The faeries who raised Vivian never let her think she had any choices. She always felt like her life had been determined for her. I think she realized it wasn’t, now that it was too late. It made me wonder if I had connected with her sooner, if I could have stopped it all.
It was enough to make a person crazy, thinking about it.
In the end Vivian had made her choices and paid for them. Thanks to the faeries, she was out of options. But I wasn’t. I would make this life what I wanted it to be. Screw Reth—I’d be happy. I was going to have my cake and eat it, too.
Or rather, be normal and have my paranormal, too. I was special; why pretend otherwise? I needed to email Raquel. I was about to make her day.
Like Aphrodite on Steroids
Shut up.” I laughed, closing my locker.
“No, really,” Lend continued. “Dead serious. Dude’s a leprechaun.”
“Your technical writing professor is not a leprechaun.”
“How do you know? This is why you need to ditch next week and come to class with me. You can confirm. Right now all I know is that he has red hair, red skin, is about four feet tall, and wears nothing but green.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see it through my shiny, pink cell phone. “And why would a leprechaun have a PhD?”
“I don’t know. Hanging out at the bottom of rainbows got boring, he was tired of clovers, pots of gold lost their sparkle for him—take your pick. But I’m right. In fact, did I tell you that my lab assistant may or may not be a dryad?”
“Wait—aren’t they notoriously lusty?”
There was a pause at the other end of the line.
“Oh, you are not going to that lab again.”
Lend laughed and I closed my eyes, picturing how he would look in front of me. “Trust me, there’s only one paranormal I’d like to be notoriously lusty for me.”
I sighed. “Okay, but I don’t think I can find a hag on such short notice.”
He laughed again, almost covering the sound of the bell. I looked around, panicked. A stray paper drifted across the now forsaken hallways.
“Crap, I’m gonna be late! I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Flipping my phone shut, I ran for the locker room. At least it was gym and there was a little wiggle room.
Or so I thought. Miss Lynn, that hideous creature, was waiting outside the door, marking off girls as they came in. She looked up and smiled, pleased to have caught me in an obvious infraction. “That’s half your participation points for the day, Green. Another tardy and I believe you’ll qualify for in-school suspension.”
Where was Tasey when I needed her? It took all my willpower to suppress an eye roll as I skulked into the locker room. The faint aroma of sweat and mildew greeted me, and I passed girls in various states of undress to get to my locker. I wasn’t nearly as fond of this one.
Carlee pulled on her tennis shoes, already good to go. Honestly, how her boobs could be so perky in a sports bra I’d never understand. Or stop envying.
She shook her head. “You should be more careful. Miss Lynn really doesn’t like you.”
I sighed, pulling out my gym clothes. What school chooses yellow and brown for their colors? Gross. Just, gross. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“So how was your weekend?”
“Sucktastic. Lend had to go back to school.”
“Lame. I’m sorry.”
“How was yours?”
Her face lit up. “Great! So John and I got back together, right? And at first I was all like, awesome! But then Friday night he was supposed to call, and he totally didn’t, so then I was like—” My eyes glazed over as I tried to pay attention. I liked Carlee, and appreciated having a friend that wasn’t undead, but sometimes the effort it took to keep up girl relationships felt like too much.
“—and then he was like, ‘If you don’t want to’—”
A scream erupted from another aisle. I didn’t know whether to be grateful for the interruption or scared of what could be happening. Carlee and I both darted around the corner and found girls covering themselves and shrieking. “What is it?” I shouted, vowing to never again leave Tasey at home.
One of the girls pointed to the next row and I crept toward it, every muscle tense and my back to the wall. The aisle opened in front of me and I shouted, ready to spring at—
Jack.
Stupid, stupid Jack, standing up on one of the wooden benches that lined the middle of the aisle, hands on hips as he surveyed the empty row like some sort of bizarre conqueror.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, horrified.
He looked down at me. “Oh, there you are. I’m supposed to give you something.”
“And you couldn’t have given it to me somewhere else?” I looked around, exasperated and anxious. Girls were starting to trickle over, past their first shock and now curious.
“What’s wrong with here? Here seems plenty nice to me.” He patted his pockets, finally muttering, “Aha!” before pulling out a familiar white phone-like device. An IPCA communicator. I’d forgotten how boring they were compared to my supercute cell. He smiled and let it slip through his fingers. I gasped and lunged forward, but he bounced it up off his foot and snatched it out of the air. Grinning, he handed it to me with a flourish.
“Raquel wants you to call so she’ll know a good time to talk again, since she doesn’t want to disrupt your life.”
“And what the bleep do you think you’re doing right now?”
A throat cleared next to me and I noticed Carlee standing there. Her shoulders were thrown back and she was giving Jack a weird look. No, not a weird look . . . a hey, baby, fancy meeting you here look. “Who’s your friend?” she asked, a giggle following her question.
“Not my friend! So not my friend.”
“How did you even get in?” Vicious Redhead Soccer Girl asked. She was eyeing him with a mixture of suspicion and interest. “Do you go here?”
What was wrong with these girls? A psychotic boy appears in the middle of the locker room and they’re ready to flirt? Hadn’t they watched any high school comedies? We should have been whipping him with wet towels at this point, ferocious in our fury to protect the sanctity of the girls’ locker room. Instead, they were concentrating on strategic posture shifts for maximum cleavagization.
Honestly, he wasn’t that cute. The curly mop of blond hair and too-big blue eyes got on my nerves. Oh, look at me, I’m so adorable and innocent, I can show up wherever I want and screw with Evie’s life!
“Okay,” I hissed, nervous at the growing crowd. Miss Lynn would figure out something was going on when no one rushed to start stretching. The more zealous were always out earlier to warm up. “Thanks for the delivery, now go! Away! Now!”
“But I just got here.” He stuck out his lower lip in a mock pout.
“Quick, before Miss Lynn—”
“Before I what?” a familiar tenor voice asked behind me. My spine stiffened in terror. This wasn’t my fault! Surely I couldn’t get in trouble for this. Miss Lynn placed one beefy hand on my shoulder, and it was all I could do to stay standing under the weight.
Jack took his sweet time, looking her up and down, his eyes lingering on her linebacker body.
She growled, “And who is your friend, Green?”
I was dead. I was so, so dead. I was going to be expelled and then I’d never get into Georgetown, and I’d work at the diner for the rest of my life and Lend would marry the dryad lab assistant and they’d have half-tree-and-one-quarter-water-thing babies, and no one would know quite what they were, but they’d be beautiful. And I’d serve them French fries when they came home to visit.
Jack looked at me, exaggerated confusion clouding his face. “I don’t know her.”
“Oh, really.” Miss Lynn was trying not to sound amused, but I could hear the glee in her voice. This was way better than marking me tardy.
“No. I came here to see you. I didn’t believe the rumors, but after hearing it on so many continents I
had to come and see for myself.”
“See what?”
His eyes widened in adulation, his voice taking on a reverent tone. “If it was true that Helen of Troy, nay, Aphrodite herself had been reincarnated in gym teacher form.”
The room was utterly silent. Except Vicious Redhead’s jaw dropping to the ground with a little plink. Or maybe I imagined that. And then the class did the worst thing possible: They started giggling. Miss Lynn was going to murder me.
Jack fell to his knees on the bench, his eyes rolling back in ecstasy as he clutched both hands to his heart. “Oh, heavens above, to have seen such beauty with my own eyes! It’s more than I ever hoped for. But how can I live now, knowing that you’re not mine? Please.” He crawled forward to the edge of the bench. “Marry me. Nay, marriage will cost us precious moments together. Let us make sweet, passionate love right here. Let me bear your children.”
A primal growl signaled Miss Lynn getting over her shock at being thus addressed. She lunged forward; Jack deftly rolled off the bench, jumping up out of her reach.
“Goodness, I didn’t expect you to be quite this enthusiastic about my advances. If I don’t play hard to get, how will I ever know whether or not you respect me?”
Another growl, this one sounding like “you!” Or perhaps, “eew!” because that’s certainly how I felt about this whole exchange. Everyone stopped laughing and watched, wide-eyed with horror, unsure whether to stay or distance themselves from the inevitable outcome, which would quite possibly involve Jack’s dismemberment.
I didn’t know who to root for.
Dodging another grab, Jack used the bench as a launching point, bouncing off and propelling himself to the top of the row of lockers. If I didn’t know for sure he was human, I would have suspected something paranormal behind his acrobatics. He had a future in the Olympics, provided Miss Lynn didn’t kill him first.
“How about I call? We’ll do lunch.” He blew a kiss toward Miss Lynn’s increasingly purple face and jumped off onto the next row. I noticed a small flash of light. Panic welled up in my chest, but the entire class had gathered here. No one else saw.
Miss Lynn shoved past me, running to block the exit. “Guard the gym door!” she shouted, eyes blazing as she took up her position and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But Jack was long gone, having eluded both Miss Lynn and any repercussions for his idiotic actions. She fixed her beady black eyes on me, and my stomach sank with the knowledge that I’d have no such luck.
Thanks a lot, Raquel.
There’s No Place Like Home
What were you thinking, sending that rabid monkey child to my school?” I shouted into my communicator.
“Beg pardon?” Raquel asked.
“Jack. My school. The girls’ locker room. Ring any bells? If Carlee hadn’t sworn to my ogre of a gym teacher that Jack was neither my boyfriend nor my brother, I probably would have been suspended!”
“Your gym teacher is an ogre?”
“Focus! If I get suspended, my grades take a hit. If my grades take a hit, I might not get into Georgetown. And I will get into Georgetown.”
“I’m pleased to see you finally taking ownership of your education. And I’m sorry about Jack; I asked him to contact you discreetly.”
“That boy wouldn’t know discreet if it tap-danced on his stupid blond head.”
“Still, if this discreet were tap dancing, it wouldn’t be very discreet, now, would it?”
“Shut up,” I said, trying not to smile. I was annoyed. No smiling. “When did you get funny?”
“I’ll talk to Jack and tell him not to contact you at school anymore.”
“What’s his deal, anyway? He’s the weirdest person I know, and that’s saying something.”
“Jack has had a very . . . unconventional upbringing. You two have more in common than you think. His life was disrupted by the fey, too. He’s a remarkable boy, though, and a great asset. We’re lucky he found us.”
I frowned. It made sense that Jack had some connection to faeries with his abilities. “Fine. No more school visits, though. And tell him not to come into my room unannounced.”
“So you’re certain that you want to help us?”
I hesitated, biting my lip. It felt like I was balancing on a fence. Tip to one side—say no—and I knew exactly what I would find when I fell.
More of the same.
Say yes and tip to the other side, and . . . I had no idea. But the fence would still be there, and I could always find my way back over. Right?
“Two conditions,” I said, practically feeling her relief and excitement seeping through the connection. “One: I am not Level Seven or anything in any system. I am not IPCA. If I don’t like a mission, I don’t do it. It’s totally my call.”
“Done. And the second?”
“I want my credit card back.” Clearly the unknown I was about to venture into would require a new wardrobe.
“Very well. As long as you reserve it for emergencies.”
“Seriously, Raquel, when did you get so funny?”
She paused. “Evie, I’m—I’m very pleased you’ll be helping us again.”
“I missed you, too.” I meant to be lighthearted, but was surprised by an uncomfortable itch in my throat and pricking in my eyes. Good heavens, I was not about to cry on a call with Raquel. After all, my seventeenth birthday was coming up, I was living on my own, independent, strong. I was doing this because I wanted to—not because I missed her. That would be stupid.
After a very suspicious throat clearing, Raquel’s voice resumed its brisk, business tone. “Excellent. I’ll send Jack for you tonight around eight.”
“Whoa, tonight? So soon?”
“I wasn’t joking when I said we needed help. Lately, it seems as though everything that can go wrong does. And there have been strange shifts in the paranormal world—nothing compared to April, but enough that we’re forced to use manpower we don’t have to try and track it.”
“I guess I can swing it, then.” A night free from cow print and grease? Bleep yes I could swing it. “So where to? Italy? Iceland? Ooh, I could go for Japan.”
“Actually, it’s a little less exotic than that. The Center.”
And just like that my excitement was replaced by an icy dread.
I couldn’t go back there. The Center was a tomb. In my mind it hadn’t changed since my last night there. Lifeless vamps lined the halls, eerily illuminated by warning strobe lights that failed to save the mermaid I loved most. I couldn’t handle the thought of revisiting what had been our home.
“Raquel, I—”
“I’ll see you at eight!” The line went silent and left me staring numbly at the communicator.
Two hours later I was still on my bed, glaring at the ceiling. Not even the familiar contours of Tasey clutched in my hand made me feel better.
I’d have to tell Raquel the deal was off. There was no way I was going back there. As soon as I could get my fingers to punch in her connection, I’d do it. But I couldn’t stand to hear the disappointment in her voice. She’d been excited, genuinely happy about working together again. Happy wasn’t something she did very often. And now I’d have to tell her that I wasn’t coming because I was too freaked out.
Lame.
I turned onto my side. The pendant Lend gave me sparkled on the nightstand and I reached out to it, running my finger along the side of the heart.
Why didn’t things ever get easier? Sometimes I wanted to take a memory—one perfect memory—curl up in it, and go to sleep. Like my first kiss with Lend. I could live in that memory forever. Just us and our lips and figuring out how well they fit together. If things always felt like that, life would be better.
“Honestly, Evie,” I huffed, flopping back to the center of my bed and glaring at the ceiling. “Why don’t you whine some more instead of actually doing anything?”
“Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness,” Ariann
a volunteered, leaning on the frame of my open door.
“Yeah, so’s seeing things no one else can, but people seem to like that about me.”
“Good point. Odds are, you’ve been crazy for years now. I’m probably nothing more than a figment of your imagination.”
“If that were true, I’d imagine you as less of a slob.”
She sighed. “Isn’t it sad that you hate yourself so much you can’t even dream up a pleasant roommate?”
“Not as sad as the fact that you admit how bad you suck as one.”
Flashing a wicked grin, she narrowed her eyes. “I’d use the term ‘suck’ sparingly around me. Don’t want to go planting ideas in my pretty, dead head.”
I threw a pillow at her.
“Anyway,” she said, fixing her spiky red and black hair (far nicer than the strands that clung to her shriveled head under her glamour—don’t look, I reminded myself yet again), “It’s dark out. Let’s go to a movie. I’m so bored I could die.”
“Too late.”
She threw the pillow back and went out into the main room. I sat up on the side of my bed and heaved a sigh. The communicator radiated waves of guilt from its position next to my pillow, but I couldn’t call Raquel. She’d figure out I wasn’t coming in about—I glanced at the clock—ten minutes.
It was probably for the best.
Oh, bleep, like I knew what was for the best anymore. Shaking my head, I picked up Tasey and walked to my dresser, opening the sock drawer.
“Sorry, friend,” I whispered. “Maybe another time.”
I heard the front door open, and Arianna shouted. “I’m leaving now. Meet me there if you want to come.”
“Yeah, let me get my—”
A light flashed as a hand reached through the wall, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into the infinite darkness.
Old Haunts
I screamed as the tiny rectangle holding the door to my room—my life—winked shut, leaving me in the darkness so thick and complete I could feel it on my skin.
Supernaturally (Paranormalcy) Page 6