“Hey, Had,” Asher said, breaking the silence and kissing me on the cheek as he came up behind me. I relaxed as he took a seat at the table. “Wow, Mr. Bishop, are you feeding an army?”
“Apparently not,” Dad said, frowning as he placed a few eggs and fruit onto his own plate.
“Need some help getting rid of it?” Asher asked, eyeing the food hungrily, but not yet moving to take a plate.
I could see the instant relief in my Dad’s face, and my heart swelled with gratitude for my boyfriend. Since we’d arrived home from the cabin after defeating the Parrishables, he’d been the model guy: taking me out on dates, going to games to watch me cheer, and hanging around the house to get to know my dad better. All things I would’ve never thought possible when we’d first met. In fact, given that our whole relationship had started off as a lie, I thought we were doing pretty well.
It was hard to believe that less than a year ago Asher had been secretly batting for Team Parrishable. Back then, he was just this amazingly hot guy with jet-black hair, styled in a metro-looking faux-hawk and eyes that seemed like they could pierce my soul. And his lips?
Very kissable.
After some flirting, a few major fights with other witches, and an innocent—but awesome—sleepover, I’d found out he’d been working with the enemy. Well, kind of. Turned out, my nemesis, Samuel Parris, had been holding Asher’s sister hostage and was threatening to hurt her unless he did as he was told, which included infiltrating the Cleri and relaying our secrets.
I was pretty pissed at first, but could hardly blame him for trying to save his sister. And by this time, I’d already fallen in love with him, which made everything more complicated. In the end, Asher had stepped up and helped us take down Samuel. Literally. He even jumped in front of a speeding spell to save me, risking his life in the process.
Now, back in the nonmagicking world, with Samuel gone and Asher’s sister back home safe and sound, we could finally be a normal couple. Well, as normal as a couple of twitches could be, anyway.
And it was amazing.
“Help yourself,” Dad said, gesturing to the food in front of us and popping a blueberry into his mouth.
Asher didn’t wait for him to offer again and immediately dug in.
After our run, I freshened up and headed over to Asher’s. Slipping in through the side gate, I found my boyfriend—man, I loved the sound of that—my boyfriend—the words were totally delicious—standing in the backyard a few feet away from a man in an oversize trench coat and striped fedora. The stranger had his back turned to us, so I couldn’t make out who he was, but I was instantly suspicious.
Furrowing my brows, I took in the scene before me. Who wears a trench coat in the middle of the summer? People who are up to no good, that’s who. I began to fall back into a fighting stance, but before I could do anything, Asher let loose a spell of his own.
“Flameeble ignitus!” he yelled at the ominous figure.
Almost instantly, a puff of smoke exploded at the guy’s feet, creating a steady stream of white, which circled and covered the area in wisps. I had no idea what was happening, but the man in the hat wasn’t moving.
“Dammit!” Asher said loudly as he walked over to the man and pulled off his hat forcefully. Then he began to fan the area until the smoke dissipated. Thoroughly confused, I made my way across the yard until I was close enough to see what was going on.
“Did you just turn him into a mannequin?!” I asked, slightly horrified and impressed at the same time. “Asher, I’m sure you had your reasons, but . . .”
“Huh?” he asked, looking over at me as I walked up. “No. I mean, I know. He already was a mannequin. I was trying to cast a flame, but all I ended up doing was setting off a smoke bomb. Great for stupid high school pranks, not helpful in defeating bad guys.”
Waves of relief rushed over me.
Though I was embarrassed to admit it, I had thought for just a moment that maybe Asher was back to his old tricks. That he was using less-than-savory magic for his own purposes again. It was only for a moment though, and then I remembered that the lying, sneaky Asher wasn’t the real him. But I couldn’t help the knee-jerk reaction. Apparently I still had some trust issues that I needed to work through in that regard.
“Well, maybe Brighton will be good for us after all,” I said, seeing how frustrated he was by the failed spell.
“I’m just a little rusty, that’s all. I didn’t use magic at all when we first met, and lately I’ve been too busy to practice,” Asher said, placing the hat back on the dummy’s head and giving me a pointed look. This was his way of letting me know—not so subtly, I might add—that this was because of me.
The truth was, spending all our time together had made it difficult for either of us to focus on magic lately. Except for the kind we were making together. But that wouldn’t come in handy if we were going up against guys like the Parrishables again, which was still a possibility, considering that many of Samuel’s followers had run off into the night after we’d banished their leader.
“Brighton will give us both a chance to catch up on the things that we’ve let slide,” Asher said.
I walked over to him and threw my arms around his neck.
“I still think we could have done that here,” I said, kissing him on the cheek softly. Then I moved my lips up to his temple and kissed him there, before heading over to the space below his ear and lingering for a moment. His body stiffened beneath mine. “Then we’d be able to be alone. I bet it’d be easier to concentrate without all those other people around.”
“You’re the only thing I’d concentrate on if we stayed here, and you know it,” Asher said, pulling away from me but keeping his arm on my waist. “You know I love you, Had, but not all of us are magical geniuses who don’t need to practice their craft. I’ve been letting that side of my life slide these past few months. Don’t get me wrong—it’s totally been worth it, but still . . . Let me put it this way: I respect you for being the kick-ass witch that you are, but I want to at least be in the same stratosphere as you. You might not need me to save you from evil, but I don’t want to be a liability, either.”
As a witch, I understood what he was trying to say. Magic was important to both of us, and in a way, it should trump our relationship. But as a girl, all I heard was that Asher would rather go to some summer magic intensive than spend time alone with me.
Ugh, is this what it’s like to be in love? Blinded by rainbows and unicorns, and sappy soundtracks that played in your head whenever you were around each other, and having all logic and sense of self thrown out the window? Had I turned into the kind of girl who put a boy before her magic?
All of these thoughts must have been running across my face, because Asher pulled me back in for a kiss. “We’ll still have plenty of time for us this summer,” he promised. “But I do think we need to make magic a priority again. What happens if Samuel comes back and I can’t even do a simple flame-throwing spell? With my skills as they are, I’ll only be able to give him smoke inhalation.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to test that theory,” I said, willing myself to believe my own words.
Ever since we’d been back, the Cleri had been getting together at night to perform protection spells and location spells to ensure that we wouldn’t be caught off guard again. So far, it looked like Samuel and the rest of the Parrishables were gone, but none of us were naive enough to stop with the precautions.
“I agree,” Asher said, looking into my eyes. “But if it’s not him, you know it could be somebody else. There are a lot of bad people out there who, just like Samuel, are itching to get their hands on our power. Your power.”
I frowned. He was probably right, but the last thing I wanted to do was worry about all the bad things that could happen. Not when things were finally starting to feel normal again. I wanted to get back to being a normal twitch, with a normal—but abnormally hot—boyfriend, whose only worry was leading her normal coven and heading of
f to the normal college of her choice. I didn’t want to be carted off to some summer intensive I’d never been to before, where I was going to once again be forced to focus 100 percent on spells. It sounded too much like summer school, and tests and homework were so not my idea of a good time. I wanted to find a balance, a way to have it all.
But I couldn’t ignore what Asher was saying. We had to stay on top of our magical game, and since Jackson, who’d been in charge of training us, had expired in the fire along with our parents, there was no one to run our magic classes anymore. So, after a few emergency meetings between the guardians of the remaining Cleri members, the adults had decided the best thing to do would be to send us all off for the summer, where we could learn more about our heritage in a safe and supervised environment.
Just the way I fantasized spending my first summer with Asher. Not.
The only catch was that the Brighton Summer Intensive was an exclusive program—one that twitches had to be invited to attend. Which meant that it wasn’t as simple as our parents just handing us over for a month. We had to prove that we were among the best and brightest in the witching world. I’d received invitations to attend in the past, but since it fell during the same time that I was away with my squad at cheer camp, I’d always politely declined. Still, it was an honor to be invited, and this year, most of the Cleri had made the cut. This was mainly due to their ability to survive the war with Samuel, but none of them were complaining.
So me, Asher, his sister Abby, Sascha, Jasmine, Fallon, and Jinx were all welcomed to come to the witch-owned cabin in Colorado for the summer. Peter had been invited as well, but was stuck in summer school. Poor kid was totally broken up about it, worrying that he was going to lose his place in the coven if he didn’t go. No matter how many times I told him this wasn’t true he wouldn’t believe me.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, with a sigh.
Asher smiled at me, brushing my long dark hair out of my face. “Think of it this way: It’ll be like our first vacation together . . . just us and sixty strangers.”
Chapter Two
It was going to take us roughly two and a half hours to get to Colorado. Asher, Abby, and I were the only ones who’d ever been on a plane before, so that was an interesting experience for all involved. Jasmine, the goth-looking girl in our group with a badass attitude to match, turned out to be terrified of flying. We were all more than a little surprised to see her squeezing her eyeliner-smudged lids shut on takeoff and chanting the same thing over and over again.
“Please don’t let me die in this flying tin can,” Jasmine prayed as the jet took off down the runway. Her pleas didn’t stop until we’d been in the air for at least a half hour. And even then, she gripped her armrests so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
I would’ve laughed if she weren’t so clearly terrified.
Sascha saw this as her chance to bond with her polar opposite, chatting nonstop from the time she sat down next to Jasmine in their assigned seats to the time we landed. With bouncy blond hair and a look similar to Glinda from The Wizard of Oz, Sascha couldn’t have been more different than Jasmine. Upon first look, you’d probably think she was a bit of a dumb blonde, but underneath her bubbly exterior was a smart witch with natural talents that allowed her to juice up fellow witches who’d been depleted of their powers. Sascha had the uncanny ability to fight her enemy one minute, and then apply lipstick meticulously without a mirror the next.
We’d barely gotten through the in-flight movie when the captain announced that we were beginning our descent into Colorado. As the plane started dipping lower and lower, I felt an uncomfortable tickling in my stomach.
Nerves.
It was something I rarely felt when heading into new situations. In fact, maintaining my high level of confidence at all times had always been easy given my natural ability to charm those around me. My mom called it the gift of persuasion. Not that I could control people—they still had basic free will—but you know how some people can convince others of anything? Well, that was me. The joke in our family was that I could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo.
Even though I imagined that camp would be no different, here I was with butterflies. And I had no idea why.
Of course, I knew enough by now not to ignore these feelings. After having been betrayed by our former Cleri member, Emory, I’d begun to read up on honing one’s intuition. I couldn’t help but think if I’d just quieted my mind back then and listened to my gut, I could’ve somehow known that Emory wasn’t our ally. Unlike psychic phenomena—man, I wish I had that power—intuition, according to scientists, was something each of us had within us, but didn’t necessarily use. Children were so much better at utilizing this skill, because they hadn’t yet been bogged down with what adults called “logic.” So lately I’d been trying to look at the world with childlike faith and listen to my instincts. All of them.
And right now my instincts wanted me on guard for some reason.
Asher must’ve noticed that I’d grown quiet over the course of the trip, because he squeezed my hand and gave me that smile of his that always stopped my heart.
The butterflies started fluttering even harder. But in a good way this time.
“Everything okay?” he asked. I was still amazed how in tune we’d managed to become in just a few months.
“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. No use stressing anyone else out with my intuition. “I’m just itching to see what this place is like.”
“I can’t wait to be around other twitches,” Fallon said, obviously eavesdropping from the seat in front of us. He’d just turned sixteen, but I still saw Fallon as the immature, little pain in my ass that was constantly challenging me. True, we no longer looked at each other as enemies, considering that we’d saved each other’s butts on more than one occasion, but we weren’t besties, either. Fallon might not have turned out to be evil, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t still push my buttons.
“And what are we?” I asked, hitting the back of his chair lightly. His brown hair, which had grown longer over the last few months, went flying around his face. When he turned to glare at me, I noticed that he was starting to grow into his features. His hair was getting lighter now that the weather was warm again and his locks fell into his blue eyes haphazardly. He still looked especially young to me, but I swore he was getting taller every day. Pretty soon he’d tower over me. “You realize you won’t find a better group of twitches than us, right? Who do you want to impress, anyway?”
Fallon licked his lips nervously and his eyes darted over to his right, briefly settling on Asher’s sister, Abby. She’d opened up a book right after sitting down in her seat and had barely looked up the whole trip, except to stare out the window listlessly a few times. Even now, as this exchange was going on, Abby seemed glued to her page. Not that I could see her face, since it was currently being covered by the same dark hair that Asher had, falling around her shoulders like a curtain. When you were able to see her face, though, she was surprisingly pretty.
I had to admit, her looks matched her personality. Ever since we’d brought her home after vanquishing the Parrishables, she’d pretty much kept to herself. It was like she didn’t want to be noticed at all. Asher said this was how Abby had always been, but it felt like something more than that. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through while being held by Samuel Parris and his cronies, and wondered if this was why she wasn’t as outgoing as the rest of us. She was still dealing with what had happened while she was gone. Per Abby’s request, Asher dropped the subject and let her be. He explained to me that it was the least he could do considering he let her get taken in the first place. Of course this wasn’t true, but his guilt was alive and strong.
And I wasn’t so self-absorbed as to think her actions were all about me, but I did worry that it was me that Abby didn’t like. That she just didn’t approve of her brother’s choice in girlfriends and that’s why she never hung out with us. But there was no way
that was the whole story.
Since we were rooming together at Brighton, I was hoping it would give us more of a chance to bond. Because although I wouldn’t admit it to her—or even to Asher for that matter—I wanted her to like me. She was the most important girl in Asher’s life besides me, and I knew our getting along meant a lot to him.
But the look on Fallon’s face just now made it clear that I wasn’t the only one interested in getting to know Abby better. Fallon stole another look at Asher’s sister before rolling his eyes at me.
Interesting.
“Calm down, Princess. You know I’m Team Cleri all the way,” he said, his usual snarkiness back. “I just think it’ll be cool to see how other twitches do things. We’re not the only ones on this planet, you know. Contrary to popular belief, I mean.”
I heard Abby snicker, but I couldn’t tell if it was at Fallon’s comment or at something she was reading. Apparently Fallon thought it was the former, because a satisfied smile crossed his lips before he turned back around in his seat and prepared for the plane to hit the tarmac below.
I frowned, but let the comment go as everyone got to their feet and gathered their things from the overhead bins. Asher took both of our bags in his hands and led us off the jet. Jasmine practically ran up the ramp and didn’t stop until she had reached the terminal. This time, I did laugh, and so did the rest of the twitches.
As soon as we stepped into the baggage claim area, I knew exactly where we were going. Bouncing in the air not ten feet away from the exit was a highly decorated sign. Glitter, foam letters, painted images, and stickers were strewn across the three-foot poster board. It read WELCOME BRIGHTON CAMPERS! in all caps.
The color assault didn’t stop there. Attached to the welcome sign was a woman in her mid-forties, dressed like a walking collage. Waving her arms spastically, she had dozens of pins covering every available inch of space on her vest. They clanked against each other like an off-key tambourine. My eyes drifted down to the final touches of an already unfortunate outfit: old, faded acid-wash jean shorts that stopped just above her kneecaps. The overall effect was nearly too much to bear.
The Witch Is Back Page 2