"But what if he is?"
He turned off his truck and said, "Then I"ll pay the guy who hurt him fifty bucks to tell me how he did it."
I turned away from him. "That"s not nice."
"The truth rarely is."
The icy wind cut through our clothes and had my teeth chattering before we got to the door. Still, I loved the weather. Cold and promising as a thick wetness permeated the air. Maybe it would snow. Few things trumped snow days. Hot chocolate with marshmallows, maybe. And Jared"s eyes.
Glitch met us at the side door of the school with a box of his mother"s homemade cinnamon rolls, but not even the warm scent of cinnamon and melted b.u.t.ter could bring me out of my misery. Though they did their darnedest.
We dived in, and Brooke moaned when she took a bite. Glitch glared at Cameron when he took two.
"Who"s that?" I asked, licking my fingers, then pointing to the side.
"Oh, that must be the new kid," Glitch said. "I heard we were getting someone new."
We stopped to take a look. He dressed in retro attire with thespian undertones. Tweed gray coat, long and loose. Sandy brown hair under a black beret. And he was really, really tall.
At the exact same moment, Brooke and I turned to look at the other really, really tall guy in school. One of them, anyway. There was tall, then there was really, really tall-and the new guy, like Jared and Cameron, was really, really tall.
"Not another one," I said under my breath.
Brooke looked up at him. "Relative of yours?"
But Cameron was also staring at the new guy, his expression guarded. If I didn"t know better, I"d say he was taken aback.
The new guy stood talking to Mr. Davis. As the princ.i.p.al pointed down the hall, apparently giving directions, the new guy turned and looked right at us. Right at me.
His face, while handsome, was somehow disproportioned. There was something strange about him. Something out of place. His face was a little too long, perhaps, or the angles a little too sharp, the eyes a little too close set.
The polite thing to do would have been to look away, and yet there we stood. The lot of us. Staring as though we had never seen another human being in our lives. Surely we looked like something from one of those Twilight Zone reruns. The guy looked from me to Brooke to Glitch. Then slowly his attention meandered up the length of Cameron, and their gazes locked for a long, tense moment.
Cameron"s expression wasn"t derisive, exactly. More like wary or just plain surprised.
The kid nodded, an almost imperceptible grin lifting one cheek, then headed out in the direction Mr. Davis had pointed.
Glitch turned toward Cameron. "Do you know him?" he asked.
But Cameron was stunned. I could tell. Brooke raised her hand and waved it in front of his eyes. He blinked back to us.
"Is everything okay, Cameron?" I asked.
"Let"s get to cla.s.s." The brusqueness in his tone should have convinced me to comply without any more questions, but I wasn"t feeling particularly compliant.
"Cameron, what is going on?" I asked him when he took off down the hall. It was hard to follow a super tall guy when you had only enough leg to accommodate a five-foot frame. "I get so tired of your cryptic personality."
He regarded me, his expression worried. "There"s a disturbance in the air, and that guy is disturbing."
"Really?" Brooke asked. "In what way?"
"In a disturbing way."
She"d had enough as well. She grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve and pulled him to face us. "Who was he?"
Cameron studied her before saying, "I don"t know. He was just different." When she scowled at him, he added, "He was fuzzy around the edges."
Of all the teachers in all the schools in all the world, Ms. Mullins was my absolute favorite, and Brooke and I had her first hour. It made my mornings not quite so loathsome, knowing I"d get to see her. I wasn"t sure why, what it was about her that set her so far apart. She was a tiny woman with dark hair and sparkling eyes who looked at life like there was more to it than just memorizing the cell structure of an earthworm. We had to know that stuff too, of course, but she also taught us to see science in everyday things. Like survival of the fittest and natural selection. Which, sadly, made any attraction Jared might have for me even more questionable.
"Hey, Ms. Mullins," I said to her when Cameron dropped us off. He"d seemed reluctant to leave us, but what could he do? Hovering in the hall was not an option. He"d simply have to go to cla.s.s and learn stuff like the rest of us.
Ms. Mullins looked up from her desk and drew her brows together. "You"re on time."
I grinned and headed to my seat.
"But it"s a Monday."
I tried to feign offense. "I"ve been on time lots of Mondays." When her mouth thinned in doubt, I added, "Well, I"ve thought about being on time lots of Mondays."
Truth be told, I probably had fewer late pa.s.ses than any other student in school. I was boring. Predictable. And the new guy had fuzzy edges. What was going on?
The morning progressed with me trying not to touch other students-lest I be bombarded with unwanted visions-and Brooke coming up with a thousand different scenarios as to why the new guy had fuzzy edges. She conjured everything from a rare tropical disease to a zombie attack in the forest the night of the party, thus the horrid smell.
Unfortunately, in the cla.s.ses we didn"t have together, I had to stew in my own musings about what was going on. They were worse than Brooke"s. I quickly realized, however, I had nowhere near her creative insight. The only thing I could come up with was that maybe the new kid had bronchitis, because a zombie attack seemed a tad unrealistic. Then again, so did the demon possession of yours truly.
By the time we got to PE, Brooke had decided the new guy was a warlock, a witch turned evil and cast out by his Wiccan clan, thus the fuzzy edges. She"d devised a plan to get him to do a spell on Tabitha. Something bad, like have all her hair fall out or paint her fingernails black so she looked goth. I had managed to avoid Tabitha all morning, and oddly enough, she did the same to me. No prodding. No teasing. The reprieve was rather refreshing.
Brooke was busy detailing her vision while I brushed my teeth in the locker room after cla.s.s. I"d had an unfortunate incident with black licorice. How could anything taste that bad? Thank goodness I"d stashed a toothbrush in my PE locker. While Brooke explained the ritual where Tab would likely endure any number of painful and degenerative effects, Ashlee and Sydnee Southern walked in.
Ever since we"d broken into their house a few months ago to evict an evil spirit who was haunting them-completely trashing their father"s gazillion-dollar mansion and reducing a stunning grand piano to kindling in the process-we tried to steer clear of the Southern Belles. So far, we"d been doing a bang-up job of it. We never really talked to them anyway. Why start now?
But they seemed more than determined to strike up a conversation. I caught on to that fact when they cornered us and said, "We want to talk to you."
"O-okay," I said, needing badly to rinse toothpaste out of my mouth. But I didn"t want to be rude. Or give them an excuse to slam my head into the sink like people did in the movies.
Brooklyn stepped beside me-strength in numbers-and crossed her arms over her chest. Sadly, the Southern twins were about a foot taller than us. And they were very flexible. I appreciated Brooke"s bravado, but if push came to shove, we would not be the ones doing the shoving. We might get in a gentle nudge here and there.
"You left this at our house." Ashlee, or quite possibly Sydnee, produced a gold pendant of a mother and father with a child in their arms.
I gasped and s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of her hand, eyeing it lovingly. I turned it over and read the word Forever on the back. It was the necklace Glitch gave me on the tenth anniversary of my parents" disappearance. The one I hadn"t seen since ... the night we broke into their house. Realization dawned. There was only one place they could have found it. In their own living room.
Playing it cool, I examined it, cleared my throat, then pa.s.sed it back to them. It was evidence of our wrongdoing. "That"s not mine."
Sydnee stepped closer. Or possibly Ashlee. They really needed name tags.
"We know what you did."
I looked at the notebook in her hands, the one with the name Ashlee on it, and took it from there. "I don"t know what you"re talking about, Ashlee."
"And even if she did," Brooke said, planting her fists on her hips, "which she doesn"t, because why would she since there"s no way she possibly could, that"s no reason to get all up in her face."
Not one of her better comebacks, but it worked. They both relaxed and Sydnee offered me the necklace again.
"We appreciate what you did for us."
I took a mental step back. That wasn"t the reaction I was expecting. Taking the necklace warily, I cradled the cool metal in my hand, then glanced back with my brows furrowed in confusion.
"The ghost," Ashlee clarified. "We know what you did for us, and we appreciate it."
Brooke looked over at me. Discomfort p.r.i.c.kled along my skin. I shifted, not sure what to say.
"We thought-" Ashlee started to say something, then stopped. She averted her gaze, seeming embarra.s.sed.
"We thought it was our grandmother," Sydnee finished.
"The ghost," Ashlee said, taking her turn to clarify.
But I already knew that. Poltergeists were nasty, manipulative things. It had somehow convinced the girls it was their grandmother, which was disturbing on so many levels.
I decided to fess up. No sense in trying to deny it now. "Sorry about the piano."
Ashlee grinned. "Are you kidding? That got us out of piano lessons for weeks."
"Your house is really nice," Brooklyn said, doing a 180. She dropped her hands to her side. "Most mansions are, I guess."
"Yeah, it"s okay, if you like that sort of thing," Sydnee said, lifting one shoulder. She had yet to crack a smile like her sister. "Our dad built it for our mom. Lot of good it did him."
My mouth thinned in empathy. "I"m so sorry about that. It must have been really hard to go through."
Sydnee examined her nails, but Ashlee, the more outgoing of the two, said, "Our mom"s crazy for leaving Dad. Seriously, who gives up everything to run off with an investment broker?"
"Dad"s not perfect," Sydnee said, "but really? An investment broker? I don"t even know what that means."
I never knew the guy, or their mom, frankly, but I had to admit, it surprised me. It shocked the whole town. Quite the scandal. "Well, thank you for this." I clutched the necklace tighter and went back to the sink to spit before I started gagging.
They followed me. And Brooke followed them.
"There"s more," Ash said, biting her lip as though uncertain.
Curious now, I rinsed, wiped my mouth, then looked at the clock on my phone. Even if we sprinted, we"d never make fifth hour before the tardy bell. It was too much to hope another fight would detain the teacher long enough for me to sneak in again. I gave the twins my full attention. "What"s up?"
"We also know what you are."
Brooklyn stilled beside me.
"Really?" I asked, a lighthearted laugh escaping me. "Besides a girl?"
"Yes," Syd said. "And what Ash should have said is, we know what you can do."
"Okay."
Ash stepped closer again. "There"s something weird going on."
Syd looked around, then lowered her voice. "Something strange."
I stared cautiously as they closed the distance between us. "I"m getting that."
Inching back to my side, Brooke asked, "What do you mean by strange?"
"A lot of the kids are behaving oddly," Ash said. "Including Syd"s boyfriend, Isaac. That"s why we"re here. We thought you could maybe touch him."
Isaac had been at the party that night. I remembered seeing him with a group of friends along the tree line, barely visible in the low light. One of the few people there I could"ve called friend, he"d smiled at me and waved.
"You"re dating Isaac Johnson?" Brooke asked, beaming with enthusiasm and suddenly tight with the Southern Belles. "That is so sweet. I bet you guys make the cutest cou-"
"Really, Brooke?" I stopped her midstream. She could go on for days.
"I"m just saying." She frowned at me, then did the phone sign to Syd and mouthed the words call me.
Syd grinned at last, a shy smile that crept sweetly across her face.
I smiled too, then asked, "How do you know what I can do?"
They exchanged furtive glances; then Ash said, "It told us. The thing in our house. It told us what you are, what Cameron is, and what Jared is." Her eyes rounded a little. "Please don"t tell him we know. We won"t tell anyone."
"We swear." Syd nodded, her eyes pleading.
"I promise I won"t tell him. But he"s a good guy. He won"t hurt you just for knowing what he is." Their expressions were less than convinced, so I asked, "What is it exactly you"re worried about?"
"Isaac is acting strange. He"s been acting strange for a couple of days. I think," Syd said, her voice lowering to a whisper, "I think something happened at the Clearing Friday night. I think he"s being bullied."
Brooke and I both blinked and waited for the punch line. It never came.
"Wait," Brooke said at last, "you can"t be serious."
"Isaac Johnson?" I raised my brows, hoping to give them a clue. "The biggest defensive lineman ever to grace the halls of Riley High? That Isaac Johnson?"
"And he"s being bullied?"
They nodded in unison.
"We know how it sounds," Syd said. "But he"s not the only one. There are more. Almost every member of the football team in OA is acting strange. Like they"re scared of someone."
"Or something," Ash added. "Ever since that night."
To be in OA, or organized athletics, a student had to play at least one sport. Since football was over, the team still got together every day and worked out. And that wasn"t all they did. They still partied together. Half the team had to have been at that party. All I remembered was letter jacket after letter jacket.