Okay, he was going from a Level 3 Jerk to raging asshole. "I realize. Can't messengers sense when someone's magic awakens?"
The guy grinned at me but there was nothing nice in it. "We can. But there's no magic here."
Ouch. Major ouch. Pain constricted the back of my throat. Stupid hope. Dumb imagination. I wanted to tell him off but messing with a god descendant was never a good idea. They taught you that in the first grade. People learned that after a powerful earthquake in Greece woke the gods twenty-five years ago, after they had been sleeping for millennia. Then their presence on Earth accidentally woke a bunch of latent powers in people who turned out to have the gods or some ancient monsters in their family trees.
"There you are." A pair of hands seized my shoulders from behind and squeezed, almost to the point of pain. "Who's this guy?"
"Randy," I said, struggling to pull out of his grasp. "I didn't hear you coming up behind me."
"Maybe you should pay attention?" the messenger asked. "It helps when you're, say, crossing the street. Of course, who could resist a hot bod like this?" He flexed his muscles.
And Randy tightened his grip on my shoulders.
"Randy!" I whirled to face him, pulling out of his grasp. Randy forced a grin as he stuffed his hands in his permanently grass-stained jeans. He worked in his parents' landscaping business whenever he wasn't in school and he was going to landscape until the day he died, damn it. Besides art, it was his favorite conversation topic. We'd gone out to school dances a couple of times and he even kissed me at the last one. His lips felt like rubber.
"What you hanging out with this guy for?" he asked, butting me playfully with his chest. A few grass clippings hugged his plaid shirt.
Behind Randy, the messenger stayed silent. He watched my friend with intent and I could no longer read his expression.
"He was just standing here?" I said, which was the truth.
Randy snorted. "Well, he's in the wrong school. Come on. We're late." He nudged me with his chest again. As he did, I felt all his muscles tensing.
"Randy!" His words crushed what little hope I had of getting out of this town. But he was right. The oracle who sent him must have made an error. It didn't matter that I didn't know my parents and the mystery always beckoned. And not being the chosen wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Not everyone with magic came from the gods. Some came from the ancient monsters. And Cursed Academy existed to take them.
I glanced back at the messenger, against all that made sense.
He was staring after us. But once he caught me looking, he resumed observing the wall.
"Keep looking straight ahead," Randy ordered, putting his hand on my head and manually turning it.
"What am I? Two?" I held back the urge to elbow him. Didn't he see how mind blowing a messenger just being here was? Randy never acted like this.
"It's all a mistake." Randy playfully pushed me down to the main art room, where six other people already sat. Yep. Late. People shifted on their stools as my best friend, Carmen, rose from hers and shuffled over just as Randy released me.
"Is he still there?" she whispered, leaning really close to me.
"The messenger?"
Carmen slapped her hands over her purple lips and squealed. She ran back to the other members of the Junior Art Club, all girls, and slapped her hands down on the table. "It's one of us. It has to be."
"Really?" Jasmine asked, letting a marker roll across the table.
Belle looked between Donnae and Serena. "Well, if he hasn't left yet, what other explanation is there?"
"Calm it down, ladies," Randy said, maintaining his place between me and the door. "He's not here for any of us. Let's get to business. I'm running this meeting today."
"Business? Are you sure you're an art geek?" Carmen asked. She pulled at her striped sleeve with impatience.
"Someone stole the real Randy and replaced him today," I said. A flare of anger flashed through me like a dark, lashing snake, and that didn't happen often. Hint, hint, Randy. Lighten up.
Randy held up his hand, unmoving. "We should really start the meeting. By the time we're done, he'll be gone. I guarantee you all. We need to figure out what the banner is going to look like. We have only a month."
The banner. For the very uncreative Fall Dance. We'd just be drawing leaves and pumpkins. When there was a freaking messenger in the school.
"You want to work on the banner?" Carmen asked. "We should take a vote. Who wants to do that?"
Randy, of course, thrust his hand up and nodded. "What is the deal? It's just a guy." He spread his arms again, holding both sides of the door frame.
"Now what?" I asked.
Carmen eyed the other girls, a gleam in her eye. Her gaze shifted over to the display of peacock feathers Mrs. Piero kept on her desk.
"Girls," she said. "We know what to do."
Uh, oh.
"You're not serious," Randy said as everyone except me ran over to the display, ripped out the feathers, and commenced a tickle attack. "Hey! Cut it out! I swear!"
But it worked. Randy stepped over to me as the other girls dropped their feathers and bolted into the hall, exchanging hushed whispers. My feet tingled and I peeled them from the floor to follow, but Randy blocked the way.
"Giselle. I can't believe you."
I stopped. It was just us in the art room now. Don't tell me he's jealous.
"Come on. This is a once in a lifetime thing. Don't you want to see who the chosen is?"
But Randy gripped my upper arm, gentle at first, and then he slowly tightened his grasp.
“Let go,” I said.
“You don't need to be spying on that weirdo out there,” he said. "You're a lot more level than Carmen."
I considered grabbing one of those feathers but all were out of my reach. So I went to blabbing instead. “Look, if you're worried someone will get sent to Cursed Academy, just say it. But you'd be contradicting yourself. So what's the deal?"
“That white tunic is an Olympian Academy getup. Most of them are god descendants. We don't want to cross them." His serious gaze bore into me.
“Some are descended from nymphs or other creatures.” I pulled against Randy, but he held my arm up over my head, shaking his.
I'd had enough. My limbs tensed and my pulse quickened. Why was he treating me like his child?
Randy scanned the room, which remained empty. Silence dragged out.
“Giselle, we've been friends for a long time and maybe more. I never got the chance to say this before. I'm always so busy mowing lawns that we never had the chance to be, you know, together.”
"We have?" Randy and I hung out sometimes, but usually with the group, and with the exception of those two not-so-serious dances--the kiss was a new years eve experiment--we hadn't gone beyond that. Now wasn't the time to have this super awkward conversation. Especially since he was holding me here.
“We went out like, twice, but.” I paused there, trying to find the right words. “Stop distracting me. Let go of my hand. There's this thing called consent.” I yanked, but he maintained his grasp.
“You go a little crazy sometimes, Giselle,” he said.
I tried to say something, anything, but my throat locked up. Really? This wasn't real. We stood there, facing each other. Fear pooled in my chest, making my heart race. This wasn't Randy. The one I knew wrote stupid stories in that orange spiral notebook. He drew comics about our horrible teachers. And he laughed with us.
“Randy,” I tried, but my voice came out muffled.
“What do you say?” He lowered his voice to a purr as if this could turn me on. Then he pulled me close to his body, uncomfortably close, and rocked his hips against mine.
Something dark and angry burst to life in my chest, pushing aside all the fear. A roar from deepest pits of time filled my ears and a dark strength flowed into my limbs, electrified and icy. I gasped as I pulled my free hand back. What was happening?
A sucking sound followed. R
andy's hair blew to the side. Then his gaze turned and his pupils widened. Loosening his grasp, he backpedaled into the art table and left me alone.
And then I saw why.
A rip had opened across the room, hanging in thin air like an opening to pure darkness, a space outside the universe. Five feet from tip to tip, the jagged opening held a swirling space darker than black. With a loud, horrific whine, it sucked in air, peacock feathers, and a few papers. As each object struck the surface, it flashed purple before snapping out of existence.
"What is happening?" Randy shouted, gripping the table with both arms. He leaned over it, fighting the wind that tried to pull him into the maw.
"What?" The whole room fluttered around me as I stood there. Pencils rolled towards the deadly opening. A bin of markers tipped off a shelf, sending its contents into violet annihilation.
But the wind did not push me.
In fact, I couldn't feel it.
I held my breath as sheer terror coursed through me and panic won, paralyzing me.
Randy.
He slipped further and further off the table, fingers grasping the surface, shirt whipping against his skin.
"No!" I shouted as my terror shoved away the icy darkness within. "I don't know what's--"
"Help!" Randy glared at me, digging grass-stained fingernails into the table's edge.
I begged myself to move, to grab him before the darkness consumed him. The cold, dark sensation vanished. I leapt at Randy, seizing his wrist.
And then the portal snapped shut. The whining and the wind died. Randy let out a breath as a few rogue markers rolled across the floor, settling in a floor crack.
"Giselle, what did you do?" Randy asked, lifting his head off the table. The deadly seriousness in his eyes made him look like he'd been joking a few minutes ago.
"I..." I managed. "I didn't do anything."
His jaw dropped and the reality hit me like a brick. The darkness that filled me...
Magical things only happened to god descendants.
Or the descendants of monsters.
The messenger was here for me.
And whatever I had just done wasn't a good omen.
Click here to read more.
Savage Monarchs (A New Adult Prison Academy Novel) (Nocturnal Academy Book 3) Page 19