“You may be able to get away with it here and there, but I’ll be on the lookout,” he said, tapping his finger against his shamrock tie. “And the professors, along with the staff will know.” He threw his hands out. “Hell, the students will know! The gossip around here is unbelievable!” Mr. Quinn smiled as if he couldn’t do anything about the rumor mills and had accepted it.
“But I love her,” Lucas said, turning to Eva. “How can I stay away from her?”
She was almost in tears—tears for joy at Lucas’ admission, and tears for sorrow that they were being forced apart. She was cursed in every way it seemed.
“If you really love her, you’d stay away.”
Eva thought of Devin. He was staying away from her. Did that mean anything?
Lucas laughed and it brought Eva out of her already messed up head. “Where have I heard that bullshit before?”
“Do it or you’re gone,” the headmaster said with a tone of finality.
Lucas lowered his head, clenched her hand, and then he gently pushed her away. “I’ll do it,” he said in a defeated voice, soft with sorrow.
Eva knew this may happen, but it did nothing to prevent the pain in her heart, as it finally ripped in two—irrevocably broken.
“Good,” the headmaster said, nodding. He picked up the phone on his desk. “I have some calls to make. Long distance.”
Lucas nodded and left. He didn’t even give Eva a goodbye glance. She turned to the headmaster and watched him dial several numbers on the phone’s pad. When he put the receiver to his ear, he nodded his head, a motion to tell her to leave, but he did it with a smile.
She didn’t smile back. She felt worse than she had ever felt before, even at her old school when they’d called her a “freak,” or at the psychiatric hospital, where the staff thought she was crazy; they just had fancy words to describe it.
She expected to be alone once she left his office, but when she closed the headmaster’s door, Lucas was there. When she opened her mouth to speak, he put a finger to her lips, silencing her. She pressed her lips together, feeling his rough skin against her sensitive flesh.
Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, securing her against his body. “Hold on,” he whispered.
She clung to him and they disappeared from the abandoned hallway of Green Clover Academy.
14
Just Friends
Eva wished Lucas had warned her.
The sensation of teleporting was new to her, and it wasn’t pleasant. Inward from her bones and outward to her skin, she felt like she was losing control of her body.
When she finally opened her eyes, she was surrounded by darkness. Lucas’ arms were still around her waist. She felt his breath against her neck and smelled his mixture of tobacco and sweat.
“Where are we?”
“A hideout,” he answered cryptically.
He removed one arm from around her, but his other arm held her tight, which she was grateful for—her legs seemed to be made of jelly. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she noticed that Lucas pull at a long piece of dark fabric. A blast of light from outside fell through, and Eva looked out a window, half-covered by a dusty white curtain. The view outside was obscured by a line of trees, but they seemed familiar to her.
“We’re at the little schoolhouse, beyond the gate?” she asked.
“It’s all I could think of on such short notice.”
He led her to a long wooden bench against the wall. They brushed the dust off and sat down. She looked around and saw wooden tables with wooden chairs, a podium up front, a dusty blackboard, shelves with decaying books, and more spider webs than she could count. The other windows were hidden by curtains, creating a dark atmosphere. It was just a schoolhouse, but it looked creepy. Maybe Colin was right. Maybe it was haunted. Obviously, Lucas didn’t think so, bringing her here.
She turned to him. His eyes were scanning every feature of her face…and below.
“How could you do that? How could you take me with you?”
She remembered the headmaster’s words on the plane that a Leprechaun could take any object with him, but she didn’t think it was another person.
He ran his fingers through the ponytail of her long black hair. “I’ve never done that before,” he said softly. “Leprechauns, when they can control their abilities, can take anything or anyone with them. But I’ve never teleported with another person before.” He smiled as if this were a revelation—a welcome revelation.
Eva returned his smile, but her thoughts drifted to when she’d first met Devin. He’d been holding his guitar case, and when he disappeared, so did the case. She wondered if he had vanished while holding Bree, so they could sneak off to be somewhere alone, like her and Lucas were doing. She wanted to forget about Devin, but it seemed the smallest things reminded her of him. She loved Lucas and only wanted to think about him. All Devin made her feel was confused and hurt.
So why couldn’t she forget about him? Where did she know him from? Why did she…love him?
She heard a shout in the distance.
“We’re going to get in trouble.” She tugged at his arm that was wrapped tightly around her waist. “We need to go back.”
“Shhh. I know.” He trailed the tip of his finger down her cheek. “I just want to be alone with you…away…before we go back, before we’re forced to separate.” He shook his head, cursing. “The headmaster can’t keep us apart. We’ll find a way to see each other. We just have to be cunning.”
“No, you’ll get expelled. Remember what the headmaster said.” She grabbed his hand. “Wouldn’t it be better…to be friends…than to never see me again?”
His head fell, but he continued to caress her hand, massaging her fingers. “I don’t want to be…just friends. I love you, Eva.” He lifted his head, clenching her hand. “I love you. Don’t you love me?”
“I do.”
And she really did love him. Lucas was the guy she was supposed to be with. Not Devin, despite how much she longed for him. He couldn’t even stand to be near her.
She and Lucas embraced, finding each other’s lips, tasting each other: sweat, tobacco, sweetness, desire. He swiftly pulled her to him, and now she was straddling his lap. She wanted him. He wanted her. His mouth found her neck, trailing circles with his tongue against her tender skin. She held him to her like a security blanket, needing him more than life itself. He came back to her lips, moaning as he kissed her, with his hands traveling all over her back, then over her breasts, and finally up the length of her neck, cradling her head. When he pulled his lips away, she let out a loud gasp, intoxicated from his kisses, his touch. He tilted her head down, and she looked in his blue-gray eyes, so hungry. She could feel his eagerness, ready, beneath her.
“I want you, Eva. I want you,” he said in a husky voice.
Part of her wanted him too. She thought that she was ready. But a stronger part of her disagreed for two reasons: one, they were in an abandoned schoolhouse, probably filled with rats, and two, if she were to go ahead, there would be no going back. Lucas would be her first. Not Devin.
She pulled away from him and went to stand up, but he pulled her back, holding her thighs in a tight grip against his legs.
“Please, Eva. Please, I need comfort. You need comfort. Let’s comfort each other. Let’s be together,” he pleaded, and then gently kissed her lips.
She gave in, wrapping her arms around his sweaty neck. They savored one another, kissing slowly, until Lucas picked up the pace, licking her and biting her as if he were a half-starved animal. Part of her was thrilled, but the other part, the bigger part, was scared out of her mind.
As much as she didn’t want to, she pulled away, and this time, he let her go. She stood in front of the open window, embracing the only light amidst the surrounding darkness.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” she apologized, holding her arms against her chest, feeling a sudden rush of cold from being out of his arms.
He sighed loudly, ru
nning his fingers through his blond hair. Then he leaned back against the bench and closed his eyes. “It’s all right,” he said, barely audible.
She didn’t believe him. He seemed so sad. “Really?”
He didn’t open his eyes, only nodding.
“I’m not ready,” she said softly.
Finally, he opened his eyes, stood up, and closed the gap between them. He gripped her arms gently, rubbing her skin with his thumbs. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” He looked around and turned back to her, smiling. “Maybe this isn’t the best place…for your first time.”
“Where was your first time?” She blurted the question out, regretting it instantly.
He shook his head. “That was in the past. I don’t want to talk about it.” He gently rubbed her arms with both hands, trying to soothe her worries away.
It worked. “Okay,” she said, giving in to his seductive touch.
She heard the sound of a tractor’s engine turning over.
“Must be Colin,” Lucas commented. “About damn time that piece of shit got to work.”
She didn’t understand Lucas’ hostility. “What do you have against him? What happened between you two?”
Lucas laughed. “Don’t tell me you are friends with him?” His trailed his hand down to her wrist—the wrist that Colin had gently held—and clenched it, a bit too tight. “Why did you let him touch you?” he asked with an edge to his voice.
She shook her head. “He wasn’t touching me,” she answered in a weak voice.
Lucas raised his eyebrow, not convinced. “Well, it must have been a trick on my eyes then, because it looked like he was holding your hand,”—he leaned in close to her face, their noses touching—“and you let him.”
She could see the anger in his once serene blue-gray eyes, now stormy like an apocalyptic whirlwind.
Scared, she gently pulled her wrist out of his tight grasp. “There’s nothing going on between us. We were just talking.” Then she found some unknown strength—a desire to know the truth. “And you didn’t answer my question. What do you have against him?”
Lucas brushed his lips against hers, and instead of pleasure, she felt pain. He wasn’t being affectionate. He was claiming her. Her heart was thumping wildly, but it wasn’t from the rush of love.
“Because…he’s always panting around my girls,” he finally answered in a low voice.
“You mean you and Bree?” she asked, despite the fear that he was instilling in her.
He pulled away from her face and nodded. She felt relieved to have some space.
“And others,” he answered. “I don’t have a problem with him. He’s the one who has a problem with me, and with who I want.”
She couldn’t believe his attitude. A surge of anger built up inside her, overriding her fear. “Who you want?!” she spat at him. “Is that all I am to you? An object?”
His face fell, anguished. “No, baby, no,” he soothed, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She allowed him to hold her, but she didn’t embrace him as he did her. “That’s not what I meant,” he added.
She pulled away from him, not as gentle this time. “Well, what did you mean?”
He lifted his hand close to her face, and when she didn’t push him away, he gently stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“I can get…overprotective,” he admitted.
She held his hand against her cheek. “It’s okay to care, but you can’t go around starting fights with every guy who looks my way.”
“He was touching you, Eva,” he said in a sharp tone, but his hand never left her cheek, nor did he use force against her to demonstrate his point.
“Just my wrist,” she corrected. “He knows how I feel. He knows you’re the only one…” She trailed off, unable to finish her declaration, because she wasn’t quite sure if Lucas was her one-and-only.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and held her again.
She wrapped her arms around him in an attempt to reclaim his earlier tenderness.
“I’m going to miss this,” he continued. “Back at school, it’s going to be torture to be so near to you, but not touch you, hold you, kiss you.” He smiled at her. “But we can find time to be together.” He gestured at the schoolhouse around them. “We can come back here. We can be alone here.” He shook his head. “That’s if Colin doesn’t get around to bulldozing it down. I’ll have to talk him out of it...that piece of shit.”
She shook her head, ignoring his hatred of Colin. “Someone will notice when we’ve gone missing.” She gripped his upper arms, taut from defined muscles. “Let the headmaster call who he needs to call. Let him find out why you can break past my veil, my curse. And then, when he finds out that it’s totally harmless, he’ll allow us to be together.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because…it’s not bad what you can do. It’s…a sign.”
“A sign of what?”
“A sign of change. A sign of not accepting who we were born to be.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe this curse isn’t meant to be forever. Maybe Banshees can live normal lives without seeing death. And Leprechauns can be just like all the other guys in the world.”
Lucas smirked. “I don’t know. Teleporting, entering people’s minds…it isn’t that bad.”
“That’s right,” she said, coming to a realization. “Leprechauns aren’t cursed, are they? Why are you allowed such freedom, while the Banshees have to suffer?”
He shook his head. “Eva, you don’t understand. Before I learned to control myself, whenever I got nervous or scared, I would disappear. I would find myself in a dark place with no way to get out. I was terrified. After some time, I don’t know how long, I might come back to where I vanished from, but often I would end up far away…scared…not knowing how to get back home.”
She held him tighter. “I didn’t know.”
He nodded. “And entering people’s minds?” He laughed without humor. “It’s not a party! The human mind is so jumbled and chaotic, even when they’re asleep. It takes a long time to find a way in, to see what someone sees, to stake a claim and manipulate.” He shook his head. “I’ve never done it on purpose. I’ve entered other minds only by accident. Believe me, it’s not enjoyable.”
“So you feel…cursed?”
“I never thought of it that way, but now I do, now that I can’t be with you, because the headmaster is scared of my power.” He furrowed his brow. “Can’t he see that I’m not trying to hurt you? I’m trying to help you. There’s something special between us, Eva.” He placed his hand over his heart, and then hers, gently pressing against her chest. “We’re meant to be together.”
He held her even tighter to him, with their hearts thumping wildly against the other. It seemed that they were destined for one another—soul mates. Was there such a thing? Two peopled destined to be together? And if that was the case, then why were there so many divorces? Why weren’t her mom and dad soul mates? What went wrong?
They used to have such a happy marriage, until one day it all ended. She was sure that there were warning signs before, fights she didn’t witness. But to her, at the age of thirteen when they got divorced, it seemed as if the floor had fallen out from underneath her, and she was the only one who didn’t notice that it had been slowly rotting away.
“Don’t you think we’re meant to be together?” he asked, hopeful, searching her eyes for a sign of agreement.
She nodded, smiling. “Soul mates.”
But she didn’t quite believe it. How could a cursed girl be allowed happiness?
“Let’s get back to the school,” she suggested.
She just needed some space from him, from everything crazy and cruel, and wonderful and magical. He pressed his lips to hers. The kiss started out sweet, then passionate, and finally ended bittersweet, as if it were their last.
“I love you, Eva. No one can keep us apart. No one,” he emphasized.
She nodded, but she worried at his tone. He see
med overprotective, as he had admitted to being. And dangerous, as witnessed with his altercation with Colin over a mere wrist holding.
“I know,” she said. “But for now, while at Green Clover, we’re…just friends. Remember that, okay? Just friends.”
He closed his eyes, breathing in and out, as if he were preparing for a journey of not a few thousand feet back to the school, but miles in distance—miles away from her, of how close he wanted to be with her, but was ordered to stay away.
When he opened his eyes, he repeated softly, “Just friends.”
15
The Loner’s Club
By mid-December, before the school went on Christmas break, everyone had gotten used to Eva and Lucas as being “just friends.”
The headmaster said that his contacts in Ireland still hadn’t discovered why Lucas could enter Eva’s mind, breaking through her black veil, her cursed darkness, easing her sorrow. She thought these so-called “experts” as Mr. Quinn had described them, were the lowest in their field if it took them close to three and half months of studying the matter, to only shrug and say, “We’re still working on it.”
That meant that Eva and Lucas had to remain apart. And they did, in public. But when the lights went out, they would meet outside her door, where he’d whisk her away to the only place they could be alone, the old schoolhouse. They would talk for hours, expressing how much they missed each other, kissing until their lips hurt. And Lucas never pressured her for sex. He genuinely seemed to enjoy just her company, fully clothed. But he made up for it with a lot of kissing. And groping.
But after a few weeks, Eva was tired—literally and figuratively—of sneaking out. She was losing sleep and the more time they spent apart, the more she desired her freedom. It was as if he had a hold over her before, and now that they were being kept apart, she could breathe. But she still loved him and needed him to ease her cursed sorrow.
A month into their separation, when the whole school had been in the cafeteria for dinner, she had a vision. It’d taken her longer to overcome it, weeping horribly, since Lucas had always been there to block out the death, and console her. Instead Meg and Corrine had come to her aid. When she’d felt well, the girls helped up from the floor where she’d fallen, and back to her chair. She’d glanced over at Lucas. Liam and Finn had been holding him back—he had desperately wanted to come to her. Devin had sat alone, staring at her, looking…worried?
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