Legacy

Chapter Two

This was bad. Really, REALLY bad.

"...will all join me in welcoming Finlay, Delia and Zach Freeman."

The introduction from Mrs. Hedlund meant I could put a name to the face of the guy who was staring at me like there was no-one else in the room.  Zach. 

Except he wasn't a guy, I reminded myself as there was a round of applause. He was one of the supernatural beings my family had been running from since Earth had a watery do-over. It had possessed the body of the person I was looking at, trapping him inside his own head. The real Zach could see, hear, taste, smell and feel everything his body experienced, but he had no control over anything he did or said.

Knowing what that thing had done to him made me want to rip its damn head off. 

I stared right back at it, refusing to be the first one of us to break eye contact. It didn't matter  that there were three of them. Win or lose (and realistically lose was more likely in my current situation), I wasn't going down without a fight.

The flash of defiance un-fuzzied a corner of my brain. 

No. They wouldn't start a fight in school. Too many witnesses. They would wait until they got me alone. Which gave me a little time to formulate a plan. 

"...to help them settle in."

I'd always thought kids were off limits, regardless of what Diana said. I'd broached the topic with her once. I remembered cos she'd laughed out loud at the suggestion demons had a code of ethics. If they avoided kids it was more likely because they were weak, she'd reasoned. 

I'd argue that with her again, given the chance.

Zach Freeman didn't look weak. If anything, he looked pissed.

"... anywhere you can find one."

I watched in horror as the other two demons stepped over to empty seats a couple of rows in front of me. One on my right and one on my left. Leaving Zach Freeman to walk past me, shoot a brief glance down at me when I looked up, and occupy the seat directly behind me. 

A prickle of awareness skittered down my spine.

Forget demons. Diana was gonna kill me. She'd drilled strategic positions and escape routes into my brain from an early age. I could almost hear her voice yelling, How could you be this stupid?

It was unsettling as crap. Two holes steadily being bored into the back of my skull. Along with the tension in my straining muscles and my frayed nerve endings, it was giving me a headache.

While Mrs. Hedlund did the usual announcements and said something about a permission slip, something else caught my attention. Light tapping. In an erratic rhythm. Behind me. A fingertip being tapped on the wooden desk? When it stopped and picked up further down the room, I saw the blonde haired demon tapping on the side of its desk. Then it stopped and there was more tapping behind me, which resulted in the blonde demon moving its hand to its leg and tapping its jeans as a knee bounced. 

To anyone else in the room it would look like typical teen restlessness. To me it looked like they were talking to each other in code. 

"Hi, Zach, right?" A voice said in a loud whisper. 

I glared at Megan. Don't talk to it.

She ignored me and extended her arm across the aisle, "I'm Meg."

I shook my head in disbelief as her arm moved up and down in my peripheral vision. She'd bleach that hand if she knew where it had been.

"And this is Lina."