Not unless they were convenient for him.
“Well, I’m not going to say. But the student in question is a female who finished in record time. Can you imagine that? I am very impressed.”
But he didn’t sound impressed. He sounded angry. He sounded like my perfect score was a personal affront to him. I imagined it had shaken his world view to its core. I mentally kicked myself for not making deliberate errors.
A perfect score? How could I be so stupid?
Not stupid, Princess. The opposite.
Yeah, don’t hide your light under a bushel.
I almost laughed at Dylan’s comment. He liked to throw those weird old sayings around once in a while. And he wasn’t even undead!
“I will be investigating the circumstances of the test to make sure there was no cheating. Because it really does sound too good to be true, doesn’t it, class?”
His beady eyes narrowed on me and I nearly groaned. I did not want to get close enough to glamour him. But it was starting to look like I would have to.
I’m happy to eat him for you, Maxim offered.
I’m with Maxim on this one, Soph. Penbrecker’s a dick.
Uh, guys? I think I can handle this myself.
It’s too bad you won’t be going to college with scores like that. I’m impressed.
Thanks, Dyl.
I slid further in my seat and waited for class to be over. Sometimes, this whole human thing sucked. Janelle was watching me with a puzzled look on her face. She was wearing less makeup these days, which should have been an improvement. She really was a very pretty girl. But instead of looking natural, she looked disheveled.
Maybe knowing that there were some people who were more than human had unraveled her. That or my glamour had worn off. I’d never heard of that happening.
Nightfall, I might not like the girl, but I didn’t want to destroy her. She had gone from running the school to unhinged, and I hadn’t even noticed.
I guess I was going to have to glamour her too.
“That’s quite a trick you pulled off. As if we could believe a girl would get a perfect score. You’re in big trouble, missy.”
I stared at Mr. Penbrecker. I’d come to office hours, leaving my squad to run the latest routine without me for a few minutes.
“It wasn’t a trick.” I smiled and took off my glasses. “But this is.”
His jaw went slack as he stared into my eyes.
“You will never look at a female student below the neck again. You will never disrespect any woman again. You will never teach girls that they are bad at math again. You will celebrate women and their accomplishments. You are now the biggest feminist you know. You will champion and advocate for your female students and women in general.”
My smile widened.
“And if you ever feel a little tickle in the back of your mind telling you it’s okay to be a creepy old perv or treat females like they are less than, I want you to go somewhere private and punch yourself in the face.” I tilted my head to the side. “Really hard.”
I blinked and it was over. I slid my glasses back on. They helped prevent me from glamouring everyone willy-nilly. I had forgotten my contacts today, which was a relief.
I didn’t feel like popping them out to glamour nasty old men and crazy blonde mean girls.
I slung my book bag over my shoulder and went looking for Janelle.
Chapter 19
Killing time and trying not to kill Maxim.
“So you glamoured her too?”
Karen shook her head wryly and leaned back on the mossy rock. The falls had become ‘our place’ over the past year. Neutral territory. Although, lately, it felt more and more that we were on the same side.
“No. I couldn’t find her.” I bit my lip. “I’m worried, Kah. She is unhinged. My father always taught our kind to do no harm.”
She gave me a skeptical look.
“Drinking people like wine coolers isn’t doing harm?”
“Well, as little harm as possible. Some people offer themselves to us.” I shivered. “More than you would think. Anyway, isn’t bloodletting supposed to be good for humans?”
She laughed and wagged a finger at me.
“Maybe in the Middle Ages.” She tilted her head to the side. “Actually, I’m going to look into that. You might be right.”
I smiled at her scholarly interest in all things healing and then groaned.
“What am I gonna do?”
“About the upcoming war? The two boys in love with you? Or the crazy blonde you only see in fifth period?”
“I’m serious, Kah,” I muttered, ignoring her other comments. “If she is unstable, she is a risk to herself and others. I don’t want to be responsible for one human death.”
The image of the serving boy flashed through my mind. He had been so young. Had he had any choice in the matter? Had the Cotswolds had him on standby in case I turned out to be too big of a disappointment? Or a threat?
“Okay, so we find her. You glamour her. Make her bitchy again.”
I laughed at Karen’s choice of words.
“Yeah. I guess that sounds about right.”
We need to train when you are finished with girl talk.
I rolled my eyes. Maxim had been grumpy since we got back. I think it might have to do with the fact that Dylan kept coming over. The two of them were like dogs, circling each other and looking for a fight.
I just hoped it didn’t come to that. I didn’t want Dylan throwing ice Stars of Morgana at Maxim with his mind, though I was pretty sure he wasn’t up to that yet, no matter how much Caleb had been trying to train him. His skills were intriguing but limited on his own. And I definitely did not want Maxim drinking Dylan and going all Alpha Vamp on him.
If you made your choice, this would all be over.
I stood up abruptly.
“I gotta go. Tomorrow?”
Karen nodded, watching me.
“Is it them?”
I nodded and waved before taking off at a sprint. But I wasn’t just running. I was shouting.
Choice? You think I have a choice? Why do I need to make a choice, Maxim? I think there are other things to worry about like, I don’t know, the future of Vampire kind? And humankind!
I could feel him listening. Dyl too. I didn’t care if I was mind-shouting at them. They deserved it.
And who says I have to choose, anyway? What if I want to be alone? What if I want someone else? What if I want to date or even just wait until I’m twenty to get into a serious relationship if, you know, I AM STILL ALIVE?
I paused running and punched a boulder. The whole earth shook. Birds took flight as nearby trees started to sway. Whoops. I started walking, hoping it would calm me down. The boys, thank Nightfall, didn’t bother to say anything.
They weren’t that stupid.
When I finally reached the back yard of the house, it was dusk, and Maxim was waiting for me. I glared at him from ten feet away, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Nothing to say?”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes blazing. He wanted to say plenty. I could feel it. But he didn’t dare open his mouth.
“Good.”
He held up a set of throwing knives and raised his eyebrows.
“Let’s train. Put some of that pent-up energy to use.”
“Fine,” I growled, not bothering to argue with his ‘pent-up’ comment. Even if it irked me. I’d be more than happy to show him how I felt by beating him, fair and square. Knives were a good starting point.
“Fine.”
He nodded and pulled his hands behind his back so I couldn’t anticipate his first throw. I didn’t move. I wouldn’t have time to prepare in the heat of battle, and I didn’t want it now.
He threw without warning, and I leapt into the air, pulling my legs up high as the knife flew harmlessly beneath them. I thought about retrieving it, but I wanted it to be a fair fight.
It would only be fair if I was unarmed.
/> If Maxim thought he was training with the same Vamp he’d worked with six months ago, he was sorely mistaken. I pulled water from the air toward me and froze it, shooting it toward him in a massive spike.
His eyes were wide as he ducked out of the way.
“You learned some new tricks.”
I flashed him a feral smile and stretched.
“Is that all you got?”
He choked back a laugh. I waited, wondering if he was going to challenge me or if he was too busy being polite.
Not a chance.
I almost didn’t see the knives, he threw them so fast. One high and one low. Sneaky, sneaky.
I twisted, my body going horizontal as I spun in the air. I reached in each direction to pluck the knives from above and below me.
Then I threw them as I hit the ground in a low crouch. Maxim caught one, but the other sliced along the edge of his shoulder. I ran toward him before he could throw again, jumping high and flipping to avoid the blade he sent spinning toward me.
Without thought, I created a wind tunnel of dust and dead leaves to obscure his vision. I could see clearly as I positioned myself and landed neatly behind him, the blade I always had strapped to my ankle at his throat.
Chillies stood in front of him and blocked Maxim’s escape.
“Good boy.”
A loud purr was his response.
“I’m impressed. Though you would do better to avoid close quarters.”
“Even going in for the kill?”
“Especially going in for the kill, Princess.”
Maxim’s hand took my wrist and pulled it gently away from his body. He turned to face me without letting go.
“You two are unstoppable.” Maxim smirked. “Nearly.”
I looked down to see he had a blade at my sternum. I looked at him, wondering for a split-second if he was tempted to take out the competition. His eyes narrowed in stunned fury. Clearly, he had heard my thoughts.
“Not even for a sliver of a second. I’d sooner turn the blade on myself.”
He looked furious, not that I blamed him. I pulled my hand free of his grip and signaled to Chillies to stand down. Maxim didn’t move, didn’t even blink until I had stepped away. Then he threw the blade so hard into the ground that it disappeared completely into the soil between us.
For a heartbeat, I thought he would say more. I could feel all the things he wanted to say. I felt his hurt and anger. More than anything, I felt his disbelief. I even felt a little bit guilty, but I couldn’t exactly control every thought.
And it’s not like he hadn’t, in fact, betrayed me once before.
He cursed and turned, stalking away. I watched as he scooped up his motorcycle jacket from the back porch and stalked around the house, not even bothering with Vamp speed. I heard the roar of his motorcycle a moment later.
I looked at the sleek white cat staring up at me from the ground.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned, did it?”
Chapter 20
Surprise, surprise. I am really sick of being surprised.
“Have you heard from him?”
I shook my head, not wanting to talk about Maxim. He was icing me out somehow. I wanted to know how everyone knew how to do that except me.
“You’re doing all right?”
I glared at Dylan.
“Obviously not.” I kicked a rock, looking around the lake. It was still pretty at this time of year, though nowhere near as populated as it was in the summer. In fact, there wasn’t a soul in sight. “You sure she’s been hanging out here?”
Dylan nodded.
“Yeah. I heard she’s fallen in with a bad crowd.”
“Drugs?”
“Probably. I don’t really know.”
“Great. I never thought I’d be staging an intervention for Janelle, of all people.”
“Well, you said you are the one who ‘bent her brain’, right?”
“I said ‘bent her tiny brain’, if you want to get specific, but yeah. This is on me.”
He grinned at me.
“You are funny when you’re mad.”
“You must be laughing non-stop lately then.”
He nodded. “I have to admit, I love it when you fight.”
I groaned and looked around. I wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole. I let the surroundings distract me. It was desolate out here at this time of year, pretty with the misty green and blue of the trees and water, but lonely somehow. There were hardly any birds around, I thought curiously.
“Where do these burners hang out, anyway?”
“Behind the boat house. I think.”
I nodded and jerked my chin.
“That way, right?”
He gave me a warm look.
“You remember.”
“I pretty much have a photographic memory, but on steroids,” I ground out. I did not want to talk about our on-again, off-again romance. Still, Dylan was doing me a favor, so I definitely didn’t want to piss him off either. No chance of that, I realized, noticing that something was making him smile.
“You remember everything?” he prompted.
“Yes. I said that,” I said, sounding just as annoyed as I was.
“So you remember every single time we’ve kissed?”
I glared at him until he stopped grinning.
We started walking toward the boat house which was halfway around the lake. It was a good place to hide out if you wanted to do something illegal, I mused. The parking lot was far enough away to avoid the moms and the joggers, and you would notice any cops well before they got close enough to see or ’smell’ you. I could smell the pungent odor of weed as we approached.
I had a brief thought about someone else who was hiding from me.
“You’re worried. You feel bad.”
I sighed. I guess we were talking about this. And Dylan was right. I was worried. It had been almost a week since Maxim disappeared. I was worried about Janelle too.
“I don’t even know where he’s sleeping. Or if he’s okay.”
“He’s okay. Pissed off, but okay.”
I gave him a sharp look. “How do you know?”
“I can still hear him sometimes.”
“How in Nightfall is that possible?”
He shrugged. “He’s ‘icing’ you out, not me.”
“Ugh, get out of my head, please,” I groaned as he tossed my own thoughts back at me. I gave him a pleading look. “At least pretend.”
“Okay, Soph.”
He gave me a sad, sweet smile as we rounded the southern bend of the lake. It was sandier here for bathing, with buoys set up in a rectangle, indicating where it was safe for kids to swim. Just past that there was a floating dock and kayaks you could rent in summer.
And apparently, those kayaks were also fun to get wasted in. I saw her immediately. Janelle was lying in a kayak on the sand near a pathetic-looking bonfire. She didn’t look like herself, to say the least. She didn’t look like she was even bothering to shower, for Nightfall’s sake.
“Jeez,” Dylan muttered. “There she is.”
It was almost like she could sense me. Her head snapped up and she glared at me.
“What are you doing here, freak?”
She whispered it. I was more than twenty feet away. But she knew I could hear her. I could tell by the cruel smile that lit up her once-pretty face for a brief moment. Then she went back to looking dull-eyed and greasy.
Just what, exactly, did she know about me, anyway?
This is not good.
No, it’s not, Dylan agreed silently.
I felt an undefined rumble of annoyance from Maxim but nothing else.
There were furtive movements as the rest of the stoners noticed us. It was one thing to have a couple of beers on a weekend, as long as you didn’t drive or do something stupid. It was another thing to be out here blazing on a Tuesday afternoon.
Judging from the haze of beer and smoke coming off them, I wondered if they’d even gone
to school. I was pretty sure Janelle was ditching on the regular. It was a far cry from the aggressively popular go-getter she was a year ago.
“Come on over, freak. We’re celebrating.”
I walked closer, crossing my arms and standing at the edge of the circle. Kids I recognized from school were scattered here and there, but the rest of them looked older. I glanced around. A lot older.
“What are you celebrating?”
She smiled at me, and I saw a flash of something in her eyes. Something crazy. Something wild.
“My birthday. I can vote now.”
“Happy birthday. Now you can be tried as an adult. Can I talk to you?”
“Go ahead. Talk.”
“Alone,” I said meaningfully.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t feel like it, okay, freak?”
I threw my hands up. I didn’t feel like glamouring all of them. It would have to wait.
“Come on, Dyl.”
Wolf, a deep voice warned in my head.
I stopped short, looking around.
Maxim, are you here?
He growled.
Leave now. Her bite is deadly to our kind.
Janelle? She’s psycho, but she’s just a hormonal teenager.
She’s not human. Not entirely.
Oh come ON, I groaned.
Werewolves are real too? Dylan jumped in, sounding as confused as I was.
Yes.
I thought they were extinct, I grumbled. I knew that lycanthropes were real, but I’d been taught they had died out. This was the last thing I needed.
Apparently not.
Then why didn’t she just bite me last year?
Like you, she won’t reach her full powers until she is eighteen. She probably didn’t know. She might not have even turned yet.
Dylan and I exchanged a glance when Maxim’s voice cut in.
Leave now, or I will break this party up.
So you are here. If she’s dangerous to me, does that mean she is dangerous to you?
Yes.
Is this why her glamour didn’t stick?
Yes. It’s temporary with other supernaturals, if they can be glamoured at all.
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