“Why are we sitting here?” asked a godawful, movie-worthy, bitch voice a few feet away from me.
“Look, Aaron, if your girl’s gonna complain, she can move, and you can follow after her like a little puppy dog. It’s your choice.”
The chair next to me dragged across the tile, and after an audible sigh, the rest followed.
Just how many people were sitting here?
I refused to acknowledge them and just continued with my homework until someone tapped my shoulder.
Without looking up, I said, “Yes?”
“Umm, hi. I’m Jack.” I didn’t say anything and tried to continue writing. “And your name is?”
“Selena.”
“Wait a minute. You’re Alexandra’s sister, right?” I recognized that voice.
I looked up. It was the blond boy with dimples from this morning.
“Yes, and Lily’s.” I smirked. I almost felt bad for the poor kid. He wasn’t even a player, and my lovely sister was going to break his spirit in two.
“I don’t know if you remember, but I’m—”
“Michael.” I make of point of learning about people my sisters get involved with.
“Wait, you know each other?” one of them asked.
“Sort of.” I shrugged.
“I escorted her to foreign languages this morning,” he said, without taking his eyes off me.
“Then why haven’t you introduced us?” a boy with a devilish look to him asked.
“Selena, this is Jack,” he said, motioning to one who’d already introduced himself.
“April.” The irritating girl.
“Amy.” A follower of the irritating girl.
“Will.” A boy with light brown hair and blue eyes.
“And Aaron.” He finished with the player with devilish looks.
“Nice to meet you,” I lied, already bored with the conversation.
“Pleasure’s all mine.” Aaron grinned, and April slapped his arm.
“Quit flirting with my boyfriend,” she said to me, then muttered “tramp” under her breath.
Strike one.
I narrowed my eyes and looked down at my paper. Breathe. In. Out. In. Contain the temper. She’s a child. She’s beneath you. Let it go.
“Is something funny, bitch? Do I look like I’m joking?”
Strike two.
Breathe, I repeated. Let it go. My knuckles were white from clenching my pencil so hard.
“Aaron, your girl,” Jack said.
“Answer me!” she nearly shouted.
Strike three.
The pencil snapped.
“Let me clue you in on something before you make another mistake by talking to me like that.” My voice was clipped and detached as I snapped my notebook closed and looked her straight in the eye.
“You should rethink who you’re calling a tramp, or a bitch. Especially given that little reunion you and your boyfriend had last night.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Thought that was between the two of you, did you? I bet he promised to love you forever. And now he’s flirting with the new girl.” I kept my eyes locked on her, refusing to break contact even when I could see Aaron’s smoldering gaze in my periphery. “I’m not to blame here. Your ignorance isn’t even to blame here. You want to get pissed? Look at him.” I pointed directly at him as I looked her in the eye. I waited for her to say something, but she faltered. Looking between me and him, unsure what to believe.
“You want to know how I know? Your boyfriend is in my third period, and he likes to run his mouth to all his buddies. I don’t give a damn what you do, or what happens to either of your reputations. Leave me out of it, and next time, maybe lay off the hypocrisy a little when you were on your back less than twenty-four hours ago.” I walked away. A slap rang in my ears, and I hoped she made the right choice and dumped his ass.
I hadn’t even said the worse part, about her being on her period. That definitely didn’t need repeating. I still remember when Alexandra had been in a similar situation with a human boy.
She gave the other girl third degree burns.
If only they’d realized what happened when you played with fire.
~.~.~.~
I was strolling along the wide-open pathway about fifteen minutes later when Lily came striding up to me. “Why?” she demanded, falling into step with me.
“Why what?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Selena. You’re the talk of the school right now. Why?” Her voice was rising.
“If I’m the talk of the school, you should already know.”
She glared at me. “I don’t believe it. I want to hear it from you.” Her voice trembled slightly. This was the first time she’d ever demanded anything from me. I would make sure it was the last.
“You want to hear it from me? The girl’s boyfriend flirted with me, and before I could respond, she went after me for it. Me. I gave her three chances. Honestly, I think I did her a favor.” I kept calm as I started to walk away.
“So that’s it? What happened to my sister who let everything go because it wasn’t worth her time? Where’d she go?” Lily called.
I stopped. “Lily, I don’t care if you think I made the wrong choice. At the end of the day, I remember what happened to Alexandra in eighth grade, and I wish someone had done that for her.” I didn’t look at her.
“What are you talking about? I heard—”
“I don’t care what you heard. Clearly, you think you have the full story,” I said harshly. My hands balled into fists.
Breathe, I repeated. In. Out.
She huffed and stomped away from me.
I could not curse this place enough.
Chapter 10
When I got to my next class, Alexandra greeted me at the door, and we walked into the gym together, staying at the edge of a large group. This was supposed to be my first actual Supernatural class. I was scanning the faces, remembering one here and there when Alexandra said, “So, I talked to Lily today . . .”
“Mhmm,” I said casually, keeping myself composed.
“She, like, told me about your little umm . . . fight.” She watched me closely.
“I didn’t get into a fight, but go on.” I sighed.
“Okay, that’s what I said. A fight is, like, when two people actually do something,” she agreed as if it were obvious.
“Then why are we discussing this?” I stared at the door, not believing my luck—or lack thereof.
Aaron had just entered the gym with three of his friends from lunch, but his eyes locked on mine.
“Because it’s still not like—”
Someone blew a whistle, and everything went quiet.
My gaze broke from his, and I turned toward the noise.
“My name is Coach Boreguard, Coach B, or Coach,” a tall, thick man wearing sweats and a ball cap said. “You may not call me by my first name or any other name. I will give you detention if you do.”
He raised his clipboard. “Now, when I call your name say here and don’t give me any lip. Anderson!” he barked, and the process began.
“Now, what were you saying?” I asked Alexandra quietly.
“That it’s still not like you to act like that,” she said.
“And yet, it’s so like you to listen to gossip without knowing the full story.”
“But, Sel—”
“Foster!” Coach yelled.
“Here,” she said, glancing over at him.
“Foster!” he repeated.
“Here.”
“But, Selena, we were talking.” She paused. “And we think it might be a side effect from, you know . . . ”
Oh my god. I was going to kill her for even going there. How dare she? I refused to apologize for what had happened in that cafeteria. I could’ve been so much worse. But I wasn’t.
Because of her.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if it is, what can I do about it? You guys wanted to come here, so here we are. You knew that
sacrifices were going to be made this year.” I turned on her.
“That’s not fair. We know you don’t want to be here, and we accepted your terms, but why can’t you do sports or something to release some of it? I know they have boxing.” Her voice rose slightly.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I lied. Truthfully, if they were right and I really was losing it . . . I didn’t belong anywhere near a mat.
“Okay. I know it doesn’t, like, fix it, but it helps,” she insisted.
There were things going on that she didn’t know about. On one hand, she was right; boxing would help release it. To truly feel the release, someone had to feel pain. I was already so close to the edge . . . I was terrified it would tip.
“Okay, I see what this is about,” she said, her temper clearly rising. “You’re trying to wait long enough so that when something happens, you have an excuse to leave, for all of us to leave.”
My pulse picked up again, and my temper rose. She was being pigheaded and ignorant, not necessarily in that order.
“You don’t understand,” I said calmly.
“I don’t understand?” She snorted. “Wrong answer. You don’t understand. We’re here because we need to be. We’re tired of playing hide and seek. Somehow, Mariana found us when no one else could. I get that you’ve been taking care of us for five years. You’ve done your best. You put Lily back to sleep every night and promised it would all be okay, that one day it would work out. Well, now it has. Now you can have friends and give it a try. Why are you so against this?”
Rather than accepting the truth, she’d rather believe that I was so against this place that I’d do something I’d vowed would happen over my dead body. She couldn’t grasp that I had real reasons, that someone could very well end up dead if I wasn’t careful. My training wasn’t in boxing, not originally. My father had taught me to kill. To cause pain. To torture. While our mother was baking with them in the kitchen, I was being honed into a weapon. Perhaps she couldn’t grasp that because she had only started her training the year before they died.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said to her coldly, and then the whistle sounded again.
“Now, seeing as the class got to a late start, I don’t think we’ll be able to do what I had planned. Instead, I’ll put you in pairs for an exercise, and we’ll see how you do.”
Alexandra and I kept glaring at each other, neither willing to give.
“You and your partner will come to the center of the gym, stand across from each other, and begin the Contest of Deception. If you’re too stupid to understand this, it means that you’ll dual. Hard. I want to see what you guys are made of. What I don’t want is a bunch of ballerinas out there. I don’t want to see a bunch of circling and dancing. I want to see a fight. Now, any volunteers?”
Only one hand went up, and I knew then that I was screwed because I was too frustrated not to take up her challenge.
“Name?” he asked her.
“Foster. Alexandra Foster,” she said, not taking her eyes off mine.
“Any challengers for Ms. Foster? Anyone daring enough to try?” he called.
“I will.” My voice rang high and clear.
“Name?”
“Selena Foster,” I said without breaking eye contact.
“You girls related?” He looked back and forth between us.
“Sisters,” we said in unison.
“All right. Get to the center.”
I swaggered to the center of the room and faced my sister with a mischievous grin. If people were placing bets on who would win, Alexandra was probably in the lead—she had a good four inches on me, plus her temper was far more obvious. After today, they would think twice.
“Are you girls ready?” He put his hand between us.
“Are there any rules?” Alexandra asked.
“Anything goes. You guys are sophomores. It’s not like you can do anything.” He shrugged then laughed.
Alexandra and I locked eyes.
“The Contest of Deception. Ladies, fight!” he shouted.
I knew her style as well as I knew my own, and way better than she knew mine. That would cost her a lesson on picking a fight.
We circled, and I was aware of the room watching, surrounding us so quietly you could’ve heard a pen drop.
Her gaze started at my eyes, skimmed my chest then flitted back to my face. The second her hand twitched, I dropped and kicked her legs out from underneath her. Fire fanned the room, as she fell and her control on it loosened.
She caught herself and spun, trying to knock me to the ground, but I jumped and missed her kick by a long shot. It gave her time to recover, and we circled each other again. I watched her closely, never taking my eyes off her, and her greatest flaw cost her. She looked out of the corner of her eye just long enough to see the cute guy watching her, and didn’t notice my hand. I wasn’t throwing with even a tenth of the force I could’ve used, but I was going to hit her, and it was going to hurt. My fist made contact, there was a pop, and she gasped. I’d dislocated her shoulder. So much for sophomores can’t do anything.
It got her attention, and now she was mad. Fire burned in her eyes as the last of her self-control left her. Her fists ignited, and oooohs and ahhhs sounded throughout the room. She tried to throw a punch at me with her other hand, but it fell short. With a dislocated shoulder, she was at a severe disadvantage in range. I sidestepped and grabbed her wrist, twisting so that she involuntarily turned, and I had her good arm pinned. I swept her feet out from under her again, and threw my knee into her back as she came down. I put my free hand on her bad shoulder, and she cringed at the touch.
Leaning forward, I whispered in her ear, “Pick your battles. That’s what dad used to tell us. Obviously, you still need someone to take care of you if you can’t do that.”
She sighed, but her body remained tight.
“Time,” he called from the edge of the crowd.
I lifted myself off her without putting my weight on her and helped her up. She could barely move. I needed to pop it back into place soon.
“Very nice, ladies,” he said while writing something down on his clipboard.
“Great,” Alexandra said sarcastically.
“Next volunteers?” he called.
A few hands went up this time; some were very timid.
We went to the edge of the group to pop her shoulder back into place without an audience.
She was still glaring at me, but now it was because I’d won. “You were asking for it,” I told her.
“You dislocated my shoulder,” she accused.
“Hold still.” I put a hand on each side of her shoulder, and with a snap of my wrist, and a sharp pop, it was good as new. That didn’t stop her from gasping in pain. She should’ve been used to it by now; we’d boxed together on and off for the last five years.
“Thanks,” she said, though I could tell it pained her to say it.
“You’re welcome.”
“Of course, if you hadn’t done it in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this issue, but okay,” she scoffed.
“You started it,” I said coolly.
“No! You did, okay? By going on this insane . . . exercise strike that’s going to do more damage to you than good. You can’t see it, but we can. Every single day you’re getting worse. It’s not like when we were eight and nine. We’re almost sixteen.”
She wasn’t wrong. I could feel it pushing every second, dragging me toward insanity. My veins pumped with power every time I took a breath. You can’t have power like I do and not know it, not feel the pull. The danger. Yet I refused.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll talk to you about it later when I see you.” Her pushiness was bringing on a headache.
“I’ll be waiting,” she promised.
The class ended soon after, and I was on my way out the door when Coach Boreguard called, “Ms. Foster, can I see you for a moment?”
“Coach?” I was ready for this day to end.
“You’re new here, correct?” Of course, he already knew the answer.
“Correct,” I said, humoring him.
“Today in the exercise, you had the most skill, by far. More, even, than students in my junior and senior classes.”
I stayed silent, taking the compliment but not wanting to encourage any questions. Still, if he thought that was impressive, he hadn’t seen anything yet.
“How, though? Do you have a past in some type of contact fighting? Perhaps your parents taught you some?”
I knew I had to give an answer. “Boxing. My family encouraged boxing when I was younger. They said I had natural talent.” Not a lie, but not the truth either.
“Yes . . . ” He thought for a moment. “Well, that was all. Get to class, Foster.”
I left the gym before he could think of anything else to ask me.
When I got outside, it was almost time for my next class, which was all the way across campus. Uhhh . . . crap.
I walked quickly, trying to retrace my steps, and when the bell rang, I was sitting in the last open seat in health class. I sighed and put my head on the desk. I had to face Alexandra later, which was going to be a nightmare.
A teacher with long brown hair and milky irises was shuffling papers at the front of the class with an odd kind of grace. “Good afternoon, class.”
“Good afternoon, Professor Clearwater,” some of the class responded.
“Love the enthusiasm,” she mumbled sarcastically. “So, since it’s the first day, I thought I’d open by getting to know each of you. So, when I call your name, tell me something about yourself and what you know about health and being a Supernatural, if anything.” She sat at her desk and began taking roll.
Most of them answered with simple things like, “I like to . . . ” or “Sometimes, I . . . ”, but occasionally someone would say their ability or say something they thought about Supernaturals.
Amateurs. No one cares what you like to do or who you are.
“Foster,” she called.
Daizlei Academy Omnibus Collection Page 7
