Dark Reality 7-Book Boxed Set

by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  Chapter 4

  Standing on the steps of Herald Falls High School on Monday morning, Arianna felt her stomach roil. The weekend had passed far quicker than she would have liked it to, and she’d only spoken to Luke on the phone. She hadn’t seen him, or anyone else from school, for the entire weekend. What had happened at the nightclub, though certainly fresh in everyone’s mind, had not been discussed again. But inevitably, it would be brought up, and likely sooner rather than later. She dreaded that moment. She breathed deeply to calm her stomach and her nerves and pulled one of two twin doors toward her.

  Stale air immediately greeted her. Invisible heat blowing from dusty vents filled the halls as fully as the roar of chatter from students that lingered there. Both the sound and the smell overwhelmed her, stifling and choking her. She’d been to school for more than a week, had walked the same hallways in a building that had maintained the same ambient temperature for a week. Yet, the atmosphere seemed to have changed. She had changed. Her senses felt heightened.

  Voices echoed loudly along the corridor, louder than they had the previous week. A group of girls huddled by their lockers laughed, a grating cacophony of high-pitched staccato sounds that scraped at Arianna’s eardrums. She strained to ignore them, but the harder she tried, the more she focused on them, the shriller they became. When finally they stopped and began talking again, after Arianna had moved past them, she could still hear their conversation as clearly as she would have had they been standing right beside her.

  “John is such a player,” one said.

  “I know. I don’t know why Cheryl puts up with his crap,” another said.

  “He cheats on her all the time. She has to know,” a third voice added.

  Arianna turned and looked over her shoulder. She could barely see the girls any longer. But impossibly, she could still hear their catty conversation. She quickly tried to focus on something else, anything else, all the while her heart thumped frantically. She wondered whether this was one of the new skills she’d gained, whether enhanced senses were among them. She reasoned that surely, shifting criminals and chairs were the extent of her talents, along with generating fire. Either way, she decided to find out. Further down the hallway, her English teacher stood at the threshold of the faculty lounge door speaking intently to her gym teacher. She stared in their direction, and focused on the two teachers.

  “So we can meet tonight?” Mr. Smith asked Mr. Davis.

  “Yes. My wife will be out of town until next week. Come to my house. We’ll have the whole place to ourselves,” Mr. Davis suggested.

  “Ooh, perfect. That’s even better than our usual spot,” Mr. Smith crooned. “I can hardly wait.”

  Arianna could not believe what she was hearing, that she was hearing it at all. Her two teachers, who’d plotted a secret rendezvous, had been so far away, there would have been no possible way for her to hear what they’d said. But she had. She’d tuned in to their conversation as simply as she would have tuned into a radio station; And with crystal-clear reception. Her stomach began to twist and she pressed her hand to her belly, the realization of yet another skill made plain. In the distance, she watched as the men parted. To another onlooker, their interaction seemed normal, professional. Arianna had assumed that if she were able to hear their conversation at all, and it had been a longshot, it would have been a boring, benign conversation. She had been wrong in both assumptions.

  Now, as Mr. Davis approached, heat shot straight to her cheeks. He nodded in acknowledgment of her. She smiled weakly, and avoided eye contact. She would see him soon, but with the information she had unwittingly stumbled upon, she wondered how she would ever look at him again without her cheeks blazing.

  Learning she had the ability to move objects and people with a sweep of her hand, to manipulate their state of being, and that she had suddenly amplified hearing, made anxiety tear at her lungs, making her feel as if their capacity had been severely diminished, and sent her stomach churning anew. The overly warm temperature of the building and her racing heart conspired with what felt like the beginning of a panic attack. Arianna began making her way to the ladies room.

  She navigated clusters of students, narrowly dodged getting leveled by a football jersey-clad giant walking backward and was about to round the corner to an alcove with the bathrooms tucked within it when Luke suddenly appeared beside her.

  “Hey,” he said cheerfully.

  Arianna sucked in a breath, startled. “Enough with the ninja routine!” she said and placed her hand over her heart.

  “Sorry,” he said with genuine concern. “I probably shouldn’t have done that after what happened this weekend. That was fucking stupid of me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she tried to comfort him. She did not want him to treat her differently. And she certainly didn’t want him to feel bad for being himself. “I’m just tired this morning. I’m jumpy when I’m tired.”

  “You don’t need to make excuses, Arianna,” he said and looked at her with his shimmering silver eyes. He took her hand and pulled her out of the hallway into the alcove. Once they were alone, he lowered his voice and said, “I saw the news report Saturday morning, too. That guy, the guy that caught on fire, died. And the other one’s not talking. I’m glad the bastard’s dead, but I’m feeling pretty jumpy myself. It’s all so freaking crazy.”

  Arianna leaned into him and he wrapped her arms around his waist. He smelled inviting, of soap and aftershave and minty toothpaste. She could not believe she had involved him, though not purposefully, in the twisted mess of her life. He deserved better, deserved to be with someone normal, someone who wasn’t a witch guilty of murdering an attempted rapist.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured into his shirt.

  She didn’t think he’d heard her and was shocked when he released her from his embrace. He quickly pulled away from her and held her at arm’s length. He stared into her eyes, stared so intensely she worried Luke was looking right through her, seeing her for what she really was: a monster. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he surprised her by saying. “That thug had a rap sheet longer than my arm, according to the report, and he and his buddy were trying to rape my sister and my girlfriend. I’m glad he’s dead. The world is better off without him.”

  She did not argue his point and was grateful when he pulled her against his hard chest again. The racing rhythm of his heartbeat was a welcome reprieve from the noise level in the hall. She wanted to stay with him, hide out in the remote nook near the bathrooms with her faced buried in his sweatshirt for the rest of the day. But the sound of Stephanie’s voice snapped her back to reality. Stephanie approached from a staircase behind Luke.

  “Luke, there you are!” Stephanie said testily. “You disappeared as soon as we got here.”

  Stephanie froze when Luke turned and Arianna became visible.

  “I was looking for Arianna, Steph. Didn’t know I needed to tell you where I was going at school,” Luke said.

  “Whatever, asshole,” Stephanie said and scowled at them.

  “Hi Stephanie,” Arianna attempted, but Stephanie did not respond. Instead, she turned on her heels and walked away.

  “What the hell?” Luke said, annoyance lacing each of his words. “Hold on a second, Arianna. She’s not getting away with being a bitch to you today,” he said and dashed off after Stephanie.

  “Hold on!” he called to his sister.

  Arianna watched as Luke caught up with Stephanie near the stairwell. She stared after them, forgetting her newfound ability would allow her to hear their every word. When she heard their voices clearly, she tried to focus on the chatter around her, tried to hum a song, but nothing worked. Nothing she did drowned out their conversation.

  “I told you Luke, there’s something wrong with her!” she heard Stephanie argue. “Something weird happened and I’m telling you, her eyes were glowing red in that damn alley. Sh
e set that guy on fire and killed him after she messed up his friend.”

  “Oh come on, Stephanie! Not this shit again! You were fucking drugged out, and now you’re gonna try to convince me of some crazy-ass story that my girlfriend set a guy on fire with her eyes. Listen to yourself! You sound like a nut, or worse, a druggie. Either way, I’m not listening to your shit anymore!”

  “So you’re okay that your girl over there is a freak and a murderer?” Stephanie antagonized him.

  “Have you completely lost your mind? Those assholes got what they deserved! They were trying to rape you, and probably would have killed you afterward, in case you forgot. I would have killed them myself had I been there. Shit! I wish your half-baked story were true. I wish Arianna set that scumbag and fire and cooked his ass!

  “Do you hear yourself? You’re the one who sounds crazy. It was murder, and we need to tell the cops!”

  Arianna wished she could ignore their conversation, ignore Stephanie’s distrust of her, disdain of her. But try as she may, theirs was the only sound she heard in the school. All other conversations had faded. Only Luke and Stephanie’s voices remained.

  “The cops? They’ll put you away!” Luke countered.

  “Like hell they will!”

  “Seriously,” Luke said and sounded as though he’d gained a degree of control over his temper. “Do you really want to bring the police into our lives so they can get a look at mom? They’ll definitely haul her off, I’ll be on my own and you’ll go into the system as a minor.”

  Stephanie was quiet for a moment then she added solemnly, “I don’t like her, Luke. She scares me. And I don’t scare easily.”

  “Look, you were messed up the other night,” he said more gently. “It was the drugs screwing with your mind, with your sense of reality. Just let it go.”

  Stephanie shook her head slowly then continued up the staircase. Arianna waited while Luke jogged back toward her. She tried to smile, to pretend she hadn’t heard what she’d heard. Eavesdropping was as dangerous an ability as mindreading, and one she wanted no part of.

  “Sorry about that,” Luke said smiling a bit too broadly, likely trying to compensate for his sister’s low opinion of her. Though he’d have no way of knowing she’d been privy to his interaction with his sister, he still wore a look of guilt plainly. “She was in a hurry and feels bad about leaving like that,” he lied.

  “No problem. I understand,” Arianna said and tried to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat.

  “Just Stephanie being Stephanie,” he said and tried to sound nonchalant. But Arianna could see the quick throb in the side of his neck, could practically hear the frantic beat of his heart as he tried to cover for his sister.

  “Yep,” she said and felt her words choking with emotion.

  “I have to get to my locker, but are we on for after school today? I’ll work on the bike. You’ll make out with me from time to time,” he said and slipped his arms around her waist.

  “Um, sure,” she replied softly.

  “I was disappointed when you told me your mom was taking you to school today. I would have liked to have had the ride in to be with you.”

  “I don’t think Stephanie would have liked that,” she couldn’t help but add.

  He held her gaze for a moment then added, “No. I would have stuck her grumpy ass in the back seat and pretended she wasn’t with us,” he said and grinned.

  “You lie,” she said lightly.

  A look flashed across his face. Perhaps she had hurt him or perhaps he’d been surprised. Either way, the look was fleeting.

  “I’m just teasing, Luke,” Arianna said and gave him a squeeze.

  “Good. So tell Cathy you won’t need a ride tomorrow morning.”

  “I don’t think she’ll ever wake up early enough to drive me to school again. The only reason she did today is she probably thinks it’s my birthday or something.”

  Luke laughed then stopped abruptly. “Is it?” he asked and looked worried.

  “No. My birthday passed a couple of months ago. I just don’t think she knows that,” Arianna laughed.

  “Gotcha,” Luke replied. “All right, I’ll catch up with you later,” he said and pressed his lips to hers.

  The feel of his lips and the clean minty, scent of him made her temporarily forget the bizarre state of her life. Her heart ached and the lump returned to her throat when he let go of her and moved down the hall, away from her. She watched him leave, and an instinctive presentiment pervaded her thoughts. In the darkest recesses of her mind, she knew she’d witness him leaving her again, but not for his locker or to go to class. He would be leaving her forever.