The Girl Cried Wolf

"I have a fencing cla.s.s later, but if you go before that I can do a quick jog around the field with you." Isabelle said.

"Uh, yeah, I"ll go too. My back"s been hurting all day. Maybe I can jog it out, stretch my muscles."

"I don"t know, Boots. If it hurts, maybe you should go lie down. It"s a little cold out."

The girls were walking back to the dorms to put their things away. The sun was still out, but the wind was cold.

Ash pressed her thumb to her lower back and traced along her spine, ma.s.saging the sore spots. She"d felt a slight pain in her back for days now, but today the pain was sharp. Not only that, she had felt her joints aching all day. It was like someone had thrown her body in a washing machine and set it on high.

"Maybe she just needs a ma.s.sage. I bet she"d like a Swedish ma.s.sage, wouldn"t she, Cece?" Isabelle said playfully, looking to Celia for back up.

"Oooh, yeah, a Swedish ma.s.sage from a hot Swedish man! A tall Swedish man with blue eyes and blonde hair working out the kinks in your back? Mmmm-hmmm." Celia swayed as she walked, exaggerating the tone of her voice, making herself sound like an airhead.

"Mmmm, yes. A tall, handsome man with big strong Swedish hands, working all the way down. Mmmmm," Isabelle had started to sway walk too, matching Celia"s cadence and talking in the same air-headed tone of voice. Isabelle put a finger to her lips. "Mmmm, Swedish daddy!"

[Ugh, Hunter isn"t Swedish. He"s some kind of Scandinavian, sure. But I don"t think he"s Swedish.] Ash thought quietly to herself, mentally responding to her friends"s teasing.

Not for the first time, Ash regretted telling her friends about her crush on Hunter. She had told them about it in confidence since she a.s.sumed they would figure it out for themselves eventually. They had kept her secret---which wasn"t exactly hard to do given that the rest of their peers weren"t exactly interested in the trio and their affairs. The teasing wasn"t even what annoyed her the most, because she loved bantering with her friends. What irritated her was that they weren"t interested in anyone, which left her with nothing to tease them back with.

Celia and Isabelle didn"t have crushes on anyone at the Academy. Celia had a girlfriend before she came to the school, but that relationship had ended badly. The breakup was why Celia had agreed to being sent off to boarding school by her parents in the first place: she wanted to get as far away from her ex as possible. Isabelle, on the other hand, just wasn"t interested in dating people her own age. She had explained that after college she would likely be married off to a n.o.bleman or some high-roller in her own country. She was still so eager to please her father that she had dismissed the idea of being with any man he didn"t choose for her.

"You know what, I think I"ll pa.s.s on jogging today. And no ma.s.sage either, thanks," Ash said in a huff.

"Hey, we were just kidding," Isabelle said.

"---But if you change your mind you could have him in our room. Just put a sign on the door so I know you have a man in there." Celia offered, jokingly.

"How about I barricade the door so you sleep outside on the ground?" Ash said, seething.

Her friends stopped walking and turned to look at her. They were already in front of their dorm building.

"Hey, I"m sorry, Ashy. I didn"t think you"d get so mad. We were just teasing." Celia said softly.

Isabelle looked at Ash with concern. Ash had an easy-going att.i.tude and almost never lost her cool. Out of all of them, Ash had the most sarcastic and cutting humor, so it surprised her that Ash had taken offense to their teasing. She sensed that something else was bothering her friend.

Ash took a deep breath and exhaled the air out of her mouth with a whooshing sound.

"No, I"m sorry. I didn"t mean it to sound like that. I was just kidding too."

The group stood together in an awkward silence. Isabelle opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything a group of girls rushed past them, one of them b.u.mping into Celia and knocking her aside.

"You were in the way!" A red-headed girl in the group shouted back to them; it was a statement and not an apology.

Celia raised a fist and faked a punch in the direction of the red-headed girl. The group had kept on walking and hadn"t even bothered to look back at her. Ash had calmed slightly after the teasing, but she felt her friend"s anger add to her own and fed off it. She felt the blood rush to her ears. It gave her a hot feeling in her chest. Her face twitched.

"Do you want to go upstairs and rest, Ash?"

Ash"s eyes darted to Isabelle who was looking at her with concern. A hot rage was still bubbling inside her body, but her friend was asking her a question. It took her a second to process what was said, but even as she understood, she still didn"t answer.

"I"ll take her." Celia said. She hadn"t seen Ash"s face yet; she was still staring in the direction of the red-headed girl, shooting daggers with her eyes.

"I"ll see you both later at dinner, okay?" Isabelle said in a soothing, almost motherly tone.

"I thought we were going for a run together?" Celia asked, puzzled. She looked at Isabelle. Celia still hadn"t seen Ash"s face, so she hadn"t noticed anything changing.

"Yes, I"ll meet you here in the lobby in a few minutes, after you get Ash to your room. I think she needs to rest." Isabelle"s eyes were locked onto Ash"s face. She kept her expression soft and her voice soothing, as if she were negotiating with a crazy person or a rabid dog.

"Okay, cool." Celia replied, casually.

Ash blinked. She understood that Isabelle wanted her to rest. She nodded and headed up the stairs like an obedient child. Celia followed behind her.

Isabelle watched as her friends climbed the stairs. She bit her bottom lip, thinking about what she had just seen in Ash"s face. Ash had looked angry, very angry. No, not angry. It wasn"t just that. She looked . . . almost . . . savage? Her expression had been practically that of a wild animal.

But more than that, Isabelle had seen something else. Something impossible. Just before Ash had blinked, she thought she had seen Ash"s eyes change color. For a split second, her eyes had gone from a deep brown to an alarming golden yellow.