by Dean Murray
Chapter 5
I wasn't late, and that was pissing me off for more reasons than just the fact that Jace was once again right.
It made absolutely no sense. There were always people who waited out in the parking lot until the last second.
Even more weird, as I walked across the parking lot I realized that everything was eerily silent. No birds were singing, no insects were chirping, there was nothing but the sound of my footsteps to indicate I hadn't gone deaf.
All of that changed as soon as I stepped through the first of the double doors that formed a kind of airlock system to keep out the cold Colorado winters. The first door had been propped open, but as I reached for the next set of doors, the door behind me swung shut of its own accord.
The thump as it hit the metal doorframe made me jump. It was like the door closing had opened up some kind of auditory floodgates. I could hear the hum of conversation and yelling on the other side of the doors and now that the entryway was a little darker I could see through the safety-glass windows set into the doors ahead of me.
The halls were full of other kids, and as I stepped through the second set of doors I checked the digital clock set high in the wall and saw that I still had three minutes to get to my first class.
I'd never realized before that instant how much I depended on my sense of time to ground me. I'd been a little…distracted…while talking to Jace, but there was no way that our conversation had been less than three minutes long.
I had the nagging feeling I should step back outside and confirm that the parking lot was still empty, but instead I found myself moving towards my English class as though on autopilot. Apparently I wasn't ready to deal with a world where the physical laws I'd grown up with no longer worked like they were supposed to.
I thought about turning around and going out to the parking lot. It was tempting, but if I went out there and saw dozens of kids where just seconds before there hadn't been any, I wasn't sure my mind could stand up to the implications.
Even worse, what if I went back out there and it was still empty and silent? What if I somehow got stuck inside of that weird, isolated version of the world forever?
I knew I was being silly, that there had to be an explanation for everything that had happened so far, but I just couldn't take the chance that I was wrong.
I stumbled into my first class thirty seconds before the second bell and went through the first half of the day in a haze. I was so far gone that I didn't even notice the looks I got from every single girl I passed.
I didn't start putting the pieces together until I grabbed my normal lunch of French fries and slipped out of the cafeteria to go sit in a quiet corner in one of the halls that was full of nothing but vacant classrooms. I'd known that people knowing Jace was interested in me was going to cause problems, and despite all of that I'd stupidly worn his leather jacket through the first four classes of the day.
Even the girls who hadn't ever met Jace were still going to know something was up. The real kicker was that I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I took Jace's jacket off now—which I couldn't, not if I wanted to avoid being sent home—the damage was already done. I was screwed.
I was debating just skipping the rest of my classes when I heard footsteps approaching from around the corner. I had a couple of seconds to worry that Sandra had tracked me down, and then Kat came around the corner with the same devil-may care smile that had graced her face as we'd sped through the town on two wheels.
"Selene, what on earth are you doing out here by yourself?"
"Honestly? I'm trying to keep a low enough profile that Sandra and her friends will forget about me."
Kat started laughing, and then stopped again after a second. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you were serious. You can't have really thought you were going to fly under the radar wearing that sweater…"
"Yeah, one of my split personalities was running the show when I got dressed this morning. She's since retreated back under the rock inside my head where she usually lives and now the rest of me is left to deal with the results of her craziness."
Kat sighed. "You poor thing. Rather than keeping the crazy you buried under a rock you should be putting her in charge of the asylum. You're letting Sandra and her pet sluts dictate everything. You should be flaunting the fact that you've got a new rich, hot boyfriend, not trying to hide away like you're ashamed of it."
"Do you call everyone you don't like sluts?"
"Nope, usually I call them whores, but you seem a little sensitive for that, so I thought I'd rein myself in a little—are you proud of me?"
I shook my head in disbelief. "How do you do that? How do you make me feel like none of this matters and that we're both destined for bigger, better things?"
"Well, I just happen to know that none of this really matters. I mean seriously, this is just high school. In a year and a half we're both going to graduate and we never have to come back unless we want to. The first reunion is mostly just full of a bunch of posers trying to impress each other, so it's not like we'll be missing anything."
Kat plopped down next to me with her back against the wall and grabbed one of my French fries. "Man, these things are one of the best inventions ever. I still remember the first time I had fries—talk about life-changing. I hope that I never forget that day. Hey, next time you should get some extra salt—you're only young once, right?"
Thinking about the likely retaliation I was going to have to weather from Sandra and her clique had ruined my appetite. I pushed the remaining fries over in her direction.
"I wish I had your confidence, Kat. I just can't stop thinking about all of the different ways that Sandra could screw me over."
Kat scrunched her nose up in thought and then pulled her phone out of her front pocket. "We don't have enough time left before our next class starts to do anything about Sandra, but you just leave her to me. Come on, let's get moving. I want to get to Chemistry with enough time to convince the teacher to put me in the right assigned seat."
I stopped her by grabbing her arm and refusing to let her drag me along behind her. "Wait, you're in my class?"
Kat didn't look up from the last French fry, which she was studying with a kind of sad longing. "Yeah, I'm in all of your classes. I would have been here this morning, but Jace was in full 'oh my gosh, the house is a mess and Selene is coming over tonight' mode. So of course I had to…"
My shock must have been obvious, because as soon as Kat looked up at me she stopped talking.
"That probably sounds creepy, doesn't it?"
"You think?"
Kat plopped the last fry in her mouth. "Look, it's not as creepy as it sounds. Jace is in all of your classes too…"
"Right, because having the Barbie twins stalk me together rather than separately is so much less creepy."
"This is so not my fault. I'm placing the blame for all of this squarely on Jace's shoulders. Look, you and Ari are the only interesting people we've met in this entire town. We could have just left everything to chance and spent most of our days bored out of our minds, but that's not really our style. Why settle for mediocrity if you have the ability to go get what you want and nobody gets hurt along the way?"
"Why do I get the feeling that you really do get everything you want?"
Kat's response was too perky to be practiced. "Because I do, obviously. Now that we've got that settled and you're no longer creeped out, let's get to class."
We stopped at our lockers, which were suspiciously close to each other, and then headed off to Chemistry. Mr. Reynolds had flown in the Air Force for twenty years before making the transition to small-town educator, and it showed. He ran his class with a ruthless discipline that made the rest of the teachers look like pushovers.
He was less than five years away from retirement and not afraid to make kids look like idiots if they disrupted his classroom. Kat entered the class and studied Mr. Reynolds with slitted eyes for several seconds before nodding.
&nb
sp; "He'll do very, very nicely."
I started to follow her up to the front of the classroom, but she stopped me. "Could you just wait back here, Selene? I'd really hate to have you get caught in this—it's really considered bad form—you know how it is, right?"
"Um, no, you're talking crazy again."
Kat's sigh was melodramatic. "Someday you're going to understand how hard all of this was for me. Fine, you can come, but stay a few feet back behind me."
I gave her a 'whatever, I'm too cool for any of this, but I'll humor you just because I'm that reasonable' look and then dropped back to follow her at a 'safer' distance.
"Hello, Mr. Reynolds. I'm Kat. Could I trouble you for a moment about the seating arrangements? I think we've got some problems that need to be worked out."
It was bold and almost guaranteed to send Mr. Reynolds off. He took a big breath as though getting ready to start yelling, but before he could actually get the words out Kat closed to within a foot or two of him and he did a double-take, almost like he hadn't really seen her the first time he'd looked at her.
"What do you need out of me, Kat?"
There was a note in Mr. Reynolds' voice that I'd never heard before, but Kat acted like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
"Could I please see the seating chart for the class that will be starting in the next few minutes?"
"Of course, just one moment while I grab it."
He jumped to his feet and hurried over to the lectern he used to hold his notes. Kat drifted along behind him, making it look casual, but staying within a few feet of him.
"Here it is, Miss Kat."
"Just Kat is fine." She pointed towards the seat towards the back where I normally sat. "Am I reading this right? Is that where Selene sits?"
"Yes. Is there a problem? Do I need to kick her out of my class?"
"Oh, no, that is the last thing I want to have happen. Selene is my close personal friend; I hope that you've been nice to her."
Kat shifted around even closer to Mr. Reynolds and I thought for a second his eyes were going to pop right out of his head.
"I didn't know that she was important to you. I promise I'll work harder at being nice to her."
"I'm sure you will."
Kat patted him on the arm and I finally figured it out. Mr. Reynolds didn't just sound eager to please, he sounded like he'd found his own personal grail. He wanted Kat, but it wasn't sexual—wasn't just sexual. I got the feeling that he would have done anything for her, right up to slicing his own wrists if she asked.
A few more seconds of silence passed as Kat studied the seating chart and Mr. Reynolds danced back and forth from one foot to the other like a four-year-old who needed to pee. The suspense was killing me.
I stepped forward, quietly, in an effort to get close enough to get the faintest taste of whatever it was she was doing to him. I was almost close enough for her to see my feet without looking up from the lectern when it happened.
One second I felt fine, then all of a sudden I wanted to drop down to my knees and kiss Kat's feet. The urge was so compelling that I couldn't help myself. She looked up as my knees started to bend and swore.
"Damn it, Selene, you were supposed to keep your distance."
I wondered how I could have been so stupid. What had I been thinking? Of course the most important thing was to honor her wishes. What I had or hadn't promised didn't even enter into it for me as I scrambled backwards on all fours in a desperate effort to get back to where I'd been before I'd displeased her.
"I'm so sorry that she disobeyed you, Miss—I mean, Kat. Are you sure that you don't want her punished?"
I found myself nodding. It was only logical, I needed to be punished, the only question was whether she was going to want him to do it or if she would want me to punish myself. I was obviously too unworthy for her to punish me.
"No! Let's not get into crazy talk. Selene is going to stay right there for the next few minutes while you and I work through that seating issue."
"Of course, Kat."
"So Sandra Conner sits here and her two friends sit three seats ahead in the rows to either side of her?"
Mr. Reynolds was nodding so eagerly it almost looked like his head was going to come off of his neck. I wanted to jump to my feet and run over to the desks in question so as to make sure that there wasn't any question where Sandra and her friends sat, but I'd been ordered to stay put and I wasn't about to make the mistake of displeasing Kat again.
"I notice the three of them aren't sitting together, Mr. Reynolds. Is that because they have been a disruptive influence?"
"Please, call me Frank. As to your question, I don't know that I would go that far. They talk more than they should, but I've never felt like they were actively trying to be bad…"
Kat looked at him with just the right amount of righteous indignation, and I suddenly realized that whatever had made me want to fall down and worship her must be wearing off if I was actually capable of questioning Kat's motives.
She shook her head sadly. "Frank, you're one of those rare men who are just too good for this life. The mere fact that the three of them could talk while you were trying to teach makes me very sad. Forgiving their disrespect makes you the best kind of person, but it still doesn't make what they did right. Do you think it would be helpful to have someone you trusted keeping an eye on Sandra and her friends, Frank? Someone who could make sure that they didn't get out of hand…"
He looked like he'd just seen the Mona Lisa for the first time. "Of course! I can't believe I didn't think of that. I should move your friend Selene over closer to Sandra so that she can make sure there isn't any tomfoolery."
There was no visible indication that Kat wanted to scream in frustration, but I somehow knew she was almost to the end of her rope. "No, Frank, I think Selene is well-positioned to keep an eye on the three of them from back where she sits. I was thinking that maybe you'd like to use me to solve your problem…"
He looked the slightest bit confused, like he wanted her to just come out and tell him exactly what she wanted, but he gamely tried to put the pieces together through the 'worship-me' fog she surrounded him with.
"I could…move one of the other students and assign you a seat."
Kat bestowed an angelic smile on him and nodded. "I think that's a great idea, Frank. Where should I sit though? Somewhere where I could watch them without having to turn in my seat…after all, I wouldn't want to disrupt your class…"
I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He started towards the seat in front of my assigned spot, and then stopped as though remembering that I was already there and therefore 'keeping an eye on things' from that side of the terrible trio.
He pointed at the outside row, the one on the other side of Sandra's spot from where I would be sitting, but he obviously hadn't settled on a particular seat based on the way that he was watching Kat in an effort to draw some kind of clue out of her as to where she wanted to sit.
She waited until his finger was pointing to the seat just behind Megan's and then she clapped her hand. "Frank, that's the perfect spot. You're a genius. From there I can easily keep an eye on the two friends while Selene watches Sandra."
Mr. Reynolds smiled and relaxed now that he'd successfully passed the test. "I'll make the changes as soon as class starts, Kat."
Kat smiled. "That sounds perfect, Frank. We'll have to be careful though, we won't want Sandra and her friends figuring out what we're planning. If they realize that we've had this little talk it could ruin everything."
His brow furrowed as he tried to process what she was saying. "So you'll come into the class and introduce yourself again?"
"Yes, and I'll call you Mr. Reynolds again rather than using your first name. This will just be our secret."
Mr. Reynolds nodded, obviously relieved that she'd asked for something he was capable of providing and that she hadn't made him come up with the answer entirely on his own.
"We'll be
back in a few minutes, Frank. Why don't you make that change to the seating chart and then go sit back down. You'll want to conserve your strength if you're going to have to face this group of ruffians."
I followed Kat out of the classroom and around the corner into another empty hall. "What the crap happened back there, Kat?"
"Well, let me see. First you promised that you would keep your distance while I was talking to Mr. Reynolds and then you broke your promise. It's okay though, I'm sure you feel awful about it."
A tiny part of me did feel awful about it, but I squashed the feeling, drawing on some of the tightly leashed anger that had nearly slipped free earlier that morning. My rage was just barely enough to keep me from giving into the residual effects of her worship-me aura.
"The hell I am! You played him like some kind of musical instrument. Seriously, what is going on?"
"I can't tell you right here and now, Selene, but I promise you that I didn't do that for me, I did that for you. You're going to have to trust me. I promise that I'll tell you just as soon as I can."
"What is it with you and Jace and expecting me to take everything on faith?"
Kat gave me a sad smile that wasn't anything at all like her usual devil-may-care expression. "Would you believe me if I told you that this was as hard, or harder, for us than it is for you?"
"And there you go again. Why do I feel like I know you well enough to know that you're telling me the truth?"
"Maybe because you do."
"That's absurd!"
"Selene, how many high-school kids use the word absurd? One in a thousand? One in ten thousand? You feel like you know me because you do, just like Jace and I know you. I can't explain it right now, but the three of us knew each other better than you can imagine right now."
"No, I refuse to accept that on faith."
"When he touches you it feels like it burns, but in a good way. Your skin feels hyper-sensitive—you feel like you could recreate his exact finger print from memory, just based on one touch."
I took a step back away from her, too shocked to respond. I didn't even manage to take a second step before Kat grabbed ahold of my arm with more strength than anyone her size should have been capable of.
"You can't run away from this, Selene. Not now, not when you only know half of the story. You're going to hear me out right now, and then you're going to come to our house and hear the rest of what Jace and I have to tell you. After that you can cut off all contact with us if that's what you want to do, but not before then."
"What if I refuse?"
My heart was racing, but it was more than just fear, more than just her bruising grip. I somehow knew exactly what she was going to say next.
"Then you'll die, Selene. It won't be Jace or I who kills you, but you'll die all the same. You have to see this through. Everything rides on it."
"How did I know you were going to say that? How did you know how I feel when Jace touches me?"
"Because you told me both of those things a very long time ago. You and I have spent more time than I can even explain talking about Jace and how he makes you feel, and once upon a time our positions were reversed. I asked you what would happen if I didn't hear you out and you told me that I would die."
"I don't understand. How can this all have happened and I don't remember it? Is it some kind of weird time-travel thing?"
Kat's laugh was a sharp, bitter thing, but it was her eyes that sent chills racing down my spine. Physically I couldn't have said what changed, but I suddenly got a feeling of immense age, like Kat had seen more years than I could imagine, like underneath the façade of the rebellious teenager was a world-weary being who had less in common with me than I'd originally thought.
"Time travel. That's good—I haven't heard that one before. No, Selene, it's not time travel. I wish it was, but none of us are that lucky. Are you going to trust me and come to our house tonight so that Jace and I can explain all of this to you?"
"I'll really die if I don't listen to you?"
"Yeah, you will. Maybe not in the next twenty-four hours or even the next week, but it will just be a matter of time, and out of everything in the world, that is the thing I least want, Selene. You have to believe that I'm telling you the truth. I have nothing but your best interests at heart."
"I do. That probably makes me just as crazy as you, but I do."
"Okay, let's get to class then. You're not going to want to do anything to raise any red flags where your dad is concerned—not with everything else that's about to happen."
