A Banshee's Wail (The Banshee Curse #1)

Chapter Two

     His grey eyes widened slightly in understanding. “That's rough,” he muttered. He was silent for a moment, watching me as I stared down at my agenda. “It doesn't make you a bad person, y'know.”

     I laughed without mirth. “Who forgets something like that, though?” I asked, shaking my head. “There's no excuse. None.”

     “C'mon, don't be so hard on yourself,” Derrick exclaimed, sitting up and leaning towards me. “You've probably been under a lot of stress lately, what with Dr. Sterling boosting up the visits to once a week as opposed to once a month.”

     I shook my head, not allowing myself to be coaxed into a false sense of comfort. “No, there's no excuse,” I repeated, glancing up at the TV with hard eyes. I slammed my book shut and stuffed it and my agenda into my bag. “Tell Sam I went to get breakfast early, would you?” I told Derrick, shouldering my bag and starting for the doors.

     He caught my elbow. “Are you sure you're okay?” he asked when I turned to stare up at him, expressionless. His thick, black eyebrows were drawn together in concern.

     I snorted. “No.”

I pushed my hair away from my eyes and glared across the table at Lyle. I'd taken the red strands out of the ponytail earlier in the day, when I'd started to get a headache. And Lyle? Well, Lyle was just being typical Lyle—your grade A jerk. His brown eyes laughed at me as he smirked, his expression practically daring me to say something back.

     “Like what you see, Niks?” he said when I just stared at him for a little too long. “You should take a picture, it'll last longer.”

     I laughed. “Right, like I need a flimsy piece of paper to remind me how annoying you are,” I shot back, rolling my eyes. “My memory's all I need to remember you, Bane.”

     His eyes widened a fraction with faux emotion. “Aw, did you hear that Derrick?” he exclaimed, turning to his younger brother for a second before returning his attention to me, a hand placed over-dramatically to his chest. “I've made an memorable impression on Jemma!”

     I grinned, and he eyed me warily. “Yeah, an impression that'll have me calling the cops the moment I see you outside of St. James,” I told him, pulling my hair over one shoulder.

     He watched me mess with my hair, his expression somewhat serious. Sam elbowed me in the ribs, and I shot her a what-the-heck look as I rubbed the sore spot. She jerked her head at Lyle and mouthed something along the lines of, “Stop flirting with him!” I jerked away from her, staring at her as if she'd lost her mind. Flirt with him? That was the last thing I wanted to do with Lyle Bane.

     When I returned my attention to him, he was still staring at me mutely. “What? Don't have a rebuttal for that one, Bane?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Honestly, I was pretty surprised he hadn't said anything by now. He was usually so quick with the comebacks.

     He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward. “Y'know, little red,” he began, his voice quiet, “I don't. You've bested me this time. Happy?”

     Actually, I wasn't. In fact, I was very, very unhappy. My whole body was stiff and I stared at him as if he'd just told me I was pathetic and worthless. Actually, I stared at him as if he'd said something worse than that. I wouldn't have batted an eye had he told me that, because I didn't care what he thought of me. What had me glaring daggers at him, though, was his use of “little red”.

     He straightened slightly, eying me with surprise. His grin was slow to spread across his face. “Oh, I've hit a sore spot, haven't I?” he murmured, studying me. “What was it? 'Little red' or do you just not like winning?”