A plate was placed in front of me. The pizza on it looked weird with chunks of chicken and white sauce. I thanked Tyson before picking up a piece and taking a bite. It didn’t taste like any kind of alfredo I’d eaten before, but I definitely liked it.
I watched as Tyson took a huge bite of his slice and promptly spit it back out on to his plate. He dropped the slice of pizza like it was on fire. I burst out laughing at the look of disgust on his face.
He scowled at me. “That tastes like crap.”
I disagreed.
He slid the piece he’d taken a bite out of onto my plate and reached for a different kind. I grinned at him and kept on eating. To each their own. We all ate in relative silence. I kept my eyes on my food or Tyson because I could feel the rest of them staring at me, watching me eat and making me extremely uncomfortable.
I ate two slices of pizza, one of them being Tyson’s, and could eat no more. My stomach was in knots, otherwise I might have eaten more. The pizza really was that good.
Under the watchful eyes of every person in the room, I pushed my stool back and stood with every intention of walking my plate to the sink so I could rinse it off. My flipflop snagged on one of the legs of my stool and I stumbled forward. The plate flew from my hands and I watched in wide-eyed horror as the plate hit the floor and shattered.
I might have suffered the same fate as the plate if not for Tyson and the twins. They were up in a heartbeat. The next second all three had ahold of me. I opened my mouth to say thanks when it hit me. Their heat. So intense it threatened to burn me up where I stood. My body shook uncontrollably as my frantic eyes raced around the room looking for help.
“Burns,” I whined in a pitiful high pitched voice.
Immediately they let go of me. I swayed on my feet. Then, for the first time in my seventeen years of existence on this planet, my eyes rolled back in my head and I fainted.
Chapter Eleven
I blinked and rolled over to my side, only to almost fall off the couch and onto my face. I jerked back and looked around me in confusion. Where was I? My t-shirt and hoodie had ridden up in my sleep, exposing my bare stomach. Quickly, I pulled both down and put them back where they belonged.
Voices drifted over to me from the other side of the couch. Male voices. This wasn’t Mr. Cole’s house. He didn’t have a couch like this, this comfortable, in his house unless it was in one of the many rooms I had yet to explore. And Mr. Cole certainly did not have a television that size. Most people didn’t have a television that big. Had I hit my head on something?
“Are we sure it’s her?” Someone asked. I knew that voice, but not very well.
“Are you kidding me?” Bellowed a different voice. This one Tyson’s and he sounded angry, so much so he was back to being Mr. Menacing Voice. I was glad he wasn’t using it on me. Why was Tyson always so angry? “We’ve known it was her since she moved in next door and Uncle Quinton first saw her. Fuck, half our summer was spent with the two of us fighting over whether or not we should cut our trip short so we could get back here to her.”
“Calm down.” That was Tyson’s Uncle Quinton, I recognized his voice from my dream.
“But how can we be sure?” The first voice insisted.
“Fuck you,” one of the twins snarled. “Did you miss what just happened? She’s one of us and she’s the one we’ve been waiting for, the one we all dreamed about. I can feel it when I’m around her and I can feel her when I touch her. Twin, back me up.”
“I feel it too, twin, you know I do. We’re not leaving her. We know what we are, always have, and we’ve always had each other. Can you imagine not knowing who or what you are and being all alone? Who knows what she’s experienced so far, what kind of magic she’s manifested. All I know is that whatever the case, she’s experienced it all alone. Well, not anymore. And she’s a girl. She’s special.”
“Well said, twin. We aren’t leaving her. No way. She stays with us.”
Were they talking about me? I thought they were. My head throbbed.
“Last time anyone checked, there were only three other females with known magic in existence. And they’ve all been claimed by covens, we know this. Ariel is special and we need to claim her before someone else takes notice of her. Even if it is just for her own safety and nothing mor
e.” I think that one was Julian. He made no damn sense.
“How can we claim her when we can’t even agree on whether or not we all believe she is who we think she is?”
“She’s not going anywhere, Damien,” Quinton snarled.
“I don’t care what you-”
My head throbbed harder with each word until I could take no more. “Shut up,” I muttered rudely. “You’re giving me a headache.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I’d had a headache all damn day, they were just making it worse. I’d never gotten the chance to take any Tylenol throughout the day. I sat up, placed my elbows on my knees and rested my head in my hands. A gentle touch at my thigh had me sitting up straight. Why were they always touching me?
Tyson loomed over me. He held a clear, glass cup filled with water in one hand and two white tablets in the other. I smiled gratefully as I took the pills and swallowed them down with a mouthful of water. Tyson seemed to like taking care of me. Not that I minded, it felt nice.
“Thanks, Tyson,” I mumbled with the glass of water still held between my hands.