by Alicia Rades
Heat flared in my bones, and my eyes narrowed their way.
“Idiots,” I mumbled under my breath.
Grant scoffed. “No kidding. Did you know the Imperium did nothing to punish them?”
My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding! There were witnesses. You have stitches above your eye.”
Grant shrugged. “Yeah, well, apparently they have better things to worry about than some petty fight.”
My nostrils flared. “That wasn’t a petty fight! That was battery!”
“Shh…” Grant glanced around the cafeteria. “I know. I’d like to get back at them too, but I can’t justify going after them when they could just beat me to a pulp again.”
“It was five against two,” I said. “It was hardly a fair fight.”
My hands clenched into fists as I thought about all the terrible things I could do to get back at them. The gears started turning in my head, and a wide smile spread across my face.
Curiosity filled Grant’s eyes. “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, Nadine?”
I leaned forward. “Tell me, Grant. How badly do you want to get back at them?”
He eyed me. “Depends on what you have in mind.”
I crinkled my nose. “I’ve got a plan.”
“This is dangerous,” Grant hissed at me. “Lucas would kill us if he knew we were doing this.”
I smirked. “Why do you think I didn’t invite him?”
He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me behind a black sedan. I kept my gaze on the five Tarantulas across the school parking lot. They were piling into Ryan’s black sports car. It was past nightfall now, and the only light we could see by was the moon.
I cocked an eyebrow at Grant. “So what? I thought you wanted to get back at them.”
“Not by following them,” he said. “Nadine, you don’t know these guys.”
I rolled my eyes and zipped my leather jacket all the way up. “I’ve known enough guys like them. Now let’s go before we lose them.”
I hurried out of my hiding spot and raced a few cars down to my own vehicle. I unlocked the doors and tossed my backpack on the floor below the passenger seat. Grant hesitated, then ran after me and climbed in beside me.
I threw the car into reverse. “Did you see where they went?”
Grant pointed to the right. “That way.”
I tore out of the parking lot and followed the Tarantulas down the road. I caught up quickly, but was careful to keep my distance so they wouldn’t notice my headlights following them.
“Lighten up, Grant.” I nudged him in the side. “I thought you of all people would be thrilled to get back at them.”
“Hell yeah, but I don’t want you getting in the middle of it,” he said.
I smirked. “You have a lot to learn about me.”
Grant looked at me for a few seconds, then caved. “Okay, Nadine. I’m all in, as long as you understand what you’re getting yourself into.”
I scoffed. “I’m not scared of these assholes.”
Grant clicked his tongue. “I think we need to hang out more often. I already like you ten times more.”
I chuckled. “That’s because I’m awesome. Where are these guys going, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Grant said, “but it looks sketchy to me.”
I glanced to either side of the road, but there was nothing but trees. I didn’t recognize where we were. Wherever the Tarantulas were going, it wasn’t into town.
The Tarantulas turned into a long driveway. I slowed and tried to take in as much as I could about the property, but we could hardly see anything from the road. All I saw were more trees.
“What the…?” I whispered. Hairs rose on the back of my neck, and I was getting a little creeped out. Whatever this was couldn’t be good. Which meant I definitely had to check it out.
I pulled off to the side of the road and cut the engine.
“What are you doing?” Grant glanced back to the dark driveway.
I smirked at him as I opened my door. “We’re going to check it out, of course.”
Grant frowned. “You sure, Nancy Drew?”
I smiled at the nick name. “Positive.”
I shoved my car keys in my pocket, then grabbed my bag and swung it over my shoulder. Grant stayed by my side as we entered the woods and crept through the trees.
“What do you think they’re doing back here?” he asked, looking amused.
I shrugged. “Sacrificing babies?”
Grant chuckled. “Probably.”
I half expected to walk in on them around a bonfire conducting some dark ritual. Instead, we came upon a run-down house with their car parked out in front. It looked like nothing more than a small weekend cabin, no bigger than two bedrooms. I’d kill to know what they were doing inside.
I swung my bag off my shoulder and opened it. Contents clinked together and fell to the ground. My heart lurched at the noise. I froze and glanced to the house to make sure no one had heard.
“Shh…” Grant hissed. He looked down to all the boxes and aluminum spray cans I’d run back to my room to get after dinner. “What is all this, Nadine?”
I gathered the contents and shoved it all back in my bag, then handed him a can of spray paint. “I bought it at the joke shop in town after Chloe trashed my room—just in case.”
Grant read the spray paint label in the moonlight. He smirked and started shaking the can like he had a good idea for it. “What else have you got in there?”
I started digging through my bag to show him. “Unpoppable bubbles, multiplying silly string, and these beads that smell awful when you touch them.”
An evil grin spread across Grant’s face. “I like how you think, Nadine. Like an Alchemist.”
I shrugged. “I have my moments.”
“I might have something we can use, too.” Grant conjured a collection of firecrackers.
“Put those back,” I whispered. “We don’t want to let them know we’re here. Now let’s go before they come back out. I want to get those jerks back for what they did to Lucas’s face.”
Grant’s jaw dropped. “What about mine?”
I smiled. “Yours too. For you and Lucas.”
“For me and Lucas,” he repeated.
Grant and I crept through the shadows toward Ryan’s car. Grant started spraying the back window with hot pink paint, while I threw the stink beads through the open driver’s side window. They scattered across the front seats. I threw the rest of the container in the back. When that was empty, I pulled out a can of unpoppable bubbles. They rushed out of the container like spray paint, covering the seats with big, soapy-looking bubbles.
I smiled proudly as I emptied the can. Adrenaline pulsed through my body, and my heart slammed against my rib cage. It was exhilarating.
Next, I pulled out the can of multiplying silly string. I sprayed that all over on top of the bubbles, then touched it just for fun and to test it out. Beneath my fingers, the silly string started growing, twisting into new strings everywhere I poked it. Grant snickered as he sprayed the tires with paint.
“I think that’s good,” he hissed through the darkness.
“Hang on,” I said. I pulled my keys from my pocket and dragged one along the side of Ryan’s car. It made a satisfying screech as it dug into the shiny black paint.
I smiled proudly. “Okay, let’s go.”
We shoved our supplies back in the bag and started toward the forest. But we didn’t make it there before the front door of the house banged open.
“Hey!” one of the Tarantulas shouted, making my heart leap up into my throat.
Grant grabbed me by the hand, and we sprinted into the trees. My knees groaned in protest, and I couldn’t keep up with Grant. I slowed and caught myself on a nearby tree. Not far from us, we could hear the Tarantulas screaming about what we’d done to their car.
Grant tugged at my hand. “Come on, Nadine. We’ve gotta go.”
I knew he was right, despite my body telling me o
therwise. I suddenly regretted following the Tarantulas on a day I was so wiped I could hardly walk.
“Give me a second,” I gasped.
Grant seemed to realize I wasn’t completely myself, because a look of concern came over his face. “Get on my back, Nadine.”
I didn’t have a moment to question it, because Ryan was shouting at his Tarantulas to split up and find whoever vandalized his car. If I didn’t get moving fast, they were going to catch up with us.
I climbed onto Grant’s back, and he started moving through the woods. He stopped in his tracks when he turned toward the road and we saw orbs hovering in the forest ahead of us.
“They’re going to see us if we go that way,” I said.
“I have an idea,” Grant whispered.
He turned around in the opposite direction and doubled back toward the house.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“They’re not going to look for us over there,” he pointed out.
“Good point.”
Grant moved quietly through the trees toward the back of the house. From what we could see, Ryan was angrily trying to clean out his car, but the multiplying silly string was getting tangled in his hands. He swore and flailed his arms around angrily, making it clear he was going to strangle whoever had done this. I thought it was hilarious. The other four Tarantulas were in the trees looking for us, without a clue that we’d slipped past them.
Grant set me down. I steadied myself against a tree and sat on the ground. He crouched beside me, keeping close watch on all the Tarantulas.
“Are you okay?” Grant asked.
I was a little lightheaded and could feel that the blood had drained from my face. I felt like curling into a ball and falling asleep right there. But I couldn’t say that to Grant. My disability never gave me any rational reason to feel the way I did. These waves of fatigue hit randomly, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Thanks for asking.”
We sat there for another ten minutes, and I started to feel the blood return to my face, which was a relief. Ryan had managed to pull most of the bubbles and silly string out of the car, and it just lay there on the gravel in a heap around the vehicle. He was still pissed about the spray paint.
The four Tarantulas returned. “Whoever it was got away,” one of them said.
“Shit!” Ryan growled in rage and kicked one of his tires. “Incompetent fucks. Get in the car. We’re leaving.”
Grant and I breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. He turned to me with a smile. “Good work, Nadine. You’ve successfully pissed them off.”
I shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
Ryan tore out of the driveway like he was ready to raise some hell of his own. I snickered as we watched their lights disappear through the trees, but I held my breath when they reached the end of the driveway. I prayed they wouldn’t turn to the left, where my car was parked. Luckily, they took a right back the way we came. We were safe.
“Come on.” I gestured to Grant and got to my feet, then crossed the small clearing to the side of the house.
“Nadine!” he hissed through the darkness. “What are you doing?”
I reached for the side door and turned back to him. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“Someone could be in there,” he pointed out.
I shrugged. It was unlikely, since there weren’t any other cars here and the lights were off. “Don’t you at least want to find out?”
I turned back toward the door and twisted the handle. It didn’t budge.
“Guess we’re not getting in,” Grant said.
I eyed him. “Don’t you know a spell to unlock it or something?”
Grant glared at me, like he wasn’t using it even if he did.
“Not a problem,” I said. “I brought my lock pick set.”
I pulled my lock pick out of my bag, and Grant’s eyes went wide. “What do you have that for?”
I shrugged. “It’s a hobby.”
Despite Grant’s obvious unease, he looked impressed when I picked the lock in under a minute. “I didn’t know breaking and entering was a hobby.”
“I really am a bit of a Nancy Drew,” I teased. “Come on.”
Grant groaned and followed behind me.
“A little light?” I suggested.
An orb formed in Grant’s palm, lighting up the stairwell in front of us like a flashlight. We were standing on a landing, where a few stairs went up to a kitchen on our left and the rest went downward to the basement.
“Come on.” I waved my hand, and Grant and I started upstairs to the main level.
Like I guessed, there was no one here. It was eerily quiet, and apart from a few empty soda cans and a bag of chips lying on the ground, it looked like no one had been here in years. There was hardly any furniture—just a couch in the living room and an old mattress in one of the bedrooms. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.
“Why do you think they came here?” I whispered to Grant. We were alone, but the place gave me the creeps, so I kept quiet.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “To hide a body? To talk to the ghost who haunts this place?”
“You think it’s haunted?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m not a Seer.”
I glanced into the second bedroom, but it was empty. “Let’s check out the basement.”
Grant stopped me at the top of the stairs. “Let me go first, Nadine.”
I stepped out of his way, and Grant took the stairs first. I followed close behind. When we got far enough down the stairs to see in the light of his orb, I inhaled a sharp breath. The basement was nothing but endless counters, all covered in various Alchemy supplies. There was even a huge shelving unit in the corner with tons of ingredients packed haphazardly into it.
Grant’s eyes grew wide. He tossed his orb into the air, and it split into a million tiny stars, lighting up the room like it was daytime.
It took me a second to find my voice as I took in all the cauldrons and vials. “What is all this? Those guys aren’t even Alchemists.”
Grant was too shocked by what we’d found to say anything. He walked over to the supply shelf and started reading the labels. “Dragon scale. Breath of a kirin. Hunpedskin venom. I don’t even know what that is or what it’s used for, but it’s definitely not something these guys should be able to get their hands on.”
Grant continued talking while I walked around the room inspecting all the supplies. “Mermaid scale. Blood of a vampire. Wolven tooth? Nadine, none of this stuff comes from the coven. These are all from other magical societies—like the Elementai and Arcanea. To get your hands on this stuff… Goddess, you’d have to be the Imperium. Or at minimum, the Alchemy supplies director at school.”
I came up behind Grant to look at all the vials. I could hardly believe what I was seeing—a real phoenix feather, and a hair from a unicorn. And to think. Just a few months ago I thought witches were nothing but fiction.
“You mean you can find this kind of stuff at school?” I asked.
Grant nodded.
I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious, then?”
Grant’s jaw dropped. “Nooo. You think they’re the ones who raided the Alchemy lab?”
I gave him a bored frown. “No. It’s too unlike them,” I said sarcastically.
Grant picked up a vial that had a thick blue liquid in it. “What do you think they’re going to do with all this?”
I pressed my lips together. “Well, they’re not Alchemists, so my guess is they’re going to try reselling it.”
An evil grin spread across Grant’s face. “They can’t sell it if there’s nothing to sell.”
I was instantly intrigued. “What are you suggesting? We steal it back?”
Grant rubbed his hands together mischievously. “I’ve always wanted to play Robin Hood.”
“Steal from the rich and give to the poor?”
Grant crin
kled his nose. “More like steal from the assholes and put it back where it belongs.”
I smiled. “Count me in.”
Chapter 13
Lucas
“You. Did. What?” I growled.
Grant sat on his bed and sucked air through his teeth. He knew he was in deep shit with me. “Nadine and I followed the Tarantulas to an abandoned house and robbed them…?”
I paced around the room, my hands fisting at my sides. “Is that a question, Grant?”
He shook his head. “No. We definitely robbed them. But we only did it to give the stuff back to the Alchemy department. We dropped it off in Professor Richards’s room. No one saw us.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. “So you put Nadine in danger?”
Grant gaped at me. “It was her idea.”
“When did this happen?” I demanded.
Grant shrugged. “Over a week ago. I wanted to tell you, but…”
“But?” I cocked an eyebrow.
Grant frowned. “I thought you’d be mad.”
“Of course I’m mad!” I yelled. “I don’t want Nadine anywhere near Ryan—or any of the Tarantulas. What were you doing hanging out with her, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “She wasn’t feeling well, and I guess she just—”
My jaw dropped. “She wasn’t feeling well? Like how?”
Grant furrowed his brow. “I don’t know. She didn’t give me a detailed list of her symptoms.”
I covered my mouth with my hand as realization struck. “It’s my fault,” I muttered, thinking back to the kiss.
“What’s your fault?” Grant asked.
My teeth ground together. “The kiss. I never should’ve kissed her.”
“About that…” Grant hesitated.
I stopped pacing and faced him. “About that, what?”
Grant sighed. “Well, Nadine’s kind of upset you haven’t talked to her since then. She thinks you’ve been avoiding her.”
“Oh, so now you’ve been talking to her behind my back?” I fumed. Today was not a good day. My temper was all over the place.
“Come on,” Grant said. “You know it’s not like that.”
I had been avoiding Nadine, but I only did it to protect her. I still hadn’t decided if I was summoning the reapers at the Reaper Moon and risking the Abyss. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t take things any further with Nadine and make her the Reaper’s Shadow.
