"What are you talking about?" I stammered at Mickie. I glanced to my phone and saw the call dropped immediately...and conveniently.
"You and...the Proliator," she smirked. "I have no idea why he took such an interest in you, but you know, maybe it means something because he stayed on the phone that long."
"Meaning what?" I hissed. Did she know the Proliator?
"Meaning, if something's going on between you two, you need to learn to be more reticent about it," Mickie said, crossing her arms and walking over to me with her heels clicking on the ground. She looked more threatening right now than I had ever seen her while still offering alliance in her eyes. "Leaving out Cheyenne...and Kylie...and your brother..."
"Nothing's going on between us," I whispered. She snorted a pathetic scoff at me. Right then, a freshman girl walked in and with one glare, Mickie had sent her into the stall to do her business without causing us to compromise our conversation.
"When he wants something, he usually gets it," she informed like he had a while before. I looked back to the stall that held a freshman girl, but Mickie's smokey eyes told me to play it cool.
"Well that's kind of out of the question now," I said, slowly, hoping those were the right words.
"And why's that?" she asked, dabbing at her lipgloss in the mirror. Was she testing how well I could cover the secret or something?
"Look. I don't know how you know him, but I don't prefer—"
The freshman girl flushed the toilet and it was loud enough to cut me off along with Mickie.
"Well I don't prefer keeping tabs on you for someone else's sake when they could be doing it for themselves," she said to me with the same composure as when she first met me. Let me remind you: she hated me when she first met me. When the freshman girl walked up to wash her hands, Mickie fell back into a sweet smile as the tardy bell also rang and the girl ran out of the room. "Angela, I like you. I really do--surprisingly--but how the hell do you expect me to deal with this when you're asking me questions you should be asking him?"
She sighed of stress and backed away from me.
"I don't really get a say in this, Mickie," I said in a low voice. "If I could, I'd ask him everything I wanted, but I obviously can't do that so—"
"And why not?" she asked with wide eyes. She started to lightly laugh. "You are so naïve."
"Um..."
"For the most part, he never opens up to anyone, but you? He's already said that he'd do anything for you," she smiled. "You just have to be patient with him." i was mistaken earlier, thinking she was allied with me. She was allied with him and his wishes.
"I can't," I said, quoting the hero himself. "I'm busy still trying to adjust to life here and being with Hayden and trying to reconcile with Dastan. I don't have time for some superhero playing games—"
Then a trio of junior and senior girls walked into the rest room giggling. They weren't friends of Mickie's—much like the majority of the school—so she didn't even continue the conversation. All she said was: "I know you wanted to go to the movies to make out with Hayden, but it's off. Dastan can't come because of a family thing so we're not going. Maybe next time," she said before primping her hair and walking out.
I knew she was trying to keep up appearances in front of the public eye, but what the hell just happened?
***
I was quickly walking out of eighth period to get a ride home from Hayden—late only because I was helping my teacher with extra credit grading assistance—but then I ran directly into someone and dropped my messy binder.
"Come on," the guy's friend must have called, but I noticed him stayed back, not yet bending over to help me. He picked up my binder, but I kept my head down to quickly pick up all my work before people stepped on it. I still wasn't used to the harsh shoulder bumping and quick atmosphere of the city let alone the rude explicatives people spouted when you actually became a hindrance in their pathway. I stood and looked over to the boy.
He had a nice head of styled hair and was dressed in a dress shirt without a tie and a nice coat with buttons. But the most attractive thing about him was his familiar eyes. The orbs were a rich hazel color, threatening to change colors immediately. Oh no.
"So you're Angela Warden," he addressed, my name slipping off of his tongue, although his eyebrows were braided together as if he was in some unwanted realization.
"Well, yeah..." I said, lightly taking my binder from him.
"We already got the call. Let's go—" his friend started to say, but he ordered him to silence and I instantly knew who he reminded me of.
"Do you happen to know someone named Dastan?" I asked him, unable to keep my mouth shut.
"Wow. They were right," he smirked just like Dastan, but with his own sly charm. Right about what? "You really are the only person that calls him that, you know."
"Calls him what?" His name?
He shook his head.
"Dude. We gotta go," his friend pressed. "It's important."
"So is she," the boy immediately hissed and I knew he meant me. But...why? We just met. He looked back over to me with softer eyes. He held out a hand to me. "Mateo Vega. Nice to finally meet you."
His introduction wasn't the only thing that drew me to conclude that he was Dastan's brother. When our hands touched, his eyes immediately went into a honey amber color and his touch went cold before he immediately pulled away with a small gasp. Impossible, I heard ringing in my ears but not in my voice. Before I could say anything, his friend was pulling him away as Mateo kept stealing glances back to me.
Did I just find my Proliator...or his brother?