by L. A. Banks
“I can’t go back to the Clair-V’s,” Hyacinth said. “Why did you have to try to fight that girl, Tami? Why couldn’t you try to be nicer to them?”
“Them? Them!” Tami shot back, fuming. “Did you hear what that cow said to me? And the worst part was you holding me back when I could have ended all of this by opening up a can of whup-ass on Melissa. That girl has had it coming!”
“And then what?” Sarah said, quickly getting between Tami and the others. “You’d be kicked out of school, or maybe we all would—because if you punched her lights out, her friends would have jumped in, and then we would’ve jumped in, because we wouldn’t let them beat you down, no matter what.”
Tense silence strangled the group for a moment as Tami turned away, still fuming, but seeming somewhat mollified that Sarah and the others had her back.
Sarah went to her to try to calm her down. This wasn’t getting them anywhere, and it was burning precious time. They might have to cut more than gym if Allie didn’t get to the showers soon.
“There’s so much I have to fill you in on, Tami,” Sarah said in a gentler tone, trying to reach beyond Tami’s rage. Although now was certainly not the time to mention that Tami needed to back off Stefan—even if her reason wasn’t because of Melissa but because he was bad news—she did need to catch her friend up on how they could protect themselves from another hallway attack.
“I talked to Ayana after lunch. She showed me a strong white light defense we can use. I was going to tell you guys once we were where the walls didn’t have ears, but the day was going by so fast, everyone was watching us, snickering about us… there just wasn’t time and—”
“Who cares about this stupid school?” Tami finally muttered, cutting Sarah off and glaring at her friends.
“Give it up, Tam,” Allie said in a rare display of anger. “Tell me that just because of a stupid fight with some jealous hater, you honestly want to go back home where there’s nobody left there but parents?” When Tami turned away from her, Allie rounded Tami to get in her face. “And all to maybe get Melissa and her witches sent back to their neighborhood to fight beside their parents without the Academy’s extra training and maybe—”
“And that’s our problem how?” Tami said, throwing up her hands and beginning to pace. “I hope they do get shipped back to their sorry sewer-hole compounds and have to take mortar shells and dodge demon—”
“Because the same thing would happen to us,” Allie said pointedly. “Or, more likely, we’d be locked up in the compound, still home-schooled until we were of age. They’re not gonna put Neteru team kids on the front line, so if that’s what you’re hoping would happen, stop dreaming. It’d be six more years at home and not chance of doing anything interesting, meeting anyone interesting, or going anywhere new. Think about it, Tamara Rider. It would just be the four of us girls there for six years—no, seven, if you count the balance of this year.”
Allie nodded when Tami’s eyes grew wide with dawning reality. “Yeah. You think about it, Tamara. Watching old DVDs from decades ago… old bands, old cartoons, all the outlawed stuff we’ve seen over and over again until I could throw up. I want to learn the new dances, the latest slang, the newest styles from out in the world. You heard it in orientation—they’re having a dance on Wednesday night. The first real mixer we’ve ever been to, and I want to go! So don’t screw this up, all right?”
When Tami looked away, Allie pressed on with conviction. “I’m pretty sure that I could do the boring time, and probably so could ‘Cinth and Sarah, but can you? All you’ve talked about since you got here was this hottie or that hunk—you wanna go back under your dad’s watchful eye and sit at home missing everything?”
Quiet crackled between the four friends. When Tamara didn’t immediately respond, it was obvious the stalemate was over. Sarah stared at Allie in amazement. Of all people, Allie had broken through with an argument that Tami couldn’t beat? The really weird part was, Allie had also broken the code on what was at stake for them all—something she hadn’t been able to define until Allie actually said it out loud. There was freedom here, even in its very strange disguise of onerous rules and regulations.
So, as much as she hated the rules and regulations, as much as she hated the lack of time and personal privacy, as much as she hated the .girls who had it out for them, it wasn’t until she saw a sea of students from all over the world that she’d realized just how isolated they’d been. Curiosity had won out over dread, at least for the moment. With the chance to be around all those kids her own age and older, even the shadows didn’t feel as scary—especially since they seemed to be siding with her.
They might not really want to move forward into this scary void called, the Academy, but they also didn’t want to be left behind back home, to miss the exciting newness of it all. None of them wanted to blow the opportunity of a lifetime on something stupid, and even though no one in her small group had had the chance yet to listen to the school policies on their PIU’s, she was pretty sure that a hallway brawl over some guy they didn’t even know would be frowned upon.
“All right,” Sarah finally said. “One team—us against them.”
“One team,” Tami said grudgingly, and they all placed their hands together in an air pile.
“I’ve gotta show you guys what Ayana showed me this afternoon, so if we’re gonna skip a class, let’s make it worth our while.”
“Can I get a shower first?” Allie said in a forlorn tone.
“Yeah, but hurry back,” Sarah said, glancing at the time on her PIU. “I don’t trust those chicks, now that one of them got hurt. I bet they’ll have an even worse ambush waiting for us now.”
Chapter 15
To Allie’s credit, she was in and out of the shower within ten minutes, and had wound her hair up into a wet bun and was dressing quickly as Sarah produced the symbols Ayana had drawn.
“We have to be united,” Sarah warned, looking around at her friends’ faces. “We need to call down the white light of protection over each of us individually and the group, and then imagine ourselves in a spiral of white light. Close your eyes and make that white light follow you to the center, where all of us meet. Hyacinth can help with the telepathic visuals. Tam, we need your fire of intention, and Allie, we could use your kinetic charge. We put all our hands together, and I’ll say the prayer, okay?”
“Let’s do this thing,” Tami said. “But I sure wish Yaya had given you something to blow them away with.”
Sarah let out a hard sigh. “We’ve been through that a hundred times, Tamara, so quit it. No attacks, school rules. Nobody can fault us for self-defense, but—”
“Okay, okay,” Tami fussed. “Let’s just do this thing.”
“Here’s the other thing… Yaya said we shouldn’t do this when at odds or mad at—”
“Like that’s gonna happen when around here?” Tami just stared at her and Allie and Hyacinth nodded.
“We have to protect ourselves,” Hyacinth said in a quiet rush after a moment. “There may not be an optimal time…. Tami could be right.”
All eyes were on Sarah, and even Allie nodded to agree with the others. Against Sarah’s better judgment, she released a long sigh and let her shoulders slump. “Okay, okay, you guys win,” she said, glancing around the group. “But don’t blame me if anything backfires.”
“No one will blame you, Sarah,” Allie said softly. “But we have to try.”
Sarah nodded. What Allie said was true. They needed protection and sometimes one had to come up with a solution on the fly. Sarah waited a moment until the group settled down and everyone made a pile of hands. She held the symbol above their unified fists and gave Allie a little nod. Slowly Allie’s blue-white static charge covered their hands and then began to swirl out from the center of the dwennimmen, spiraling around each girl.
“I humbly call the angels of protection,” Sarah murmured as each girl closed her eyes. She could see the white light circling her body and felt the
slight crackling charge envelop her like a warm blanket. “Please allow only things that are good and from the Light to help us, to be around us, and to protect us. Keep us safe in all dimensions of time and space in which we exist. If anyone tries to do us harm, let only good come from it.”
“Amen to that,” Tami muttered, and got a swift kick from Hyacinth. “Ow.”
Sarah cleared her throat, frowned, and pressed on. “We ask that the angels hear our prayer. We also pray for those students who weren’t so lucky, who have gone missing or worse. We are all Light. Ashe.”
Sarah opened her eyes, and her friends slowly opened theirs, waiting until the static charge around them withdrew before letting go. For the moment, Sarah felt empowered. They had done something proactive, but that certainly didn’t mean the threat had passed. It was simply dormant, crouching and latent in the shadows.
“You think it’ll work?” Allie asked quietly.
Sarah let out a weary sigh. “I guess only time will tell.”
Thankfully, the rest of the school day was relatively peaceful. The girls’ gym teacher, Ms. Akoben, hadn’t even been there. An Upper Sphere student had taken roll and shown the girls the basic drills they’d do, but since no one had brought their sweat pants, sneakers or t-shirts to class, the Upper had only walked them around the equipment, telling them what to expect tomorrow. It was a wasted class period that the students had most likely spent gabbing.
The Upper Sphere girl had just shaken her head and fought a smile when Sarah explained about why they hadn’t been in class. To Sarah’s surprise, the older girl had a heart and simply placed four check marks on the clipboard next to their names and said sarcastically, “You owe me, kid.”
Then Sarah braced herself as she saw her brother headed her way. Al was coming from the boys’ gym class, and it would be impossible to avoid him. She was ready for an argument, but when his expression gentled and he touched her arm, she didn’t know what to think.
“You guys okay?” he asked quietly, looking at Allie and Hyacinth. “I heard what happened. That was foul.”
“We’re okay,” Allie said in a soft voice. “Just more humiliated than anything else.”
Al shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, seeming torn. “I heard ‘Cinth got tripped a few times, too.”
“I’ll live,” Hyacinth said, and cast her gaze down to the floor.
Al ignored Tami’s crossed arms and hard glare, and looked at Sarah. “Sis, seriously… I know we don’t always get along, but blood is thicker than water.”
“Thanks,” Sarah said, really needing to hear that from him. “It’s nothing we can’t handle, but watch your back Al, okay? Some people around here aren’t what they’re pretending to be.”
She noticed that the other guys from the compound were hanging back, waiting for Al, but also giving him some space to talk to the girls alone.
“So did you already get what you wanted from that skank, Melissa? Is that why you’re back here trying to act like you’re with us? Or did you finally remember who your real friends are?” Tami said, clearly unconvinced that Al was being genuine.
“You’re one to talk,” he shot back, his tone hardening. “I’m not the one slobbering over that spooky kid—Stefan’s a nice weirdo addition to your trophy case, Tamara.”
Caught between her brother and her best friend, for a moment Sarah didn’t know what to do. Truthfully, all she wanted was peace. “Al…”
“I’m out, Sarah,” he said, glaring at Tami before turning back to her. “You be careful, too, okay?”
Sarah watched her brother walk off and merge with the other students milling in the hallway between classes. Part of her had wanted to say the same things Tami had, to get back at him for initially siding with Melissa over them, but another part of her totally understood where Al was coming from. How did one control a crush? Truthfully, they were all guilty of having one. In that moment, she wished that Tami could have kept her big mouth shut and just allowed Al’s rare display of niceness to shine through.
“Good riddance,” Tami muttered, and began to walk toward the Blends lecture.
“That’s still her brother… our compound brother,” Allie said, staring up at Tami.
“Yeah, and he did come back to us and really wasn’t cool with what Melissa did to us. That counts for something,” Hyacinth said, siding with Allie.
“C’mon, Tam… I know my brother can be a jerk sometimes, but ease up on him. We just did that prayer, and he came back to us acting nice. Like… just for once, let the grudge stuff go.”
“Whatever.” Tami hiked her backpack up higher on her shoulder, clearly ready to take on any challengers.
“I’ve got library orientation after Blends. I need to run over there and find out what I have to bring to that,” Sarah said in a weary tone. She was glad to have an excuse to get away from all of them. “I’ll catch you later.”
For the first time since she’d arrived at school, she wanted—no, correction, needed—to get away from her closest friends. The bickering was wearing her out, and the constant obsessing about Melissa was getting old. She just hoped that with everybody so freaked out, Ayana’s unity of strength ward would actually hold.
Plus, the more she thought about it, she really hated how Tami had embarrassed Al at lunch. If it had just been between the family, that would be one thing—but T had punked Al in front of some older guy, and a creep to boot. That was so not cool. But, of course, there was no way to say that to Tami without her blowing up. Right now Sarah just wanted a few hours where she could focus on anything but conflict.
Heading toward the sanctuary of the library, Sarah walked so quickly that she was almost running. When she rounded the corner, she skidded to a halt and her breath hitched. Wil was headed in her direction with a drop-dead gorgeous smile on his face.
“You got a minute?” he asked.
Sarah blinked and just stared at him for a second. Was he asking her if she had time to hang with him? “I’ve got Blends lecture—but not for fifteen minutes, so…I guess so. Why?”
“I was just wondering if we could talk. I heard what happened today… are you all right?”
“Yeah.” A plume of butterflies took flight in her belly all at once, and she tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible.
“So can we just talk?”
“Sure.”
“Cool,” he said, opening the library door for her. “Let’s go in here where it’s quiet, and then we can run to talents. Afterward… maybe…”
“I, uhm… I have library orientation, but after that…”
“Cool. Well, I can come back after talents and track practice, and hang out at the library. I just wanna tell you something—it won’t take long, if you’ve got a minute now, though?”
“Okay.”
She wanted to kick herself. What was with the one word answers? But for the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything witty or sophisticated to say to him. Keeping her responses aloof and simple seemed like the best option as she followed him to a table on the far side of the room, where nobody else was sitting.
She sat down, expecting him to take the seat across from her, only to be surprised when he actually sat down right next to her. Thoughts crashed inside her mind like a multi-car collision, and the first thing out of the pile-up and her mouth was everything she’d wanted to know about his relationship with Melissa.
“So what is the long story with you, Patty and Melissa?” She stared at him, waiting for some explanation that made sense.
Wil smiled, not seeming at all surprised that she’d gone there. “I knew you’d wanna know… especially after what happened earlier today. Listen, I heard all about it, and for the record, I’m not on their side. I really feel bad about the way Melissa is treating you and your friends. She can be a little over the top sometimes, if you know what I mean.”
Sarah shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know how you could even be involved with them. You seem so nice, a
nd I don’t know about Patty, but I sure know Melissa’s not.”
“Patty is different from her sister,” he said with a long sigh, and then he dropped his gaze as though studying the fine grain of the gleaming walnut table. “It’s all so complicated. We grew up in the same compound for a while… my dad had met my Mom in Italy when he was on a campaign there. My Mom got pregnant, had me, and I grew up in what was then Italy till I was three. It was a long time till he could come back and get me. He did when he heard she’d died. Took me to his compound back in old Boston and from age three until I was thirteen, I stayed there. Then he sent me to Italy for two years to get to know some of my mother’s people and to train…. Boston was under siege, and I think he wanted me out of harm’s way. Last summer, they needed everybody’s help. I came back—all the kids who were my age and older had to come back from wherever their parents had sent them to hide. But finally Boston fell, like a lot of the compounds on the East Coast. Things happened—Patty and I got together, even though she’s a couple years older than me… wartime crisis can bring people together who normally might not even look at each other, but it didn’t last. It was sort of a summer thing when I turned fifteen. She and I were, and still are, two very different people, but it’s amazing what location, limited choices and hormones will do. So when my dad went back to Italy, I went with him.”
“Oh…”
Wil looked up. “It’s over, Sarah. We’re just friends.”
She didn’t know what else to say. Part of her believed him, the part that was gazing into his magnificent sea-green eyes. But there was a part of her that felt cheated by not having known him first.
“Sarah… it was pretty rough back there in Boston,” Wil said quietly. “Martial law, the whole area was flooded… food was scarce, and all up in the Salem region, Beantown, New Hampshire—the whole area—there are a bunch of really old covens that have made some serious pacts with the dark side.” He let out a long breath and took one of her hands. “I’m not making excuses for Melissa’s behavior, I’m just saying that her past might have something to do with it. There were months without fresh produce, people scavenged whatever meat they could from city wildlife.”