Endgame (Book 3)

Chapter 4

I frowned visibly. "You can read minds now?"

"Just yours." I noticed his cheery tone.

"Jay West?" The teacher looked at me.

"Yes, that's me. Present," I said dismissively.

"Hm," she said. So much for first impressions.

Sierra snickered behind me. I turned around and gave her a dirty look.

"She cleans up nicely," Zero said.

"Go away." I put effort into the thought.

After waiting a few minutes with no reply, I hoped he was actually gone, surprised that it worked.

When the teacher was done, she introduced herself, giving us her name- Ms. Loving, she wasn't married- and her life story. That alone was going to take up the rest of the period.

I would've taken the time to sleep, but she told us to take notes and that we would have a test to assess our listening skills. I had to remember what class this was after that.

My pencil was aligned on the left side of the table, and I reached over to grab it. But my index finger knocked it over, and my hand moved to catch it.

When my palm was a couple of inches away from the pencil, it froze in midair.

The pencil was hovering inside of a sphere-shaped, nearly transparent blue force field.

I pulled my hand away quickly. When my pencil clattered to the ground, I picked it up like any other person, keeping my head down in case anyone noticed.

"I noticed," Zero said in my head.

"Go away!"

"Why are you telling me to go away?" Cassie said.

I rubbed my temples with both of my hands. "I wasn't talking to you."

"Then who were you talking to?"

"Myself," I said, which wasn't entirely a lie. I didn't want her to worry about me. I didn't want anyone to, really.

To my relief, she let it go.

"Nice lie," Zero commented.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" I blurted out.

Ms. Loving paused mid-sentence. Looking down her glasses at me, her mouth became a thin line.

A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead.

"You can do many things," she said.

"May I?"

"You are not paying attention in my class; you made a loud, rude outburst; and now you are trying to skip my class. What do you think?"

"I think your name is Ms. Unloving." The words came before I could think about what I was saying.

The class erupted into laughter, and Ms. Loving looked around the room at each of our faces. Then, er faze returned to me. I wasn't laughing at all.

She slowly walked over to my desk.

She put both of her hands on the metal top of my desk, her fake red nails clacking on the surface.