Crush

by Tracy Wolff

  I take the back stairs two at a time, my hand coasting along the elaborately carved banister as I do. I’m in such a rush to get to class, I don’t notice a chunk of the banister is missing—and stairs—until it’s too late and almost tumble through the hole.

  I manage to catch myself, but as I do, I get an up-close look at the edges on either side of the gap. They’re charred and blackened and look to be the victims of some kind of high-intensity fire. Someone obviously lost their temper…or at least lost control of their powers.

  Dragon or witch? I wonder as I turn the corner into the north hallway where my architecture class is located. They’re the only ones who can wield that kind of firepower. Which is cool but definitely a little scary, too.

  Maybe I’m looking at this whole gargoyle thing all wrong. At least I don’t have to worry about burning the school down when I’m a giant stone statue.

  Warning chimes playing the Rolling Stones’s “Sympathy for the Devil”—Katmere’s version of a bell and Uncle Finn’s own private indulgence—go off just as I slip through the doorway of my architecture class. I try to get the lay of the land and to find an empty desk, but I barely have the chance to inhale a breath before I jump a little as I realize Flint is crowding in behind me.

  He puts a steadying hand on my shoulder even as a huge grin splits his face. “New Girl! You’re back!”

  “You already knew that.” I roll my eyes at the greeting. “You saw me earlier.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure you weren’t some hope-induced hallucination earlier.” He wraps me in a huge hug and lifts me off my feet. “Now I know you’re real.”

  “Why is that exactly?” I ask as he finally lets me down. He’s so warm, and I’m still so cold that I think about burrowing against him for a second hug. But this is the guy who tried to kill me not that long ago. Sure, he’s had the last four months to move on, but for me it feels like everything happened just a few days ago. Including him choking me out in the tunnels below the school.

  But Flint just winks at me and says, “Because no one who doesn’t have to be here would ever come to this class.”

  10

  One Giant Pain

  in my Ass

  “Fantastic.” I give him my very best fake smile. “Because that doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

  “Hey, I’m just keeping it real.” He leans in close. “You want another tip?”

  “I didn’t realize there was a first tip,” I answer with a roll of my eyes.

  This time when he smiles, his teeth gleam white and just a little sharp against his rich umber complexion, and I can’t help wondering how I missed it for so many days.

  Everything about the boy screams “dragon,” from the way he moves to the way his eyes track my every movement. And that’s not even including the large ring on his right ring finger that I’ve never seen him take off—at least not in human form. It’s literally a bright-green stone with a dragon etched into it set in an elaborate silver base.

  “I’m going to ignore your lack of enthusiasm, New Girl, and tell you anyway. Because that’s just the kind of guy I am.”

  “So magnanimous,” I agree with a click of my tongue, although I can’t keep the humor from leaking into my gaze. Staying mad at Flint is starting to feel impossible. “Or, wait. I think I mean murderous. Sorry.” I deliberately widen my eyes. “I always confuse those two words.”

  Flint’s cheeks flush just a little, and his expression shifts to a combination of embarrassed and impressed as he leans over and whispers, “Me too.”

  I meet his eyes. “I remember.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He looks sad, but he doesn’t try to argue with me. Doesn’t try to pretend I don’t have the right to be wary around him. Instead, he just nods toward the desks and says, “You might want to grab a seat in the back.”

  “Why is that exactly?” I ask.

  Flint just shakes his head, and his signature big grin stretches across his face again. He holds his hands out in a half-conciliatory, half-do-what-you-want kind of motion. “Sit in the front for a day if you must. You’ll figure it out.”

  I want to ask more, but the final bell rings, and everyone is rushing for a seat—as far back from the front as they can get.

  So it was a real tip, then, and not just Flint’s way of messing with me. Too bad I’m a little slow on the uptake, because now nearly all the seats in the back are taken.

  Figuring the front can’t be that bad, I start to make my way over to the row against the wall—the second seat is open, and it seems like as good a bet as any.

  I’m almost there when a slender arm, bedecked in crystal enhancing bracelets, shoots out to stop me. “Oh my God, Grace!” Macy’s friend Gwen beckons me over to sit next to her.

  “Welcome back,” she practically shouts at me as I slide into the desk in front of her. “Have you seen Macy yet? She’s going to flip!”

  She shoves a lock of her long, shiny black hair behind her ear as she talks, and when it falls right back into her face again, she makes an exasperated noise and leans forward to pull an antique hair clip—also crystal enhanced—out of her bag.

  “I haven’t seen her yet. My uncle said she’s been taking a midterm since I…” I trail off awkwardly, as I have no idea how to finish that sentence.

  Since I got back?

  Since I became human again?

  Since I stopped being a gargoyle?

  Ugh. What a mess.

  Gwen smiles sympathetically, then whispers something in Chinese to me. The look on her face tells me it’s something special, but I don’t have a clue if it’s a spell or a blessing or something in between.

  “What does that mean?” I whisper back as the architecture teacher, a Mr. Damasen, according to my schedule, lumbers into the room. He’s a huge man—seven feet at least—with long red hair tied back at the nape of his neck and ancient gold eyes that seem to see everything.

  Instinctively, I sit a little taller and notice everyone else in the class does the same—except for Flint, who currently has his long legs kicked up on his desk like he’s on a lounger in the middle of the Bahamas.

  Mr. Damasen zeroes in on him, his eyes doing this weird swirling thing that totally freaks me out. But Flint just keeps grinning that lazy, dragon grin of his and even raises his hand in a little half wave, half salute.

  At first, I think the teacher is going to bite his head off—maybe even literally—but in the end, he doesn’t say a word. He just kind of shakes his head before giving the rest of the students in the classroom a quick once-over.

  “It’s a Chinese proverb my mother used to tell me all the time when I was growing up and struggling to figure out my powers and my place in the witchcraft world. ‘If heaven made someone, earth can find some use for them.’” Her bracelets clink together in a surprisingly soothing rhythm as she leans forward slightly and pats my forearm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ll figure it out. Just give yourself some time.”

  Her words are right on. So right on, in fact, that they freak me out a little bit. I really don’t like the idea of the entire school knowing how I’m feeling. I thought I’d done a good job of keeping my emotions under wraps, but now I’m really doubting that belief, considering this is only the second time Gwen and I have ever talked.

  “How did you know?”

  She smiles. “I’m an empath and a healer. It’s kind of what I do. And you’ve got every right to be freaked out right now. Just try to breathe through it until you get your feet under you.”

  “Fake it till I make it?” I joke, because that’s pretty much been my mantra since I got to Katmere Academy.

  “Something like that, yeah,” she answers with a quiet laugh.

  “Miss Zhou.” Mr. Damasen’s voice booms across the classroom like a lightning strike, rattling everything in its path—including his students’ nerve
s. “Care to join the rest of the class in turning in your review packet for the midterm? Or are you not interested in obtaining those points?”

  “Of course, Mr. Damasen.” She holds up a bright-orange folder. “I have it right here.”

  “Sorry,” I whisper, but she just winks at me as she gets up to add her file to the stack at the front of the room.

  “As for you, Miss Foster, it’s nice to have you back.” I jump as Mr. Damasen’s voice thunders so loudly, it practically rattles my eyes back in my head. He’s made his way down my aisle and is now standing right in front of me, a textbook in his hand. “Here’s the book you’ll need for my class.”

  I reach for it gingerly, trying to keep my ears as far away from his voice as I can, just in case he decides he has something else to say. I now understand exactly what Flint was warning me about. Too bad I can’t run down to the nearest drugstore and pick up a pair of earplugs before next class.

  Turns out keeping my ears as far out of range as possible was a good move on my part, because I’ve barely got the textbook in my hands before he continues. “But you’ve chosen to return on the day we’re taking the class midterm—something you are obviously ill-equipped for. So after I get everyone started on the test, come up to my desk with Mr. Montgomery. I’ve got a job for the two of you.”

  “Flint?” His name pops out before I even know I’m going to say it. “Doesn’t he have to take the test?”

  “Nope.” Flint pretends to buff his nails on his shirt before blowing on them in the universal gesture for I’ve got this. “The person with the highest grade in the class is exempt from the midterm. So I am free to help with whatever you may need.” The grin he shoots me as he says the last word is absolutely wicked.

  I’m not about to argue with my teacher on my first day of class, so I wait while Mr. Damasen hands out thick test packets to everyone else in the room. Only after he’s answered the numerous questions that go along with the test do I make my way up to his desk at the front of the class, Flint hot on my heels. I can feel everyone staring at us—staring at me—and my cheeks burn in response. But I’m determined not to let anyone know that they’re getting to me, so I just look straight ahead and pretend Flint isn’t standing so close that I can feel his breath on my neck.

  Mr. Damasen grunts when he sees us and reaches into the top drawer of his desk to pull out a yellow envelope. Then, in a voice that I’m pretty sure he thinks is a whisper but is really more like a near-shout, he tells us, “What I need you to do is go around the school and take pictures of everything on this list and return the photos to me within two weeks. I need to use them as references on an article I’m writing for May’s edition of Giant Adventures.” He looks back and forth between us. “Your uncle said it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Trust Uncle Finn to try to fix everything—typical. “No, no problem, Mr. Damasen,” I say, mostly because I don’t know what else to say.

  He hands it to me, then waits a little impatiently for me to open it. “Any questions?” he asks in a thundering timbre the second I set eyes on the list.

  About a hundred, but most of them have nothing to do with what I’m supposed to photograph. No, my questions are all about how I’m supposed to spend the next hour and a half with the boy who, not very long ago, wanted me dead.

  11

  Just Call Me

  Stone-Coldhearted

  “Are you okay with this?” Flint asks after we’ve gotten to the hallway. For once, he’s not joking around as he asks. In fact, he looks deadly serious.

  The truth is, I’m not sure if I’m okay or not. I mean, I know Flint isn’t going to hurt me again—with Lia dead and Hudson who knows where, there’s absolutely no reason for Flint to try to kill me to keep me from being used in Hudson’s bizarre resurrection. At the same time, I’m not super excited about rushing off to some of the (very) isolated places on that list with him, either. Fool me once and all that…

  Still, an assignment is an assignment. Plus, if my doing this means I don’t have to eventually take the midterm, I’m all for finding a way to make it work.

  “It’s fine,” I tell him after a few awkward seconds go by. “Let’s just get it done.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He nods at the list in my hand. “Where do you want to start?”

  I hand the stack of papers over to him. “You know the school better than I do. Why don’t you choose?”

  “Happy to.” He doesn’t say anything else as he starts perusing the list. Which should be a good thing—I mean, the last thing I want is for Flint to think we’re good friends again. But at the same time, I don’t like the way this feels, either.

  I don’t like the distance between us. I don’t like this serious Flint who isn’t joking around and teasing me. And I really, really don’t like that every minute we spend in this hallway seems to make things more awkward and not less.

  I miss the friend who roasted marshmallows for me in the library. Who made a flower for me out of thin air. Who offered to give me a piggyback ride up the stairs.

  But then I remember that that friend never really existed, that even when he was doing all those things, he was also plotting to hurt me, and I feel even worse.

  Flint keeps glancing at me over the top of Mr. Damasen’s list, but he doesn’t say anything. And that only makes everything feel even more off, until the silence stretches between us, taut and fragile as an acrobat’s wire. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets, until, by the time Flint finally finishes reading the list, I’m about to jump out of my skin.

  I know he feels it, too, though, because this boy in front of me isn’t the same one who teased me when he first walked into the classroom today. His voice is more subdued, his attitude more hesitant. Even his posture is different. He looks smaller and less confident than I’ve ever seen him when he says, “The tunnels are on this list.”

  His words hang in the air, haunting the space between us. “I know.”

  “I can do them myself if you want.” He clears his throat, shuffles his feet, looks anywhere but at me. “You can photograph something else on the list, and I can run down to the tunnels and take the pics Mr. Damasen needs really quick.”

  “I can’t take any pics on my own. I lost my phone in the whole…” Instead of saying the word out loud, I wave my hand in what I hope he understands to mean gargoyle debacle.

  “Oh, right.” He clears his throat for what feels like the fourth time in a minute. “I mean, I can still go down to the tunnels alone. You can just wait here, and then we can do the rest of the castle together.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not going to make you do that.”

  “You’re not making me do anything, Grace. I offered.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t ask you to offer. I’m the one getting a grade on it, after all.”

  “True, but I’m the one who was a complete asshole, so if you aren’t fine going down to those damn tunnels with me, then I totally get it, okay?”

  I rear back at his words, a little shocked by his sudden mea culpa but also a little pissed off about how flippant he sounds, like there’s something wrong with me for wanting to protect myself. Even knowing he felt like he didn’t have a choice—even knowing that he probably couldn’t have killed Lia without setting off a war between dragons and vampires—doesn’t absolve him of what he did.

  “You know what? You were a total asshole. Beyond an asshole, actually. I’m the one still sporting scars on my body from your talons, so why the hell are you suddenly the one standing here looking all sad and wounded? You’re the one who was a terrible friend to me, not the other way around.”

  His eyebrows slash down. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t spent every day of the last four months thinking about all the ways I fucked you over?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what you’ve been doing for the last four months. I’ve been stuck
as a damn statue, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  And just like that, all the fire seems to leave him, and his shoulders slump. “I haven’t forgotten. And it really fucking sucks.”

  “It does suck. This whole mess sucks. I thought you were my friend. I thought—”

  “I was your friend. I am your friend, if you’ll let me be one. I know I already apologized to you, and I know there’s nothing I can say or do to make up for what I did—no matter how many punishments Foster gave me. But I swear, Grace, I’ll never do anything like that again. I swear I’ll never hurt you again.”

  It’s not the words themselves that convince me to give him another chance, though they are pretty persuasive. It’s the way he says them, like our friendship really matters to him. Like he misses me as much as I’m finding out that I miss him.

  It’s because I do miss him, because I don’t want to believe that all those moments that meant something to me didn’t also mean something to him, that I make what may be my worst mistake yet. Instead of telling him to go to hell, instead of telling him it’s too late and I’ll never give him another chance, I say, “You better not, because if you ever pull anything like that again, you won’t have to worry about killing me. Because I promise, I’ll get to you first.”

  His whole face breaks out into that ridiculous grin I’ve never been able to resist. “Deal. If I try to kill you again, you can totally try to kill me back.”

  “There won’t be any try about it,” I tell him with my best pretend glare. “Only death. Your death.”

  He places a hand over his heart in mock horror. “You know what? You say that with a lot of conviction. I actually think you mean it.” Contrarily, his grin only gets bigger.