I looked at him with big eyes. How could he even ask me such a question? “Gee, Addison, I don’t know.” I muttered sarcastically. “One minute we’re outside sitting in the sunshine and enjoying our lunch. Two seconds later that A-hole Chucky is spewing blood all over the place. Then everybody else is raining blood all over each other. It was the stuff of nightmares and you ask me what’s wrong?”
He shook his head as his lips tipped up in the corners, in a tiny smile. I didn’t know what he had to smile about at a time like this. Maybe he was crazy? Maybe they all were crazy?
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “You looked sad for a second, almost lost. You weren’t thinking about what happened outside. You were thinking about something else.”
It seemed odd that he’d know me so well after only a few days. But… “Actually, I was thinking about what happened outside. Well, part of it. That girl on the ground who’d been trampled trying to get to the door? She’s in my creative writing class and on the first day of school she was the only person who was decent to me. She told me she wanted to be friends but I didn’t believe her. She kept talking about rumors about me and Tyson and she told me she’d heard my mother was a gold digging whore, but claimed to want to be my friend all the same. I don’t know if she meant it or not but I do know I wasn’t very nice to her. I feel bad for just leaving her out there when I maybe could have helped her. What if she’s out there puking up her own blood right now because I didn’t help her get up and get out of there?”
Abel tugged on a lock of my hair, pulling my head back and forcing me to look up at him. He loomed over me. “In case you’re forgetting, my twin and I share that class with you now. We’ve seen her and she looks at you with hate and jealousy in her eyes. So fuck her. If she ends up puking her own blood all over herself then it’s no less than she deserves. You don’t need to be concerned about anyone other than yourself and us. To hell with the rest of those assholes. If it had been you out there in their shoes none of them would have tried to help you. They all would have run away from you as they pointed their fingers at you and maybe even laughed. You don’t care about people like that.”
He tugged one more time forcibly on my hair before letting go. His eyes scanned the room and it was like I’d been forgotten, like he hadn’t spoken to me at all.
“My twin
is right,” Addison said.
I nodded and laid my head down on my knees. I hadn’t nodded in agreement so much as I didn’t want to talk anymore. I’d completely forgotten that they now shared creative writing with me and would have seen the girl. I never seemed to remember her unless she was in my line of sight, then I always ended up wishing I hadn’t taken notice of her in the first place. What was it with this damn girl?
Abel was intense. First with the hair pulling, which hadn’t hurt but had definitely surprised me. Then he came right out and told me I shouldn’t care about anyone besides us. I knew it was painfully obvious I had not made friends with anyone else, but was it really so wrong to care about the other students? To worry about them? I didn’t think so.
“The paramedics are here,” Tyson said. “Not that it will do anybody any good. You can’t fight magic with modern medicine.”
Magic…
Magic…
Magic…
Something brushed against the back of my mind.
Magic…
When had someone recently said something to me about magic? The more I thought about it the more my head hurt. A male voice inside my head whispered magic. It was a lovely voice. Masculine, deep and throaty. The kind of voice that raised goose bumps along your skin and made you shiver but never in a bad way. What had he said about magic and when had he said it to me? I couldn’t remember but thought it was important. I couldn’t remember so I was unfortunately left without an answer. Since Tyson had brought it up, maybe I would be able to ask and get some of my questions answered through him.
“Tyson?” I asked hesitantly. “What do you mean by magic?” And I felt stupid for asking it. Such things as magic weren’t real and I needed to stop fixating on the damn word whenever I heard it.
“I’ll explain it to you later, Ariel. I promise.”
Again, with the promises. He was going to drive me mad with this nonsense.
“Tyson,” I said slowly so he wouldn’t miss a single word, “you can’t keep saying shit like that to me. Eventually you’re going to have to give me more than a promise. This is the third time one of you has mentioned magic like it was a real thing and now I want to know what in the hell is going on.”
Tyson leaned over me. His dark, dark eyes so serious as they moved over my face. “Third time? When else have you heard one of us talk about magic?”
“Yesterday at your house and…” I snapped my mouth shut. I would not talk to him about a dream I had about his Uncle before I even met him and it was made worse due to the fact I didn’t even really remember it.
“And,” Tyson prompted.
“And…” Shit. “And, nothing.” Way to go, Ariel Kimber. That was genius.
“What aren’t you telling me?” He asked.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I parroted.
He shook his head, sending his long hair forward, hiding part of his face. He didn’t bother to push it back behind his ear. Instead he used it to shield part of his expression from me, hiding.
“We can’t talk about this here at school in a room full of students. When we get home, I swear to you I will tell you whatever you want to know.”
I wanted to argue with him about so many things but he had a point. Maybe talking about certain things wouldn’t be appropriate at this moment. Not in a room filled with frightened people, not when all it would take is one small thing to set them off and who knew what would happen. The possibilities were endless.