Broken: A YA Paranormal Romance Novel (Volume 1 of the Reflections Books)

by Dean Murray

  **

  After seeing Vincent's 'accident', and knowing he'd probably been trying to kill or at least seriously injure Ben just for the fun of it, I couldn't really argue with Alec. Rachel seemed relatively unfazed by the idea of bodyguards, but I wasn't especially excited about yet another point of difference between me and everyone else. Still, school was both better and worse than expected.

  As Alec had intimated, the day started out with a trip to the office. Not just me, not even just me and Alec. The entire pack trooped into the room, filling it with impeccably dressed, mostly gorgeous, shape shifters, who gave off a perceptible tingle of energy if you knew what to look for.

  I'd really thought Alec was tilting at windmills right up until he politely, but firmly asked for a brief meeting with the principal and was ushered into the other man's office five seconds later. Alec drew the blinds, which didn't do anything to muffle the principal's raised voice. Fifteen minutes later, after the unmistakable feeling of Alec's power had crested to the point where it almost felt like there was a breeze blowing from the office, we were all sitting down with the bewildered school counselor and playing musical classes. Only it turned out Rachel and I were the only ones not changing our schedules. I started to protest being treated differently than everyone else, only to feel my mouth click shut as Rachel shook her head at me.

  It wasn't until Alec was walking me to Biology that I finally got an explanation. "You and Rachel are the ones who need the most sleep, ergo you don't change classes."

  "That's crazy." I would've stopped. You can't really have a good disagreement while you're walking down the hall, but we happened to be holding hands, which he used to keep me moving along. And here I'd been so excited back in the councilor's office when he'd taken my hand.

  "It's not crazy. Everyone who swaps classes is going to be doing double homework for the duration. Assignments for their old class, which they presumably still want to get credit for, and assignments for the new class so as not to make any more waves than necessary with their temporary teacher. It only makes sense to place that burden on the ones who can most easily deal with it."

  That last part had been said in a near whisper, due to the fact that we were right outside Mrs. Sorenson's class. Everything he was saying made sense, but didn't resolve the real reason I was so worried.

  "I can help. I could switch at least one class and still keep up."

  Alec shook his head. "Adriana, you're struggling in two classes already. How do you propose to handle yet another set of homework?"

  I felt my mouth slam shut. He knew everything about everyone, but it still somehow caught me by surprise that he knew so much about me.

  "But they'll hate me even more." I already wished I could take it back, but it was too late.

  It took less than half a second for him to figure out who I was talking about.

  "They don't hate you. A few of them are scared almost senseless, but nobody hates you."

  "They were willing to kill me. They wanted to trade me back to Brandon." It came out as something less than a whisper, but apparently Alec's hearing was acute enough to catch that too.

  Alec drew me close, heedless of the open door and the twenty staring kids. He placed the side of his face against mine and whispered into my ear. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. If there's a way to keep you safe I'll find it."

  The feel of his breath caressing my cheek sent tingles racing through my entire body, but even that couldn't completely reassure me. Still, I gave it my best effort, and if my smile wasn't entirely convincing, it was at least good enough to temporarily reassure Alec.

  I followed him into class, pausing while he handed his note to Mrs. Sorenson. It was almost worth all of the craziness and exhaustion of the last seventy-two hours to see her eyebrows rise in astonishment as she read the innocuous piece of paper essentially giving Alec carte blanche in her classroom.

  "This is highly irregular, Mr. Graves. In fact I don't believe the administration can legitimately expect me to comply."

  Alec's smile could have been used to sweeten pretty much any beverage you could imagine. "I promise not to get in the way. In fact if you could just find us a couple of desks in the back corner you'll hardly know we're here."

  The look she shot me was so venomous for a second I thought my heart was going to stop. "Ms. Paige has an assigned seat towards the front of the class. Based on her scholastic performance to date it would be highly irresponsible of me as an educator to allow her to change seats."

  I was just far enough off to the side to watch as Alec's eyes very slowly and pointedly drifted down to stare at the note in her hands. For a second I wasn't sure she'd gotten the hint, but then those same hands clenched reflexively, nearly tearing the note before she caught herself and smoothed it back out.

  "Ms. Bellarose, please move up to Ms. Paige's old seat."

  Alec politely collected his note and led me to our seats.

  Any enjoyment I'd just experienced as a result of seeing one of my least-favorite teachers put in her place quickly soured as she started the class and launched into her usual barrage of questions designed to demonstrate my stupidity.

  Alec had apparently gotten under her skin even more than I'd realized. She abandoned her usual practice of stopping once I missed my first question, and instead continued to grill me, her smile growing each time I failed to answer something correctly.

  My earlier commitment to rededicate myself to school notwithstanding, the weekend hadn't exactly been conducive to mastering the intricacies of our latest subject. Her smile was wide indeed by the time the bell finally released me to flee in defeat and embarrassment.

  Alec paced me all the way back to my locker. "Is that normal for her?"

  I started to laugh, only to cut the motion short as I realized there was a better than even chance I'd end up crying instead. I settled for just nodding as I swapped books and slammed my locker shut.

  Alec pursed his lips for a second and then nodded, not at me, but at whatever decision he'd just made. "We'd better get you to your next class. Dealing with that will have to wait until later."

  I wanted to ask what he meant, but the halls were already full of other students, and I was pretty sure he'd tell me when he was ready and not a moment sooner anyways.

  With a sigh, I followed him into the crowd. A few minutes later I'd been handed off to my next babysitter, James this time, and was safely ensconced in Mr. Whethers' class.

  Mr. Whethers looked more than a little confused after reading James' note, but he simply added James' name to his roll, and then absently waved the two of us towards seats. I would've enjoyed English if not for the wildfire buzz created by my little scene with Alec outside of Biology. Mr. Whethers repeatedly asked various clumps of giggling and or staring girls to be quiet, but his efforts were largely wasted.

  As time went on the speculation grew both wilder and louder rather than petering out as any normal person would've expected. The former was probably due to an almost complete lack of anything resembling actual fact. The volume was no doubt designed to see if they could draw a reaction out of me and thereby figure out how I'd gone from dating one of the two most popular boys in school to dating the other one in the space of just one weekend.

  The prevailing opinion among the popular girls off to the left was that I was the biggest slut ever. The equally vindictive but more scholastically minded group in front of us was convinced I was just playing with Alec in an attempt to make Brandon jealous.

  It was all so far off that part of me wanted to laugh. I couldn't care less if Brandon was jealous, and Alec hadn't even kissed me yet. Even so, hearing my name said with such disdain by so many different people took its toll over the course of the class, and before long I was once again fighting the urge to break down and cry.

  Luckily by the end of the class, Mr. Whethers had become so frustrated with the complete lack of attention being paid him by the gossipers, he'd actually started writing them up f
or detention.

  As class finally ended, James cracked one of the first smiles I'd ever seen grace his face. "Wow. I never would've thought anyone could push old Whethers so far. He just set a school record for the most detentions assigned in a single class."

  With James' considerable frame opening a route through the crowded hallway, it took almost no time to make it to my locker.

  Jasmin was waiting for me, and if she didn't exactly look overwhelmed with joy, she at least wasn't scowling.

  We were just outside Mrs. Campbell's class when a muted hiss from Jasmin alerted me to impending danger. I didn't realize what was happening until I felt the rising tingle of energy wash over me. It was both warmer and weaker than normal, and for the first time I realized that Jasmin's power was different than what I'd felt from Alec. It arced back and forth between us with a fury that jolted me all the way down to the soles of my feet as Vincent and Cassie came into sight.

  The answering surges of power from the two rival shape shifters made my hair stand on end as Jasmin shoved me into the classroom, moving with only slightly more than human speed. I probably should have cleared out of the way, but despite there being nothing I could do to help Jasmin if it came to an open fight, I wasn't going to abandon her.

  As Vincent and Cassie got closer, something about them seemed off. It is amazing how the mind focuses in on minutia when things get really scary, but I couldn't think of anything else until I realized it was their eyes. Cassie's had gone a pale, unearthly green, while Vincent's had deepened into a near black. If eyes really were the windows to the soul, he'd become so twisted and warped there wasn't much left that could truly be considered human.

  The halls had emptied remarkably fast, especially considering how much gossip there was for the rumor mill. It was almost like some primitive survival instinct had kicked in and steered everyone away from ground zero.

  With the two of them so much closer, I could feel their energy beating at Jasmin and me. It was all I could do now to remain motionless as they entered what even I knew was striking range of Jasmin.

  "Awfully exposed out here, aren't you, precious?"

  Vincent's voice was a low, unnatural thing, pitched so it was just barely audible for humans.

  Cassie's expression made my stomach tighten up and my gorge rise. It wasn't right for a girl to look at another girl like that. Like she couldn't wait to watch Vincent do all kinds of terrible things.

  "Payback sucks, doesn't it?"

  Jasmin's complete stillness was an eerie counterpoint to the waves of power still beating at me. I somehow knew she was just seconds away from springing when the sound of running footsteps caused all three to turn.

  Alec appeared around the corner, followed by Isaac, just a split second before Brandon sauntered into view from the opposite direction.

  The tingly feeling grew exponentially more powerful with so many more shape shifters present. Rubbing my arms did nothing to ward off the feeling that entire colonies of insects were skittering across my skin.

  Mr. Rindell's appearance forestalled what I'd been sure would turn into a full-blown fight. He sized up the situation with the canny eye of an educator who'd seen more fights over his career than most gang leaders. "Class is about to start, and if every one of you isn't where you're supposed to be before the bell rings, you'll have detention for the next month."

  Vincent's hiss was still almost inaudible. "This isn't over."

  I felt my knees almost collapse as the two packs slowly backed away from each other, and Jasmin joined me inside the classroom.

  Mrs. Campbell gave the two of us a considering look after reading Jasmin's note, but sent us off to a pair of empty seats at the back of the classroom without comment. We were starting a new unit, but I couldn't concentrate on the lecture.

  Alec's unshakable calm over the last few days had mostly convinced me the other members of his pack had been overreacting. Somehow I'd come to believe the coming dispute with Brandon's pack would be resolved as easily as a normal teenage dispute.

  After experiencing such intense, barely restrained violence, I was starting to see just how ludicrous that'd been. People had already died over what was going on here. It hadn't been real, either because I hadn't examined Simon and Nathanial's lifeless bodies, or maybe because I was repressing the experience like I'd done with so many other parts of my life lately.

  I could feel my mind trying to shut down, hoping to cushion me from the worst implications of what was coming. I knew it was going to be bad, could feel it in a sickening, only-seconds-away-from-vomiting kind of way, but couldn't follow the chain of logic through to the very end.

  I let Jasmin help me pull my books together, and then numbly followed her out to the hallway. Alec and the rest of the pack were waiting for us at my locker. Jasmin calmly opened my locker and put my things away while I was still trying to come to terms with everything.

  Alec took my hand. "Are you okay?"

  I shook my head. "This is going to be really bad, isn't it?"

  His silence validated my belief, probably even more than he realized. "I'd...we'd...spare you it if we could."

  It was my turn to shake my head. "No, this is my fault. I belong here, not cowering in a corner somewhere."

  Rachel hugged me from one side while Dominic placed a gentle, dark hand on my other shoulder, and then we were off.

  Brandon, and what must have amounted to his entire pack, were waiting for us just off school property. The two leaders faced off as everyone else fanned out around them. Jasmin, Isaac, and the others all maintained calm exteriors that were markedly different than the eager, often sadistic expressions of Brandon's people.

  "I demand satisfaction on behalf of my pack for the two of our number that you brutally murdered. This is within my rights under the laws that bind us. I demand two lives for the two lives robbed me."

  Brandon's expression was confident and a little smug, and I somehow didn't doubt in the slightest that he'd expected Alec to calmly hand over two people to be executed.

  Alec hadn't even flinched at the demand. "Your wolves were lawbreakers who were executed before they could break further laws. The protection of the people, of the secrets that guard our nature from the dayborn, represents a law that supersedes any question of territory or dominance."

  The energy suddenly rolling off of the gathered shape shifters nearly drove me to my knees as Alec continued.

  "By their actions Adriana Paige learned of our nature, and it was only by the grace of the Maker that I was able to stop them from killing her. Their deaths were an unavoidable price to save an innocent."

  Some of the faces across the circle from me flinched a little, and I had a moment to wonder if Brandon hadn't told them the truth about what'd happened.

  "Her life belonged to me, it was mine to dispose of as I saw fit."

  I opened my mouth to protest, but closed it at a sharp jab in the ribs from Rachel.

  "The ancient laws don't support her life being a disposable commodity, extinguished at your whim. Not even the bond of Ja'tell provides you with that right."

  Brandon's grin was wider even than before. "Ah, but those aren't the laws under which we labor now, are they? She's mine, and I have every right to do whatever I wish to her. Her presence among your pack is a direct affront to my rights and honor. I could demand your life, be glad I'm only requiring two of your pack."

  Alec shook his head, face more emotionless than even a second before. "By the same laws set down by Adjam and Inock when they first took mates from among the dayborn, I challenge your bond of Ja'tell. I challenge your standing among the people, and your personal honor. The dispute between us is such as can only be settled by blood."

  For a brief second it seemed Brandon had been taken by surprise, but he regained his equilibrium while I was still trying to understand what was being said. He closed the distance between himself and Alec with such quickness that for a second I thought they were going to fight then and there.
<
br />   For the first time I realized just how much bigger Brandon was than Alec. I'd never seen them so close together. They were so careful not to cross paths, it was possible this was a true first, but seeing them now there was no way to get around the fact that Brandon was at least two inches taller, as well as being broader and more muscular. I'd seen Alec shirtless, and he had the incredible physique of a swimsuit model, but Brandon's was that of a professional body builder. Either of them dwarfed me, but Brandon gave off an air of menace that even Alec's controlled power couldn't offset.

  Brandon's next few words came out in a low growl that I couldn't make out, and then he slowly backed away from Alec before he and the rest of his pack disappeared from sight.

  I finished processing everything about the time Alec turned and walked back. I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his head at me as we all fell into formation around him.

  From what little I knew about Alec's pack, it wasn't uncommon for them to spend time together without the kind of chest-beating byplay that was so much a part of Brandon's group, but our lunch table was even more subdued than I'd expected.

  Faced with an almost complete lack of conversation, I didn't have the courage to ask some of the questions on my mind. It wasn't until I'd followed Isaac to my history class that I finally worked up the nerve to find out more of what was going on.

  Once the substitute had called roll, and then more or less turned the class loose for a 'group study session', I turned to Isaac and whispered my first question.

  "This fight between Alec and Brandon, it's for real? I mean they aren't just going to fight until first blood, are they?"

  Isaac's nod was hesitant, like he knew I was headed towards things he wasn't supposed to tell me. "I'm afraid the contest is quite serious, but still nothing for you to worry about."

  That didn't add up in the slightest. "I don't believe you. At least not the part about it not being anything to worry about. You all wouldn't have been so worried about Alec bringing me home Friday night if this was all no big deal. None of you have argued with Alec about anything since then, but Friday night James, Jasmin and Jessica were all ready to rip my head off over his express orders."

  The nod I received this time was even slower than the first. I waited for Isaac to say something, but he seemed unwilling to give away anything I hadn't already figured out for myself.

  "Can he win? Alec, I mean. Can he ki...beat Brandon?"

  Isaac's sigh was eloquent. "I'm forbidden to speak on these things. To do so risks no small amount of Alec's displeasure."

  "But you're going to anyways, aren't you?"

  "It is right that you know the sacrifice undertaken on your behalf, both by Alec, and by the rest of our family. The one because of his feelings for you, the other because of our respect and love for Alec."

  "It's true then; he can't win."

  "While it isn't impossible, it's unlikely. Alec is a remarkable fighter, to hear Donovan speak of it, he's possibly even almost the equal of his father, but Brandon's strength and speed have not seen a match in centuries. It's likely Brandon will emerge the victor."

  Even though, or possibly exactly because it was what I'd suspected, the words sent slivers of ice through me. My heart seemed to be having a hard time maintaining a steady rhythm, but I forced myself not to give into the panic attack that was promising temporary relief from the horror of my life.

  With what I'd just been told, I should be able to put some of the pieces together. "Once Alec is dead, there'll be repercussions for everyone else?"

  Again the short, reluctant nod. I had so many questions I still wanted answered, but it didn't seem fair to get Isaac in any more trouble than he was already in.

  "Will you be okay? I mean with Alec. He's not going to torture you or anything for telling me, is he?"

  Isaac's smile somehow completed his face. Funny how I'd never thought there was anything wrong with it before, but after finally being rewarded with something more than his normal, serious countenance, I had the first hint why he was one of Rachel's favorites among the pack.

  "It's likely I'll be exceedingly sore for the next few days, and my ego, such as it is, will likely take quite the beating, but our Kir'shan, our Alpha as you would say, isn't a bad sort."

  That was a relief. It also meant I knew exactly what I was going to do when I saw Alec next.

  Half an hour later, I was following him down the hall towards Physics and wishing I'd had more time to prepare. Alec slowed as we finally arrived outside the door to Mrs. Alexander's classroom. I carefully craned my head around him, half expecting to see Brandon's entire pack waiting to ambush us. Instead the pause seemed to have been caused by the fact Mrs. Alexander had been replaced by a sub.

  "Do you mind if we don't go to Physics today?" Alec's question should have been lost in the clamor of all of the kids walking by us, but I picked his voice out as easily as if we'd been alone together in the forest. Was that another mystical power granted to alpha shape shifters, or just because I was so hyper-aware of him?

  "I thought you said we'd get in trouble if we started cutting school."

  His easy, graceful shrug pulled his black polo shirt tight across his shoulders. It seemed impossible that anyone could be so well built and tightly ripped that you'd be able to see every muscle through his clothing, but there he was.

  "I may have exaggerated slightly. Odds are that I can convince the secretaries to make your absence here disappear, and mine hardly matters."

  I throttled down my first impulse, the almost overwhelming desire to say yes, to do anything required to spend more time with him, and instead focused on the opportunity to get inside his head, to learn some of the things moving him.

  "But that isn't why you want to skip."

  "No, I find that I'm strangely unconcerned right now with what the future may bring, and this seems entirely too good an opportunity to waste on a substitute that knows even less about physics than we do."

  I returned his smile, and grabbed his hand, tugging him in the direction of the outside door. We didn't go far, stopping in a little cluster of trees no more than fifty feet from the school.

  "So is this nearly complete disregard for consequences typical?"

  Alec gazed at me with one of his indecipherable looks for several seconds. Feeling more than a little self-conscious, I tried to let go of his hand and scoot a little further away, but he maintained his grasp. "Please don't. I didn't mean to make you nervous. It's just that you continue to surprise me."

  "It's more than a little creepy how you all can do that. Are all shape shifters born with the ability to read people's minds?"

  The smile was back, gentle and teasing. "Minds no, scents yes. The human body is quite marvelous in how many different systems it recruits to match its mood."

  The way Brandon had always known exactly the right thing to say at any given time suddenly made sense. Alec let me process his latest little tidbit of information, and then continued.

  "Actually, none of us are born with any unusual abilities. All of the changes tend to show up more or less around puberty. And no, disregard for the consequences of my actions isn't typical. In fact I've spent nearly a decade weighing almost every word."

  "So dashing off to rescue an admittedly stupid teenage girl and landing yourself in a fight to the death that you probably can't win isn't how you normally run your life. Why did you do it then?"

  Again the silence, but this time, more completely enveloped as I was by the tingly warmth that seemed synonymous with being in his presence, I was content to wait.

  "Apparently Isaac's decided there are a few things you should know. Don't try and tell me it wasn't him, you didn't know that particular piece of information an hour ago, and nobody else has had the opportunity to tell secrets."

  I felt myself tense up in worry, but he waved my worries away. "In answer to the core of your question, Jasmin thinks it's because I've finally gone over the edge, that in essence I've snapped due to th
e stress, and this, 'obsession,' as she terms it, is merely a novel way of committing suicide."

  My heart started racing again, but he wasn't done. "The other school of thought is that I'm more of a healer than anyone realized, and that I couldn't resist your obvious need."

  He'd lost me there. "Wait, what do you mean?"

  Alec paused for several seconds before answering. "You glow. All of the time. Until now we always thought someone had to be a shape shifter to do that."

  "But I'm just a normal person. Why would I appear different than anyone else?"

  Alec's shrug was enough to send my heart racing again, but not enough to distract me from his words. "With shape shifters, we believe it's because the animating energy, the soul if you will, burns more brightly than normal. I think it's tied in with what allows us to shift forms. With you, there isn't any obvious reason, but I think that Dominic has probably hit upon the root of the matter."

  His pause this time wasn't just to collect his thoughts; I could tell he was tempted not to tell me whatever he was thinking.

  "You know that our legends indicate a belief we were created in order to watch over and protect humans? Well, Dominic believes that your light represents a defense mechanism. We don't know of any accounts where humans have burned so brightly, but it's possible the primitive parts of you, the ones that remember what it was like to be watched over by our kind, hit upon a way to call for help from us, while not admitting a problem to your own kind."

  He was being so vague that it took me several seconds to follow the explanation to its logical conclusion. "So you're saying that I was, am, so broken I glow so your people would be able to pull me aside and fix me."

  His nod was hesitant, but my wan smile seemed to reassure him somewhat.

  "I guess that makes sense. Nobody likes to be told there's something wrong with them, but I can't exactly say everything is just Jim Dandy. Not when I still collapse at the mere mention of what I've lost."

  The silence wasn't as comfortable now. I had to break it, even if it meant further examining all of the holes inside me that I'd spent so many months struggling to ignore.

  "So you're just one of those guys that can't resist trying to help the broken girls, huh?"

  "No. That's Dominic's theory, I didn't say it was mine. I did what I did because when I close my eyes I still see you there."

  My heart jumped up to my throat, but in a good way.

  "I don't know why, not really. Your incredible, unearthly beauty helps, as does your stubborn determination to continue soldiering on, despite how badly you've been hurt. That doesn't explain it all though. Neither does the fact that you stepped in and saved Rachel from a beating I couldn't stop."

  He reached up and tucked a stray hair behind my left ear. "Whatever the reason, since your arrival here, I just feel like parts of me that were missing have come back home. Even when I thought you were some kind of...rogue...shape shifter come to destroy my pack, I was still drawn to you."

  My stupid eyes were tearing up again. Sometimes being a girl really sucked. Boys never seemed to have their bodies betray them in front of other people like we did. The most gorgeous, kind boy I'd ever met had just professed his love to me, and strangely enough it made what I had to do next both harder and easier.

  "Alec, what if I were to go back to Brandon? Would that stop everything from going wrong? I mean, then you wouldn't have been poaching his property or whatever you call it."

  It was bad enough that my heart was shattering as I said it, the look in Alec's face made everything a hundred times worse. For a second I thought the earth was shaking, but it was Alec, trembling much like he'd done Friday night.

  A loud crack from beside us made me jump. Alec looked at the branch, easily as thick as my arm, which he'd just torn from the tree we were leaning against. He stopped shaking as he considered what he'd done to the poor tree.

  "You're saying that because you're worried for me? Not because you really want to go back to him?"

  I shook my head, as confused by his reaction, by how close he'd come to losing control, as I was by my not having felt threatened. "No, I want to stay, but how can I knowing it will mean you're going to be fighting to the death?"

  Alec tossed the branch away with a sigh. "I've spent years learning control, but sometimes I still forget just how breakable everything around me is. If you go back to Brandon, you support his claim that you belong to him, and I'd still be forced to challenge him. If I didn't, he would be justified in killing whichever two of my friends he wants."

  "So there's no way you can avoid fighting him?"

  Alec's smile was more bittersweet than normal. "No, but it's not too late to save you. I can have you on a flight to Paris tonight. It's the only way to guarantee your safety."

  I shook my head. "I'm not leaving. I believe you when you say my going back to Brandon won't solve anything, but I'm not going to run away and leave you all to deal with the mess I created. I wish you'd stop asking me to."

  His gaze was long and steady, but finally he nodded. "You have as much right to see this through as anyone else does, but it's almost certainly going to get a lot uglier before it's over. Your freedom is going to be incredibly restricted, at least as bad as it was today. We'll escort you to school, stay just long enough to ensure we don't get in trouble, and then hurry back to our territory. At least if Brandon's pack does come after us there, we're within our rights to do something about it."

  I opened my mouth to comment on the fact that Brandon's pack was roughly twice the size of ours, only to realize that scurrying back home kind of precluded continuing to help out at the tutor lab.

  "What about helping Mrs. Campbell?"

  It shouldn't have surprised me that Alec thought it over for several seconds before shaking his head. Whatever else he was, he wasn't the thoughtless jerk Brandon had proven himself to be.

  "I'm sorry, Adriana. I wish we could, for Rachel's sake as well as yours, but it's just too risky. Fewer witnesses means more chance Brandon's people will try to arrange for something to happen. There are just too many of them for us to meet them in a stand-up fight and come out unscathed."

  I didn't like it. Mrs. Campbell was the only teacher who'd taken an active interest in my wellbeing, but I could see his point. I managed to do at least a passable job hiding my near frown as I nodded in acceptance.

  "Can I have just a few minutes today after school to tell her?"

  Alec's hand was warm on my face as he nodded. "You're amazing. All the things being taken away from you just because you got involved with the wrong crowd, and you just do what has to be done. Of course you can have a few minutes. I'm sorry to make you do this."

  I wanted to tell him it was less than he was doing. To say it was the least I could do considering this was all my fault, but the unabashed bliss of having him touch me was overwhelming. It took surprising effort to string coherent thoughts together. Before I managed to do so successfully, he sighed and helped me to my feet.

  "We'd better get back or you'll miss Spanish."

  Based on how badly Biology had gone, I was dreading Spanish with even more fervor than normal. I felt incredibly better when it was Dominic who was waiting with a smile for us at my locker. Alec let go of my hand with an actual look of regret.

  Mrs. Tiggs seemed to have read whatever memo Mrs. Sorenson had been working off of earlier. She started out the hour by asking me a question I was positive wasn't in any of the chapters I'd ever read.

  The class' collective mouth dropped in astonishment as Dominic called her on it. "But Mrs. Tiggs, isn't that covered in Chapter 18? I mean, I just started the class obviously, but it just seems confusing. Your syllabus says we're talking about the preterit today."

  The only other person I'd ever met who could've even come close to pulling off such an innocent expression was Rachel, and I wasn't sure even she could compete with Dominic today. If I'd found her standing in front of a broken window with a rock in her hand, and she'd told me
she had no idea why the window had shattered, all the while flashing me that look, I would've believed her.

  Mrs. Tiggs apparently wasn't quite so gullible. "It's a reasonable question, as the two subjects are highly related. One could almost say they're so close to the same thing that any distinction is purely arbitrary."

  Now Dominic looked both innocent and confused. "But why are they so far apart in the book then? I mean my Spanish book in the school before I came here had them pretty widely spaced too."

  It was masterful. I'm not even sure the rest of the class realized the pattern, but Mrs. Tiggs caught on about halfway through the hour. Every time she was snippy with me, Dominic made her look like the idiot we all suspected she was.

  As the bell rang, and we exited the first truly instructive Spanish class all semester, I pulled Dominic off to the side. "That was amazing. Thank you, but you can't keep doing that or she's going to fail you."

  Dominic sagged a little against me. "I don't think she will. Not after the rest of the class realizes she has a hard time reading the book herself. Even if she does, it doesn't really matter. I never expected to finish junior high, let alone graduate from high school. Besides, James is always talking about dropping out and just getting his GED. Maybe I'll follow suit."

  She stiffened slightly as I hugged her, but then smiled and returned the gesture with an earnestness that made me think she hadn't had much in the way of hugs in her life.

  "Well, I hope it doesn't come to that, but thanks again. I may still flunk out, but seeing the expression on her face makes it worthwhile."

  Was it possible to be both shy and confident at the same time? If it was, Dominic's fluid, expressive face pulled it off.

  "Nonsense. Once we undo all of the damage from her teaching you, you'll do so well even she won't flunk you."

  It went against everything past experience with Mrs. Tiggs had taught me, but I almost believed her.