Free Spirit: Book Two of The Bound Spirit Series

by H. A. Wills

  “Not nothing,” I answer as I swiftly grab my books and shove them into my backpack, swapping them with the ones I took home the day before. “We throw these bullshit pamphlets into the trash, we go to class, and we bide our time. This isn’t the first time I’ve been bullied. Gina will get more and more pissed off when she realizes none of her attacks are working.” After ensuring I have everything, I stand back up, throwing my backpack over my shoulders. “She’ll get sloppy. Then when the time is right, we--” my heart freezes, now unsure where I stand with all of them, “I take care of her.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Donovan grunts, staring me down. “You had it right the first time. We are going to take care of her. Your shit is our shit, remember?”

  I glance at Kaleb, and there’s sadness in his normally warm brown eyes. I’ve hurt him all over again by saying I’d take Gina on myself. God, I’m such a shit friend.

  Oblivious as ever, a wide grin takes over Donovan’s expression, elated at the idea of revenge.

  Nolan looks a mixture of pitying and scared. He doesn’t believe we can do it. I don’t hold it against him. I’ve only had to deal with the evil incarnate that is Gina for a little over a week, while it appears he’s had to deal with her his whole life-- even if for a while he saw an illusion of a sweeter side to her.

  “Why not just leave the pamphlets here, and let someone else discover it and report it?” Felix suggests, rubbing the back of his neck when we all look at him.

  “What do you mean?” Kaleb asks, his body language finally relaxing closer to his normal self, though he still clutches the paper, the ugly words visible over his fist.

  Felix shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot. “I mean, if the problem with reporting it is that no one will believe us… well, you guys, then have someone they will believe do it. Maybe multiple people.” He motions to the mess on the floor. “We can’t do anything about the magic, but Kaleb is right that this is evidence, so why not let this stuff work for us. There are witnesses to what happened, and if we just leave these here, students and faculty are bound to come across it. Then they’re coming to you looking for answers, not the other way around. If they ask why it wasn’t reported, tell them what you told us, Callie. Because of who you think did it, you were sure no one would believe you.”

  “What makes you think they’ll figure out it’s related to Callie?” Nolan challenges, gripping the strap of his messenger bag with both hands.

  A cruel smirk pulls at my mouth. “Because it’s already all over school that I’m suicidal.”

  Disgust sweeps across all their faces, as the magnitude of what a prank like this would mean to someone who was actually depressed and thinking of killing themselves.

  After a moment, Kaleb nods his head. “At least the administration would know something happened, and it’s believed Gina is involved.”

  “Exactly,” Felix confirms. “By Callie not reporting it, it’ll cast doubt on her outright lying or it being seen as a stunt for attention. Hell, she may even get some sympathy for trying to power through her bullying.”

  Donovan, a clear fan of the more direct approach, doesn’t seem convinced, shown by his crossed arms and his lips pressed into a thin line.

  I sigh. “If it works, it works, but I’m not holding my breath. Either way, Mr. Sunshine over here and I have Pre-Cal and a teacher to see if we can irritate into a new shade of purple.”

  Donovan snorts, but his expression relaxes at the thought of one of his favorite pastimes.

  “You know, I think I’d like to see that,” Felix comments, his familiar heart-warming smile once again firmly in place. “I think I’ll follow you guys to class today.”

  “Aw man,” Nolan gripes, obviously also trying to get back to normal. “We’re doing quadratics today, and I hate those.”

  “Sorry, Cheater McCheaterstein,” I taunt, playing along, because I’m already so done with this morning. “The genius ghost is ours today.”

  Felix laughs, running a hand through his brown hair, and Nolan gives him an odd smirk, like he knows a secret the rest of us don’t. Weird.

  We all go our separate ways, Kaleb and Nolan to their respective morning classes, and Donovan, Felix and I to the dreaded Mr. Harris’ class.

  For a couple of minutes, the three of us walk silently together, most of our fellow students already in their first class of the day, and the few that aren’t take special care to be as far away from us as possible. At least Felix doesn’t have to worry about someone walking through him.

  “Sooo, anyone else think an extraterrestrial managed to take over Kaleb’s body back there?” Felix jokes, rubbing at the back of his neck again. It’s probably a good thing he’s not flesh and blood, because he’d probably have rubbed himself raw by now.

  “I feel like I should apologize to him,” I murmur, guilt sitting heavily in my stomach. “Saturday, I told him it was okay to be angry, and then the first time he actually shows how angry he is, we tell him to calm down.”

  “Leave it to him to get pissed at us, but the assholes we deal with every day? Those he smiles at,” Donovan grunts.

  “But if he can’t express himself with us, how do we expect him to speak his mind to anyone else?” I reason, feeling worse the more I think about it.

  I was so upset with what he was saying, that I didn’t stand up for him when I should have-- again. First, when we were talking about Romeo and Juliet, and he talked about the beauty and rarity of the feeling of loving fully and knowing that you’re loved in return. Donovan shot him down, and I just let it pass because it touched too close to my own fragile desire to be loved unconditionally. And now, he shares with us how upset he is over what Gina did, and again because it smashed against my past, I let the others shut him down. Every time he walks out on the narrow branch, giving us opportunities to see behind his well-crafted mask, we dismiss it and destroy it-- then we wonder why Kaleb continues to cling to his image of perfection.

  “Go ahead and apologize if you want to,” Donovan responds, pulling me from my sinking thoughts. He stops in front of the door to our Pre-Cal class, blocking me from entering. “But you weren’t wrong. Kaleb has to believe that if you do the right thing, then everything will work out as it’s supposed to. It’s all he has to feel like he has control over what happens, since neither one of us has any real control over our future.”

  He sighs, and pushes his black hair out of his eyes with a frustration that makes me think he doesn’t normally wear it this long.

  “The problem with doing the right thing,” Donovan continues, his expression intense and his voice low, “Doing right and playing by the rules only works if everyone does it.”

  Chapter 6

  Callie

  Gina shivers again, as Felix does another lap through her, and an ugly smirk twists across my lips, as she glares up at the vent that’s currently blowing hot air into our U.S. History class. For the past twenty minutes, he’s been altering between walking through her and trying to knock her pencil off her desk, poltergeist style. The pencil hasn’t moved. However, it’s been amusing to see her so bundled up, a person would think there was a blizzard outside.

  This is only one of many antics Felix has pulled today, hell bent on making me smile.

  During Pre-Cal, while Donovan continued to irritate Mr. Harris, Felix investigated his desk, informing us there was going to be a pop quiz on Friday, then commenced pantomiming Mr. Harris with exaggerated grumpy faces.

  In AP Psychology, he kept asking Kaleb and me to psychoanalyze him, while he made up pretend symptoms. Now that he was a ghost, he swore he could talk to famous dead people, and it turned out a lot of them were assholes. He managed to get a ‘praying for patience’ face out of Kaleb, which strangely made me feel like things were going to be okay.

  During lunch, we sat at our tree despite the kind of ambitious mist that still swirled in the air. Not really rain. Not really fog. Just wet. But at least for a little while, the general student body was far enough away
to ignore. We all felt Connor’s absence, but did our best to pretend nothing was wrong by trying to decide what we should dress up as for Nolan’s birthday party. Nolan suggested a variety of costumes for me that all had “sexy” in the title, which I promptly shot down-- again. Felix recommended I do Lady Deathstrike from X-men, which didn’t sound like a bad idea… until I remembered all the tight leather. We did all come to an agreement that Kaleb should obviously be Captain America. He vetoed Black Panther when he learned it was a skin tight suit.

  When I thoughtlessly commented how there’d be many a disappointed female party goer over the missed opportunity, I turned lava shades of red. Apparently, trying to be normal leads to excessive amounts of foot-in-mouth syndrome.

  Everything was starting to feel somewhat manageable, until Nolan, Felix and I walked into U.S. History, and there she was-- pure evil in Prada with innocent doe eyes and a knowing smile.

  I’d call her a spawn of Satan but that would be an insult to Satan… and apparently, Donovan. Right. Still need to figure out how Hell works.

  When we saw her, I expected Nolan to shift into the version of himself I saw when I met Gina for the first time or with that dumbass at the party Saturday. A form of himself that infuses his natural feline grace with something both alluring and terrifying-- something that promises pain a person will keep begging for. But his eyes were empty, as if he’d crawled into himself where no one could reach, and he walked straight to his desk. Felix and I quickly following him.

  At first, Felix took Connor’s empty seat behind Nolan, but he made it only through attendance, before he was up trying to do anything he could to get at least some small form of vengeance, since she couldn’t see or do anything to him.

  “I’m surprised she can even feel the cold,” Felix comments loud enough to be heard over Mr. Bendtner droning on about Manifest Destiny, while now simply standing through Gina. “Mr. Freeze has more warmth and compassion than her.”

  I glance over at Nolan, looking for his response to Felix haunting Gina, and find him staring down at his notebook, an unmoving pencil in his hand. His brows are furrowed, his lips pressed tight, and his shoulders stooped-- reminding me of a lit candle fighting against a howling wind trying to blow it out. He’s physically here, but what makes him the boy I know is tucked in tight, braced for attacks that I don’t understand-- only that Gina is the cause of his feelings.

  Quickly, I jot down a note asking if he’s okay and place it on his desk while the teacher isn’t looking.

  Nolan stares at it for a moment, like it’s taking real effort to understand what it means, then writes a response, and offers up a tight smile when he hands it back.

  I’m fine. Just tired, is written in small compact letters under my message.

  Tired of Gina’s bullshit is more like it.

  Witnessing how affected Nolan is, ‘Old Callie’ comes back in force, and my necklace burns hot between my breasts. My old icy walls climb high, surrounded by sharpened spears ready to eviscerate any that should get near, and I feel my magic surging-- but not like before.

  With the tree, thunderstorm, wind, and fire, it was explosive and overwhelming. It came from a place of shattering emotion, like being sucked into a riptide that kept pulling me under with no escape until the magic was spent. This feels like a cool detachment that’s ready to lay waste-- building inside me and focused for destruction. Not in my control, but ready to follow my will.

  The classroom and everyone in it begins to fade from my sight, turning into a soft blur of color and the sounds into a white noise.

  My heartbeat slows to heavy, even thumps in my chest. I stare at the bug that has already caused so much pain-- her beauty hiding the rottenness inside-- and hear Kaleb’s words echoing in my ear, “If not us, then who?... What does that cunne have to do, before it’s too much? Before she goes too far.”

  My aunt’s damning words follow, “With one look, you can see the measure of a person-- the core of who they are and what motivates them, and with that knowledge, you can elevate them or destroy them.”

  Slowly, I reach for my necklace and clutch the stone through my shirt. It’s white hot-- feeling like I’ve placed my hand directly on a lit stove-- and I know it’s all that holds my magic at bay. I don’t cry out, welcoming the pain. A familiar feeling to a fractured girl.

  I’m jolted back to myself when a gentle hand runs along my hair to my shoulder, my name a soft whisper in my ear, and my emotions flood through the ruptured ice walls-- fear and panic leading the wave. What the hell was that!?

  Wide eyed, I turn to Nolan and find a mixture of guilt and concern reflected back in his arctic blue eyes. Around me the class is silent-- all looking at me like the crazy person I’m rumored to be. If they only knew how much worse the truth was compared to Gina’s pathetic lies.

  “Callie, you’re wanted in the office,” Mr. Bendtner says, for what sounds like not the first time. Standing beside him is a student that’s clearly an office aide this period with a yellow paper in his hand.

  I offer up a jerky nod, indicating I heard him this time, and awkwardly gather my things.

  “I’ll go with her,” Felix informs Nolan, having appeared next to me somewhere in the cold moments of me losing my mind-- again.

  My hand stings as it’s healing the welt from my necklace, along with the matching one on my chest. I do my best to hide it from my face, giving Nolan a tight smile, and head toward the front of the class.

  The office aide gives me a weird look, like he’s figured something out and is disconcerted by it. I take the slip of paper from his hand, and on it, along with my name and classroom, is a checked box next to the word “counselor” and the barely legible handwritten name Mrs. Cartwright.

  Looks like they found the pamphlets.

  There’s a perverse level of irony that I’m off to talk to a school counselor about the lies that have been spread about me that I’m suicidal, while unable to share what I’m really feeling-- that my sanity is a fragile thing that can at any moment slip through my fingers. And there’s a real possibility of blowing up the entire town if it does.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Felix whispers, at the same time as Gina flashes me an all too pleased with herself smile.

  Is this just the prank from earlier, or does she have something else up her sleeve?

  Paranoia sets in, because as much as I hate to admit it, Gina is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Now my heart beats loud in my ears, and I feel jittery, like I want to crawl out of my skin.

  It isn’t until Felix and I are alone in the hallway walking toward the office that I murmur back, “I’ve a sinking feeling it’s going to get worse, before it gets better. Kind of the story of my life.”

  “It’s different now,” he replies with resolute conviction, standing up tall, like he’s a coach about to give an inspirational speech. “You’re not alone anymore. Anything you face, we have your back.” Then with a conspiratorial smirk, he adds “Superheroes gotta have their sidekicks, right? Don’t tell Donovan I called him a sidekick.”

  “Thanks, Casper,” I murmur with a half-hearted chuckle, doing my best to hide the sadness and concern that’s eating me up inside. “We can go with Avengers or Justice League. An ensemble of heroes.”

  Felix shrugs, looking over at me with one of his sweet, boy-next-door smiles. “Eh, I don’t mind being the Robin to your Batman… er, Batgirl. Batwoman?”

  “Should I start calling you Boy Wonder?” I joke, pushing my face to make the right expressions, because I’m scared of him seeing how messed up I feel.

  “Naw. I like Casper.” He grins and pulls at his shirt. “Better merchandise.”

  Hiding my hands in the lower pockets of my leather jacket, I make tight fists-- as if I can physically hold my sanity together. It’s too soon to lose my shit, but my mind has other plans.

  I’m truly grateful that the guys took one look at me and decided to claim me as one of their own, but something I’ve never consid
ered before coming here is becoming apparent. The more people I let in-- the more people I care about-- leaves more people vulnerable to being used against me. I don’t want anyone hurt because of me.

  What if Gina sees that her attacks against me aren’t working and decides to focus on one of the boys? Her go to is ruining people’s reputations-- what if her next target is Kaleb? What if she antagonizes Connor or Donovan into doing something they can’t come back from? She already cursed Nolan so he gets sick if he tries to drink bagged blood, and she supposedly likes him.

  These thoughts are a barrage of sharp pricks filled with poison, whispering that I should push the guys away to protect them. That I will only cause them pain. Desperate for anything to silence my thoughts, I bite the inside of my bottom lip so hard the copper taste of blood coats my tongue.

  I try to feed the little voice of reason that plays the sad look in Kaleb’s eyes when I even hinted at cutting the boys out, and the angry growl of Donovan reminding me that ‘my shit was their shit.’ I remember the relief in Connor’s eyes when I woke from my nightmare on Saturday. The feel of Nolan’s long fingers through my hair when he soothes me. The way Felix held me while I cried. You need them, the voice assures, and maybe they need you, too.

  ∞∞∞

  “Miss Santiago, do you have any idea why I called you in?” Mrs. Cartwright asks, once proper introductions are made, and I’m sitting in a chair opposite her desk.

  She’s a middle aged woman with generous curves, brown eyes magnified by red rimmed glasses, and tight curly hair that has even amounts of brown and grey woven throughout. Dressed in a wool sweater, brown slacks, and a large beaded necklace, she has a hippy, grandmother vibe.

  Her office is clearly designed to try to relax and engage the troubled teens she deals with on a daily basis: ironically hung motivational posters on the walls, comfortable deep set chairs, pillows and stuffed animals to hug, and a whole shelf in her bookcase filled with different types of candy. Unfortunately for me, it has the opposite effect.