He stood at the doorway and watched me go until I rounded the corner. The rest of my walk home was a good one, considering. I randomly exploded into a fit of giggles as I replayed the evening in my head. Sure, tomorrow there would be some talk about me and Vaughn, but it was all good. I didn’t have much of a reputation to protect, I hadn’t killed or maimed anyone tonight, and Vaughn had more confidence and was better off than he had been yesterday. According to my scorecard, it was Maggie 1, Mac 0. Somehow, having the leg up on him made me just a little less angry.
I walked up my driveway, still chuckling, when I noticed a car parked next to my mom’s. Mac’s car. Adrenaline coursed through me as I approached the driver’s side door with mounting horror. Empty. So did that mean he was inside?
I jogged the rest of the way to the front door and opened it, panic mounting as I desperately trying to come up with a sensible reason for why he would have come to my house that didn’t involve him torturing my family to get me to do what he wanted.
I stepped into the hallway, heart galloping in my chest, and called out, “Mom?”
“In the kitchen,” she shouted back.
I hurried in to find her standing at the sink washing pots and pans. “Who’s here?” I asked, taking care to keep my voice light despite my nerves.
“Oh, your friend Mac stopped by. He’s chatting with Gram while I clean up the dinner dishes.” She smiled over her shoulder. “You missed it. I made my best veggie lasagna yet. Mac loved it.” She lowered her voice and looked around quickly before adding, “He’s a real looker, huh? And that accent!” She waggled her brows and turned back to the dishes.
He was certainly a “looker,” but the word paled in comparison to all the other ones that came to mind at the moment. If he upset my grandmother, Council be damned, he would see what I was really made of.
I walked into the living room, power sizzling through me so freely it was a surprise I wasn’t glowing.
Gram sat on her recliner and Mac sat mostly on the couch but was leaning over her.
My heart punched into overdrive. “Get away from her,” I snapped and rushed over.
He sat back and released the corner of the blanket he’d been holding. “Chill,” he whispered, nodding in her direction. “We were watching Murder, She Wrote, and she fell asleep. Knocked the covers off herself. I was just fixing them.”
I watched her chest rise and fall and that settled me some, but not completely. This boy was enough to drive even the sanest girl nuts, and I sure wasn’t that.
Gram coughed then, a low rumble starting in her chest and working its way up in slow, agonizing measures. I patted her gently until the fit passed and she reached up to hold my hand for a brief second.
“Beware the gray wolves, boy,” she muttered fitfully.
“Shh. It’s okay, Gram. It’s me, Maggie.” I patted her some more and she stopped fussing, her eyes drifting closed again.
I stepped back and faced Mac, folding my arms over my chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”
A weird look passed over his face, and he ignored my question, staring at Gram instead. “Why did she say that?”
“She says a lot of things,” I snapped. “She’s…not right anymore. She gets confused a lot and—” I hated that I had to say it out loud and I blamed that on Mac, too. “I’m going to ask you one more time. What the hell are you doing here?”
He looked away and blew out a breath. “I don’t know anymore.” His hard gaze softened as he looked at my grandmother. “At first it was to piss you off. Now that I’ve been here for a while, I just don’t know anymore.”
He glanced around the room, his keen gaze taking in the photos of my mom and dad, and me in my tutu at my first ballet recital. When his eyes settled on me, they seemed to look right through me, and my stomach clenched hard. He shoved a hand into his hair, sending a lock flopping onto his forehead.
“I’ll do it, Maggie.”
Had I heard him right? I stared at him, pulse pounding, afraid to believe it. Hell, he looked like he could barely believe it himself.
“I’ll try to show you how to control your powers. I won’t baby you or take any shit, and one slipup from you or hint that you’re a menace to someone else, we’re done. I’m going on record right now and saying I don’t think this will work.” He pushed himself to his feet and towered over me, jaw clenched so tight, it was a wonder it didn’t fracture.
I ignored the last part and focused on the important bits. He was going to try to help me. Tears of relief welled up, and I blinked them back. When I opened my mouth to thank him, he held up a hand.
“You don’t want to thank me—I can promise you that. It’s not going to be pleasant. I’ll see how much time they give me. Then once our training is over, the Council will send for you. Either you will go with me willingly, or I will be instructed to dispatch you.” His expression held a grim warning, and I had no doubt he was telling the truth. “Dispatched” was a pretty awful word, and a sliver of panic wormed its way in to mix with my elation.
“Once we get there,” he continued, “they’ll put you through a series of tests. When you fail, they’ll make sure this gets taken care of.”
I didn’t know which stung more. The fact that he had complete faith that I would fail or the idea of “this” getting “taken care of.” Meaning the Council would strip my powers. I refused to even contemplate the other word he’d tossed out so casually. “Dispatched.”
I shuddered inwardly but pushed back the fear. It wouldn’t do me any good to think that far ahead. I needed to concentrate on the now, and right now, Mac Finnegan had agreed, albeit reluctantly, to try to help me. As long as I agreed to his terms, I had a chance. I only just managed to keep myself from doing a victory dance.
Maggie 2, Mac 0.
Chapter Nine
Dear She,
My girlfriend has a serious jealousy problem. She doesn’t even want me to have girls as friends. I think it’s ridiculous, but if I argue with her, she insists it’s because I’m cheating on her. I’m not interested in anyone but her, and I can’t figure out how to convince her of that without blowing off all my old friends (who happen to be girls).
Sincerely,
Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Dear Caught,
This IS a tough one. See, sometimes, jealousy isn’t about what you’re doing or not doing. You could be the greatest guy in the world, but if the last guy she dated cheated on her or abused her trust, then unfortunately, the aftermath winds up in your lap. It sucks the big one, I know. I say, if you really love her, keep at it. Actions speak louder than words. Just be patient, try to be aware of the way you’re acting around other girls, and make sure you don’t give her reasons to be jealous. I guarantee, eventually she’ll come around.
Forever yours,
She
I stared down at the e-mail with unseeing eyes, totally distracted. Four weeks. That’s what Mac had gotten the Council to agree to. He’d said normally he’d have had to haul my ass in immediately, but he’d vouched for me and was able to wheedle a four week stay of execution. A month to take what he showed me and see if I could get enough control over my powers. Then it was off to the Council for the tests he expected me to fail. I would be at the mercy of the Amaranth. If they felt I’d earned redemption and were satisfied I wouldn’t hurt anyone—else—then I could be pardoned. If not? I would be stripped of my powers. What Mac neglected to mention until he called me late last night was that, along with my powers, my memories would be lost as well.
If they didn’t strip me completely, there was a chance that my powers would return, and the Council wasn’t in the biz of taking chances. I’d remember how to walk and talk and feed myself, but I wouldn’t remember my name or my life or my mother. Why Mac ever thought I’d have agreed to that willingly was batshit baffling. It would devastate my entire family. My mom and Gram, I could get to know again in time. But my dad?
Pain sucked the air from my lung
s. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t. He’d already been taken away from me too soon, but to steal away what little time we’d had? No fucking way.
I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed back the terror, clinging to what I knew was the truth. Dad would be disappointed in me if he were here, and that was the worst thought of all.
Deep down I knew if I couldn’t control my powers, I didn’t deserve to keep them. And if losing my memory—losing my dad—was the price I had to pay in order to make sure I never hurt anyone again, I needed to suck it up and do it. I couldn’t live with any more guilt.
I was putting my faith in me. This would work. I’d make sure of it.
We had set up our first meeting for after school behind an abandoned house a couple streets over from mine. The huge backyard butted up against a ravine, and a wall of towering pine trees encased the rest of the property. With the nearest neighbor more than a hundred yards away, it was as good a spot as any.
I had a thousand questions ready to fire at him the second I got there, so I was practically bouncing by the time art class rolled around, in spite of having my balls broken by no less than a dozen people for my date with Vaughn.
He’d been a gentleman and, true to his word, told people we’d opted to be just friends. By midafternoon, everyone except Libby had moved on to talking about the fistfight that went down at lunchtime. My girl, however, officially had a major hate-on for Mac. I think she despised him even more than gluten, and that was saying something.
She’d spent the better part of the morning hatching bitter revenge plots against him for the thing with Vaughn, but I’d finally managed to talk her down. Good thing, because I was about to be spending a good amount of time with him and, at this point, couldn’t tell her why. If I did, she’d try to talk me out of it and I couldn’t afford that. What if she succeeded? Shit, I’d almost talked myself out of it a thousand times, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t afford to let her sway me. Lives were at risk if I didn’t learn to control myself. And the memory of my dad…
The bell rang and I hit send on my column response before shoving my phone in my pocket. I had just looked up to see if Mac had come into Mr. Foster’s room yet when I noticed an unfamiliar face. Said face turned and I locked eyes with the second-best-looking guy I’d ever seen in real life.
Black, military-short hair, eyes the color of a Hershey bar, and a face that would make even Hortense Verbiglio get a little jiggly in the belly area. I cleared my throat and worked up a smile. “Hi.”
He flashed a set of perfect white chompers and held up a hand in a casual wave. “How’s it going?” Dayam. Even his voice was gorgeous, with a deep timbre that reminded me of one of the leading men in the black and white movies Gram always watched. Nice.
I almost answered him, but then realized it was a rhetorical question. He’d already looked away and was rustling through the book bag he’d tossed onto the table I was sitting at.
“You new to Crestwood or…?” Or what? Like, obviously he was new. What was the alternative? Or did some freak tornado drop you here on your way to a hot model convention?
“Uh, yeah. I started this morning, but they didn’t have me in regular classes until now. They did some sort of orientation thing.” He stuck out a hand. “My name is Rafe.”
“I’m Maggie.” I shook his hand, but it got all awkward somehow. I went for a cool, sort of twisty pump maneuver I’d seen Libby and the girls at the track meets do. A maneuver he was clearly not familiar with. My cheeks flamed, and I pulled away. No wonder I had, like, no friends. He didn’t seem to mind, though.
“So how is Mr.—” he started to ask, glancing down at the schedule he’d pulled from his backpack “—Foster? He a fun guy or what?”
“If by a ‘fun guy’ you mean a mushroom, then yes. Definitely.”
I waited for him to catch my pun but he stared at me with his head cocked to the side like I’d just told him my name was Zork from the planet Voltrex, and I wanted to crawl under the table.
If I ever took a beat to engage my filter before I spoke, my life would be totally different. Another tense few seconds passed, but I opted not to fill the dead air with more stupid words. To my surprise, he lowered himself into the seat across from me and leaned back, giving me what felt like his undivided attention. Except when he rested his elbow on the back of the chair next to him, he flexed. Like, a lot.
And suddenly he got way less cute, and I got way less nervous.
While there was a pathetic, societally conditioned teenage girl buried deep inside of me who was silently squeeing over the fact that he was peacocking for me, my douche-o-meter went into hyperdrive.
“As for Mr. Foster, seriously though, he’s pretty nice. I wouldn’t call him fun, but he isn’t hard on us or anything.”
The man in question stood as the last of the stragglers, one of whom was Mac, slipped in before he shut the door. Mac came toward my table then looked up in my direction. His steps faltered when he saw Rafe sitting in the only free chair. Had he seriously been about to sit with me? Had we progressed to that now, after only a daylong questionable truce? I’d likely never know for sure what his intention had been because he kept walking and sat at the next free table, immediately starting a conversation with his two tablemates.
“Today we’re going to start a stained glass project, and I’d like you to work in pairs,” Mr. Foster announced, pacing in front of the blank chalkboard. “Did you guys want to select your partners or have me—”
Everyone started talking at once, and names were called, fingers were pointed, and within about four seconds, everyone was paired up. Except new guy Rafe and me. Although he’d been getting a lot of gooey glances from several of the girls in class, no one had had the balls to ask him to be her partner. Now he eyed me with raised brows.
“What do you say, Maggie? Want to be partners with me? I’ve always done well in art.” His gaze lingered on my chest a little longer than I was comfortable with, but when I looked over to see Summer and Mac with their heads together, I shrugged, shoving back the surge of annoyance.
“Sure.” I’d spent a fair amount of time with douchebags in the past, and if he was good at artsy kind of stuff, who was I to say no?
I tried my best to pay attention while the basics were being outlined and handouts were passed around, but I barely had the brain space for math and science these days, what with my life being about as drama-filled as a Real Housewives episode. The odds of me getting anywhere near a decent grade in anything art-related were about the same as my tone-deaf ass getting signed to a record label, so there was no point in me busting my neurons over it. I had enough crap to deal with, so I had to hold out hope that Romeo Rafe would be able to come through for us both.
Not that I expected him to do all the work, but if he could be the creative force and just sort of hand me stuff and point, I could be his trained little monkey and maybe we’d eke out a C. I probably should’ve warned him about my lack of skills, but after I’d been subjected to both the gun show and his weak game, guilt was in short supply.
We gathered up the stuff we needed, and soon we were cruising along like a well-oiled machine.
“How’s it going?” I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize that Mac was standing over me. His jaw looked tight, and he seemed to be hunched over some. Was he about to bail on me for our meet-up later?
“Are you okay?” I asked reluctantly. If he was sick, I couldn’t force it on him, but the thought of putting off our lesson made me feel sick. It seemed like I’d been waiting my whole life for this.
He flicked a glance at Rafe, who stood with a sly grin spreading across his lips. “I’ve got to ask Mr. Foster a question about the, ah, color wheel.” Even his tone was mocking, but Mac didn’t seem to care.
He waited until Rafe was out of earshot before he answered me. “I’m fine. What do you mean?”
“You look funny. Like someone dick-punched you or something.”
The
furrow in his brow cleared, and he snort-laughed. “Do people do that in America?”
I didn’t want to smile back at him because it seemed like the more I did, the easier it got and the more I wanted to do it. He still didn’t like me; he still didn’t trust me. Pretending differently would only land me in a world of hurt.
“Do what?”
“Punch people in the dicks?”
“I know I do when it’s called for,” I said.
“Noted.” His unexpected and short-lived smile faded. “Look…I don’t like that guy.”
“Who? Rafe?” I snuck a peek over Mac’s shoulder at Rafe’s hot body as he talked to Mr. Foster. “He looks pretty fine to me.”
“Mag-gie,” he said, drawing out each syllable in a warning tone, but he stopped short when Rafe approached again. Mac shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure we’re still on for later.”
“Of course. As long as you’re cool with it?”
“I am.” He stood there for another few seconds, his gaze flicking between me and Rafe before giving Rafe a hard look and walking away. I had no clue what that was about, but it was none of my concern. As long as Mac was going to show up and try to help me, who was I to complain if he thought Rafe was a tool or didn’t like the cut of his jib?
Turned out, I liked him just fine, especially when he turned out to be mercifully efficient and fast on top of having a real eye for color and what shapes would look good next to one another. Rafe would point to the glass piece he wanted, I would hand it to him with some adhesive on it, and voilà. By the end of class, we’d managed to put together what looked a lot like a stained glass window. We agreed to be partners whenever we could, and I had a good feeling about my art grade for the semester.
The rest of the day flew by. For all my excitement, though, by the end of it, nerves had taken hold. I was mostly silent on the ride home with Bink, and once I’d had a snack and done some chores, I was seriously considering chickening out. Probably, if I quit school and never left the house again, the Council would forget all about me.
Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) Page 12