Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1)

by Victoria Thorne

  “I believe the better question is, ‘Who are you?’” Dylan countered.

  I took a deep breath and turned to face the witch.

  She looked completely different than she had last night. Bubblegum pink extensions electrified her hair, and she wore shorts and a dark shirt that perfectly complimented her figure. It looked like the only article of clothing she had worn in an effort to conserve body heat was her chunky crimson beanie. She should have been freezing, but if she was, she didn’t show it.

  “What are you wearing?” I gasped, while she cast suspicious glances at Dylan.

  “Normal clothes.” She spun around in a proud, dainty circle to show off her outfit.

  “She went a little overboard.” Adrian said from behind her. Jeesh, these people moved as silently as ghosts. At least his sister’s abnormal sense of style hadn’t infected him; he looked the same, sensibly dressed in his usual tasteful attire.

  Arisella grimaced at her brother. “We must be able to blend in with the other students.”

  I was confused. “Other students?”

  “Do you go to school with us?” Dylan broke in.

  Arisella pointed to her backpack. “Now we do.”

  “What?!” The words exploded out of my mouth. Now I would never be able to escape Arisella’s presence.

  “We both decided that we had a mutual interest in school that we had been overlooking for too long.” Adrian stared directly at me.

  Dylan cleared his throat. “Well, strangers. I’m Dylan, Amber’s childhood best friend who just happens to be a boy.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. A simple “friend” would have sufficed.

  “I also live with her,” Dylan added quickly before I could stop him.

  Adrian’s eyes widened in surprise, while Arisella unsuccessfully tried to hide a smirk. “Since when?” Adrian inquired. Did I detect abrasiveness in his voice?

  “He’s been living with my family for two days,” I answered. I glared at Dylan to discourage him from sharing any more unnecessary, misleading information.

  “And you two are?” Dylan gestured toward them.

  “Arisella, and this is my brother Adrian.” Arisella awkwardly straightened her arm so that her hand fell limply in front of Dylan. Was she trying to shake his hand? I shook my head at her. She made a pitiful human.

  Dylan uncertainly took Arisella’s fingers and moved them up and down. “Pleased to meet you.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

  “So, Amber, what do you think of my clothes?” Arisella tugged at the neck of her top. “Adrian said they were bizarre, but I told him he was wrong.”

  I looked her up and down. “You’re not going to blend in with anything. I agree with Adrian.”

  Adrian attempted to disguise a chuckle as a cough. Arisella gaped. “Isn’t this what girls dress like? I was going for an alternative look.”

  “You look like a confused hipster. Are those fake glasses?” I pulled the oversized glasses off her nose and poked my finger through the frame. “No lenses? I’m all for freedom of expression, but this is the opposite of inconspicuous.”

  “Speaking of lenses,” Adrian broke in, probably because he didn’t want to listen to Arisella defend her sense of style. “We have these for you.” He handed me a little plastic container.

  I took it and popped it open. Inside, two dirt-colored spheres floated on the surface of a tiny pool of water. Dylan analyzed them from over my shoulder.

  “They’re contacts,” Adrian clarified. “You’re going to want to wear them. We also have this, if you need it.” He passed me a travel bottle of eye solution. I was impressed. His knowledge of eye care was unexpectedly normal.

  “Thanks.”

  “They’ll help out with the purple situation,” Arisella added.

  “I can see that.” I fidgeted uncomfortably, sneaking glances at Dylan. He didn’t seem any more suspicious than I’d expected him to be. Adrian and Arisella looked at me expectantly, as if they were waiting for me to put them on.

  I sighed. “I’ll make sure to pop them in before class starts.”

  “For the record, I think Amber’s eyes look awesome the way they are,” Dylan said matter-of-factly.

  Arisella flicked her eyes up in a dramatic eye roll. She had a serious problem with being polite.

  “Thanks, but I’m trying to tone down the awesome right now,” I said. I tucked the things Adrian had given me into my bag.

  “Should we be going?” Adrian inquired, gesturing toward the street.

  “There’s a bus, you know.” Dylan tapped his foot on the ground in irritation. “The only reason we’re walking is because Amber is an obstinate old codger who is intent on ‘inhaling the morning air’ everyday.” Dylan’s imitation of me was very unflattering. “Trust me, you guys would definitely prefer the bus.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Dylan. I knew what he was doing. Apparently, Adrian did too, because he kept shooting Dylan unfriendly glances.

  “What a coincidence then,” Adrian responded in a good-natured tone that didn’t quite match his expression. “We enjoy morning walks as well.”

  I wondered if part of the reason Adrian had blatantly ignored Dylan’s suggestion was because he didn’t even know what a bus was.

  Adrian and Arisella sauntered ahead, leaving us to trail behind them.

  “They really are weird,” Dylan whispered a little too loudly. “Although I can see why you might like them. They’re not too hard on the eyes.”

  “Dylan Winters,” I gasped in mock offense. “Did you just accuse me of being shallow?”

  Dylan looked at me innocently. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t dare insult your deep moral dispositions.”

  I punched him playfully on the arm. “You better not.” I caught Adrian curiously watching us from ahead, as if he were studying us.

  “I should go talk to him.”

  Dylan followed my line of sight and made a disgruntled face.

  “I don’t trust that guy,” Dylan muttered. “He looks like trouble.” Dylan had no idea. But, then again, he wasn’t supposed to.

  I waved away Dylan’s worryingly accurate premonition. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll make sure to be super careful when I talk to him. Should I frisk him too? Wouldn’t want to take any chances, now, would we?”

  Dylan groaned. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “I’m going to talk to him. If I think he’s danger-free, I’ll do the secret signal so you’ll know it’s safe to approach.” My words dripped with sarcasm. I skipped over to Adrian without giving Dylan the chance to argue.

  “Hey,” I greeted Adrian and Arisella with complete unoriginality. “This is some sort of joke, isn’t it? You can’t actually be planning to go to school.”

  “Actually, we are,” Arisella said. “Did you think we would leave you to your own devices for half the day? You’re too much of a risk to us now.”

  “Have you ever taken a U.S. history course? A biology class?” I asked in disbelief. “Do you even know how school works?”

  “We were instructed to tell them we were very poorly homeschooled,” Adrian answered with a little too much pride. I gaped at him. He couldn’t be serious.

  “What about social security numbers? And birth certificates?”

  Adrian smiled slyly at me, like he knew something I didn’t.

  “You faked your identities?!” I blurted.

  Arisella shot me an angry look. “Hush, Amber, or the boy will find out.”

  Did she mean Dylan? I couldn’t tell if she was inadvertently terrible with names or if she just wasn’t making an effort. I glanced at Dylan to see if he had heard, but he was listening to music through earphones, most likely at maximum volume.

  “We’re fine,” I assured them.

  “What is your friend doing here anyway?” Adrian asked in a guarded voice. “We didn’t anticipate having to deal with a human.”

  “He sort of followed me here. Wherever I go, he goes.”

  Arisella
frowned. “What an inconvenience. That’s going to have to stop, you know.”

  I didn’t like Dylan being referred to as an inconvenience, but Arisella was right. He couldn’t be involved.

  “I know,” I said softly.

  ***

  “Spencer told me you were going out on a date with him on Sunday,” Alexis informed me the moment I walked into English class. I had just gotten back from putting on my contacts in the bathroom. “Are you?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. I looked over at Dylan, who was already in his seat, scribbling something in a notebook. Ever since this morning, he had been making an obvious effort to ignore my existence. I wondered if it would be better this way…

  “That’s great!” Alexis exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm. “Spencer’s had his eye on you ever since the day you got here.” Huh. I had no idea. “I’ve been telling him to ask you out for weeks now.”

  I shot Alexis an “are you serious?” look. I really didn’t appreciate her match-making obsession, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I forced a smile.

  “That’s so thoughtful of you.”

  Alexis grinned. “Don’t mention it.” I wouldn’t. “So, are you excited?” Alexis prodded for more information.

  “Very,” I lied. She didn’t seem to notice how little effort I had put into making that sound convincing.

  “Do you like him?”

  I was startled by her bluntness. “He’s a good friend.”

  “I think you have more than enough good friends.” Alexis tilted her head toward Dylan. “Maybe it’s time to start sharing.”

  My face flushed red. “They’re not mine to share.” I made an escape to my seat, but Alexis practically chased after me.

  “I was just kidding. I’m really happy for you and Spencer. I hope it works out. Cecelia, on the other hand…”

  My ears perked up. I waited for Alexis to finish, but she just let her sentence trail off dramatically. I groaned. This part of the conversation I was actually interested in.

  “Cecelia? What’s wrong with Cecelia?”

  “Well, before, she didn’t like you because you were new. But now, she’ll hate you.”

  “Why now?”

  “You don’t know?” Alexis said in disbelief. “Spencer broke up with Cecelia two months ago. She’s been trying – rather embarrassingly, I might add – to get back together with him ever since. Oh, but of course you wouldn’t know. That was before you got here.” Alexis shrugged, dismissing the fact like it was completely irrelevant. “Whoops.”

  I put my head into my hands. “Whoops” was an imperial understatement. “Whoops” was appropriate when Alexis forgot to do her homework, not when she knowingly made me the enemy of Spencer’s psycho ex-girlfriend.

  “How did I not know this?”

  “Spencer doesn’t talk about her much.” Alexis answered indifferently. “Honestly, I don’t blame him.”

  Well I did.

  I spent the next few hours dreading the impending approach of my math class, which at this point felt closer to a torture chamber than a place of learning. On the bright side, Dylan was talking to me again. It never took long for him to break his frustration-induced silences.

  Third hour arrived faster than I would have liked, and, despite my best efforts to move deliberately slowly, I still ended up getting to class early. It was like the universe was intentionally trying to piss me off.

  I walked to my seat with Dylan beside me. He was chattering on about some new movie with spies and blood and guns that he really wanted to see, but I wasn’t really paying attention, and he didn’t seem to notice. I dropped myself into my rickety wooden chair and aimlessly swiveled around in it while I waited for the class to fill. Restless, I pulled out my homework and placed it neatly in the exact center of my desk.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Cecelia march into the room and slam her bag on the ground with unnecessary force, effectively detonating it. With a groan and bruised dignity, she bent over to pick up the explosion of books and papers on the ground. Her hair, which was usually impeccably straight, didn’t look like it had been brushed, and fell down around her in a mess of knots and tangles. Someone was having a bad day.

  As she rummaged through the loose papers, her frustration shifted into urgency, her fingers tearing through the mess as if she were missing something. She pushed her perfectly manicured fingers into her hair and brought her head up. Her eyes immediately found mine. She glared at me malevolently and pressed her glossy lips together.

  Dylan’s voice reclaimed my attention. “If you don’t answer, I’m just going to take your silence as a yes.”

  I swept my leg over my chair so that I was sitting backwards, face-to-face with Dylan. I couldn’t see Cecelia at all now. “And what did I just agree to?”

  “Nice to see you’ve decided to return to earth.” Apparently Dylan had noticed I wasn’t listening. I smiled guiltily. “We’re going to a movie. Heather wants to see it too. We should bring her.”

  I had to admit a movie sounded especially appealing – a way to escape the stresses of reality for an hour or two. “When?”

  “This weekend?” Dylan suggested.

  “She can’t do Saturday, though,” Spencer intruded, appearing from out of nowhere. He helped himself to the empty seat beside Dylan. “She has other plans. We’re still on for that date, right?” he said loudly, probably to make sure Dylan would hear.

  “Why wouldn’t we be?” I infused weak interest into my voice. Dylan shot me a disgusted look.

  “Good,” Spencer smiled.

  “Seats, everyone,” Ms. Garner snapped as she strode into the room. Just as the door was about to close, Alexis managed to tiptoe in without being noticed. “Take out your homework and place it where I can see it. If it’s not on your desk when I pass you, I will assume you were either too incompetent or too lazy to do it.” Ms. Garner was exceptionally surly today.

  I turned forward in my seat to grade my homework, only to discover that it wasn’t there. How strange. I could have sworn I had placed it on my desk.

  I rummaged through my folders and scanned the ground in search of the missing paper. Ms. Garner was steadily making her way down the aisle toward me.

  “Dylan, hey,” I said under my breath.

  Dylan looked up from his work. “What is it?”

  “I can’t find my homework. Do you know where it went?”

  “Wasn’t it on your desk?”

  “I know. I –” A tall, slender shadow fell over me, and I shut my mouth.

  Ms. Garner produced a disdainful noise from the back of her throat. “Still intent on distracting others, are you, Miss Tesse?”

  I stared up at her silently and fought against my instinct to defend myself. By saying anything, I would just be adding fuel to the fire.

  “You know I’ve already warned you once about that, and yet you still continue to blatantly disobey me. I believe you have warranted yourself a detention, Miss Tesse.”

  “Actually, I was the one distracting her,” Dylan interrupted apologetically. I shot him a frantic look and willed him to stop. “I’m really bad with class policy. She was just telling me to shut up.”

  Ms. Garner grimaced and clacked her nails across her clipboard. I could practically see the gears in her head turning, working to make the worst of a situation Dylan had made the best of.

  “Mr. Winters, I see you have developed Miss Tesse’s penchant for disobedience. Fortunately for you, Miss Tesse, it seems you have avoided detention… for now. Next time, neither of you will be so lucky.”

  I noticed traces of disappointment in Ms. Garner’s expression, but only for a split second. As soon as she noticed my bare desk, her eyes immediately lit up.

  “Now, Miss Tesse, would you like to explain why you don’t have your assignment?”

  “I promise I did it. It was right here,” I said meekly.

  Ms. Garner’s lips thinned in irritation. “And did it simply vanish? A poor excuse. Yo
ur promises mean nothing to me.”

  Cecelia snickered from her seat, like Ms. Garner had just told the funniest joke in the world.

  “I saw her assignment on her desk though,” Dylan insisted.

  “Mr. Winters, I strongly encourage you to hold your tongue. Miss Tesse is perfectly capable of speaking for herself.”

  I quickly gave Dylan an appreciative look. He had already done enough for me.

  I leaned back against my seat in resignation. “Well, I guess I don’t have my homework then.”

  Ms. Garner’s mouth twitched upwards before finally stretching into a triumphant smile. “I advise you to put more effort into this class, Miss Tesse. You can’t expect to skate through life without hard work.” Her cold, unfeeling eyes bore into mine.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled.

  Ahead of me, Cecelia and her friends giggled at my misfortune. Amidst the laughter, I thought I heard Cecelia gleefully whisper, “I’ll never need to do my homework again.”

  Dylan must have heard it too, because he tapped my shoulder and pointed to her desk. On it was a paper that looked suspiciously like mine, with “Cecelia” messily scrawled atop a little area that looked like it had been scrubbed too many times with an eraser.

  I wasn’t absolutely sure the paper was mine until I watched Ms. Garner approach Cecelia and halfheartedly compliment her perfect answers.

  For the rest of class, I fumed in my seat in angry silence. Even Alexis had remembered to do her homework, which didn’t make me feel any better.

  Chemistry passed in a blur, and before I knew it, I was walking with Dylan, Spencer, and Alexis to the cafeteria.

  “More new kids,” Alexis announced while we were in line to get food.

  My eyes passed over the sea of heads and stopped on Arisella and Adrian, who were poking at two gelatinous blobs of meatloaf at a table at the edge of the cafeteria. They stood out from everyone else, not just because of Arisella’s pink highlights, but because there was something about them that was fundamentally different from everyone else. They gave off an indescribably hostile aura, which was probably the reason the tables around them were empty.

  “They’re our neighbors,” Dylan informed her.