Tell Me What You Hate About Me

42: Not Scared, Part 1

When I first met Jack and the rest of his band, he was the only person I liked and wanted to spend any time around. Everyone else just seemed boring or much ruder than me, which was certainly no easy feat. Harvey was in the second group, and until he learned about the talisman (then unlearned it and then learned it again), the only time he wanted anything to do with me was when Jack told him that we were dating.

If the situation wasn't such a mess, I would have smiled. It seemed like that lying drama was such a long time ago when it couldn't have been more than a few weeks back, and I was always right about Harvey even though Jack didn't believe me and my assessment was really just based on talent level.

When I met Sierra on the day we first moved into our dorm on the Tillamook College campus, she was a little too excited to be there and to meet me. When I left to get some water, I came back to find her looking through my clothes to get a sense of my fashion and therefore my personality. I wasn't sure what my super skinny jeans and eight pairs of boots said about me, but apparently it was enough for her to not request a new roommate even though we never said much to each other.

I was glad that had changed. She was almost nothing like me with her occasional emotional outbursts and her ability to concentrate on studying for more than three minutes, but she wasn't a bad person at all. She just wanted to help (and borrow all my stuff).

Now that the two of them were MIA, I didn't even have to think about going to find them. I knew what Harvey wanted, but I could guarantee that I wanted my friends back much more than he wanted a stupid piece of metal. Sure, it was a magical piece of metal that had a ridiculous amount of uncontrollable power that he had been the victim of once, but it was still just a piece of metal with a pretty tree design.

Even though we had just gotten back from Butterfly's shop in Sherwood and Dr. Reed's house, Dominic and I got back into the car to go after Jack and Sierra. They would do the same for us, after all. Probably.

"We could always call the cops, you know. I'm pretty sure dealing with kidnappings and stuff like that is their job, not ours," Dominic said.

I shook my head. "And then what? They find out why Harvey did it?"

"Kidnapping is illegal no matter why you do it."

"So is digging on property that isn't mine. The talisman technically doesn't belong to me."

"I think one of those crimes is a little worse than the other," Dominic said, and even though he wasn't wrong, I didn't want Harvey to drag me down with him.

I probably wouldn't get arrested or anything (unless Dr. Reed severely underplayed the severity of archeological stealing), but I sure as hell wouldn't be able to keep the talisman, and my grades wouldn't exactly make a case for me not getting kicked out of school.

"I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but you wouldn't happen to have a weapon on you, would you?" I asked.

"Anything is a weapon if you know what you're doing," Dominic replied.

I rolled my eyes. I probably should have expected a stupid answer like that. "I meant like a gun or a knife."

"You can't have guns on campus, Lindsay. I asked at orientation."

Why was I the one who was on the verge of getting kicked out of school?

Before I had the chance to wonder out loud, Dominic continued. "But yeah, I take my knife everywhere. You never know when you'll need to cut open something or someone."

Seriously. It was ridiculous that I was considered more of an inconvenience for the college than he was.

And somehow, it was kind of hot?