by Wendi Wilson
I wiped my face on my sleeve and walked out into the hall, determined to forget all about Fiona and her new quest to bag an Alt. I had better things to do than obsess over them. At least, that’s what I told myself.
Chapter Three
Milk dribbled down my chin as I shoveled another bite of Crunchy-O’s into my mouth. I couldn’t believe I was running so late. I had never been late to school. Not once. I guess there really was a first time for everything.
Mom had already left for work and Dad was sleeping after working the night shift at the hospital, so I only had my two feet to get me to school. The walk usually took me ten minutes and I needed to hustle if I was going to make it to first period.
It was all the Alts’ fault. I tossed and turned all night, unable to erase the image of those silvery eyes staring, assessing me, and probably finding me lacking. I came up with about twelve different sassy comments I could have made as I left the cafeteria yesterday, and a comeback for every possible remark they could have made to me in return.
The one thing I didn’t figure out was how to shut down my brain and sleep. I finally dozed off around three a.m., and I slept right through my alarm this morning. I poured myself some of my mother’s leftover coffee into an insulated cup and nuked it in the microwave to warm it up. Grabbing my backpack, I hurried through the house and out the front door.
It only took me seven minutes to get to school, my legs pumping at a fast clip as I chugged down the coffee. It didn’t matter, though. I heard the bell ring as I swung open the front door and walked through. I was late.
I ran down the deserted hallway to my locker, shoved my backpack and my empty coffee cup in while simultaneously pulling my chemistry book and notebook out. I slammed the locker door and took off, whipping around the corner and down the hall to Mr. Gillespie’s class.
I looked through the small pane of glass and saw him at his desk. It looked like he was still taking attendance. I gripped the handle and pushed down slowly, hoping to slip in unnoticed. As the door swung inward, the hinges squealed, bringing the gaze of every person in the room to me. My face caught fire with what I’m sure was the blush to beat all blushes.
“Sorry, Mr. Gillespie,” I muttered as I slid through the opening and pushed the door shut behind me.
I kept my eyes glued to the floor and shuffled to my desk. I blinked a few times, trying to clear the confusion when I spotted a pair of masculine legs already planted under it. My eyes trailed up the legs to a broad chest. My gaze lingered there for a fraction of a second too long, and it vibrated with laughter. My eyes flicked up to his face and my mouth dropped open.
It was him. The Alt from the hallway yesterday. Sitting in my seat. Laughing at me. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember a single one of the comebacks I came up with in the middle of the night. My synapses stopped firing and I was pretty sure I may have drooled a little.
“Ms. James, please take a seat,” Mr. Gillespie called, snapping me out of my stupor.
I jerked my eyes from the Alt’s face to look for an empty desk and took an involuntary step backward. Directly behind him sat the smiling one, dimples peeking out. To his left sat the third brother, his nose once again stuck in a book. I swallowed thickly and scanned the rest of the room. The only empty seat was behind the reader, next to smiley. I’d be surrounded by them.
“Savanna,” Mr. Gillespie said, his voice impatient.
“S-s-sorry,” I stuttered.
A few snickers broke out, humiliating me. I plopped into the seat and buried my face in my arms and took a few deep breaths. The fact that I was stuttering again was bad enough. That I was doing it in front of three vampires was even worse.
Mr. Gillespie started his lecture, so I sat up and tried to at least pretend that I was paying attention. I stared at the back of the reader’s head, watching the light play off of the highlights in his dark hair every time he moved. It was so pretty.
Oh, God, I thought, why am I thinking about his hair? What I should be thinking about is how these three ended up in this class. They weren’t in here yesterday.
I slid my eyes to my right, moving my head only a miniscule amount, to steal a peek at the other two. Smiley was staring at me, still smiling, and the arrogant one was arrogantly picking at a fingernail with an arrogant look on his face.
What a jerk.
The sound of many desks screeching pulled me out of my head. Everyone was grouping up. I groaned. Group projects were the worst. I usually ended up working by myself because no one wanted to include me. It always drove home what an outcast I was.
I jerked back in surprise as the reader stood and turned his desk around to face me. I jerked again as the other two slid closer so they formed a semicircle around me.
“You don’t mind if we group with you, do you, Savanna?” the arrogant one asked, but it didn’t really sound like a question.
“How do you know my name?” I blurted out. Smooth, Savanna. Real smooth.
“Well,” he says, drawing out the word like he’s talking to a toddler, “the teacher called you Ms. James, then Savanna, so we can only assume that your name is Savanna James. Am I correct?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I could feel my temper rising and once I hit my limit, there’d be no one to protect him from its blast. I pinched my lips together, fighting the urge to tell him off.
“Cool it, Jett,” Smiley said, still smiling. “We want to be friends.”
“Your name is Jett?”
I said it like it was the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard. I don’t know what came over me. He just pushed all of my buttons and I couldn’t help it. With my history, I had never made fun of anyone for any reason, much less something they couldn’t help, like their name.
“What’s wrong with Jett?” he asked, his voice filled with emotion for the first time.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Nothing. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“I’m Wyatt Patton,” Smiley says. “This is Jett and that one is Beckett.”
Beckett stuck a gum wrapper in his book to mark his page and closed it. Making eye contact, he lifted his chin in my direction. “Hey,” he said.
My palms started to sweat and I took a moment to send up a brief prayer that my armpits wouldn’t follow suit. The last things I needed were pit stains and B.O. I shook my head. I shouldn’t have cared. I’d never given two hoots what anyone else thought of me, and I refused to start. Especially with those three.
“Okay,” I said, looking from one to the next, “but I have a question. How did you get in this class? You weren’t here yesterday.”
Wyatt laughed and, I swear, a pink hue tinged Beckett’s cheeks. Of course, it was Jett who answered. “We have our ways.”
I looked at him expectantly, but that was all he was going to tell me. I glanced at Wyatt, who just grinned. Beckett was staring at his desk, his brow furrowed. He looked…I don’t know…torn.
“Did you use,” I leaned forward so they could hear my whisper, “persuasion?”
“Of course not,” Jett said, punctuating his words with a hand to his chest. “Using persuasion on school staff members could get us expelled.”
I looked at Wyatt and he winked at me, that goofy grin still on his face. One glance at Beckett’s lowered head and I knew. He was the one who would give me the truth.
“Beckett?” I said, my voice soft and questioning.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Without looking up, he said, “We just wanted to meet you. Being in your classes seemed the easiest way.”
“Classes?” I asked, stressing the plurality of the word.
Beckett nodded and looked up at me. “All of them.”
I was stunned. Why on Earth would these boys want to know me when they could probably snap their fingers and have as many friends as they want?
True to character, I asked them as much. Jett just stared at me, his gaze intense. Beckett shook his head and looked back down at his desk
. It was Wyatt who finally answered me, his perpetual smile finally leaving his face.
“Besides the fact that you’re gorgeous?” he asked.
I snorted. I didn’t do it intentionally, but it came out before I could stop it. No way was that the reason. No one had ever called me pretty besides my parents, and they didn’t count. But gorgeous? It was ludicrous.
“What? You don’t think you’re pretty?” Jett asked, his arrogant look, for once, absent.
I waved his question off. “That’s not the point. I seriously doubt y’all think it, so tell me the truth. Why me?”
Wyatt opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, looking at me like I’d grown two heads or something. Like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. I looked at Beckett. “Well?”
“There is another reason,” he mumbled before taking a deep breath. “Yesterday, in the hall, Jett tried to persuade you to apologize to him.”
“You did what?” I demanded, looking at Jett. I could feel my temper rising.
“The point is,” Wyatt interjected, pulling my laser hot stare from Jett, “it didn’t work. Beckett and I both tried at lunch, too. You were one hundred percent unaffected.”
“You, Savanna James,” Beckett added, “are special.”
Chapter Four
Special. Under normal circumstances, a cute boy calling me special might have set butterflies free in my belly or caused goosebumps to break out on my arms. It was, after all, the first time that had ever happened. But no. The fact that all three of them had tried to take away my free will, to use their powers of persuasion on me without my knowledge, sent me through the roof.
I pressed my lips together as tight as I could, forcing myself to hold back the tongue-lashing they deserved. I looked at each of them, my eyes narrowed and shooting fire. Beckett looked ashamed and refused to make eye contact, scribbling something on a piece of paper. Wyatt’s smile dropped when I turned my glare on him. Jett, well, he had a bored, impassive look on his face, but his bouncing knee belied his nonchalance.
We were supposed to be working on something, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. I sat there in silence, staring at a blank sheet in my notebook, until I couldn’t take it anymore. A glance at the clock showed me class would be over in five minutes. We’d been sitting in our silent circle for more than half an hour. I was done.
Without saying a word, I gathered my things and stood. I stopped by Mr. Gillespie’s desk and told him I didn’t feel well and needed to see the nurse. He waved me toward the door without looking up from his laptop. I left in a hurry, the wings of righteous indignation flying me out of there without a backward glance.
Once out in the hall, I fell back against the wall with a groan. What had I been thinking? I let those boys get under my skin, left class early under a pretense, didn’t do any of the assigned work and got myself stuck out in the hall with nowhere to go. My anger cooled as I weighed my options. I could go to the nurse and fake a headache or go hide in the bathroom until the bell rang.
Before I could make a decision, the classroom door swung open and the Patton brothers filed through before letting it swing shut behind them. I pushed myself off the wall and started walking, but they surrounded me before I could take three steps.
“We’re sorry,” Wyatt said. He seemed to be the one that did most of the talking. “Please, let us explain.”
I stopped trying to duck around him and met his stare, cocking one eyebrow. His body sagged with relief, like my agreement held some importance to him. I felt my guard come back up. I needed to remember to be careful around these guys.
“Jett was having a bad morning,” Beckett said, finishing quickly with, “not that that’s any excuse.”
I looked from him to Jett. He shrugged. Yeah, I’m sensing real remorse, I thought.
“And the only reason we tried it,” Wyatt continued, “was because we didn’t believe Jett when he told us you were immune. We thought maybe he was just off his game and wanted to prove him wrong. But he wasn’t wrong.”
“You really can’t control me?” I asked, looking at each of them in turn as the anger drained out of me.
“We really can’t,” Beckett said.
“And we have no idea why, or how it’s even possible,” Jett added, speaking for the first time since they joined me in the hall.
“What? Do you try it on every person you meet?” I snapped.
“No,” he said, “just waspish girls who call us jerks for no reason.”
“You bumped into me,” I shouted before remembering where I was and lowering my voice. “You made me drop all my stuff and just kept on walking. You were being a jerk.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Wh-wh-what?”
His sudden turnaround had me stuttering again. I flinched, hoping they wouldn’t notice or, at least, wouldn’t comment on it. It was embarrassing enough without having to discuss it.
“I said, I’m sorry. There was a…an incident at home that put me in a bad mood and I brought it here and took it out on you. I apologize. Now can we please move on?”
That last bit totally ruined his apology, but I decided to let it slide. I had a feeling that was as good as it was going to get with Jett Patton. I gave him a tight nod before looking at the other two and giving them the same.
“How did you guys get out of class, anyway?” I ask. “Did you, you know…”
“Believe it or not, Savanna, we don’t use persuasion in every situation. In fact, we rarely use it at all.” One of my eyebrows shot up, so he added, “Okay, so we used it yesterday to find out who you were and get ourselves enrolled in your classes, but really, that’s the exception, not the norm. As for Mr. Gillespie, it only took a little class disruption to make him throw us out.”
I looked from him to Wyatt and Beckett, who both had smiles on their faces. “Okay, I don’t want to know. What about the group project? With all four of us gone, we’re gonna fail.”
I was two for two for the day. First, I was late, then I left without completing an assignment. It’s like I was in some alternate universe.
“We finished it,” Beckett said. “We put your name on it, too and turned it in on our way out the door.”
“You did?” I asked, a little dumbfounded. “How did you finish it so fast?”
“It was easy,” Wyatt said. “We only had to write a list of chemical formulas.”
“Beckett is a genius,” Jett added. “He knew all the answers without having to look anything up.”
“I helped, too,” Wyatt grumbled.
I couldn’t help but smile. I opened my mouth to thank them, but the bell cut me off and students started spilling out into the hallway. Not knowing what else to do, I waggled my fingers at them and turned to walk away. I needed to swing by my locker and get my geometry book before heading to my next class, and I didn’t want to be late. Again.
I switched out my books and slammed the door to my locker. I turned around and froze in my tracks. Three huge boys surrounded me, gray eyes staring at me intently.
“What are you doing?” I asked. At least I didn’t stutter this time.
“We have all the same classes, remember?” Wyatt said. “We thought you could show us the way.”
“You want to walk with me?”
Obviously, that’s what he just said, but I couldn’t comprehend it. Even if I ignored that they were Alts, the fact that three gorgeous boys wanted to walk with me, the class reject, was just surreal.
The next thing you know, they’ll be sitting with me at lunch, I thought, shaking my head as I turned and led the way to geometry.
Chapter Five
They were already sitting at my table when I paid for my lunch and turned around. I stopped dead in my tracks. Before I could decide whether to join them or find another table, Fiona and Lizzie walked over and scooted onto the bench next to Jett, who flashed his teeth in a wolfish smile. Across the table, Wyatt shook his head with a grin and Beckett propped his forehead in
his palm, reading his book and ignoring the rest of them. I decided to find a new table.
As I scanned the cafeteria for somewhere else to sit, someone knocked into me from behind. I lurched forward with a yelp and just barely managed to keep myself and my food from hitting the floor. I turned to see who I needed to lay the wrath down on, but there was no way for me to know. A stream of students poured from the lunch line and whoever bumped into me was gone.
I turned back around and froze again. All three Patton brothers were on their feet. Beckett was staring at me, a weird look on his face. Wyatt wasn’t smiling for once and was holding onto Jett’s arm. Jett looked like he was ready to commit murder, but he wasn’t looking at me. I followed his gaze across the room to where the football players were sitting.
I looked back at Jett, who shook off Wyatt’s grip and sat back down next to Fiona. Wyatt waved me over as he and Beckett took their seats. I had no idea what that was all about and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I glanced around the room, verifying that there were no empty tables. Wyatt waved at me again, like he thought I didn’t see him the first time. Sighing, I shuffled my way over and stopped at the head of the table.
Fiona looked up at me, her face twisted with annoyance. “What do you want, S-s-s-savanna?” she said, mocking my stutter the way she used to in grade school. Lizzie giggled.
My face caught fire and I took a step back, ready to do an about-face and stalk away. It was either that or knock the crap out of Fiona. I decided retreat was the better option. Less likelihood of me getting expelled that way. A hand gripped my wrist, pulling me down and before I knew it, I was tucked against Wyatt’s side, his arm around my shoulders. My senses went a little haywire at the proximity.
I looked at Fiona, whose shocked expression was comical. Lizzie giggled again, but this time it sounded more like nerves than actual humor. I stared at my tray of food, my body frozen as I waited to see what would happen next. The boys thought I needed protection from Fiona and her insults? Ha! Not likely.
