by Anita Oh
"We need to talk," he said, putting out a hand to stop me from walking past him.
If I knew one thing in this life, it was that conversations that began "We need to talk" never ended with anything good.
"I can talk and eat," I told him, pulling out of his grasp so I could inside.
There was nobody else in the dining hall, so I picked a table in the far corner that was partly hidden by a large fern. If anyone came in, they wouldn't immediately notice that I was sitting with Sam. I pressed the button for the food to appear and waited. Sam took the seat next to me, pulling out the chair in a way that blocked me in unless I wanted to climb over him to escape.
"I just want you to understand why I did what I did," he told me as a plate of breakfast pastries appeared.
I picked out a cherry danish and bit into it. It was some high-quality danish. Sometimes you get a danish and there's just this tiny blob of fruit in the middle, but this guy had cherry right to the edges. The pastry was light and flaky, and the custard inside was creamy and sweet. It was the perfect danish. Really, when they were convincing me to come back here, all they'd needed to do was give me one of these danishes, and I'd have been sold.
"I understand," I told him when I'd finished the danish. "I know exactly why you did it, and I get that you thought you were doing the right thing."
He gave me a little smile. "So, you're not angry anymore?"
I glanced down at the pastries, trying to pick which one I'd eat next. Maybe the blueberry? But I needed to deal with Sam first.
"Are you nuts? Of course I'm still angry. Just because I get why you did it doesn't mean it wasn't a disgusting betrayal of my trust."
His face crumpled a bit, and I nearly gave in. He had thought he was helping; he'd just wanted to protect me. But he still didn't get the point.
"You had no right going behind my back like that. You should have told me everything from the start and let me make my own decisions. How can you expect me to trust you when you obviously don't trust me?"
"It wasn't my secret to tell," he said.
I pushed the plate of pastries away. "You aren't even listening to what I'm trying to say," I told him. "You're just trying to justify yourself."
He sighed. "Well, what are you trying to say? Just say it."
I took a deep breath. I didn't want to have to say it outright, because that would make it seem true, and no matter how angry I'd been at Sam, it was something I'd never wanted to believe.
"The fact that you're prioritizing other people's 'secrets' over my trust tells me that as much as you say you care about me, that's just an idea to you. It's not something real. You don't care about me, and you don't have any respect for me or my judgment." I shook my head. When I got mad like this, it was hard for me to get the words out, because I felt like I might cry. Angry tears are the worst, because they send totally the wrong impression. "You're all talk, Sam. I thought we had something between us, but I was such an idiot. You were right; I should have stayed away from you in the first place. At least when I thought you were dead, I didn't realize you were such a manipulative jerk. Now, will you just get up and let me out of here?"
I stood up and tried to push past him, but he grabbed me by the arm.
I wanted to strike out at him, to hurt him like he'd hurt me. Only, he'd hurt me by not caring enough, and I cared too much. Something of what I was feeling must have showed on my face, because he stood up and backed away.
"Lucy," he said quietly, almost sounding afraid. The tone of his voice stopped me from leaving. "Lucy, what's happened to you? Your eyes are glowing."
I pushed past him and ran.
His words didn't make any sense. He was just trying to change the subject or block out my words or something. No way were my eyes glowing. Why would they? I didn't have any powers or anything. I was just an ordinary girl. The most ordinary.
I ran from the dining hall and right smack into Fatima. I bounced off her and stumbled back against the door. I expected her to say something mean, since we hadn't exactly parted on friendly terms last year, but she just looked at me kind of warily. Milo was standing at her side with his arms folded over his chest and his eyes narrowed at me. If I wanted lessons in being paranoid, I should probably ask Milo, because he was the most suspicious person I'd ever met.
"Hi," I said to them, feeling awkward. I didn't look at them directly in case my eyes were doing something weird. "Congrats on getting first in the class. You really earned it." I thought of something she'd told me the year before, when we'd kind of been friends. "Did your parents let you go to the Green House this year?"
She nodded. "Yeah, but it's kind of weird there."
"I'm surprised you guys are even allowed to still be friends." I said it jokingly, but it was a valid point. I'd never seen anyone from the Green House get along with anyone from the Red House before.
Milo narrowed his eyes even more, so that he looked like he was squinting into the sun. Fatima just shrugged.
"Look, this is kind of awkward," she said. "But I wanted to ask you if you knew anything about Hannah. We've been trying to contact her all summer, and now she's not at school either. Have you heard from her?"
Oh, man. I should have expected that, but it hadn't even occurred to me that other people would miss Hannah too. I assumed that my father had contacted her parents, considering it had been largely his fault she'd been taken, but I didn't even know that for sure. I had no idea what to say to try to explain this. I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Althea yet about whatever they’d found out.
"Did her parents tell you anything?" I asked.
Fatima shook her head. "They were very strange about it, actually. Evasive."
"We know you know something," Milo said, his voice hard.
I nodded. I had to tell them the truth as much as possible.
"Hannah's missing," I told them. "I don't know all the details, but I think it's something to do with her father's work."
Fatima gave a broken little gasp, and Milo went pale.
"Do you think she's…" Fatima couldn't say it, but I shook my head.
"I'm sure she's alive," I said. I had nothing to base that on, but Sam had been taken as well, and he'd survived, so surely Hannah would be fine too.
"How do you know this?" Milo asked. "We've known her parents forever and they wouldn't tell us anything, so how do you know more than we do?"
"I was with her just before it happened," I told him. "It was the end of semester last year."
"They took her from school?" Fatima asked, sounding even more distressed about that than anything.
"Yeah," I told her. "I didn't see what happened, but it was on the island."
"This is your fault," said Milo. "Everything was fine before you came here."
He stormed into the dining hall angrily. I couldn't blame him. I agreed with him.
"He's just upset," Fatima said. "But I'm sure there's nothing you could've done…" She seemed to want to say something else but wasn't sure if she should. "I'm sorry about last year, about being mean."
She rushed inside before I could answer, which was good, because what do you say to that? You can't say "it's okay" to something that really isn't.
I wasn't sure I should've told them anything. Maybe they'd go looking into it and find out things they weren't supposed to know, but Hannah was their friend too, and they deserved an explanation.
It was still way too early to go to class, so I hung out in the Red Garden until I saw Katie go to breakfast, then snuck back into our room to get ready for school. Even if she wasn't evil, it was better for her not to get too close to me. It wouldn't end well for her.
My first class was chemistry, which I'd kind of bombed in last year. I decided to go early to make a good impression and read through the textbook. But the problem with going to class early is that the seat next to you is free for anyone to sit in. The class had half filled up when Tennyson Wilde sat beside me. A bunch of people got out their phones and started t
rying to take pictures or post to social media about it. I couldn't exactly get up and move or their tweets would be even meaner, and I figured I might as well sit next to him as anyone else. Althea and Nikolai weren't in our class, and I didn't like anyone else.
"You're my lab partner this year," he told me.
"Um, I think actually the teacher chooses…"
He gave me a look as if I were crazy.
"You're upset," he said quietly.
I gave him a look as if he was crazy. Because he was.
"I am not going to sit in chemistry class and talk about my feelings with you, Tennyson Wilde. Also, I can't believe Sam told you."
"I haven't seen Sam this morning," he said, flipping open his textbook. "I merely sensed your distress. It was quite an imposition on my morning routine, and I would ask you to try to curb such strong emotions in the future."
I shifted back so he could feel the full weight of my incredulous stare.
"A: what are you talking about? And B: don't tell me how to feel. Oh em gee, Tennyson Wilde, I'm not part of your stupid little wolf pack, so stop sensing me or whatever."
He shook his head at me. "Keep your voice down," he whispered fiercely. "And this has nothing to do with lycanthropy. Surely, even someone as mundane as yourself has sensed this strange bond that has developed between us."
I waved my hands in front of his face. "No, no, no. What? No." I stared at him, but it didn't seem like he was kidding. He had never been much of a kidder, to be honest. "What?"
"Since our soul transference situation."
"Huh? Oh, you mean the body swap?"
"Inaccurate, but I suppose so."
I shrugged. "Nope. Nothing like that from me. I'm perfectly fine. No bonding whatsoever over here. Must be some weird werewolf thing of yours."
He sighed. "I have told you repeatedly that that is an offensive term."
"I won't call it that if you start keeping it to yourself," I hissed at him as the teacher walked into the room.
"Things don't just disappear because you deny them, Lucy," he said, not even bothering to keep his voice down as the rest of the class fell silent. "It only gives them more power."
Chapter 4
I hated the way that Tennyson Wilde thought that just because he said something with authority, it automatically made him right, so, for the rest of the day, I tried to test out whether or not we had a bond. When we’d swapped bodies, I'd been able to sense him all the time, way more than I'd wanted to. In English class, I tried to sense what he was doing in history. At lunch, I tried to sense what he was eating. Nothing. Big fat diddly. He was wrong, and I was right. Awesome.
What wasn't awesome was Fatima. She was in most of my classes, and every time I saw her sad face, I was reminded of Hannah. I wanted to be able to tell her that Hannah was okay. More than that; I wanted to look over at the seat beside me and see Hannah sitting there. I needed answers, and there was only one person who could give them to me.
I messaged my father that night while I was studying with my headphones on and ignoring Katie. I doubted I'd hear back from him. He hadn't exactly kept in touch after he'd walked out on us, so I didn't see why he'd bother now, and I was surprised when he replied after a few minutes.
"Friday night. 10PM. Lighthouse."
The week dragged on as I waited for Friday to arrive. I was avoiding Sam and Tennyson both, though for different reasons, which meant that I couldn't really hang out with Althea or even Nikolai. I wanted to talk to her before I saw my father in case I could use her information about Hannah when I talked to him, but she was always with one of the boys. That left me with nothing to do but study, and, since I was avoiding Katie, I spent most of my time in the library, sitting at a table alone and getting ahead on school work. Fatima and Milo were there a lot too, and Milo kept shooting me suspicious glances every time he saw me. It only made me more determined to find Hannah.
Getting away on Friday night was easier said than done. Katie seemed determined that we'd spend our first weekend hanging out and wouldn't leave me alone. In the end, I agreed to watch a movie with her, then said I was going to the bathroom and made my escape. Not very smooth, but she didn't give me a lot of choice.
It was dark in the forest, but I knew the way well now and went as quickly as I could. There were so many things I wanted to know about my father, but I knew I had to stay on track if I wanted any real answers. I couldn't get distracted by things like, “Where do you live?” and “What do you do all day?” and “How can you come and go here so easily?” This was about Hannah, and if I got sidetracked, my dad was slippery enough to get out of answering anything.
I was super early, so I sat on the lighthouse steps and waited for him. The lighthouse was one of my favorite places at school, even though I'd had some bad experiences there. The crash of the ocean against the cliffs below was so loud that it drowned out everything else, any troubling thoughts. I let myself relax, just for a little while, and forget about Sam and Tennyson and the horrible tortures that Hannah was probably undergoing. I pretended I was the ocean. When I was angry, I could just crash against the rocks or sweep worlds away. When I was sad, I could be still and hide everything away beneath a calm surface. When I was happy, I could sparkle in the sun. Nothing could defeat me if I was the ocean.
Well, maybe pollution.
I heard footsteps and looked up to see my father walking toward me down a path between the rocks that led down the cliff face, one I hadn't noticed before.
"Did you come by boat?" I asked, standing up, and glancing down at the water, though it was too dark to see anything.
He shrugged. It was so impossible for him to give a straight answer.
He looked older than he had the last time I'd seen him. Worn. There was a lot of gray in his dark hair, and there were dark pouches under his eyes. His clothes hung off his frame as if he'd lost a lot of weight, and I wondered how he was living. Still, I had to stay on track.
"I assume if you're here, you have news on Hannah?"
"Maybe I just wanted to see my daughter."
I snorted. As if.
"Can you do me a favor and just be straight with me? If you don't want to answer something, don't answer it, but don't try to weasel your way out."
He sighed and sat down on the step beside me. I shifted over so he wasn't so close.
"I know you think the worst of me, Lulu, but I'm still your dad."
I shifted over a bit more.
"That's not what I'm here to talk about," I told him. "If you don't have any news, I'm leaving."
He stared hard at my face, but I didn't look at him. Then he sighed again and rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward so I couldn't see his face even if I'd wanted to. He smelled like sea air and motor oil, and something about that was so nostalgic that it made me want to run as far away from him as I could.
"We've been looking for her, but the Others have powers we don't fully understand. They can manipulate matter in ways that physics hasn't even imagined."
"You mean they're invisible?" That was kind of cool, though terrifying.
He shook his head slightly. "Not exactly invisible. If they were invisible, we could still pick them up on scanners. It's more complicated than that, more elusive."
"So, you have no idea where she is."
"We have some idea. We know where she's not."
I rolled my eyes. "I know where she's not. She's not here. She's not in class or in the dining hall or in our dorm room. You don't need to be some sort of paranormal detective or whatever it is you are to figure that out." I didn't see how he could be so flippant when it was his fault she was missing.
He laughed. "You think that's what I am? A detective?"
I shrugged. "You laugh at me for not knowing something that I have no frame of reference for. Nice." I stood up to leave.
"Wait," he said, catching me by the hand.
I wanted to pull away from him, but it was comforting to have him close by. Even though I'd n
ever forgive him, I felt safer when he was around.
"You should talk to Sam," he said.
I turned around and glared at him. "What?"
They'd been talking again, I just knew it. Having their little secret chats about me and what was good for me and what I should do, like I was too stupid to figure that out for myself. I felt that familiar sense of betrayal twist in my gut.
"We're fairly sure they've taken Hannah to the place they were keeping Sam. Sam is the only person we've ever gotten back from them, and we're still not sure how. He says he doesn't remember anything, but I know that he does. He's just afraid. Maybe if you talk to him, you'll be able to get him to open up."
I continued glaring while I thought over his words. Maybe I'd jumped the gun, thinking they were ganging up on me, but I still couldn't trust either of them. Still, what he was saying made sense.
"Sam and I aren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment."
"Well, all this aside, that's something you need to fix. If nothing else, you two have been friends your whole lives. Whatever's gone wrong between you, it's not as important as that."
He stood up and made a jerky movement as if he was going to hug me but thought better of it. Instead, he patted me on the shoulder.
"You seem different," he said, searching my face as if he could deduce something from it.
"Yeah, that'll happen when you only see your kid once a year," I told him, then turned and walked away.
The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was talk to Sam, but my dad was right. Man, I hated that he was right. I knew I had to get over it, if for no other reason than that the churning feeling in my gut could not be healthy. I was going to have a peptic ulcer before I turned 20.
It was late by the time I reached the gates of the Golden House, but I knew they'd still be awake on account of lycanthropy. I buzzed the button and waited, but the gate opened almost immediately.
"You're upset," said Tennyson, appearing out of the shadows.
"Stop it with the evil sensory perceptions," I told him. "It's creepy, and it's not what you think."
He didn't argue with me, which was a surprise. He turned and led me toward the house without a word. Even though it was what I wanted, I found it was disappointing not to get a reaction out of him.
