by H. A. Wills
I flinch at the word ‘victim’, and I know Kaleb catches it. His memory is impeccable, and from his gaze my own damning words echo in my ears: I refuse to be a victim again, and I want to make damn sure that anyone that tries to make me one regrets it. I asked him not to treat me like fragile glass, and it stings to feel like I’m failing in his eyes.
Inside me, my ice encrusted walls climb to protect me from his judgement, and I spit back, “Gina is a bitch. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Stand up for yourself, and stop letting her get away with it,” he challenges, not giving me an inch.
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said,” Donovan interjects, the gravel heavy in his voice with his barely contained anger. “I’m usually against attacking girls that aren’t possessed by demons, but for this bitch, I’ll make an exception. I don’t give a fuck that she’s Queen Bitch’s kid.”
Connor is scarily quiet, with eyes focused on the floor and hands curled into fists, which I know bodes well for no one. Unfortunately, I can only handle one frighteningly pissed off person at a time, and in this episode of bizzaro world, it’s Kaleb.
Slowly Kaleb’s gaze cuts from me to Donovan, and I feel like I can finally get some air in my lungs. I can’t tell if it’s due to the rarity of his anger or the intensity of his gaze, but being trapped under his stare freezes everything inside me.
Kaleb rises to his feet, the paper still crushed in his hand, and moves until he’s mere inches from Donovan.
“Of course you’d think violence is the answer,” he sneers, and Donovan’s eyes widen with surprise, before hard stubbornness cascades down his face. “Because surely the bullying will stop once you put a girl a fraction of your size in the hospital. No one knows or cares that she’s a witch-- the town will only see a fragile girl beaten up by some macho hot head that can’t think past his own fists. Or if you’re thinking of Callie doing it, then it’s reduced to a cat fight over Nolan.”
Nolan flinches at the sound of his name and stares down at the pile of paper in his hands. Guilt pulls hard at his features, and with a pained breath, he whispers, “This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Kaleb counters harshly. “It’s Gina’s fault.”
“You don’t understand, there’s more…” Nolan tries to explain, but Kaleb is apparently done with all of our shit.
“It doesn’t matter,” he interjects, his laser focus gaze shifting to Nolan, while he still invades Donovan’s space. “You broke up with her over two years ago. You told her you wanted nothing more to do with her. You are not responsible for her actions. She is.”
“Then why are you pissed off at us?” I snarl, standing up and kicking at the stupid pamphlets that started this whole mess. My numbness is gone, and in its place is a shaking anger
“Because it’s our responsibility to do something about this,” he fires back, crossing his arms over his chest and shifting so his body now faces me. “Gina has done this countless times to others throughout the years. Never once answering for her actions. She’s ruined people, and none of them found it very funny. Congratulations that you can seem to dismiss her cruelty, but the others weren’t as strong as you-- nor may be the people she bullies in the future.”
“You act like I’m condoning what she does,” I hiss, my hands curled into tight fists at my sides. This morning I remembered to wear my leather jacket, and unfortunately, the sleeves are too short to grip at. “I don’t. I fucking know what she’s doing is wrong, but I refuse to let her and her airhead army get to me!”
“Weren’t you listening?” Kaleb’s normally warm brown eyes darken as he stares into mine. “This isn’t about just you, Callie. You have the obligation to be the voice for those that can’t stand up to her.”
“Why does it have to be me?” I demand, my eyes burning to keep tears at bay and the words are a choked struggle to escape my throat. “This isn’t some after school special where you tell the teacher, and you and the bully hash out your feelings until everything is fine. This is real. This is my life, and I have my own shit to deal with that has nothing to do with her! I don’t give a shit about her petty games, and it isn’t my job to be the fucking hero who saves the day.”
“If not us, then who?” He seethes, moving until he’s so close, the scent of sandalwood and well-worn books fills my nose, and I have to look up to meet his eyes. My heart thunders in my ears, and the depth of his emotion traps my gaze. “If not now, when? What does that cunne have to do, before it’s too much? Before she goes too far.”
“She’s not human, damn it!” I shout, then remembering where I am and drop my voice to an angry hiss. The tears in my eyes are dangerously close to falling down my cheeks. “Her magic may be weak, but she at least has control of it. I don’t. I get mad, things explode…”
“That poor tree,” Felix laments.
“Not now, Felix!” Kaleb growls, and his outburst is met with shocked silence.
“Just because I don’t like her,” I whisper, “doesn’t mean I want her dead. I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“The fact you’re worried your magic might flare up and hurt someone is even more reason we need to do something now,” Kaleb insists passionately. “Her next prank may not leave you so unaffected.”
Nolan drops the pamphlets he’s collected, the mess continuing to spread across the damp floor, and he rises to his feet. He wraps one arm around my shoulders, pulling me away from Kaleb and into his side. It’s only with the heat from his body, do I realize how cold I am and how badly the tremors are quaking through me. I breathe in his spicy cologne, and I try to pull his warmth and strength into me.
With a chilling calm that hints at the darker side of him, he says, “Seriously, Kaleb. I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you, but you need to stop. Now.”
A hard tick settles in Kaleb’s jaw, and a swirling wave of sadness and disappointment washes through his eyes, before he closes them. He releases a careful breath as he puts his mask back together, and my heart breaks. I told him he was allowed to be mad. I told him it was safe to show us what he was really thinking and feeling, and when he finally does, we shut him down and demand he go back to the way he always is. Patient. Understanding. Perfect.
He walks to the other side of the hall, moving as if he’s going to punch one of the lockers there, but stops an inch before contact. Slowly, he presses his fist against the red, metal door, the pamphlet visible in his hand, and despite the slow controlled movement, there’s the creak of flexing metal-- a testament to his supernatural strength.
“Careful there,” Donovan sneers, lazily moving to the spot Kaleb vacated next to me. He leans his back against the lockers, crossing his arms over his chest. The scent of musk and leather mixes with Nolan’s cologne. As Donovan’s vibrant blue-green eyes scan the vacant hallway, he adds, “‘Perfect Kaleb’ might dent school property.”
“Seriously, D?” Felix chastises, beginning to pace back and forth. After a long moment of painful silence, he asks, “What do you think we should do? How do we stop Gina?”
“I could keep my distance for a while,” Nolan offers, but instead of pulling away like he normally does when discussing Gina, his grip tightens on my shoulder. “Just at school, until we figure out a better idea. If she thinks she’s won, she will at least stop focusing on Callie.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s true anymore,” I mutter, then chew on my bottom lip. “I may have had an… altercation with her yesterday and possibly… maybe… implied that she should do her worst.”
“You didn’t,” he groans, but to his credit, he doesn’t let go of me-- though his fingers do start to dig into my flesh. Good thing I don’t really bruise.
“She made me mad,” I attempt to defend myself, but it sounds whiny even to my own ears.
“She makes everyone mad,” Nolan huffs through clenched teeth.
Trying to find a silver lining, I blurt, “At least her magic doesn’t work on me.”
&n
bsp; “And how do you know that?” Donovan asks, the gravel in his voice so prevalent that my stomach free falls.
The feel of all the guys’ eyes on me is so intense that the whole school looking at me pales in comparison to the flaming heat of this spotlight. A cold sweat collects on my lower back, as I realize that how I know won’t help my ‘just ignore her’ case. Shit.
With my sleeves painfully too short, I twist my fingers together and mutter, “Yesterday, she tried to cast a spell on me, and it didn’t work.”
Connor starts to growl and his amber irises expand, taking over the whites of his eyes. His fists grip so tight, his knuckles are a deathly pale compared to his normal warm, copper skin, and drips of blood leak through his fingers. Oh, that’s not good. That’s very, very bad.
“What did she try to cast?” Kaleb asks evenly, his face a blank mask, but the coldness of his normally gentle baritone freezes in my veins.
He turns, and leans against the lockers, his body blocking me from seeing if he did or didn’t dent the door. The only lingering sign of his anger is shown in the way he still fiercely grips the paper in his right hand.
My gaze skips between Kaleb and Connor. The truth is pressed tight against my clenched teeth as I fight them from breaking free, because there’s no way they’re going to dismiss this as harmless or petty.
“What does it matter?” I answer haughtily, tilting my chin up in defiance. “I know it didn’t work.”
“And how do you know that?” Nolan purrs in my ear, his breath warm against my skin and causing a cascading shiver down my spine.
Felix stops his pacing to move in front me. His hazel eyes are soft as they look into mine, and he gently requests, “Please, Callie. Tell us what happened.”
Yesterday, it didn’t matter what she tried to do, because it didn’t work. But looking at Felix, who died a month after his sixteenth birthday, and being surrounded by the friends that are in this limbo of grieving him, telling them that Gina tried to get me to kill myself… though ineffectual in many ways, seems painfully cruel.
“Please, love,” Nolan murmurs. “It’ll only be worse in our heads.”
“I don’t think it will.” I sniff, a tear sliding down my cheek, but the truth slips from my lips. “She... she tried to plant the idea in my head… to commit suicide.”
“I will kill her,” Connor snarls, the words muffled by what I’m guessing is his wolf teeth trying to break through.
Quickly, I pull away from Nolan and reach out to Connor, but he flinches away from my touch, his eyes wild and his body shaking. My heart hurts over his retreat-- the first time any of them has refused my touch, and I don’t know what to do to help him.
Slowly, Nolan draws me into his arms with my back to his chest, Connor’s eyes trained on his every movement.
“Callie’s okay,” Nolan soothes. “She said it didn’t work, and we won’t let anything happen to her. We’ll protect her and keep her safe. Why don’t you go for a run and cool off?”
Indecision dances in his eyes, and I’m shaken seeing how much my safety means to him. How much I mean to him.
“We’ve got her, dude,” Donovan adds, his casualness a clear lie against the anger I know is boiling inside him. “One of us will be with her all day. Promise.”
After a moment, Connor gives a jerky nod, then tentatively walks toward Nolan and me. My fingers itch to reach out to comfort him, but instead I keep still, while he leans down and breathes in the scent of my hair. His out of control shaking subsides, and my heart leaps when he kisses the top of my head, before he turns and sprints down the hallway toward the front of the school.
All of the guys visibly relax, and Nolan’s arms shift more to a comforting embrace than a sign of vowed protection. I tip my head back to look up at him and find he’s already looking down at me with a searching gaze.
“He wouldn’t have hurt you,” he assures, as if I’m some scared rabbit that needs to be lulled back to safety.
“Of course he wouldn’t have,” I reply, affronted over the idea with a matching expression taking over my face. “Beside the fact you all seem to keep forgetting that I’m practically indestructible, I’ve known since the day I met you all that none of you would hurt me.”
My face softens when I witness the true surprise that washes across Nolan’s features. “At first I thought I was nuts, and that my survival instinct was broken, but it turns out it’s a spirit witch thing.” I give him a weak smile. “Apparently, I see into the core of a person or whatever, so I knew then that you all were good and worthy of my trust.”
Questions flash through Nolan’s eyes, the desire to ask what I see in him resting on his tongue, but before I can answer, Kaleb comments, “So you’ve learned more about being a spirit witch.”
My gaze shifts to Kaleb, and I hate how far away he looks. Even though physically he’s only across the hall, everything speaks to how distant and untouchable he is. The veneer of politeness has fused any remaining cracks back together, and his face is now a blank mask.
I clear my throat. “Uh, yeah… um, my aunt talked to me a little more about it, and she gave me a translated diary of one of the last Volkov spirit witches. I haven’t really gotten a chance to read too far in, but it looks like it should have more answers for us.”
“And we’re just learning about this now?” Donovan grunts, his emotions still clearly on the surface.
Before I can say anything, Kaleb calmly intercepts, “It’s her choice what she shares with us and when. She’s asked for our patience, and if she wants us to know, she’ll tell us when she’s ready.”
His words are like a punch to the gut, because it wasn’t that I intentionally kept it from them, I just hadn’t gotten around to telling them. Though what he said sounds right, the undercurrents feel like acceptance that he’s going to be left in the dark and the delicate strings of trust are slipping against his walls. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
He didn’t ask to see it. He didn’t offer to go through it with me.
“So, not that it matters to me, being dead and all,” Felix interjects into this cold stalemate, “but I’m pretty sure the bell is going to ring any moment, and we haven’t figured out what we’re going to do about all of this.” With a swish of his finger, he gestures to Gina’s mess all over the floor.
“We report it,” Kaleb says evenly. “These pamphlets are hard proof of what Gina is doing, and if we all go in together, they’ll have to take us seriously.”
“Sure they will,” Donovan scoffs, his cynicism matching my own.
I don’t know if it’s my own defense against what’s happening between Kaleb and I, or the fact the way he’s stubbornly refusing to let this all go, but I can feel ‘Old Callie’ take over my face. She has a harsh understanding of the world and those that control it. As much as my heart aches for Kaleb, my words drip with the ugliness of long tested truths.
“I swear to god... All this,” I motion at the papers littering the floor, “means fuck all. It proves the possibility that someone may be bullying me, not that it’s Gina. Do you really think she’s dumb enough to have done any of this herself? They won’t believe me.”
I wait for the moment Nolan will let go, now they’re getting a taste of the darker parts of me. Not the sad battered girl they want to save, but her sharp edges meant to cut deep and without mercy that have protected her for years. To my surprise, he doesn’t. Instead, he holds me so tight it borders on painful.
Felix’s eyes are filled with a sad knowing, because unlike the others, he has a real idea of what I’ve been through. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, and his feelings of helplessness are written in the droop of his shoulders and the hard press of his lips.
“They will if we all go together,” Kaleb insists. “It won’t be just your word. It will be all of ours.”
“Well, maybe not all of us,” Felix pipes in. “I’m dead, and Connor should probably not get involved. Murdering the administration, I hear, is
frowned upon.”
“He’ll be fine… well, he’ll have better control over himself after he’s cooled off,” Nolan replies. Though he isn’t talking to me, his smooth and sultry voice wraps around me, his mouth mere inches from my ear.
I want to curl up in that voice. I want to pretend today isn’t happening. I want to go back to teasing about who’s Best Boy, but every moment is about moving forward. It’s about dealing with the here and now. And right now, they need to hear some painful truths.
“They won’t believe us. Not in the way you think,” I argue, trying to get Kaleb to understand. “All of your words will be perceived as lies, because it’s already magically rumored that you’ll say and do anything I tell you to. If you don’t, I’ll kill myself. And they certainly won’t believe the word of a fresh transfer student whose father is in jail and rumored to be a crazy, manipulative psycho over the town darling and daughter of the mayor.” Tears burn in my eyes, and my jaw aches with how hard I grit my teeth. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they believe I did this to myself to get attention. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Donovan’s gaze sharpens as he takes in my face, and I can tell he’s filing away what I’ve said as another clue to my past. Meanwhile, Felix’s expression opens, eyes wide and brows climbing up his forehead, because he has a better idea of where this puzzle piece goes.
Nolan rests his chin on the top of my head, and it dawns on me that he’s also intimately familiar with this issue. Nolan suffers in silence as well-- every facet of his life altered by the curse Gina casted on him, knowing full well that no one outside of us will believe him.
The bell rings, but none of us move. Strangely, no one passes through this way toward their morning classes. It’s as if the knowledge has spread that going this way could lead to certain death, and everyone has wisely chosen other routes.
“So we do nothing-- again,” Kaleb utters quietly. “And she gets away with it-- again. How do we expect anything to change if no one knows there’s a problem in the first place?”
I shake my head and gently extract myself from Nolan’s embrace. Taking a deep breath, I kneel back in front of my locker and start shoving all the shit Gina stuffed into my locker out, not caring how far it goes.
