“Seen who?” I asked. “What’s going on? Why are you both looking at me like I’m crazy?”
Asher gently moved my face to look him straight in his eyes. Concern filled their deepness. “Have you ever gone on a date with Ferdinand?”
That came out of the blue. “No. Why would you ask me that?”
Asher sat straighter. “You told me you went on a date with Ferdinand last year.”
I shook my head. “I don’t remember telling you that.”
“Ah hah.” Jack pointed at me. “Something weird is going on with you.”
“You two are the ones being weird. Can we play a card game or something?”
“How many times did Jack ask you about Ferdinand being in your classes?” Asher asked.
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ferdinand isn’t in—”
“He’s in almost all of them!” Jack said.
“Who?” I asked.
Jack looked ready to blow his head off. “Ferdinand.”
“Ferdinand?” I said. “Why are we talking about him?”
“Let’s drop it for now,” Asher said to Jack.
“Drop what?” I said. “I’m starting to not want either of you at my table.”
“Fine. I’m going to sit with Geoffrey and Kenny.” Jack rose, taking his tray.
“Jack, I—”
Asher reached across the table, taking my hand. “It’s nice being the two of us.”
There was truth in that. But why did he look troubled? And why had Jack been mad? I felt like I’d missed something important.
As I entered lit class, Montrose looked up from reading papers with a concerned smile. “Hey, how have you been? How’s Daniel?”
I took my seat, placing my binder down on the table. “Well, we’ve definitely been better.”
He looked at me with a bitter smile. “It’s good to see—” Montrose cut off as Asher paused within the doorway.
The color had drained from Asher’s face. Clutching a piece of paper, he leaned against the wall for a second. He saw me and came straight over, then collapsed into his seat.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He handed me the paper. “My mom’s going to pull me out,” he whispered.
Fear gripped me. “Why?” I looked at the paper. On the top page was a scanned copy of the news article I’d printed off, including my note about Jack’s cousin.
Someone took it from my locker.
“Wait, how?” Guilt plagued me, then grew stronger when I flipped it over, and there was a picture of the present Asher next to one of him in his Sculley days, both looking like mug shots.
A paragraph was typed in bold underneath:
Troubled basketball prodigy tried to commit suicide and murder his best friend at the same time by getting her drunk and letting her drive. Witnesses confirm. And now this disturbed murderer walks free among us.
A numb feeling stole over me. Tried to commit suicide—was that part of the rumor Asher had been living with?
Someone had passed flyers around like they had last spring with my journal entries. Only this time, the truth was misrepresented to paint Asher as a suicidal murderer.
Asher rubbed his face. “Jack’s collecting them from the junior wing, but they’re everywhere. All over the school.”
“You didn’t purposefully get her drunk,” I whispered. “We’ll clear this up.”
“The damage is done.” Asher stared at the desk, while Montrose came around. “Mom won’t let me stay. It was part of the deal.”
Montrose indicated the paper. “May I?”
Asher nodded.
“What deal?” I asked.
“I could go to school if no one found out.”
Lydia rushed into the classroom, waving one of the flyers as she stormed over to Asher. “Is this true?”
Jack was on her heels, carrying a stack of papers. “Lydia, leave him alone.”
She turned to me. “Did you know?”
“It was an accident.” I looked at Asher.
“By the time I woke up from a coma, everyone believed that I’d gotten Emma drunk,” Asher said. “That I’d given her spiked drinks, so we’d get into a wreck and die together. I’m to blame for the accident that crippled her, almost killed us both. I could have destroyed a young family, too. No one questioned my guilt. Was I that heinous of an individual that I purposefully would have done something like this?”
“No,” Jack said.
“People saw me give her spiked drinks,” Asher said.
A chill dropped down my back.
“How can I argue against that?”
As Montrose placed the paper down again, Asher grabbed, then crumpled it up, and threw it against the board. “Why was I such a thug!” Rising quickly, he headed toward the exit, elbowing past Ferdinand as he entered.
An unsettling satisfied smirk crossed Ferdinand’s face.
“He didn’t do it on purpose,” I said to Lydia, then raced after Asher. It was growing more clear why everyone else thought he had.
I found Asher in the office, sitting in a chair opposite the attendance desk. He had his phone out, texting someone.
I was going to lose him.
Instead of going in after him, I stood outside the window divider, like I’d done two weeks ago. My heart felt so tight, thinking about the flyer and his comments about his mom withdrawing him.
How could he leave now that I’d grown used to him being around? He wasn’t guilty. The crash wasn’t his fault.
I knocked on the glass, and he looked up at me.
With the phone to his ear, he stood and pressed his hand to the window, mimicking the gesture from two weeks ago.
My chest ached as I lined up my palm with his.
Everyone knew about the accident because of me. My tormentor must have found the article in my locker. I should have burned it.
Negative source feasted on that thought.
Of course, right as I found someone I felt totally myself with, someone ruined everything. A sob rose within my chest.
A couple of stragglers raced toward class, a couple glancing our way. Not wanting to make a scene, I dropped my hand, quickly walked toward the school main entrance, and broke through the doors to get outside.
Clinging to the brick exterior wall, I found a secluded spot out of view from windows where I sank to the ground, then covered my ears. Why did someone hate me so much to destroy everyone I loved? The spiral of dark source rising in response to the barrage of negative thoughts and emotions was overwhelming. I punched the ground, releasing dark source into the soil, killing a patch of grass while creating a small dent.
People who leave don’t come back. They move on.
“Stop,” I whispered.
The door creaked and slipped shut, then someone’s footsteps padded toward me. Looking up, I’d expected Asher but instead found Montrose. Gently, he took my hand down from my ear. “It’s a powerful thing to love. Sometimes it hurts.”
I gave him some of my dark source, and tears slipped down his cheeks.
Suddenly, I wanted to see Daniel. Maybe he could help me figure this out.
As if reading my thoughts, Montrose said, “Maybe you should visit your stepfather.”
“I can’t drive, and I have school.”
His gaze moved back toward the entrance. Asher had followed.
“It will be worth it to visit Daniel.” Montrose stood.
Strange words coming from a teacher. Then again, as someone who taught literature, words were his life.
Asher let me into his car, then lingered outside as he fought with his mom through a smartphone. The barrier of his car was enough to protect me from the contents of their argument, but not his emotion.
Apparently, she was furious about the part I’d played in the school discovering his past. Guilt about letting that article slip into the wrong hands bombarded my brain.
I couldn’t believe Asher wasn’t mad at me. Instead, he was determined to
take me to the hospital to see Daniel.
Daniel had always been so easy for me to access, even in my horrible bratty days. Now that he was confined to a hospital, even for a day, his inaccessibility felt like I’d fallen into a hole of my own making, stuck and unable to get out. Daniel usually pulled me out of that hole.
Tears bubbled in my eyes. I clutched my necklace from Dad.
Asher slipped into his seat and picked up my hand. “I can tell you’re about to lose it again.”
I swallowed then clasped his hand. “What’s your news?” I whispered.
“Mom’s withdrawing me and shipping me down to my brother in Kentucky.”
I pressed my lips hard together, fighting a surge of dark source, as my eyes burned. Don’t lose it. “All of this is so extreme.” Tears fell down my cheeks, and I looked out the window. I needed somewhere to dump the darkness growing within me. “Why does someone hate me this much to go through all of this?”
Asher started the car. “The demons. The cat. The flyer. It’s all beyond anything Sam could or would do.” He hesitated for a second before backing up. “Does Ferdinand have any reason to hate you?”
The suggestion made me scoff. “Ferdinand? Why would you suggest that? He’s the most harmless person in the world. Just a creeper.”
“Yeah, exactly. You do realize he’s in most of your classes.”
“No, he isn’t. Even if he was, what does that have to do with anything?”
“It would be weirdly coincidental and slightly creepy.” He squeezed my hand. He glanced my way before continuing. “So, Mom wants me home and won’t let me drive you to the hospital, but if you feel comfortable with it, William will.”
Of course, there’d be something else to hinder my way to Daniel. “I’d hate to take him from work.”
“He has the afternoon off.”
How convenient.
“But since this is my last day here, I’m happy to take you anyway. Mom can’t punish me much more than Kentucky.”
Last day? I gritted my teeth. He couldn’t all of a sudden be leaving. I squeezed his hand as if that would keep him here. There had to be a different solution. “I don’t want to make your mother my enemy.”
Asher smiled. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”
“If William will drive me, I’d appreciate the ride.”
The remaining drive to his house was quiet.
Is there anything I can do to keep him here? What was the truth behind Asher’s accident? There had to be more. Something we’d missed.
We were driving down his street, and William was outside getting the mail.
There’d been a discrepancy between the time the article said the accident happened and when Jack messaged Asher about curfew. The article claimed it was near eleven, but Jack’s text revealed Asher was on his way home before ten. My heart pounded. “Asher, what time was the accident?”
“Huh?”
“The time of the accident?”
“It would have been right before ten. Emma and I were headed home to meet my curfew.”
My heart felt a rush of excitement. So the article was wrong or maybe when Asher fell asleep, he didn’t know that….what? That Emma went somewhere else?
Asher parked, and William opened the door for me. “Hello.”
I jumped out then walked around the car to greet Asher. Knowing his mother, he would be on his way to Kentucky before I returned from visiting Daniel. Taking his shirt, I pulled him to me.
“I love you,” I said. Then, not caring who watched, I stepped on my toes to kiss him, making sure I gave him some positive source to remember me with. “I’m going to fix this.”
I don’t know why, but it took me more than half the drive to the hospital to ask William my question. “What time was Asher’s accident last year?”
William glanced at me. “It was almost eleven-thirty.”
My eyes grew wide. That was more than an hour and a half from when Asher said it was. Enough time for Emma to stop somewhere and get drunk.
“Why?” William asked.
“Jack has a text from Asher saying he was on his way home around 9:45. And Asher confirmed that’s when he thinks the crash was.”
William glanced at me with a puzzled expression. “It was definitely around eleven-thirty. He was way over curfew. My parents were on a cruise, so I’d let it slide an hour.”
“Asher wrote a narrative about the crash. In it, he said he fell asleep and woke when you called him, right before the accident happened.”
William narrowed his eyes. “Maybe Emma stopped somewhere when he was sleeping.”
“What if that was when she had something to drink? Then, the combination of being drunk and tired—”
“What if she’s the one at fault!” Anger flashed across William’s face. “His phone GPS records should show me if they went anywhere else.” An excited energy radiated off him. “While you’re visiting Daniel, I’ll research it.”
I nodded.
Off to the left, an open parking lot broke the forested landscape with the tan hospital looming behind it. William parked, and I got out, heading to the main entrance. Knowing my way to Daniel’s room, I headed to the elevators. I waited in the corner, watching floor numbers signalled, showing which was coming my way. I situated myself to be out of the way if anyone got off.
The bell dinged, the doors opened, and a tall, brown-haired man stepped off the elevator without noticing me.
Holden’s dad. I’d been sheltered from him my entire life. His austere sharpness sent a shiver through me, and I crept backward. Why was he here?
He continued forward without even glancing my way. As the elevator doors slid shut, I stuck my foot to block it, slid in, then jabbed the close door button, irrationally fearing he would return.
Finding I had the elevator to myself, I breathed a sigh of relief.
The door opened, and I stepped off.
Tall and broad shouldered, Cam stood in front of a painting, studying it. His dark hair was cut short on the sides with the top several inches long and styled with gel. It was easy to see why Sam had crushed on him for years.
He didn’t see me. I hesitated to say anything because I didn’t want to take the time to talk, with William waiting outside. I was beginning to suspect that Holden was visiting Daniel. But Cam had investigated the house last night, and I hadn’t heard yet if he’d discovered anything.
“Cam?”
He spun around and a huge grin detailed his dimples, sending a breathless feeling through me. His white-teeth-flashing-Hollywood-perfect smile didn’t help. The feeling quickly faded, replaced by an image of Asher—an awareness that Asher’s looks and who he was far out-shone my school-girl crush for Cam.
Asher. I had to figure this out for him.
He approached. “You know, you’re trapped in my memory as a little girl, not a beautiful—”
“Hush,” I said.
He chuckled but soon sobered. “Heard you’re dating a certain infamous jock.”
“Did Holden come with you?” I asked.
“Yes.” His gaze strayed to the door. “I haven’t said anything to him about the demon attack. Visiting Daniel,” Cam folded his arms, “gave me a poor excuse to be here.”
I nodded.
He lowered his tone, stepping closer. “Everything points toward your assailant being a king alv.”
“A king alv?” I asked, confused. “What is that?”
“A pure alv who has each of the abilities.”
My eyes widened. “That’s possible?”
“Rarely.” He nodded. “You have to be careful. Don’t go back home without anyone. If you’re all right with it, I’m going to tell Holden.” He cringed. “Maybe we can use Daniel’s heart attack as an excuse to stick around without Iago finding out.”
I nodded as a bitter feeling stole through me. Everyone in my family had missed Holden, wanting him home. This was what it took to get him here. “I—my driver is outside. I can’t keep him
waiting too long.”
Cam nodded.
I pushed on Daniel’s door. “Hello?”
Holden, dressed in dark clothes, stood by Daniel who lay in bed. The grin that lit his face was like the expression he used to get Christmas morning when Santa left presents.
“What are you doing here?” In one long stride, he was in front of me, swooping me into a hug.
Months of betrayal and abandonment by him made me stiffen in his arms. I patted his back, tears burning in my eyes. I’d forgotten how tall he was. Even taller than Asher.
When he released me, his bronze eyes no longer contained that Christmas shine. “You’re mad because I haven’t called.”
“I’m mad because the last time I called, you blew up on me and ended the call abruptly.”
He folded his arms, immediately sad. “No excuse is good enough for how I responded to you. You were trying to reach out for help, and I failed. Daniel caught me up on what happened. I know this apology is cheap and overly delayed, but I am sorry.”
“We need you home more,” I said.
Holden nodded. “Hopefully by June that’s possible.”
“By June?”
He gave a bitter half-smile. “Yeah.”
Of course he gave no explanation.
I looked around him at Daniel. He’d been quietly watching us. I understood his anxious expression. He was worried about why I wasn’t in school.
Holden folded his arms, his face turning stern. “So what’s this I hear about you dating Sculley?”
My chest tightened. “You mean Asher?” I stepped around him, wanting to be by Daniel. “I’m not sure we will be dating anymore.”
“Why? Did he hurt you?” Holden trailed me quickly.
“No, I hurt him.” I sat down on the bed, avoiding eye contact with Daniel. All week, everyone I loved was hurt because of me. “I think I found a way to make it up to him, though.”
“Why aren’t you in school?” Daniel asked.
Staring at my hands, I told him what happened, finishing with, “Asher’s mom is withdrawing him and sending him to Kentucky.”
Daniel patted my arm, drawing my gaze to him. “Tara, what are you doing here if you’ve found a way to make it up to him? Kentucky is a long drive to have a long-distance relationship.”
The Changeling's Source (Evedon Legacy Book 1) Page 36