Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Fourteen

Classes proceeded with the occasional banter, lighthearted with the guys still trying to out-guy each other. Toivo demanded a rematch of dodgeball and Jason said, "You can't have a rematch in war. Did the Persians go up to the Greeks and Spartans and ask for a rematch?"

Toivo said, "Well, yes, they did."

Jason shrugged. "And then they lost again."

Toivo's fur puffed up. He promised instead certain doom come the basketball games. Jason accepted the challenge. Yuuhi made it all so much worse by antagonizing them both.

When lunch came around, I usurped Jason from his table and dragged him to ours. He pretended to be put-out and displeased by it, but I knew it was all a farce.

Lunch was also the period when The Blonde smiled at me, tucked her hair behind her ear, and tentatively said, "Your lunches are always so colorful and healthy-looking, Kali. Do you make them yourself?"

I glanced down at my grilled tofu salad wrap and forgot English. "Um. Yeah. Well. Sometimes I do. Sometimes my dad makes it for me. It depends if he gets up early enough, because he's an artist, and you know those artist types, right? Their bedtime is when they pass out, if they do, but." I stopped myself before I could tell her my whole life story.

Yet I was tempted to go on when she lit up with more sunshine than gloomy Pittsburgh could handle. "That's nice! That he tries, I mean. My parents, well, you know, typical working parents, they just shove money into my hand and tell me not to spend it on drugs." She laughed, and I laughed with her because of reasons.

Rosie. That's what Toivo called her. Rosie.

A pet name.

I swallowed ten kinds of bad tastes. Jason watched the entire exchange with eyebrows raised high and eyes narrowed. At the end of lunch, he said to me, "I'm starting to think your negative feelings toward Toivo's flirting are because you're actually attracted to Rosette too."

My face caught fire.

"It's okay, Kali," he said. "Jealousy is natural."

I pinched him in the side. He nearly keeled over.

Classes came and went. Our most accurate professor, of Inter-People Studies, chipped away at vampire lore and sentenced us to an over-the-weekend expository writing assignment on the Vampire Alliance Court. Everyone groaned. Yuuhi only snorted as he jotted down notes, and under his breath he murmured, "I wonder how much I can actually write without it being treasonous."

Jason overheard. "Where you're supposed to put your name, just put gang signs. Then they can't trace it back to you."

Yuuhi pointed at him with his pen. "You are a brilliant kid."

I had no idea what gang signs were. Like graffiti? Or the stickers that teens lobbed onto public signs?

The professor continued, drawing the rebellious attention of the class back to him.

My ear ticked at the sound of a gadget vibrating. Yuuhi leaned to the side to pull his phone from his back pocket. Beneath the desk, his screen lit up. I couldn't see much from this angle, but the change in Yuuhi's face spoke paragraphs. His eyebrows pressed a dagger down his forehead. His eyes pierced through the gadget in his hand. The tendons in his neck swelled with tension.

The professor turned his back to us so he could doodle another awful diagram on the whiteboard. I seized the opportunity to lean toward Yuuhi and whisper, "What's wrong?"

He dismissed me with a shake of his head and swiftly returned the phone to his back pocket. He wouldn't look at me.

Something was wrong.