Cursed (Book # 3 of Hunted)

Scry

"H-how? How do you even have the right to withdraw me from high school?!" I asked and she smiled responding, "I contacted your grandmother and told her you had been accepted to a prestigious private school with a full scholarship and we needed her to withdraw you. She was only too happy."

Once again, my mouth was agape. This couldn't be happening. I shook my head and stammered, "You-you...argh!" Suddenly the door to the room we were in opened and I saw the young red-haired woman that was there when I was taken.

"Ma'am," the woman said, and Headmistress Mills stood up asking, "Yes, Liza?" She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it over to the Headmistress saying, "The Seers have detected something unusual." The Headmistress squinted at the note and then shook her head handing the paper to Clay who inspected it.

"Someone is trying to scry for our location," he said after a moment and I walked over to him peering down at the piece of paper. He was the only person I even sort of trusted.

I looked down at the paper and saw a bunch of numbers and strange symbols. They made no sense, but somehow, I knew.

"It's Phoebe," I said, and he looked down at me asking, "How do you know?" I stared at the strange note and shrugged saying, "I just do." They all stared at me for a long moment and just as I began to feel very awkward, I took a deep breath and said, "Just let me call her and tell her I'm okay. She won't stop trying to find me and even if your magical defenses are super strong, she'll get through. She can be annoyingly persistent."

The Headmistress sighed and said, "Fine. Someone get her a phone."

"Where's my cell?" I asked and she shrugged replying, "You didn't have one when you got here." My brow creased. I was sure I had my phone on me. Clay glanced at Jason who sighed and dug in his pocket pulling out a beat-up smartphone with a cracked screen.

I smiled sweetly and took it from him quickly dialing Phoebe's number.

*******

Phoebe's phone suddenly began ringing and she sighed throwing down her crystal and blowing out the four white candles set at the corners of the map she was working with.

"Why isn't it working?" Keegan asked crouched over the map. She pulled her phone out of her bra and looked at the screen. She didn't recognize the number, so she didn't answer.

"Focus," he snapped, and she rolled her eyes at him saying, "It's like something is blocking me. I feel the crystal pulling but then it just stops."

"That probably means she's at the Academy. They've got wards and stuff up to prevent people from finding them," Zane said flicking disinterestedly through a book of finished sudoku puzzles.

"How do you know that?" she asked looking up from her map. Zane sighed and pulled a page out of the sudoku book.

"Hunters used to be an obsession of mine. I've killed a fair few, but not before torturing as much information as I could out of them," he said nonchalantly, folding the number covered page into a paper crane. He set the crane on top of a pile of books and tilted his head to the side murmuring, "Mmm...I used to be so good at torture."

She gave him an odd look. Her memory had fully returned by this point and she knew that Anton had been cursed away once more. So why was he acting like this? She never figured him for a great actor, and she was heartily disturbed.

He caught her eye and grinned saying, "Try not to think about it, Pheebs. You'll injure that bitty witch brain of yours." Her eyes widened and he laughed. The blood was still pounding in his veins, roaring in his head. It was such a pleasant feeling, but he knew it would fade. He was trying to hold onto it. The warmth, the calm...the high. He had told Lori straight up that he missed killing and that if he could enjoy it again, he gladly would. But the guilt kept him human...human...why would be ever want to be human? He tried it for the first seventeen years of his life, and it sucked.

"You alright, Anton?" Keegan asked and Zane's gaze moved slowly to his form still kneeling over the map and candles.

"Hmm?" he asked for he honestly forgot the question asked of him. Then he remembered and replied, "Yes, I'm fine." Keegan looked at him with a furrowed brow and Zane almost laughed.

"You're worried about me. That's so sweet," he said and he could feel tears suddenly burning behind his eyes. He remembered this too from the last time; a sudden onset of intense emotion. For someone who went through most of their life not feeling much of anything, every emotion felt intense and sudden.

Keegan stood up and took a step towards Zane incredulously inquiring, "Brother, are you crying?" Zane sniffled and rubbed his forearm across his eyes retorting, "What? No!"

"What's wrong?" Keegan asked moving closer and crouching down before him. He shook his head and said, "Nothing."

"It's not nothing. You're crying," Keegan insisted attempting to pull Zane's arm away from his face. Zane fought. If he looked Keegan in the eye with tears pouring down his face he would know.

There were rare moments when he would become someone that wasn't Zane or Anton. Someone who was afraid. Someone who cried like a child. Someone who just wanted to be loved. That's when he realized that he didn't have to be Anton, he just had to NOT be Zane. Before he could figure out how to manage that, he was saved.