Slowly, I turned in my seat. The blonde from Xander’s group bugged her eyes at me and nodded toward my desk, where the note lay untouched.
Great. If she was Xander’s friend, she was probably going to tell me I looked homeless and crazy, not just outdated. Not that she looked super awesome. Her blonde hair was stringy, like she hadn’t bothered to comb it, and her roots were growing out about an inch long before the bleached blonde started.
I turned back to my desk and slowly unfolded the note, still treating it like an explosive. Her words were scrawled across it in big, sloppy handwriting.
Do you really live with Xander?
I glanced back at her and shrugged.
She mouthed, “Watch out.”
I turned to face forward again. What did that mean—watch out for Xander or for her? Was she pissed that I lived with her boyfriend?
The thought made me strangely ill. I knew I had no claim on any of the guys—and they were my stepbrothers on top of that, so I couldn’t claim them even if I wanted to. Not in the way she and Jen apparently wanted to. And to be honest, the way I wanted to.
But knowing it couldn’t happen didn’t make me any less attracted to them. It didn’t make me any less jealous when another girl wanted them.
When the bell rang, I hurried out of class, anxious to get away before the girl could talk to me. I walked out and ran smack into Eliot.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked, putting his hands on my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length, studying my face. Though his touch was light, I suddenly felt as relaxed as if he’d given me an hour long massage.
I gave him my most grateful smile. “I’m okay now,” I said, before I thought it through.
Eliot grinned and bit his lip, his dimple on full display. My heart skipped. “Well, then,” he said slowly. “Let me walk you to class?”
I opened my mouth, but every thought seemed to have deserted my brain when he smiled at me, so I only nodded mutely.
“Can I get your number?” Eliot asked. “I mean, I know that sounds super weird, but I just…I don’t know…I got this feeling right before class started that you needed me. I know, I told you it’s weird. And then I realized I couldn’t text you.”
“I don’t have a phone,” I admitted, hugging my books to my chest.
“What? Seriously?” he blurted out.
I shrunk another size inside my clothes. I wanted to disappear, to rewind this day and start over.
“Dude, why are you making Gwen look like that?” Zeke asked, falling into step on my other side. “She’s all…droopy.”
“I’m sorry,” Eliot said quickly. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Gwen. Of course you don’t have a phone. I’m taking you to get one right after school.”
“You don’t have to—.”
“I want to,” he said, holding up both hands. “Chalk it up to my massive anxiety. I just like to know everyone’s okay. Please let me?”
I smiled, trying to imagine Eliot as I’d thought he was when I met him. Shy, awkward, without friends. That Eliot would have anxiety. This Eliot had…
Barb.
She strode up behind him and slid an arm around his waist, smiling up at him. “Hey, stranger,” she said, her voice light and flirtatious. Now Eliot looked like the guy I’d bumped into on the stairs my first day. Flustered, embarrassed, out of his element.
I expected Barb to shoot me a smug smile or a warning look so I’d back off. Instead, she ignored me as completely as if I didn’t exist.
“We’ll just leave you two alone for now,” Zeke said, holding out an elbow like he was about to escort me into a dance. I slipped my hand into the crook, and he pressed it to his side, smiling down at me as we left Eliot and Barb to themselves. I tried not to think about them. A minute ago, I’d gotten my hackles up over Xander and his girl. Now, I was burning with jealousy over Eliot. As if it weren’t enough that I had a thing for one of my stepbrothers, I seemed to have a thing for all of them.
“What was that all about?” I asked, unable to keep my curiosity to myself.
“Eliot’s a weird dude,” Zeke said. “He thinks he’s got it all figured out. He just tells all the girls he doesn’t believe in monogamy, and then he gets all of them at once.”
“Wow,” I said, wishing I hadn’t asked. “I might have expected that with Xander, but not him.”
“Nah, dude,” Zeke said. “Xander’s philosophy is the opposite. He’s a lone wolf. Can’t be tamed.”
“How’s that different?” I asked.
“He won’t let anyone have him, so all the girls want him. You know, because all the girls are keen on the Keens.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“What do you mean by that, Gwen?” he asked, a teasing spark in his eye.
My face warmed. “Just…I mean, for high school guys…you have cars and money and you look how you do…”
“How’s that?” His smile got wider. Behind him, I saw Jen and the other girl who dissed me before class. They were heading our way, their eyes locked on Zeke.
I knew they were about to swoop in, and my hand tightened possessively around his arm, pulling him closer to me. Before they could get his attention, I found my fighting spirit. Zeke deserved better than a bitchy girlfriend. Though my knees were quaking, I smiled up at him and said, “Don’t act like you don’t know you’re hot.”
There. I’d just admitted it. I winced, regretting the words already. What if it weirded him out, or he thought I was desperate, or laughed in my face.
Instead of laughing at me, Zeke bit back a smile. He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear. Shivers raced down my entire body. “Then don’t act like you don’t know it.”
He released my arm at the door to the classroom, and I must have walked into class and sat down, though I couldn’t seem to feel my legs. Did Zeke think I was hot? Or was he telling me that he knew I found him hot?
My thoughts were in a jumble all through class. Did all girls feel like this when a boy smiled at them the way Zeke smiled at me, or were we really connected in some weird, supernatural way? Whatever the answer, I knew that my attraction to them was real, not just the product of a bond we had no control over.
When I walked out of class, still in a daze, someone slammed into me, hard. My books flew out of my hands and scattered on the floor.
“Oops,” Barb said, stepping around me. To think that the day before I had actually thought I might end up being popular.
“Bitch,” her little friend muttered as they strutted off down the hall.
And there it was. The record-scratch of reality stopping my fantasy once again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eliot
I was planning to spend lunch practicing with the mathletes team, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Gwen. I couldn’t stand the thought of missing out on time with her while my brothers were soaking up her smile. Halfway to the classroom, I veered down the hall toward the cafeteria. I wasn’t getting any weird intuition about her needing me, and I was glad my brothers were there to protect her. But I wanted to protect her, too. She and I shared something special, and I didn’t want to let her down by failing to show.
When I walked in, Barb glided over, smacking her glossy lips together, and took hold of my arm. As I looked around for the Keens, she led me toward our usual table. Spotting Gwen’s blonde head lowered over her tray, I balked, realizing I’d let Barb tow me along like a fish on a line.
“What’s wrong?” Barb asked, looking up at me with those big eyes of hers. I’d always liked her best of the girls I was seeing. She’d take selfies of us and send them to me with little hearts drawn on them. It was cute, and we looked cute together. But it was like I’d always been waiting for something else, something real. Until Gwen, I’d never known what that was.
“I think I’m going to sit over there today,” I said, raising my arm to pull free of Barb’s grip.
Her wide eyes narrowed, and she purse
d her lips. “Where?”
“With my family,” I said, nodding at them. After Dad’s revelations, I wanted to be near them. I wanted to figure out what we all were, and I wasn’t going to find out in Barb’s company, no matter how cute she and her friends were.
“Since when do the Keens sit together at lunch?” she asked. “Your brothers usually don’t even eat in the cafeteria. Is that…Xander?” Her eyes bugged at seeing him there. He probably hadn’t eaten in here all year.
It didn’t surprise me. I shrugged. “I guess we all wanted to sit with our family today.”
“With her?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I could have made excuses, but it felt like a sacrilege to deny Gwen’s influence. Besides, I needed to figure out the meaning of what Dad had said. I wanted to ask Xander if he knew anything about my birth parents or the chance of gods and monsters coming through rips in the fabric of our world.
Instead, I was dealing with girl drama. The girls I hung out with didn’t really care about little things like Armageddon. They were more concerned about competition.
“I can’t believe this,” Barb huffed. “You walked out on me yesterday, brushed me off like I was nothing, and now you’re doing it again? And you’re not even going to apologize?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but then I realized that wasn’t fair. She wasn’t nothing, but almost overnight she’d begun to mean nothing to me. Last week I would have fought for her. I’d honestly cared about her and the others, too. But now, I just wanted to be done with the drama. Suddenly, all the relationships I’d had felt superficial, meaningless.
“I am sorry,” I said honestly. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“But you’re still going to do it, even knowing it hurts me, aren’t you?”
Barb may have been a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid. We’d had a good time together. Now, it was time to move on, and though I didn’t owe her an explanation, I wanted to give it to her. She’d always known I would never give her what she wanted. At least I could give her the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “But I need to do this.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” she asked, her voice going shrill. A few people at nearby tables turned to stare. Others dropped their voices and whispered, pretending not to stare.
“If you want to call it that, then I guess I am,” I said. “I need to focus on my family right now.” That was an understatement. Not only had I just found out I was adopted and not related to anyone in my family, but I didn’t even know if I was human.
Or if any of my brothers were. For all I knew, we were the key to stopping Ragnarok. Or hell, maybe we were the ones who were going to start it. Whatever the case, I wasn’t content to go on like nothing had happened the night before.
“What’s going on with your family?” Barb asked, her tone verging on desperate, though I could tell she was trying for supportive. “You can talk to me about anything, Eliot. I…I love you.”
I winced at her words. She’d always known I wasn’t going to settle down with her. We were teenagers, for god’s sake. We were still in high school. I’d always planned to go to Harvard, and I’d made it clear all along that we weren’t actually dating, so there would be no messy breakup.
And yet, here we were.
“I hope you can find a guy who gives you what you deserve,” I said. “But it’s not me. It never was.”
“I can’t believe you,” she said, rage burning in her gaze. “You’re pathetic, Eliot Keen. You’re going to regret this. And don’t come crawling back to me when your own sister won’t give it up for you.”
With that, she whirled and headed for the door. I tried to shrug off her words and the stares of the crowd. She was probably right. What did I think I was doing? I couldn’t actually expect anything to happen with Gwen. I could like her—I had some kind of weird, supernatural connection with her—but in the real world, these things didn’t happen. We couldn’t be together.
But I didn’t care. I just wanted to be near her, even if nothing could happen. I wanted to see her sweet little face, those plush lips, her eyelashes that curled so shyly against her cheeks when she looked down. And the spark in her eyes when she got excited or riled up about something—that was just as sexy.
I followed Barb toward the exit but only because my siblings were gathered at a table near the door. But when Barb reached the table, she didn’t blow by with her nose in the air. She stopped, and I came to a halt right behind her.
“This is your fault, skank,” she hissed at Gwen. “And you’re going to pay for it.”
“What’s my fault?” Gwen asked, looking up from her spaghetti with a startled expression.
Barb snatched up Gwen’s tray and smashed it into her face.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gwen
As chunks of spaghetti slid down my face and plopped into my lap, I had the most inappropriate urge to laugh. I’d just been officially initiated. I’d seen this in so many movies. The food fights, the mean girl throwing a drink in someone’s face. But if this was the way to gain acceptance, I would rather my lunch had been something more…dry. A hamburger would have just fallen to the floor without leaving more than a ketchup stain on my shirt.
For better or worse, I was officially part of public school now.
I was so frozen with shock that it took me a second to register the chaos erupting around me. I groped at the table, searching for a napkin to wipe the spaghetti out of my eye sockets. Strong arms circled my waist and pulled me back, chair and all.
Pulling up the hem of my T-shirt, I wiped spaghetti away from my eyes, not wanting the acidic sauce to burn them. At last, I could see. Xander had Barb shoved up against the wall, one hand pressing into her upper back to pin her there and the other holding her wrists like handcuffs. Her eyes were bulging, and she was whimpering to be released. Zeke was trying to drag Xander off, yelling at him. Girls started screaming, chairs scraping back as other students dove in to join the fight, or scooted away, or jumped up to huddle against the wall.
I started shaking so hard I felt sick. Not just at the realization that I’d been attacked, but at seeing Xander attack her. Somehow, through all the noise and melee, I heard his voice, deadly quiet and smooth as velvet. “Don’t fucking touch my family.”
Zeke pulled him back, and he slowly let go, dropping Barb like he was dumping a bag of trash at the curb.
I realized that Peyton was beside me, waiting for an answer. A second later, my brain backtracked to find the question from the millions of voices around me.
“I—I’m okay,” I said. “Gross, but okay.”
“Your nose is a little red, and not just from tomatoes. Must be where the plate hit you.” She studied me a second, then nodded. “Come on, let’s go clean up.”
My senses seemed to drop back into place one at a time, as if they’d disappeared with the instinctive clench of fear upon seeing a fight. First sight had arrived, then sound, and now I realized Finn’s arms were still around me. A swell of emotion rose inside me. He’d pulled me away from the fight so no one would crash into me, and kept his arms around me to shield me if anyone came this way. Turning in his arms, I stood on tiptoes and gave his cheek a quick kiss before pulling away. “Thanks,” I whispered.
I stepped back to join Peyton, then turned to say something to Xander. But he was already gone.
***
In the bathroom, Peyton started rolling out a long train of crappy brown paper towels while I stood over the sink, splashing my face with warm water. Now that the disturbance was over, another sense had come back to me—smell. My whole face smelled like greasy spaghetti and parmesan cheese. I must have gotten some smashed up my nose, but even when I blew it, the scent lingered.
I didn’t know much about perfume, but I was pretty sure none advertised hints of cheese and subtle notes of garlic. It wasn’t my first choice, but when Peyton asked if I wanted to go home, I shook my head.
“I’ve
only been here for two days, and I already skipped half of yesterday,” I said.
“Yeah, you better watch out, or you’ll get a reputation like Xander,” she said, grinning as our eyes met in the mirror.
“Oh, you mean a guy who goes psycho when anyone messes with him?” I asked, throwing a wad of soggy towels in the trash.
“I’m not going to say he should have done that, but that girl had it coming,” Peyton said. “I mean, she hit you in the face with a tray!”
“I didn’t ask him to do that.” I’d seen bums fight and it gave me the same feeling. Terrified, sick, stunned. I’d seen how easy someone could snap over nothing, and there was always the chance they’d turn on me next.
This time, someone had been attacked because of me. Xander had snapped in a way that even my mother never did. She might not be mentally stable, but this was a different kind of crazy. Even when she was seeing things and hearing voices, Mom had never been like that. She’d never hurt me. She’d never hurt anyone. My mother was afraid. Xander was someone to be afraid of.
“Look, I’m not going to pretend it’s hard having what we have,” Peyton said, looking me over. “If we lived in some crappy little shack, I’d probably get hell for being gay. Now, I might get some bitchy comments, sure. Bitches be jealous of all this.” She gestured from her pink hair to her Uggs.
“I can see why.”
She laughed and gestured at me. “Lose the hoodie, and I think you’ll be fine for the rest of the day.”
Hands still shaking, I attempted to peel it off over my head, but it was smeared with oily sauce, and I didn’t want to smash the spaghetti all over my face again. I ended up having to kneel down and let Peyton ease it up and over my shoulders without turning it inside out. We were in the middle of wrestling it off when the door opened and two sets of feet appeared in my vision, which was mostly obscured by the sweatshirt.
“God, Peyton, get a room,” said a familiar, cutting voice. Jen.
“That’s just nasty,” said another. “You could at least use a stall to scissor your girlfriend.”
Emerge: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 17
