“Oh. Yeah, well, football’s been hectic and—”
“Whatever. Have you heard the big news?”
“Ummm…I don’t think so.”
“We’re a foursome now! You, me, Aiden, and Becca. Isn’t that crazy?” Raine says.
“Totally,” Becca says. “At first I was like, how can I be into…well…Aiden…you know…but now I’m like…totally into it.”
“Great sentiment there, Becca,” I tell her, “Well said.”
“Don’t be a jerk, Cam,” Raine says, play-hitting me on the shoulder. “Aren’t you going to support your friend and my friend finding romance?”
“Of course. I’m their biggest fan. In fact, I’m the one that named them.”
“Named them?”
“Baiden. They’re the new Brangelina.”
“Baiden! That’s so classic.” Raine and Teri laugh but Becca looks slightly annoyed.
“Anyway, see you at lunch?” Raine asks.
“Always.”
They trot off and I breathe a sigh of relief. At least Raine didn’t try and kiss me.
***
Gym class is getting weird.
First off, Brody’s in this class, and even though we’re pretending to be cool with each other, we’re actually not. When we do happen to talk, it’s never about anything except football and even that’s awkward.
And we’ve gotten competitive.
It’s basketball again today, only this time Brody and I are on opposite teams. Of course we have to guard one another because we’re the tallest and strongest guys on the floor.
At first we just take some jumpers. He hits a few and I hit a few. I try and play off of him and let him hit his shots.
But then on one play he pump fakes and drives to the hoop, practically dunking.
The whole class cheers and he gives me a wink on his way back down the court. “Just a little taste of what I can do when I want to bring my A game, Campbell.”
I hate that he calls me by my full name when almost no one else does.
And he’s basically calling me out in front of everyone. Okay, then, I guess we’ll go hard. I’ve let Brody think he’s bigger, stronger, and tougher than me for long enough.
That’s all about to change.
When we next get the ball, I spot up and hit a three.
“It’s on!” Brody yells with a smile.
He takes the rock and tries to fake me out again with the exact same move as before and I steal it, go coast to coast and lay it up.
Now the whole class is pretty much just watching us go one on one. Brody isn’t smiling anymore. He tries to dribble by me once, twice, three times. Each time my defense is too much and he can’t get past. His face is starting to drip sweat.
“That was just a taste, huh?” I whisper as he tries to back me toward the hoop.
“That seemed more like the whole enchilada. I don’t think you have anything else on tap, bro.”
He spins and tries a hook shot and I swat it away..
“Big man, huh?” he says.
“Nope. Just bigger than you.”
He takes the ball in again and this time I strip it. As I go to hit my layup I feel him try to come and steal the ball from behind. So I stop and pivot abruptly, planning to catch him with an elbow to his midsection when I turn.
Only—it’s not Brody coming from behind, it’s Aiden. And I don’t catch him in the chest, he’s too short for that. My elbow catches him on the nose.
He drops like a sack of potatoes. His nose is gushing blood.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he says.
“Shit, man, I’m so sorry.”
“Asshole.”
The teacher comes over and gives him a towel to hold against his nose.
Brody walks over, shaking his head and smiling wryly. “Another classic move, Cam. You sure do know how to treat your friends right.”
“It was an accident.”
“I guess scoring points in gym class is more important than your best friend’s nose?” Brody asks.
“I’ll walk you to the nurse’s office,” I tell Aiden.
Aiden shrugs. “Fine. I don’t care.”
As we leave the gym, I hear Brody call out: “You took three steps on that last layup kid!”
And then we’re out and the door slams behind us with an echo. As we cross the school foyer, I give Aiden a look. He’s still holding that big white towel on his nose. I can see some red staining it, but it doesn’t seem to be all that bad.
“Dude, I’m sorry.”
He stops and checks the towel, wipes his nose. “What do you have against me Cam? Did I shit in your Cheerios or something?”
“Shit in my Cheerios?”
“Yeah, did I do something to make you want to ruin my life?”
“Oh, I see. Shit in my Cheerios is the hot new catch phrase.”
“Fine. Be a dick.” He starts walking again.
“Hey, come on. I’m just trying to lighten the mood,” I say, picking up my stride to catch up with him.
We start climbing the stairs together. “I don’t need you to lighten my mood.
Why don’t you try not interfering in my life?”
“Hey, if you’re talking about the other day—”
He turns again and looks at me, only this time his jaw is trembling. “I passed out this morning. In the bathroom.”
This statement stops me in my tracks. I feel that now familiar sensation of dread in my stomach. “What do you mean, you passed out? Like, fainted?”
“I think that’s pretty much the definition.”
“I told you Aiden, didn’t I? Didn’t I warn you?”
He shakes his head, checks the bloody towel again. “She likes me. She told me that after the dance she’s going to…” he clams up.
“I can pretty well imagine what she promised you, but it’s bullshit.”
“You think it’s all a big lie?”
I sigh. I don’t want to make him feel bad about the first girl that’s ever taken an interest in him. But this is too important. “Sorry, man, but she’s playing you.”
“Yeah.” He looks down at the floor, his face falling. “Yeah,” he says quietly.
“Deep down I guess I kind of figured that.”
“They’re dangerous, Aiden. I need you to know that.”
“Dangerous? Like with the Camerade stuff? You think they’re vampires or something?”
“No. Not vampires. Something else.”
He looks around, but there’s nobody in the hallway or stairs. The school feels almost empty. “Like…what are they then?”
I shrug. “Maybe witches.”
“Witches.” He laughs and stuffs the towel back under his nose. “You’ve lost it.
Witches? Really?”
“Really.” And so, despite my better judgment, I tell him about the night I spied on Raine and Becca and Teri and how Raine made the light shatter just by looking at it.
Aiden keeps shaking his head as if he doesn’t believe me, but his face is getting pale. “That’s cartoon stuff. It can’t be real.”
“It is. I know it sounds crazy but it’s totally real.” I don’t tell him about Natalia, though. I don’t want to complicate an already messy situation.
“And you think Becca is casting a spell on me or something?”
“Draining you. Like what Raine did to me.”
He looks at me for a long time. “But that is kind of a vampire, isn’t it?”
“They don’t suck your blood though.”
“Not yet anyway.” He shakes his head and laughs, but it’s a hollow sound. “Just my luck. A hot chick finally wants to bang me and it turns out she’s a creepy witch trying to kill me.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. We keep walking and then we get to the nurse’s office.
“I think I’m going to go home,” he says. “I don’t want to be here right now.”
“Aiden…listen.” I feel so bad for him. It seems
like all I ever do is hurt the kid.
But he smiles. “It’s okay, Cam. You don’t need to say anything else.
Just…thanks. Thanks for telling me.”
And then he goes into the nurse’s office. And I just stand there, watching him go.
Chapter Five
Natalia
Over the next couple of days, Cam and I try to come up with some kind of plan to deal with this whole fucked up situation. But we’re totally out of our element, and everything we even consider doing seems silly or unrealistic.
And even though we’ve been talking a lot, I feel like he’s kind of been keeping his distance He’s nice, but guarded, and I’m afraid it might have something to do with what I did to Becca.
Not that I can blame him. I mean, I’m freaked out by it myself. How am I supposed to being to make sense of what happened? Or consider the possibility that I can control minds? That I’m some kind of witch?
On Saturday night Brody invites me to his game, but I’m barely keeping my mental state together, and so instead I spend the night holed up in my room, faking sick so that my mom won’t bother me.
I fall into a fitful sleep at around one in the morning, but I’m up again at five am, my mind racing, unable to stay calm. And the longer I lie there, the more worked up I get. And the more worked up I get, the angrier I start to feel.
I mean, this is bullshit. Lying here, being afraid, not knowing what to do. It’s ridiculous. If something bad is going to happen, if Raine and her friends have some kind of powers, if I have some kind of powers, I’m not going to get answers by being afraid.
I’m going to have to find them myself. And I know just who to ask. I flip back the covers and get out of bed, being careful to be quiet so that I don’t wake my mom. I pull on a pair of jeans and a soft pink fleece, then slide my feet into my sneakers and shrug on my coat.
I grab the keys off the hook by the door and head out to my mom’s car. It’s freezing out, and so I turn the heat up full blast, then pull out of the driveway and head toward Brody’s house.
***
When I’m a couple of streets away, I call him. I wanted to be able to take him by surprise and just ring the doorbell, but I was afraid his parents or, worse, his sister might answer, and so I had to compromise.
My call goes to voicemail, but his car’s in the driveway, so I know he’s home. I call him again. Again no answer. The third time he picks up, sounding sleepy.
“Hey,” he says. “Why weren’t you at the game last night? I looked for you.”
Brody called me a couple of times last night when he got home from his game, I guess to find out where I was. But I didn’t answer, mostly because I just didn’t feel like dealing with it.
“Sorry,” I say, “I wasn’t feeling so good. But I’m here now.”
“Where?”
“Outside your house.”
I hear rustling on the other end of the line, and then I see him peering out one of the upstairs windows. “Hi,” he says. “It’s a little early for a visit, isn’t it?” His tone sounds teasing, and it could definitely just be my imagination, but I feel like maybe he sounds a little nervous, too.
“I couldn’t wait to see you,” I say. “Any chance you want to buy me breakfast?”
He hesitates. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll be right down.”
He appears a few minutes later, wearing jeans and a puffy black jacket, hunched against the chilliness of the air. He opens the passenger door and slides in.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.” I pull out of the driveway and onto his street.
“So why are you up so early?” he asks.
“Just couldn’t sleep.” I shrug. “I guess I was thinking about you.” It’s not even really a lie. I was thinking about him, even if it wasn’t in a romantic way.
“That’s sweet.” He’s in the glove compartment now, rustling through my mom’s collection of CDs. “Do you know your mom has Billy Cyrus in here? Unless it’s yours.”
He turns to me, a smile on his face, but then he realizes where we’re not going the right way. “This isn’t the way,” he says. “Denny’s is the only thing open right now, and that’s left off my street, toward the middle of town.”
“I know,” I say.
“So then where we going?”
“A different place,” I say. “A place I know.”
“Cool.”
We drive for a few more miles, out onto Route 112, and then I pull the car over onto the side of the road.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“So what’s going on?” I ask, turning toward him in my seat.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s going on? With Raine? The butterflies, the weird voodoo shit, everything.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy, and then his face breaks into a grin. “Is this a joke? Some kind of weird thing you’re doing? To ask me to homecoming? Natalia, I told you I think all that stuff’s cheesy.”
“It’s not a joke.” I take a deep breath . “Brody, I saw your sister coming out of Derek’s house.”
He frowns. “I don’t get it.”
“Your sister,” I say, “Was coming out of my ex-boyfriend’s house. My ex-boyfriend who’s been stalking me.”
“Yeah, well, she knows a lot of shady characters.” He shrugs. “Was your ex-boyfriend ever in rehab? You’d be surprised how many romances start there.”
“What do you know about Raine and the Triad?”
“Um, that they’re stuck up bitches?” But I’m not laughing. He sighs. “Natalia, please, let’s go to breakfast. We can talk about whatever this is there. I’m starving.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” We sit there in silence, and suddenly, for no good reason, I’m convinced that he knows something he’s not telling me. And it really pisses me off. So I do something I haven’t done since the other night. Something I haven’t even let myself think about doing. I look at Brody, and I say, “You’re going to tell me what you know about Raine, and you’re going to do it now.”
He sucks in a big breath, almost like it’s painful. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “And honestly, you’re kind of starting to freak me out.”
I’m getting that same rush, the same feeling of electricity and warmth and something unexplainable, so I try again. “Brody, tell me what Raine and the Triad are up to. Tell me about what they’re trying to do with Cam. Tell me what the butterflies mean.”
He puts his head in his hands then, almost like he’s in pain, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got him. But then he turns to me, and suddenly, it’s like his whole face has changed.
“Natalia,” he says, “Please stop doing that. It might work on other people, but it isn’t going to work on me.”
ENTICED
(The Witches of Santa Anna, Book Six)
by Lauren Barnholdt & Aaron Gorvine
Copyright 2011, Lauren Barnholdt and Aaron Gorvine, all rights reserved This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
Chapter One
Natalia
“What do you mean, that won’t work on you?” I ask Brody. I’m trying to play it cool, but inside, I’m terrified. I’m alone, in a car with a guy who may or may not be involved in something shady and/or want to hurt me, and I’m trying to use some kind of weird powers on him to get him to do what I want. This is so not how my junior year was supposed to be starting. Why can’t everything be normal, with my biggest problems being stressing over my Spanish grade?
“I mean,” Brody says, turning his head and looking at me. “That you shouldn’t try to do that mind control bullshit, because it doesn’t work on me.” He doesn’t sound mad, though, just exasperated.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie. I look around, trying to figure out how I can escape if it comes to that. What the hell was I thinking, taking Brody out to an abando
ned road and trying to get him to tell me what he knows about Raine and the Triad? I figured if I got him isolated that he wouldn’t be able to get out of the car or walk away if he didn’t want to answer my questions --but I forgot to take into consideration that being isolated meant that I couldn’t get away, either. What a ridiculously horrible plan.
Microsoft Word - santaanna1234567.doc Page 18
