Deceived

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  “Elle!” Pixie’s voice rang out across the lawn. I turned toward her but kept moving. With any luck, this teacher wouldn’t make a big deal out of me being late.

  Pixie was supposed to be in gym. Her entire class was on the outdoor track in the distance, but she had apparently broken free when she saw me. She had absolutely no boundaries, and her self-control was minimal at best. This was a prime example. She waved her arms frantically overhead. I shot up one hand, smiled, and pulled myself through the classroom door. I’d see her soon enough in study hall.

  “Miss Smith, I presume?” the teacher asked.

  I gave Pixie one last look over my shoulder. Through the rectangular window in the door, her crazy smile made me grin. She gave up and bent over, hands on her knees to catch her breath. That was probably the farthest she’d ever run. She was so utterly bizarre.

  “Miss Smith?”

  I turned, guessing the other students were probably all staring at me. They weren’t. They were all staring at him. I gasped and a few girls giggled.

  My eyes shot around the room and landed on the first empty chair. I practically ran to go sit. The teacher motioned to Brian, who sat at a desk in the front corner, and back to me. “As I was saying, we have two new students with us this semester.”

  Miss Smith and Mr. Austin.

  Chapter Four

  “Welcome to English Lit.” Mrs. Willows began pacing before the chalkboard.

  I stifled a shiver. My chest constricted until it hurt. Heat rose up the back of my neck. Panic raised my heart rate to frenzy level. I didn’t know where to look. Every fiber of my being refused the existence of coincidence, but my life in Ohio brimmed with it. Brian enrolling at my new school had forced my mind into overdrive. In true cowardice form, I leaned into my desk and let my hair fall over my face. The squealing engine. The blue motorcycle. I peeked through the thick wavy strands. He’d shifted in his seat and was looking at me.

  Holy crap.

  I held perfectly still for so long that my throat burned. Breathe. I managed eye contact with the teacher as often as possible but continued to check on Brian through my hair. So far he hadn’t turned into the shadowy image from my nightmare. Of course not. He also hadn’t vanished as part of my imagination. Confusion scrambled my brain. I had to concentrate to control my expression. My eyes had widened to the size of golf balls when I walked in, and they still tried to bulge from their sockets. I must’ve looked like one of those black fish they always kept in the tank with the goldfish at the pet store. I blinked and looked at the teacher again. She’d already moved on to reading from a hardbound copy of something with a well-worn cover.

  All around me girls whispered and passed notes. Everyone had noticed Mr. Austin. No one seemed to notice Miss Smith. A twinge of jealousy swept through me, whether at the thought of being noticed for a change or because of some ridiculous unfounded possession over him, I wasn’t sure. The “I saw him first” logic wouldn’t get me far. Throughout class his demeanor remained calm, like we’d never met. He didn’t look my way again. Meeting him couldn’t have been a coincidence. What else could it mean? The bell screeched forty-five minutes later, and I bolted out the door.

  “Miss Smith?” He was too near for me to pretend not to hear.

  I slowed, and he passed me by a step before he stopped. He leaned his head downward and spoke softly.

  “I’m sorry about this. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay.” I shrugged. “No big deal, right?” I forced myself to look at him with confidence, or at least as much confidence as I could pull off.

  “Listen.” The word sounded urgent, but, of course, it wasn’t. Why would it be?

  He was too handsome to talk to me and definitely too handsome to be some random senior at this school. He belonged on billboards in L.A. His eyes were piercing. He’d probably say they were green, but they were a color without a name. The sun shone on him, reminding me how tan and muscular his arms were beneath the white dress shirt and tie. A large Indian ink tattoo played under his sleeve.

  “How old are you?” Oops. We looked at one another.

  Then there were whispers. Some girls noticed us talking and gathered to watch.

  “Later.” He wore a stern expression. He seemed to be trying to tell me something completely over my head. Probably “don’t tell anyone about knowing me or I’ll go straight to the socially nonexistent category with you.”

  He looked at the little crowd whispering nearby and scowled. My cheeks flamed hot. Was it so bad to be seen with me? What would the girls think of his reaction? He looked back into my eyes, held my gaze a moment too long, scoffed, and walked away.

  What an ass. I couldn’t believe he was so rude. So mean. What the hell?

  “Elle!” Pixie flew down the long exterior corridor toward me.

  “You knew,” I hissed.

  “Yes!” She nodded fervently like a bobble-headed china doll. Of course that news would’ve motivated her to try to find me earlier, to try to tell me what I was about to walk into.

  Ah, she tried.

  “Come on. We’ll be late.” I pulled her along, her head still bobbing with a grin stretched ear to ear.

  We had third-period study hall together in the common area before lunch. Pixie sat on the scarlet carpeting and began to scribble notes. I dropped my bag between us and folded myself next to her with the grace of a rag doll.

  I read the note she slid my way. “Did you die?”

  She raised a thin, carefully sculpted eyebrow at me.

  I thought a thousand things before deciding what to write. Notes got confiscated. “Yes. What on Earth?” I pushed the paper back her way.

  “I knew you had a little juju in you.”

  “Shut up!” I stifled a giggle. The word juju didn’t belong on the same page as me, let alone in the same sentence. “I had nothing to do with this. This is happening to me, not because of me.” Then it hit me. “Where did he come from? Why is this happening to me? He was such a jerk out there. Did you see his face?”

  “Did you see his face? I don’t know. What did you do?” She underlined the final word six times and gave me an innocent look with her pointer finger resting against her bottom lip.

  “Nothing.” I scribbled. “This is weird, right? We met at a flea market and now he’s one of the only guys at our little school?”

  “Yes. Or maybe it’s fate. You’re cosmically linked or something. Like soulmates.”

  “He acted like he wanted to kick me.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Mindlessly, I rubbed them. Did soulmates exist? Could I believe in soulmates and not in coincidence? If someone like Brian was destined to be my soulmate, I also needed to believe in fairy tales. In a fairy tale, Brian would be the villain, wooing fair maidens and then casting them aside.

  “Ladies.” A firm voice cautioned us to keep to ourselves. I destroyed the paper we wrote on. I hated Francine Frances for its old-fashioned policies against cell phones during school hours.

  Stupid!

  Mid-pout, Pixie caught my attention from the corner of one eye. She moved her hand in a strange pattern. Her eyes were wide with excitement. Her wrist made a half circle that ended with a stabbing index finger. I followed the finger.

  Brian approached the teacher with a slip of paper and then sat alone on the far side of the commons, facing us. A large, brown leather bag rested against him. He dug out a pile of notebooks and stacked them on his legs. The barrier blocked his hands from the view of the teacher, who was engrossed in Golf Digest. Brian pulled out a phone—injustice. His thumbs danced over the keypad, but his eyes lifted, watching me.

  My heart pounded. I turned my head away before my cheeks turned the color of the carpet.

  After a few short breaths, I looked up again. Maybe he wasn’t used to being the new kid. I had more practice than anyone I knew. I was being unfair. He didn’t need to be judged on one moment of attitude, but he’d better straighten up before acting like that
again. Maybe I could find out where he came from and how he ended up in Elton and now at Francine Frances. Eliminate the “coincidence” with facts. My mind teetered between hopeful and fearful.

  The rest of the day evaporated. After second period, I had too much on my mind to process anything new. The books piled up, and the assignments did, too. New teachers, new faces—they’d all have to wait for another day. I alternated between the enigma of Brian’s appearance and the mystery of the misplaced ribbon. Nothing made sense, and so it went around and around inside my head until a headache started. The bonus of the drama was I hadn’t ruminated over my nightmares in nearly eight hours. Anytime the shadowy figure came to mind, Brian’s wide green eyes intercepted the panic.

  By last period, my head swam with questions. I picked the seat nearest the door and settled in for Sociology. I recognized most of the faces from my earlier classes. Students were starting to say hi to me.

  “Welcome, class!” An enthusiastic lady strode in as the final bell rang. She leaned against her desk. “I’m Susan Marks. You can call me Susan, if you’d like. I worked in the field of human services for ten years after college. I have some valuable and awkward experiences to share with you this semester. I want you to leave here with a real understanding of this science and the field. Any questions?”

  We all stared.

  “Then let’s talk about your first assignment.”

  A groan rolled over the crowd.

  A flash of sunlight blinded me momentarily as the door swung wide. When my eyes adjusted, I saw that Brian stood near the chalkboard handing the teacher a slip of paper. A couple of nods later, he headed my way. I’d taken the last seat in the row, leaving one empty desk between Kate and me. He slid into the seat. Kate turned around to welcome him.

  “I want you to research yourselves online. Spend some time discovering what people can find out about you at the click of a button. This is the information age, ladies and gentlemen. How many of your secrets are revealed online? Find out. Then take a look at the other people who share your name. Are they similar to you? How? Talk about what’s in a name. Diversity makes the world go around.” She threw her arms wide like the lady in The Sound of Music. “We’ll compare and contrast with one another on Friday.”

  The bell shrilled outside the closed door half an hour later.

  I had my work cut out for me. With a name like Smith, there’d be plenty of people out there sharing my name.

  Betrayed by my own face, I looked at Brian before I thought better of it. He and Kate were engaged in quiet conversation. Davis sat one desk over and was watching them, too. When his eyes met mine, his expression changed.

  “How was your first day?” His slow, easy voice comforted me.

  Before I could answer, Brian shifted in his seat. The move was subtle, but I noticed. He also stopped talking. Did he finish his conversation with Kate or stop to eavesdrop?

  “Good.” I focused on Davis. “Everyone’s been really nice.” My fake smile smoothed a little. Davis’s genuine disposition made me breathe a little easier.

  “Especially the guys, I bet.”

  My shoulders relaxed as Brian’s stiffened. “No. Everyone.” Though, he was right. The guys were overly welcoming. I bobbed my head. Peculiar, but nice.

  “I noticed,” Davis whispered.

  Brian continued to imitate a statue. A few desks up, Kate and her lackeys made a big show of laughing and tossing their hair.

  “Did you bring a laptop, or are you going to the library for this assignment?” He motioned toward the front board.

  “I have a laptop.” I doubted anyone at the academy didn’t. Not that it would stop me from frequenting the library.

  “Are you headed home, or do you have something going on after school?” The question felt weighted. His flat expression didn’t match the polite conversation.

  Tension thickened the air, constricted my throat. “I’m heading home, I guess.”

  Without another word, Davis swept out of his desk and around to the door, holding it wide with one arm for me to pass through. If I accepted the invitation, Kate would want me dead. If I stayed, I’d be sitting there with nothing left to do and Brian two feet away. Brian, who hadn’t bothered to speak to me since he blew me off in front of all those girls earlier. I grabbed my pack and bolted. We didn’t talk on the way to my locker.

  “Well, I’m meeting Pixie at the fountain, so … ”

  “Sure, yeah, okay,” Davis stumbled. His confidence seemed shaken since the morning. “See you tomorrow?”

  I lifted my hand waist high and took off before I could start looking around for Brian. Pixie and a small army stood near the fountain looking like a school billboard. None of the girls wore a ribbon in her hair. In fact, I’d watched all day for anyone with a ribbon and found none.

  “Here she is.” Aubrie opened her arms and threw her head back. “Did you have a fabulous day or what?”

  Or what. I had had a day made of weird and more weird. Wrapped in WTH.

  “Did any of you guys lose a black hair ribbon? I found one in my locker.”

  A handful of nos popped up from the girls in our group. The crowd moved in unison away from the school. I joined them. No one cared about the ribbon.

  “We were talking about the new kid. Did you see him?” A smaller version of Aubrie spoke in a quick, high-pitched voice that earned her a shove.

  “Shh! Don’t be daft.”

  “Elle, this is Darcy, Aubrie’s little sister,” Pixie explained. “She’s a freshman this year. She came all the way across the pond to be with her sister.”

  Aubrie rolled her eyes but said nothing.

  “Well, did you see him? Absolutely everyone is talking about him, and I heard he’s like the son of an ambassador or something.”

  Pixie snickered and shot me a look. She hadn’t told my secret. They didn’t know he was the guy I had met in Elton. After the morning’s coffee-house presentation of “I am an idiot” starring me, I was especially grateful for her discretion.

  “I had Trig with him last period for like five seconds,” Aubrie said. “The bell barely rang and he was already at the desk with a slip. I’d love to know where he went so I can transfer.”

  “I saw him in the office today before lunch and after study hall, too. I thought he might work there, but maybe he had problems with his schedule,” Darcy offered.

  “What? Are you stalking him or the office staff?” Aubrie stared at her little sister in disapproval.

  “I applied to work there during my study hall. Then I went to check on the application later.”

  Eye-rolling ensued.

  A chill ran over my cheeks. I knew where he had gone when he’d left her class. He’d transferred to my class. He’d been transferring to all my classes since study hall, but he hadn’t spoken to me since after English. Even then he only stopped me to say we had to talk, then glared at me. I shook my head against the impending combustion. He looked like an angel, but he gave off a mean vibe. Whenever he was around, I couldn’t help feeling that he was dangerous. I shook my head again to clear that thought from my mind. Paranoid. Dreams were dreams. Life was life. Brian had eight inches and seventy-five pounds on me. In theory, he could be dangerous. No other reason to panic.

  “Did you guys hear there’s a serial killer on the loose?” A girl near the front of our crowd spoke in a voice better suited to a campfire than a sunny September afternoon. Darcy and a few freshmen behind me fell silent.

  “Where’d you hear that?” Pixie unwrapped a Blow Pop.

  The girl shrugged. “Around. Everyone’s saying it.”

  “You think it’s true?” I bit my lip to keep from saying more. My mind screamed for details.

  Aubrie turned to look at her sister and the trio of freshmen tagging along. “Whatever. Don’t go walking alone or I’ll tell Mom you’re breaking the rules.”

  Judging by the size of Darcy’s eyes, Aubrie didn’t need to worry about that anytime soon.

 
; At the next corner, a flash of electric blue reflected off the windows of cars parked in the distance. I turned to look for the motorcycle. Nothing. I needed to get a grip.

  “Darcy?” I asked. “How soon will you know if you got that position in the office?”

  Never the chatty one in any pairing, I barely spoke at dinner. Pixie didn’t notice. She sucked a homemade icy pop, probably concocted of organic guava juice or something equally healthy. I fought with a grilled cheese. I couldn’t get used to the decrepit stove or the singed cookware. I’d made a mess of the effort, but I was hungry.

  Pixie filled me in on all the day’s news while I sat and stewed. She recounted personal stories of atrocious outfits and bad haircuts, whose friendships were over and, of course, the rest of the scoop on our hot new addition to the student body. She even made a few terrible jokes about his “student body.”

  “Everyone’s going totally bonkers, Elle! Don’t you want to climb up on a lunch table, pound your chest, and say, ‘What’s up now, ladies? The boy is M-I-N-E.’”

  “Pixie.”

  “What? He is, right? I saw you two. Don’t lie. He was following you today. I saw that, too.”

  “Following me? When?”

  “Everywhere.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s in half your classes. He ought to be more discreet.” Her perfect face lit up as she ran one finger down the length of her icy pop. “Ah ah ah.”

  He was in more than half my classes, but I didn’t mention it. I didn’t know what to make of the day. There was no sane way to shrug off this scenario. My gut clenched in acknowledgment. Frustration overcame me. Was I crazy? Was the dream creeping into my days, too? I rubbed my forehead. Everything in this little town creeped me out. Hearing rumors about a serial killer didn’t help.

  Pixie gave me a rare look of concern. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too. Are you okay?”

  Her cheek lifted in half a smile. “You know I’ve been here for years, but I’m still the odd one out. I never leave the academy. Not unless the school closes. I don’t run home on weekends and short holidays. My family makes itself scarce, so it’s nice having a friend who gets how that feels.”