I finally gave her a look-over, noting that she was in fact sporting a new cashmere cardigan. “Oh…yeah. Looks good.”
“So?”
“What?”
“Daniel also mentioned that you were there to meet up with someone,” she urged. “Care to elaborate?”
I slumped down into my seat, as if it would actually help me disappear. “Not really.”
Car out-and-out whimpered. “You didn’t seriously hook up with Adam, did you? God, I knew you’d cave! The way you were looking at him before gym…I should’ve just punched him in the face. Or the jewels. That would’ve been better.”
A gentle warmth spread across my chest, and my eyes involuntarily shifted to the doorway.
No, no, no, no!
Six feet of Victorian allure sauntered in the doorway, leaving me both breathless and horrified. What was Reese doing here? He didn’t share this class with us, and the only time he’d ever sought me out in school was when he was invisible. That pirated grin of his tipped up a notch as his eyes settled on mine. He wouldn’t try to make me look crazy… Would he?
Just look busy.
Just look busy.
If I ignored him, he’d go away.
I grabbed my book bag off the floor and preoccupied myself with taking out notebooks I didn’t need, opening them up and pretending to concentrate on the material.
My desk jostled slightly as Reese took a seat in front of me, resting his arms on the edge of my desk.
“Fancy running into you here.”
My teeth ground, but I refused to pay him any mind.
“What? Not even a ‘hello’?”
Carly cleared her throat. I stole a sideways glance, seeing her eyes wider than a king-sized bed. “Oh. My. God!” she mouthed.
Wait…
Reese made another remark, and when I didn’t reply, Car gawked at me like she wanted to take a two-by-four to my head. She shifted her eyes back and forth between me and Reese, giving me confirmation that she could more than see him, too.
“It appears you misplaced this,” said Reese, sliding something on top of the notebook laid in front of me.
I finally looked forward, seeing it was my cell.
“Understandable, amid all the to-do.” He said the last word with particular emphasis, signifying an undertone that made Carly choke on her morning latte. I knew exactly where her mind had gone. Right in the freaking gutter. And it wasn’t like I was in the position to clarify what he really meant. You know, rescuing me from an Underworld assassin and all… “Seemed like the gentlemanly thing to return it.”
What game was he playing at? I just gawked at him confusedly, and of all things, he smiled back at me with a kindness I hadn’t seen since we first met well over a year ago. Thankfully, there was a good five minutes left before class started, leaving most of the seats around us still unoccupied, but the conversation was not lost on Carly or Vanessa, who I now just realized was seated behind Car.
“Thank you,” I said at last, taking the device off my desk and putting it into my book bag. Where had he found it? I knew I lost it sometime last night, but it could’ve been anywhere.
“Oh, you might want this back as well.” Reese lifted up something else in his hands I hadn’t noticed. My jacket. He’d gone back to the alley and found them both…for me?
Okay, something was up. Either Reese was suffering from some kind of brain damage after last night, or Mr. Hyde had decided to let the dear doctor make a rare appearance today. Because this was beyond freaking me out.
Reese was actually being…nice. Shell-shocked, I opened my mouth to say something else, but there weren’t any words.
“Try to stay out of trouble, Princess.” And just like that, Reese swept out of the seat, giving me a wink Carly and V were sure to misinterpret, before heading out the door.
“Holy crap on a cracker!” blurted Vanessa. “Seems you did have a busy night.”
Chapter 11
Angry Angel
For the first time ever, I couldn’t be happier to get to English class. I planted myself into a seat in the far corner of the room, relieved that none of my friends shared the period with me.
The last I needed was more of Carly and V’s interrogating. Why had I run out on Car? When did Reese and I get so chummy? And most importantly, how the hell did he end up with my clothes? They had a million questions, to which I had not one reasonable answer.
The fact that rumors were already beginning to spread didn’t make things any easier. In no time at all, things had snowballed out of control. Even with only the handful of people who had overheard my conversation with Reese, the story mutated all too quickly into a beast of its own. What started simply as a recalling of me meeting up with Reese at the mall somehow turned into a raunchy tale on how Blackburn and I had apparently gotten down and dirty in a boutique dressing room. Yep, people officially sucked.
And of course, there were so-called “eye-witnesses.” Always a friend of a friend of a friend. In consequence, I was doing my best to zone out as much as possible.
“Skank.” The word emanated into every corner of the room, and I turned toward the commentator to see the Queen Bee herself, Ava Ashford, looking back at me from the opposite side of the classroom as she continued in her discussion with some other cheerleaders.
I settled back in my seat and focused my attention on the blackboard, trying to ignore the remark.
“You know she was sleeping with Blaine,” Ava continued. “My aunt lives across the street from the Ryder’s estate, and I saw Kat’s car parked in his driveway from Friday night till Saturday morning the weekend before the accident. And you’ve seen the way she’s like with Adam. No way are they still not hooking up. She was screwing them both. And you hear about her and Blackburn? Stacey overheard the two of them talking last hour about how they hooked up at the mall or something. Montgomery’s burning through men faster than a kid playing with sparklers.” Her voice was so loud that I swear the Biology department could hear her!
“Yeah, but she doesn’t really seem like the type though,” said Erica Shiffer, thankfully coming to my defense. “If she was hooking up with Blackburn, then why would she bother stringing Adam along?”
“’Cause the girl’s obviously effed up,” remarked Ava.
A tingling sensation rippled up my left arm. I refused to meet her gaze as I looked around the room, dumbfounded by the fact that no one else seemed to be paying attention to this blatant, loudmouthed discussion. Was everyone deaf, or were they just trying to pretend like they didn’t hear any of it?
“Apparently, she’s going anywhere she can for a good lay,” Ava continued, “even if it is with trailer trash.”
“Excuse me?” The words pierced through the air and they caught everyone’s attention. It took me a second to even realize that they had come out of me!
Ava and her posse looked at me confusedly, as if I shouldn’t have been privy to their brash discussion.
“What’s your problem now?” Ava scoffed at me, like I had no right to address her.
“What did you just say?” My voice had become unusually harsh, to the point that it didn’t even sound like me.
Ava glanced over at the other girls with a surprisingly puzzled expression. Everyone was looking at me like I had just Hulked out and smashed through the wall.
“She heard us?” whispered one of the girls to another.
“You’ve practically got microphones taped to your hands,” I remarked, seeing all their faces with the exception of Ava’s go pale. “Please, share that last thought again.”
I rose from my seat and sauntered over to the front of the room towards her. The entire class had gone pin-drop quiet.
Ava still looked a bit caught off guard by my stance, but she straightened up and gave me her best toxic smile. “I said,” she annunciated with venom practically oozing between her teeth, “that you’re a total skank.” She boldly cocked her head to the side, seeming to size me up. “You really are
pathetic, aren’t you?”
A handful of the students sneered and laughed under their breaths. Something under my skin crawled, and without permission from my brain, my body took over. I smiled back just as wickedly as I strolled right up to her. “Funny, I could swear your boyfriend said the same thing about you at Jake’s last party, considering the fact that he had his tongue down the throat of that blonde from Jefferson High and not yours.”
Ava’s eyes practically bulged from her skull as the entire class gasped. I even got a chorus of “Oooohh”s.
“You bitc-”
“Sticks and stones, sweetheart. Don’t throw what you can’t take in return,” I said. “And a piece of advice, verbal diarrhea isn’t attractive on anyone.” I closed the distance between us. “But I have a feeling that if we took a look into your own Little Black Book that we’d discover that a lot worse things have been in your mouth other than your words.”
Now, the whole room was filled with “Oooohh”s, before cutting abruptly short as footsteps trotted into the room behind me.
“Good morning, class,” replied an unfamiliar, rather handsome man. By the restrained grin on his face, it was obvious that he had overheard my last statement. Ava cast me a lethal glare, and my insides churned. And just like that, my mind finally seized control over my body and a wave of nausea hit. Did I honestly just say that to Ava?!
The man walked over to Miss Garrison’s desk and pointed to the blackboard behind him. “As you can read, my name is Mr. Salzmann, and I’ll be your substitute for the day. So, take your seats, and knock it off with the death stares,” he remarked. “You guys can all return to your ‘9-O-2-1-Oooohh no, she didn’t’ drama after class. Got it?” He laughed, and the warm chuckles from the other students helped ease the tension as I retreated to the other side of the classroom and took my seat again.
Mr. Salzmann started his lesson plan, but my attention span had already been spent. I could still see Ava out of my peripheral vision giving me the stink eye.
“Okay,” announced Mr. Salzmann after his lecture, “I’d like to hear some of your thoughts on the subject. Anyone have an opinion they’d wish to share?”
Fellow classmates chimed in with their opinions, and our substitute turned to the blackboard to jot down some of the key points. Against my will, I turned to look at Ava as she motioned something out of the side of my vision. She returned my stare, poking her tongue into the side of her cheek and moving a closed fist in a horizontal motion. Seriously? Was she twelve? I rolled my eyes with a forced laugh like it didn’t bother me, but I could feel a stirring in my gut boiling up into my chest. My grip tightened around my pen to the point that the plastic started to bend.
Just as Ava unscrewed the lid off the drink on her desk, I tossed my pen down on my desktop with a little more force than I intended. Suddenly, Ava’s water bottle seemed to be ripped clean from her hands, splashing its contents all into her lap. She shrieked as she leapt up from her seat, and Salzmann handed her the lavatory pass so that she could go get cleaned up. The other students started to buzz about with whispered remarks and Salzmann had to usher everyone to quiet back down. I couldn’t help but find some mild satisfaction that karma seemed to play in the matter, but something icky told me it was more than a lucky chance.
The class quickly regained order, and the newfound calm seemed to be too much for me, because I couldn’t fend off the lethargy sliding its way into my fatigued limbs. I hadn’t slept in days. Reveling in the darkness found behind my eyelids, I could hear the chatter around me fading into the background.
My body instinctively jerked, forcing me out of my approaching dream state. I couldn’t sleep now. Not in the middle of class! God only knows what would happen. I couldn’t risk levitating in front of everyone.
But relief was short-lived as my eyes shot back open. I wasn’t in English. I wasn’t sitting in my desk. I was suddenly standing upright…alone. Outside.
Don’t panic.
Don’t panic.
Dried leaves and broken twigs cracked beneath my feet as I staggered forward, greeted by nothing but a chorus of chirping insects and an eerie screeching I prayed was only an owl. Did owls come out during the day? With the storms coming into the area, the sky was dark enough that it looked like twilight. But where was I? How did I get here? There were trees as far as the eye could see in every direction. That wasn’t saying much though, because visibility was pretty much nonexistent outside thirty feet with the thick embankment of fog rolling in.
I shrieked as a burning pain suddenly seared my left forearm. Yanking up my sleeve, I saw that same upside-down Y symbol inked into my skin glowing red again.
What did this thing mean?
The last time it had acted up was just before that Hellhound attacked. My blood ran cold in realization.
I was in danger.
Everything had gone quiet. Even the low chorus of chirping insects died down. I dug into my pockets for my phone, only to realize I’d left it in my book bag beside my desk. Laughter broke the silence, whirling me around. By the echoes ricocheting off the vast woodlands, it must have come from a distance. Another bout followed, this time a much higher pitch. Definitely a woman. Only, she wasn’t laughing.
“Please!”
That invisible tether in me urged me forward.
“Please, stop!”
I was definitely going to regret this…
Keeping low amongst the thicket, I tiptoed towards the hysteria, still hearing healthy fits of laughter. And it was coming from multiple sources now.
“That’s not how you say it, idiot,” snorted a masculine voice.
“You think you’re so smart? You try reading it then,” gnashed a different voice. Another male.
The ground sloped up, and I peered over the top of the hill side, seeing a flat, open stretch of field. Seven eight people I counted in total, all men…with the exception of one. A blonde adorned in what looked like a white silk nightie. She wrestled against the guy holding her, his arm securing her around the neck. It was hard to tell from this distance, but they all appeared to be around my age, college students at the most. The blonde clawed her nails and beat her bound fists against the guy holding her, and he merely laughed, suddenly pinning a knife to the side of her face. She immediately stilled, silent tears still streaming down her face.
“Please, Will… You don’t have to do this! Please, just let me go,” whimpered the poor girl, looking to another member of the group.
The guy in question, Will, snickered and snatched a piece of yellow parchment from another one of his buddies. “Let’s see… Ah… ‘Purr san-gwin…nose offer…tye-bye et sacrifice-ee-umm’…ugh…”
“For God’s sake, give me that.” The guy holding the blonde lobbed her over to Will and took the paper from him. “Were you morons giving each other blowjobs when the Boss read this to you? It’s ‘Per sanguine nos offer tibi et sacrificium quod Magister.’”
They all began chanting the phrase, rather ineptly at first, but they eventually fell into sync with one another. The bits of debris littering the grass around them spontaneously burst into flames, ensnaring them in a ring of fire. The symbol on my arm singed my skin like a hot poker, and I couldn’t bottle the pain. It wasn’t more than a small squeal, but everyone’s heads shot in my direction.
Shit.
Two of the men walked right through the growing flames, their pant legs catching fire. Neither so much as blinked before charging right towards me. It was too dark for them to have seen me, but if I took off running, they’d have no problem spotting me. So I hunkered down, ducking beneath the dead log beside me that was pinned against a standing tree. Every inch of me froze, trying to blend into the foliage as barreling footsteps stopped at the brink of the drop-off.
They couldn’t see me…
They couldn’t see me…
Leaves rained down all around me, sliding down the hillside as the guy trampled their way down. I didn’t even dare taking a breath, feeling the l
og above me bowing as feet stood atop it.
“K-r-r-r-r-ick! K-r-r-r-r-ick!” Fluttering ignited overhead, and I strained to see the white and brown wings of a barn owl swooping toward a nearby tree.
The weight lifted off the log, and I could hear their footsteps trudging back up the hillside. “It’s nothing,” the voice directly above me called out.
I needed to do something, but what? It was seven against one. The symbol on my arm ignited again, forcing me to bury my cry into my balled up fist. I pinched my eyes shut, trying to hold back from all-out screaming.
“You guys done screwing around?” The voice was right in front of me.
I immediately flung my eyes open, only to find myself standing inside the blazing inferno, facing the backs of the men. I recoiled, but couldn’t leave. The fire ensnaring us inside this circle came up past my waist.
“Just kill her already, and let’s get this show on the road,” huffed Will lazily, looking more annoyed than concerned at the blonde captured in his arms. The group began chanting again when the girl throttled her head back, hammering Will right in the nose. His grip loosened just enough for her to break free. She took off running, leaping right over the soaring blaze. The blonde yelped as her bare feet tickled the top of the flames, and she crashed into the grass on the other side of the clearing. But it didn’t stop her. Hauling herself up with her bound hands, the blonde sprang up and continued running.
“HELP!”
Her tiny frame dropped out of sight as Will caught up to her, tackling her into the ground. The blonde rasped, trying to refill her lungs with air that refused to come. He’d clearly knocked the wind out of her. Will tossed her wilted body over his shoulder and hauled her back inside the circle. She convulsed, still struggling for air as she kicked and thrashed in his arms. I was right in his line of sight, but Will didn’t pay any mind to me, dropping the girl on the ground before patting down the flames riding up his pant legs.
“Per sanguine nos offer tibi et sacrificium quod Magister. Per sanguine nos offer tibi et sacrificium quod Magister.” Will plucked out a pocketknife, pressing the blade against the blonde’s throat.
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