edge of her finger before offering me a friendly smile that on any other day would say, ‘Hey friend, I’m glad to see you’, but today says, ‘Dude, you look like crap.’
“The history assignment. You and New Boy got it finished right? You’re supposed to present today.” Her brown eyes narrow as they scrutinize over me.
“Yeah. Totally ready.” It’s a complete lie. With all the stuff going on in my life right now, I’ve barely had time to catch my breath while trying to squeeze everything in. So when Sebastian and I worked on our assignment last night I fell asleep before we could finish it. I’ve never not completed an assignment before. Maybe I can pretend to be sick and skip class? I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my locker. Dark circles sweep under my eyes. My hair is a mess of curls pulled into a bun that looks like it went a round or two in the blender, and I’m wearing sweat pants with a sweatshirt a size too big. I don’t think I’ll have any problems convincing anyone I’m sick.
I lift my books out of my locker, groaning at the weight, as I kick the door shut with the tip of my purple Chucks. On our way to class I spot Sebastian at the end of the hallway. He’s dressed in his usual dark blue jeans, motorcycle boots, t-shirt, and leather jacket. His split lip is more or less healed, but the bruise along his jaw is still there in subtle hues of green and yellow.
“I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” I tell Taylor. “I need to ask Sebastian something about our assignment.”
“Okay. I’ll save you a seat in class.” She rakes her eyes over Sebastian from head to toe when we near his locker, her gaze approving of what she sees while her face contradicts with a scowl. She and Paige both like to tease me about a perceived secret relationship between Sebastian and me, but in truth, Taylor is still lobbying for Evan and I to reconcile. While I’m just glad he doesn’t still have the whole school jumping on the ‘let’s hate Indi’ bandwagon.
Ever since I dosed Evan with the spell Ivy gave me things have been quiet between us. We haven’t even really talked to one another since then, but he seems happy… from a distance. I guess I should be happy too since his happiness is what I wanted, but something doesn’t feel right about it. And I don’t just mean my guilt for casting the spell to begin with. It’s the way he watches me now when he thinks I’m not looking. It’s intense and unsettling in a hunter verses prey sort of way. Maybe on some subconscious level he knows I took his true feelings away and his stares are the way it shows.
“Nice sweat pants,” Sebastian, says as I approach. He closes his locker than leans against it.
“It was the first thing I grabbed out of my closet this morning. I was too tired to care what it was.”
“They look good on you.”
“Ha. You must be sleep deprived too then if you think this outfit looks remotely good.”
His gaze roams over me from head to toe. “A burlap bag would look good on you.”
I roll my eyes and he laughs. “I’m not here to talk to you about fashion. I’m here because we didn’t finish the history assignment and our presentation is today.”
“I finished it while you drooled all over your history book. There was a puddle and everything.”
I smack him over the arm. “There was not. I do not drool.”
“Do to.” He grabs my hand, sliding his fingers through mine when I go to smack him again. The feel of his skin is warm and a little rough due to a mix of sparring over the past week and a half and his chaser duties. It muddles with my thought process. “The assignment is ready to turn in. As for the presentation part let me do all the talking and we’ll be fine,” he continues, completely oblivious to what his touch does to me, even something as simple as holding my hand. How acutely aware of it I am, or how it splits me in two every time he touches me or kisses me because I’m waiting for the moment when it all falls apart.
With the truth of our tangled past out in the open, the connection between us has been messing with my head more than ever. Why is it there? Is it the only reason we gravitate toward one another? Him to me because some part of his soul recognizes me as the person who gave him a second chance at life, and me to him because he’s the first person I’ve ever defied the rules of death for? Things snowballed right into training and magic lessons so fast we never really had time to talk about whether what we feel for each other is real or not. Of course I haven’t exactly been actively pursuing that particular conversation either for fear of finding out he’s questioning the same things I am. I don’t want our feelings to just be a byproduct of my bringing him back from the dead.
I pull my hand from his. Until I know what’s real and what’s not, I shouldn’t dig myself in any deeper. It’ll only hurt that much more if it does all fall apart. “You shouldn’t have to do the presentation on your own.”
“I don’t mind.” He brushes my bangs from my eyes. “This is the third time I’ve done a report on the Salem Witch Trials. Repeat assignments happen when you’re constantly moving from one school to another.”
“Right.” The thought of him leaving after all is said and done with the vampires and dark witches in this town sends a pain through my chest. I haven’t even considered what it will be like when he’s gone. I wish he could stay forever, but inevitably he’ll leave someday. He’s a chaser and goes where he’s assigned. I push thoughts of him leaving away, choosing to focus on the history assignment instead before I sink into a hole of depression. “Well, I mind. I don’t skimp out when it comes to my grades.” I hold out my hand. “Give me the written part to read over in study hall and we’ll do the presentation together.”
“If you insist.” Sebastian yanks a few papers stapled together out from behind the cover of his history book then places them in my hand.
I stack it on top of my books. “I’ll see you in History later.”
As I make my way to class, I end up locking gazes with Evan. He and his football entourage are halfway down the hall, heading in my direction. He smiles when he gets closer. It’s the same smile he’s always given me, but it too feels different somehow. Like it’s a façade covering something dark hidden beneath the surface.
Or maybe I’m being paranoid and Evan is actually completely fine and whatever weirdness I’m picking up on is just my own fears projected onto him for having manipulated his emotions with magic the way I did.
Evan deviates from the jocks when he’s only a few feet ahead of where I am. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a yellow rose in full bloom. He presents it with a sheepish grin. “I want to apologize for my behavior after we broke up. We made a promise to each other to always be friends first and foremost and I went back on that promise. I was a jerk, and so were my friends. Can you forgive me? I really miss hanging out with you. No strings attached,” he adds quickly.
I study him for a moment, searching for any signs of false pretenses in his baby blue eyes, considering the weird vibes I’ve been getting from him lately. The only thing I see is my own deceit reflected on the image of myself in his pupils for manipulating his feelings with a magic spell while he appears—for all intents
and purposes—genuinely sincere in his apology. All I wanted was to have my friend back, and it would seem that’s exactly what I’m getting. So why aren’t I happy about it?
Because it isn’t real, not really real, my conscience whispers in my mind. It can’t be when I’ve taken his true emotions away just so I wouldn’t have to deal with the backlash brought on by his pain over the loss of us as a couple.
“Indi?” The hopeful look on Evan’s face wavers and I give in to what’s being offered whether it’s right or wrong.
“Apology accepted.” I take the rose from his hand and he joins me on my way to class.
“Great. We should get together sometime and do something fun like old times. Me, you, the whole gang, what do you say?”
“Yeah. That would be fun.” I study him from the corner of my eye. He does truly seem happy, which is what the spell was supposed to do—help him find happiness. Maybe I should try to be happy too, despite the guilt eating away at my insides for making him skip over the hard stuff to get to this point.
He glances down at the papers in my hand as he leans in. “History assignment? I gave my presentation earlier. My partner, Zach, totally messed up on the presentation part and we ended up getting a C. He literally forgot every single thing. But hey, at least we passed. If he hadn’t flaked though and Miss. Landry wasn’t being so harsh, we could have gotten a solid B.” He pokes me playfully in the arm. “Hope your partner is as prepared as I’m sure you are. Miss. ‘I can never get anything below an A or the whole world will end. Dogs will meow. Cats will bark. Life as we know it will be over’.”
I force myself to smile. Teasing me about my grades is such an Evan thing to do. And I’m trying so hard to be happy because I miss his friendship, but this is wrong on so many levels and I know it. Not that long ago he hated me and now it’s like he never did at all.
I shouldn’t have messed with his emotions. I should have let him go through all the feels like he was meant to even if his process was lashing out at me in mean ways. It was wrong to take his true feelings away. I have to reverse what I did and make it right. Maybe I can find a counter spell in the book of shadows I got from Books and Brew—so long as it’s not steeped in darkness like most of the other spells seem to be in there. Or better yet, maybe I can ask Ivy for a reversal spell since the original spell came from her. She was so nice the last time, I’m sure she’ll help me out.
“Cat got your tongue over there?” Evan teases. “You’re never quiet.”
“Right, um, I guess I’m just a little worried about my presentation. I’m way under prepared. If I do get a dreaded B… or worse, it’ll be my fault.”
“Nonsense. Indiana Grace Bellamy never gets a B, or is ever under prepared for anything. I’m sure you’ll do great.” He comes to a stop, nodding his head toward the classroom to his right. “This is my stop. I’ll catch up with you later and you can let me know how your presentation went.”
“Yeah, sure. See you later.” I glance over my shoulder when I’m halfway down the hall. Evan is still standing by the door, staring at me with a weird expression on his face, I can’t quite decipher. It immediately puts my spidey senses on high alert. There’s something… off about him. I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is, but I feel it deep in my gut and it doesn’t feel right. He continues to stare as I round the corner, his gaze like a hundred spider legs crawling along the back of my neck as I enter my next class.
By the time the clock rolls around for History class, I’m a nervous wreck. I spent all of study hall reading and re-reading the pages Sebastian gave me for our presentation over and over, yet nothing has stuck in my head. I’m going to be like a deer caught in headlights in front of the class. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. School is where I excel not fail. But no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t concentrate. For every three words I read, my mind circled back around to Evan and the seriously creepy way he just stood there staring at me earlier in the hallway. I can’t get past feeling like there’s something profoundly wrong with him, and it’s my fault because I put it there when I screwed with his emotions. First thing Saturday morning I’m going back to Books and Brew and making this right before something goes really wrong with him, because I’ve got a very bad feeling it will if I don’t.
At the top of the stairs Taylor hooks her arm through mine and swivels me back around. “History’s cancelled so they’re sending us to the auditorium for an impromptu study hall.”
“What? Why?” I look over my shoulder at the rest of the students loitering outside of the History room. Even Principal Anderson is there with his face pinched in worry. Taylor leads me down the stairs then jerks me against the wall to allow for two paramedics running past us. They head straight for Miss. Landry’s room. Taylor pulls me down another stair before I’m able to wiggle my arm out of hers. “Taylor. What is going on?”
“There was a snake.”
All the color drains from my face. “There was a snake in History class?”
Taylor takes a hold of my arm, pulling me down the stairs once again. “Yes, and I didn’t want to tell you for this exact reason. I knew you’d totally freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out.” I’m totally freaking out. I hate snakes. They’re so cold and slimy and creepy with the way they slither and hide in the weeds just waiting to sink their fangs into your feet. Like one did to me when I was nine. Thankfully, it wasn’t poisonous, but it still gave me nightmares for weeks. I wouldn’t even go into the backyard for months after that.
Taylor rolls her eyes. “Yes, you are.”
I school my features. “Am not. Now will you please tell me what happened? How did a snake get into History class?” I crane my head around looking for Sebastian. I don’t see him anywhere.
“I don’t know. Miss. Landry was bitten before I got there but—”
“Wait. What?” My eyes widen so much my eyeballs burn. “Miss. Landry was bitten? Oh, my God. Is she okay? ”
“Maybe if you’d stop interrupting me, you’d find out.”
“Right. Sorry. Go on.”
“I heard the snake was in her supply closet and when she reached in to get a stack of papers from the top shelf it bit her. It wasn’t poisonous, but she had an allergic reaction to it. Her hand is so swollen and gross.”
“What about the snake? Did they catch it? Did they kill it?”
“Ow. You’re starting to cut off the blood flow.” She pulls at my fingers.
I release my grip on her arm. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was squeezing your arm so tight. But, um, what happened to the snake?”
Taylor shakes out her arm. “Sebastian caught it, actually. He’s keeping a hold of it until they can find something to put it in.”
My heartbeats slow down a little at hearing that. If the snake were still loose in the building, I’d be bolting out the door.
Taylor takes a seat in the middle row of the auditorium and I plop down beside her. She pulls out a composition notebook, turns it to a blank page, then removes her math book from her backpack. She nudges me with her elbow. “At least now you’ll have the weekend to work on your history presentation.”
“What?” I turn toward her and end up knocking all my books off my lap onto the floor. “Why would you say that?”
“I saw Evan earlier, and he told me you were stressing about not being ready. Which means you so lied this morning when I asked you if you were prepared.”
“You saw Evan, and he told you I was stressing out? Where did you see Evan?”
“Yeah. He’s in my music class before History. You know that.” She looks at me like I’m losing my mind.
“Did he seem or act strange to you? You know, like there’s something off about him. Or something not quite right?”
“Nooooo, but you’re acting strange. I knew I shouldn’t have told you about the snake.” She goes back to her math while my head fills with all kinds of crazy thoughts about Evan. Things like wondering if he could be behind the
snake. Which honestly is completely crazy because Evan would never do something like that. Plus, why would he do something like that? And where would he even get a snake? I’m sure there’s some other more rational explanation for what happened that doesn’t involve my imagination getting carried away. For instance, maybe a snake got loose from one of the science classes or something and it found its way into Miss. Landry’s room all on its own.
Evan is waiting by my locker at the end of the day, enticing the hairs along my nape to stand on end. I rub at the back of my neck, forcing them down. I’m being ridiculous. I’ve known Evan most of my life. There’s not an evil or disturbing bone in his body.
Unless I put one there, my inner voice whispers inside my head.
“Hey,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. “What’s up?”
“Hey,” Evan says with a perfect friendly smile, as he slips his phone into the pocket of his varsity jacket. He places a hand down on top of my shoulder, his expression becoming serious and worried. “I heard about the snake in your History class so I wanted to check on you. Make sure you’re okay. I know how much you hate snakes.”
“I’m okay. Taylor caught me on the stairs before I even made it to class. Pretty crazy though, right? I mean how does a snake even get into a teacher’s supply closet like that?” I study his face and eyes, looking for anything remotely suspicious in his behavior. All I find is genuine concern for me.
“I heard one of the snakes in the freshman science class somehow escaped its tank. No one is sure when it happened. They’re thinking maybe last night since it was able to get all the way into Miss. Landry’s class without being seen.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Or someone put it in there.” His eyes become unreadable and the hairs on the back of my neck go right back up. “Maybe someone thought it would be funny. Or they didn’t like the grade they got. Or they wanted to get out of doing their presentation.” He smiles then nudges my arm with the side of his. “You should see your face. I’m only kidding. Who would put a snake in a teacher’s supply closet? That would be crazy.”
Of Blood & Magic: Blood Descent Book 1 Page 32