by Brea Essex
Logan must have sensed my distress. “Boyfriend?”
“Not exactly,” I evaded.
He nodded as if he understood perfectly.
Chapter Sixteen
I somehow managed to make it through until English, my last class of the day. I breathed a sigh of relief when the final bell rang. Logan got up and stood in front of my desk before I could make my escape. He picked up my messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Can I walk you to your car?”
“You know I don’t have a car,” I told him.
He gave me that smirk of his again. “Do I, now? Are you so sure of yourself that you think I watch your every move?”
My eyes narrowed as I glared at him. Why did I ever think he’d be different now? He was still the same self-assured, obnoxious jerk. One good day wouldn’t change that.
Logan laughed at the look on my face and leaned toward me to whisper in my ear. “I do watch you, Raena,” he admitted. He pulled back. “Can I give you a ride home?”
“I have to meet Tanis. We always ride together,” I said regretfully. I’d been surprised by his invitation, but even more surprised to find I wanted to ride with him.
“Great. Then I’ll walk you to the parking lot.”
Oh, fabulous. Tanis would be questioning me the whole way home. I hadn’t even answered her questions about Andrei yet. Now she’d want me to explain about Logan, too. I resigned myself to the fact that I’d be bombarded during the whole drive.
We wandered out to the parking lot, walking so close our hands brushed and our shoulders bumped together. When we reached the lot, I froze. A familiar black BMW convertible sat by the gate. Andrei leaned against it in all his golden god-like glory. His eyes narrowed as he spied me with Logan. He pushed off the car and headed straight for us.
“Is he the not-quite-boyfriend?” Logan questioned.
“Yes.” I gulped.
Andrei stopped in front of us. “What’s this?” he demanded.
“Logan was just walking me to the car,” I explained.
“What, did he think you couldn’t manage to find the parking lot yourself?”
Logan stepped forward. “I’m just making sure Raena got to her sister okay.”
“That’s none of your business!” Andrei declared. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him. His hand felt like a vice on my arm. “She’s my girlfriend. I’ll see she gets home.” He yanked my bag from Logan’s shoulder.
I tried to detach Andrei’s hand from my wrist, but he wouldn’t budge. “First of all, I’m not your girlfriend. You’ve never asked me to be your girlfriend. Second, I’m supposed to get a ride home from Tanis. Genevra would freak if she knew someone else had taken me home.”
“Genevra likes me. She won’t mind,” Andrei said.
“Well, that’s the rule, and I don’t want to get in trouble.” I glanced past Logan and saw Tanis approaching. “Now, there’s Tanis, so why don’t you let me go?”
Andrei changed his tactic. “Come on, Rae. Just let me take you home. I drove all the way out here to see you. It worried me when you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I’m sorry I worried you, but you called while I was in class. But my ride is here and I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
He still hadn’t released my wrist. “Andrei, let go,” I begged, tears springing to my eyes. “You’re hurting me.”
Tanis had reached us and just stood there, eyes wide, as Andrei continued to glare at Logan. “I suggest you let the lady go,” Logan advised quietly.
Andrei sized Logan up and finally let me go. “I’ll call you later,” he told me as he handed my bag back to me. He walked away.
“Thank you,” I told Logan as I massaged my wrist.
“No problem,” he responded. “Are you sure you want to keep dating that guy? He’s kind of a jerk. I don’t like the way he talked to you or how he hurt you.”
I was touched that he seemed so worried about me. “Well, he hasn’t acted like this before…” I trailed off as I realized that I didn’t actually know him. After all, I had just met him two days before. I’m definitely going to have to think about things. I glanced over to where Andrei now sat in his car, watching our exchange.
“Your sister will make sure you get home safely. I’ll see you tomorrow in class,” Logan said, his voice tight.
“Okay,” I told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again.”
“No problem.” He watched as Tanis and I walked to the SUV.
“Are you okay?” Tanis asked in a rare show of compassion. Her eyes were still huge.
“I think so,” I responded, surprised my voice sounded so steady.
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. “Well, I’m here if you need to talk,” she told me.
I gave her a small smile. “Thanks. It means a lot. Maybe we can talk when we get home. I’m still a little shaken up.”
“Of course. I understand.”
We fell silent at that point. Partway down the street, Tanis glanced in the rearview mirror and grimaced. “Uh, Raena? I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think Andrei is following us.”
“What?” I twisted around in my seat to see. “Oh great,” I muttered. “Is he going to follow us all the way home?”
“Looks like it.”
When we pulled into the driveway, he pulled in behind us and got out of his car. “What was that?” he demanded again, banging his car door closed and storming toward me.
I slammed my car door behind me as well. “I already told you. He’s in all my classes. He walked me to the car. End of story. I’m not explaining myself again! Now, go away!”
“I want you to stay away from him, Rae,” he said in a low, threatening voice.
“Stay away from him, or what? You can’t tell me whom I can and can’t talk to. You don’t control me. Quit acting like a crazed stalker. We are done with this conversation. Goodbye!” I started to walk into the house, but he grabbed my wrist again and hauled me back.
“You may go when I say you may go.”
Luckily, Shane pulled into the driveway at that moment. I didn’t know why he’d come home from work early, but I had never been happier to see him. “Hey girls!” he said as he got out of his car. He walked around Tanis’s SUV and stopped. “What’s going on?” he asked when he saw Andrei’s death grip on my wrist.
“Nothing, Mr. Deville,” Andrei soothed him, letting me go. “I’m just checking on Rae. I tried calling her earlier and she didn’t answer, so I got worried.”
Tanis and I stared at him. “Well, Rae was probably just following the rules,” Shane told him. “She knows she’s not supposed to answer her phone at school. In the future, you should wait to call her until after she gets home.”
“I’ll remember that, sir.” Andrei leaned forward on the pretense of kissing the top of my head. “This isn’t over,” he whispered. “We’ll talk later.”
I trembled at the tone of his voice. What had I gotten myself into? I stood in the yard with Shane and Tanis, watching as Andrei climbed into his convertible and peeled off. “Well, let’s go inside and see what Genevra’s planning for dinner, shall we?” Shane said, changing the subject.
Hmm. Maybe Shane isn’t as clueless as he seems sometimes, I thought as Tanis and I followed him inside.
Chapter Seventeen
After we went inside, Tanis followed me into my room. For once, I didn’t protest. I shut the door behind us and sat on my bed as she pulled out the desk chair. I lifted Nuada from where she slept on my bed and hauled her into my lap.
“Now then,” Tanis said with one eyebrow raised. “Care to explain?”
I took a deep breath. I felt confused, but glad she was acting normal and not being judgmental. I didn’t want to involve Cady and Tristan if I could help it, but I needed a friend to talk to. “Well, I met Andrei at the coffee house the other day,” I began.
Tanis interrupted. “What coffee house?”
I sighed. She’d find out abou
t my other hiding place, but I couldn’t dodge her question without outright lying. Great. “The one down in the Village. Above the restaurant.”
“Oh, okay.” She nodded. “Continue.”
“He was sweet. He sat and talked with me for a little while. You know, he plays piano, too. Anyway, he asked to take me to dinner that night.”
“Where did he take you?”
“Shadowbrook.”
“Oooh, I love that place! It’s so nice.”
“I know,” I told her. “Well, he was such a gentleman. He opened all the doors for me and told me to get whatever I wanted. He even walked me to the door when he brought me home. Then he called me the next morning—which was yesterday—and asked me to go to the beach with him.”
“You went, right? I know you were gone most of the day.”
“Yeah, I went. He was sweet then, too. We went out to the pier, and then had lattés. Then we went and hung out on the beach. When we got back here, he told me he’d like to see a lot more of me.”
“Wait,” Tanis interrupted. “Was he asking you to be his girlfriend?”
“That’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure. I was too nervous to ask.”
“So where did it go wrong?”
“When he showed up at school, and he saw me walking with Logan.”
“Why were you with Logan anyway?” she wanted to know.
“I’d been with him practically all day. He’s in all the same classes as me, remember?” I explained. “After English let out, he just grabbed my bag and asked to walk me to my car. When I told him I was meeting you, he insisted upon walking me out to the parking lot. Not in an ‘I have to make sure you’re going where you say you’re going’ way, but in an ‘I just want to make sure you’re safe’ way. Let me tell you, I’m glad he was there to help me get away from Andrei. You saw the rest.”
“Well, I know you don’t generally like my advice, but you know what it sounds like to me?”
“What?”
“It sounds to me as if you should be with Logan and not Andrei. You deserve way better than to be with someone controlling. Logan seems sweet. I know he acts a little full of himself, but maybe that’s all it is. An act.”
I looked at her in confusion. “But I barely know Logan,” I protested.
“You don’t know Andrei, either. You just met him. You probably know Logan a lot better than Andrei.” Tanis stood up. “Just think about it.” She exited my room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I glanced at the business card Ismene had given me the day before, which still sat on my nightstand. Could she have meant that I was in danger from Andrei? That would be impossible. How could she have known?
I absentmindedly petted Nuada, who had curled up on my pillow. Was Ismene right in saying that Nuada was a protector of sorts? It sounded strange to me. “Am I in danger, little girl?” I asked the cat.
She opened her eyes and stared straight at me. Sometimes it felt like she understood me. “Should I go see Ismene?” I asked her. As if in answer, she stood up, stretched and padded across the bed, where she flopped down next to my phone.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said. “You know, sometimes I wish you could actually talk. I imagine you’d have a voice like Angela Lansbury. Maybe I should draw a crescent moon on your forehead and change your name to Luna.” I jumped down from the bed laughing, pulling on some shoes, and grabbing my phone off the bed. I ran downstairs, calling to Genevra that I would be back soon, and ran out the door.
As soon as I got outside I realized it was cold, and I hadn’t bothered to stop to grab a jacket. I ended up jogging all the way down to Ismene’s shop, both to keep myself warm, and because I was eager to see what she had to say.
I burst through the door of the shop, startling the browsing customers. I slowed my pace and approached the lady at the counter. “Is Ismene here?” I asked her.
She seemed unfazed by my sudden entrance. “Ismene’s in the back giving a reading right now. You’re welcome to look around while you wait. I’ll let her know you’re waiting for her when she’s finished.”
I thanked her and began to wander the shop. As many times as I had walked by this store, I had never gone in. It seemed to have everything: books, candles, jewelry, statues. I stopped by the incense display, picked up a random stick, and sniffed it.
“You know, salvia offers great protection,” a familiar voice said from behind me.
I spun around, fumbling the incense stick and almost dropping it. Ismene stood close behind me. “Wow! You’re just as bad as Logan, sneaking up on me!” I exclaimed.
“Is he the one you fear?” she asked.
“Fear? Logan?” I laughed. “No, I don’t fear Logan. He annoys me, sure, but I don’t think I could ever fear him…” I trailed off. “Wait, how did you know I was afraid of someone?”
“As I said yesterday, you are in danger. Otherwise, your protector would not have come to me. Besides, it shows on your face.” She began to walk away. “Follow me.”
Well, this was why I had come. I walked behind her to a small, elaborately decorated room in the back of the store. Soft music played, and some sort of incense burned. She led me to a table and gestured that I should sit in one of the chairs. She sat across from me.
I realized I still had the salvia incense stick in my hand, and I set it down beside me. “So, you said salvia offers protection?” I asked.
“Yes, it does,” she said.
“I’ve never heard of salvia,” I admitted.
“You would know it better by its other name—sage,” she informed me.
“I knew it smelled familiar.”
“Yes, sage has long been used to ward off evil. Perhaps you should burn some in your room,” she suggested. I noticed the same amber jewel hung around her neck today. It looked even brighter than the day before. It seemed to glow from within. She smiled at me as she reached down beside her. She placed a deck of cards on the table in between us. They didn’t look like ordinary cards however. They were larger than regular playing cards and had a strange design on the back. “May I read your cards?” she asked.
“Um…sure?” I didn’t understand what she meant.
“What is your question?” she wanted to know.
“I don’t understand,” I told her.
“In order for me to read your cards, you must ask the cards a question. Remember to leave it open-ended, and stay away from yes/no questions. The cards cannot give definite answers, only possibilities and advice.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Okay, um, what are some possible outcomes to this boyfriend situation?” I asked.
“Shuffle them and spread out the cards on the table. Then draw ten cards that you feel drawn to,” she instructed. “But leave them face down.”
I complied. As I pulled out cards, she placed them in some sort of pattern in the middle of the table. When I finished, I handed her the rest of the deck, which she set to the side. I stared at the arrangement of the cards. The pattern looked like a plus sign with an extra card set crossways over the center card. Four more cards lay in a vertical line placed to the right.
Ismene picked up the card that lay across another and flipped the one underneath. “The High Priestess,” she informed me. “She sits between darkness and light. This card represents you and what is going on in your life right now. You need to pay close attention to your dreams. They are trying to tell you something.”
I began to feel sick as she reached for the next card, the one lying on top of the High Priestess card. My dreams were trying to tell me something? That didn’t sound good.
“This card, the Hanged Man, tells us what you need to overcome—what’s ‘crossing’ you. You may feel as though you are being punished unfairly, but you need to let go of something in order to attain something better. You must remain positive in the face of trouble and not give up.”
She flipped over the card on the right hand part of the plus sign. “The distant past. Death.”
> I gasped, cutting her off. How did she know? “My mother died a few months ago. She had cancer.”
She looked me in the eyes. “While the Death card could represent a literal death, it doesn’t usually. There is no need to fear it. It means many changes have taken place, and are going to continue to take place over the next several weeks or months. You need to let go of unhealthy attachments in your life.” She moved to the card at the bottom of the plus sign and turned it over. “The Eight of Cups. This tells us of your recent past. You’re withdrawing, seeking solitude. You’re disappointed. You shouldn’t be afraid to leave your past behind and do what you wish.”
Next came the card at the top. “The Star represents the best outcome to this situation. You will heal and experience joy again.” She moved to the card at the far left. “This is your immediate future. It’s upside down, or reversed. The Lovers reversed often indicates a love triangle. There is an imbalance regarding your relationships. You may be at war with yourself, rather than outside forces.”
Now she reached for the card at the bottom of the vertical line. She flipped it over and tapped it. “Factors affecting the situation. The Nine of Swords. This is the card of fear and nightmares. You’re worrying too much about something. You need to confront your fear, or it may lead to paranoia or physical illness. Do not be controlled by your fear of the future. You will only create a negative reality for yourself.”
She moved up the line and flipped over the next card. “This card represents the external influences affecting your situation. This card is the Devil, which represents the negativity binding you. The Devil is adept at illusion and deception. Freedom is within your grasp if you do not give in to his temptations.”
She continued with the next card up. “The Moon represents your hopes and fears. Things you have repressed are now causing disturbances and will soon become overwhelming. You must dredge up your anxieties and expose your soul so you can reclaim your true spirit. Don’t accept illusions because they might cause bad judgment. Do not fear the unknown. You will be deceived, but your latent powers will come to the surface.”