"If you don't start on this now, you will live to regret it later."
I cleared some of the random junk off my desk to make room for my laptop and papers.
"And once you get started," I said, "you'll see it's not so bad. The sooner you start, the closer you'll be to being done. Come on, Grace. Just suck it up and get it over with."
I exhaled loudly. If I was at the point of vocally motivating myself to do something, then I knew I was screwed. I only ever start doing this when I feel crushed under the pressure of a looming deadline.
I sat down at my desk in the corner of my room with my legs folded on the seat. A blank document was open on my laptop, waiting for me to fill it with words. I had an essay due in two days and so far all I had written was my name in the corner.
The more involved I became with Quentin's—well, I wasn't entirely sure what to call it—extracurricular life, the more my schoolwork suffered.
"Grace!" Paige burst into my bedroom like a whirlwind of enthusiasm. "I need some of your blood."
I stared at her for a second or two, almost sure I'd misheard her. "You need—what?"
"Your blooood." She winked and waved the sealed plastic package in her hand. A cup of water was in her other hand. "Not in a weird or creepy way, though. It's for a school project."
"Your teacher authorized a project for you to take my blood?" I asked skeptically.
"We have to pick a topic related to genetics and tie it to our family. Everyone's doing hair or eye color," she explained, "but I thought it'd be fun to try something a little different. My teacher recommended this home science company that specializes in blood typing kits. It's fascinating, really."
I was still unconvinced.
"I'll be careful, I promise," she said, smiling sweetly.
"Have you tried this on anyone else, or am I the first?"
She beamed. "Lucky you! You're the first one!"
"Lucky me," I repeated flatly.
She tore open the kit and arranged the contents on my desk. There were a couple sheets of paper, a lancet, a wrapped alcohol pad, mixing sticks, and a pipette.
"I already read the instructions and watched a tutorial video on the website," she said reassuringly. "So don't worry."
She picked up a card with some text and four large circles on the front. I watched as she carefully added a drop of water inside each of the circles with the pipette. Then she turned towards me and swabbed my index finger with the alcohol pad.
"Are you ready?" she asked,
"Go for it."
"Okay. Here goes," she said, mostly to herself, as she held the sterile lancet against my skin and pressed the button.
I winced a little as the needle pricked my skin.
Paige massaged my finger to draw out the blood, and then deposited a small drop onto the ends of four white mixing sticks. She took each of the sticks and swirled them around in the water inside each of the four circles.
Then she wrapped a Band-Aid around my finger.
I watched her become more self-assured as she worked. Her attention was completely focused on the task at hand. As she relaxed, I could see the future doctor in her and I felt a sense of pride. She was only fourteen and she already knew exactly what she wanted to do in life.
"Now we let this dry and compare it to the diagram to see what blood type you are," she said.
My finger throbbed lightly beneath the Band-Aid. "That wasn't so bad I guess."
"You were wonderful. Would you like me to find you a lollipop?" she teased. "I'm sure we have some in the house somewhere."
"Sounds tempting, but I think I'll pass."
"Grace? Turning down sweets?" she said with mock concern. She touched my forehead. "You must be feeling sick. I should probably run a few more tests."
The corner of my lips turned upward. "Funny, Paige."
My phone screen lit up as I received a notification.
"Are you working on homework?" she asked, nodding at my laptop. I imagined it was hard to tell since there was nothing written on the document.
"I've got to write an essay. You wouldn't happen to have read this for fun, have you?" I asked her, reaching for the book.
She looked at it with appreciation. "Oh. Faulkner. I've heard of him."
My phone buzzed against the surface of my desk again. And then again.
Paige peered at it curiously. "Are you not going to check that?"
"It's probably nothing," I said, picking it up. I saw that I had several messages.
QUENTIN MILLER: Hi all. Just got my new phone and I'm setting up a group text so it'll be more convenient to chat.
DILLON SANTOS: Good idea man
PORTER MORETTI: Yo
PORTER MORETTI: I'm tempted to tweet something about undercover operations
KYA WELLS: NO
KYA WELLS: YOU CAN'T
KYA WELLS: Can someone please ask him to take this seriously???
QUENTIN MILLER: It's alright. He only has one follower, and it's me.
DILLON SANTOS: Lol
Fantastic.
This was possibly the worst idea Quentin's ever had.
I grimaced as I imagined someone accidentally glancing at my phone and seeing the words Hey, Quentin, have you had any premonitions lately? Can Dillon astral project to the store and pick up some sandwiches?
Worst case: someone would be on to us.
Best case: someone would think we're all crazy.
"Hey, it's dried!"
I almost forgot Paige was still in my room with me.
She held up the card, grinning. "It looks like...hmm, how exactly do you read this?" Her forehead creased as she skimmed the instruction sheet. "Ah! You're Type B-positive blood! Wow, that's pretty rare."
Paige looked so excited, it was hard not to be affected by her enthusiasm.
"Thanks, Grace. You're the best. Now I'm going to go try this on Mom." She picked up her things and practically dashed out the door, shutting it behind her.
QUENTIN MILLER: Meet up in the basement tomorrow to talk about the fire?
PORTER MORETTI: Down
DILLON SANTOS: Sounds good
GRACE YEARWOOD: It can't take too long. I have a paper to work on.
QUENTIN MILLER: Oh? On what?
GRACE YEARWOOD: I don't think I should spam everyone with my English homework
QUENTIN MILLER: Good point. The chat will be for MAGIC and POWER related topics only.
We were only two minutes in and it already happened. Emphasis on the magic, too.
Countermeasures were necessary. I went into my phone settings and changed the notifications for my text messages so that it was private. Hopefully that would help.
* * *
After school the next day, I stopped by my locker to grab a few things before meeting up with Quentin and Porter in the parking lot. Kya and Dillon were already at Quentin's, as usual. They didn't really ever leave the basement to explore the town, mostly because there was nothing to do in Thornhill.
I didn't understand what they did all day, honestly.
From what I've heard, Kya goes on the internet a lot, keeping tabs on Fiona Hartley and hopelessly searching for Ava Sutherland. It seemed like a waste of effort because she could never find anything. Ava Sutherland was a ghost.
And it sounded like Dillon just slept a lot.
As I was shutting my locker, I noticed Max making his way over. He raised an arm to wave, and dropped the textbook he was holding in the process.
I almost snorted. I still couldn't believe that it was even a possibility that he has anything to do with the masked guy. The idea of it was laughable.
"Hi. You headed home?" he asked. "Do you need a ride?"
"Thanks, but I'm actually going over to Quentin's. He and Porter are waiting for me right now," I said.
He nodded, looking a little disappointed, but then covered with a grin. "Oh, cool. I just wanted to let you know that I got you a new sweater because of what happened last time...I spilled my drink on it—"
I cut him off. "Max, you really didn't have to. I mean, it's incredibly nice of you, but the soda washed right out of it. It's as good as new."
"It's not a big deal. I already got it and it's in my car." He flashed a warm smile. "I'll get it to you some other time then, since it seems like you're in a rush right now."
"Really, my sweater is fine. I appreciate the gesture, but I really think you should return it."
He looked sheepish. "That doesn't really work when you've already thrown away the receipt."
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Quentin asked where I was.
"Um, I have to go now, but you should try to find the receipt," I said, walking away. "Thank you, though. Bye, Max!"
I rushed to the parking lot. A lot of students were gone so it didn't take long to spot Quentin's truck. He and Porter were already sitting in the cab.
"What took you?" he asked, firing up the truck.
"I ran into Max."
They both whipped their heads in my direction.
"What did he want?" Quentin asked.
"Did he do anything?" Porter demanded.
Rolling my eyes, I said, "You guys are so ridiculous. He just wanted to give me a new sweater because he thought he ruined mine. He was being nice."
"Not unless the sweater is laced with some poison that will seep into your skin—"
I glared at him. "Stop being crazy. Let's go. I have a paper to work on."
Much to no one's surprise, a meeting to discuss Quentin's fire vision ended up as a hang out.
When we got back to the basement, Dillon was on the couch flipping through the channels on the TV and Kya was on her laptop. We tried to talk about what was going on, but were interrupted a few times when Trevor Miller came downstairs to check on us.
Each time, we all clammed up and had to pretend we were talking about ordinary things. We eventually gave up, and started doing our own things
I was folded into a corner of the couch, with a pair of bulky headphones over my ears and my laptop in front of me. I flipped through my copy of The Sound and the Fury, jotting down page numbers for quotes I wanted to use.
I wished the headphones were noise cancelling. They didn't help much to drown out the raucous noises coming from the foosball table.
"That was hardly fair—"
"Suck it!"
Quentin and Dillon were on opposite sides of the foosball table, caught in an intense game. Kya watched them curiously, as if she'd never seen one before. She declined their offers to take their spots and insisted on staying on the sidelines. Her head swiveled back and forth, following the plastic soccer ball with her eyes.
Quentin turned around. "Porter? Grace? Either of you guys want to play?"
Porter shook his head. He was sprawled on the floor with a textbook in front of him. "Studying."
"Which you should be doing too," I said.
Quentin merely shrugged. "I'll do it later."
Although he didn't try too hard, school came naturally to him. You wouldn't expect him to get the grades that he had compared to the amount of effort he actually put in.
I was finishing up with the first page when Quentin's dad came down again.
"Are you kids hungry? I'll order some pizza." Everyone chorused their gratitude. Then to Quentin, he said, "Appa and I will be going out in a bit. I've left the money on the table, and it should be enough to tip the delivery guy as well. I trust things won't get too wild down here?"
"You got it, Dad."
Trevor was already walking back upstairs as he said, "We won't be out too late. Will call if anything comes up."
"Have fun!" Quentin called up to him.
"You have such a great relationship with your fathers," Kya said. "They trust you so much."
"They think I'm too boring to cause any trouble."
I snorted. "Lately, things have been anything but boring."
"I think I prefer it to the normal," Quentin said. "The powers are cool."
Porter shrugged. "Getting stalked and attacked seems like it kinda sucks, though."
The small, dusty window in the basement was propped open to let in some air. I heard the garage rumbling opening, and then the sound of the car backing out of the driveway and driving off.
It was finally safe to talk.
"You guys should be careful too," Quentin said to Dillon and Kya. "He knew about me and the necklaces. It might be safe to assume that he knows about you too."
"I wonder what he's after. He seems as clueless as we are about all this," I said.
"Maybe if he wasn't dressed like a serial killer every time we saw him, then we could all sit down and have a civil conversation," Quentin added.
Kya pulled out the chain from under her t-shirt and touched the pendant. The yellow light streamed out around her curled fingers, and it was like she was holding a small sun in her hands. "If he's trying to figure out who left these for us, then that person could be in danger."
"You wear that thing around? Aren't you afraid of accidentally touching it?" Dillon asked.
I knew Quentin had his necklace stashed in his sock drawer in his room. He probably hasn't even looked at it since the night we found them.
"I like to keep it close because someone went through a lot of trouble to get this to us," Kya said. "And plus, it's so pretty."
Quentin tapped his fingers on the side of the foosball table. "Then we need to find that person before he does."
"Add them to the ever-growing list of people we need to find," Dillon muttered.
"That person seems to be Fiona," I said, recalling how spooked she looked seeing the words written in her handwriting but not remembering that she'd written them. If she had been the one who left them, where did she get them from? Why leave her own in the box?
Porter shut his textbook. He'd given up on his homework, not that the conversation had taken an interesting turn. "I still can't believe Fiona Hartley is like you guys."
Kya glanced upwards as she though. "If it really is Fiona, he's not gonna have an easy time getting to her. She has bodyguards and security staff around her all the time."
Even though it had only been a couple days since I gave her the necklace, I'd hoped she would've tried to contact us already. What if she'd destroyed the necklace? Or threw it away?
"And not to mention we still need to figure out the fire," Quentin mentioned.
"Right. We have to try to stop a fire, but we have no idea where or when it's going to happen," I said with a sigh.
Dillon placed his hands on either side of his head and leaned against the wall. "This makes my brain hurt."
"I can't wait for the pizzas," Porter said. "I'm so hungry."
Setting my laptop down, I stood up and stretched. "I'm going to grab a drink."
"I'll come with. The feeling of hopelessness works up quite a thirst," Quentin said, abandoning his spot at the foosball table.
In the kitchen, he pulled open the door to the fridge. "Water? Soda? Juice?"
"Water." I easily caught the bottle he tossed at me. "So Trevor and Jae are just cool with you running a makeshift youth hostel right out of your basement?"
"Surprising, I know."
I twisted off the cap. "What did you even tell them?"
"Dillon and I are pen pals, and he and his friend are visiting the east coast for a few weeks during a nationwide road trip," he said.
I raised an eyebrow. "And they bought that?"
"One word: Kya."
"Oh."
"She is like a lying machine," Quentin said. "She charmed my dads so fast, you wouldn't believe it. She even got appa to agree to letting complete strangers live downstairs."
"That's too much power for one person."
"Seriously. And that doesn't even include her ability to set your ass on fire either," he added.
We were rifling through the cabinet for snacks when the doorbell rang.
I looked over to Quentin, a sleeve of cookies in my hand. "Is that the pizza already?"
"No way. It hasn't even been ten minutes."
He disappeared around the corner, and I heard the sound of the door swinging open. Then Quentin was making a flustered noise. I started towards the foyer to see what was making him stammer like an idiot.
Fiona.
"Sorry. I'm looking for Grace," she said, cautiously. "Is this the right place?"
"Yeah. Um, yes," Quentin stammered. "She is—"
"Are you going to let her in, or just make her stand outside all day?" I said, walking over.
Fiona looked relieved to see me. "I need to talk to you."
"How did you find me?" I asked.
She glanced at Quentin, like she wasn't sure if she should say in front of him. "That's kind of why I wanted to talk."
I nudged him out of the way so she could come in. "We can talk downstairs. Everyone's here."
"Everyone?"
"I'll explain in a bit."
She followed us down into the basement, hesitating at the foot of the stairway.
"Was that the pizza? We heard the—" Dillon froze when he saw her.
Porter, who was in the middle of taking a sip of the drink Quentin passed to him, almost spit it out.
She waved once. "Hi. I'm Fiona."
Dillon smoothed back his hair and fixed his expression into one he probably thought was sultry and seductive. He started walking over with his hand extended. "Hey there, I'm—"
But I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him back. "Give it a rest, Romeo."
"You weren't lying," Porter said. His mouth was still hanging open as he looked over at me. "It really is her."
"Quentin told you he has magical powers, but you thought I was lying about Fiona?" I said, rolling my eyes.
"I guess. It's just...this is all so weird," he finished lamely.
Fiona scanned the room, her eyes pausing briefly at each person as I introduced them to her.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Kya said.
"Yes. How do I get rid of it?" she said.
Kya looked genuinely confused. "Why would you want to get rid of it?"
"Please. I think I'm going insane," she said, a trace of hysteria in her voice.
It was then I noticed the dark circles she'd tried to cover up with makeup. She didn't seem as carefree as the girl Paige and I had just met on the movie set a couple days ago.
"I can't concentrate when I'm working. My head feels like it's going to explode. And this." I just noticed the piece of paper in her hand. She handed it over to me with shaking hands. "This was in my trailer but I didn't write it."
Written on one side was my name, and on the other was Quentin's address. It explained how Fiona got here.
"Please, I just want this to stop. You guys have to help me." She had a pleading look in her eyes that slowly faded into disappointment when she realized that we couldn't help her. "I really don't want anything to do with this."
"I'm sorry. We don't know much more about this than you do," I admitted.
Fiona laughed dryly. "I guess I was being too wishful. I thought I would be able to get rid of it by coming here. I should've known it wouldn't be that easy."
"We might not know how to get rid of it, but we can help you manage it. It helps to have people to talk to who understand what you're going through," Quentin said. "And we do. I'm still going through it myself. I haven't managed to get my abilities under control yet."
She glanced at him. "I don't want to manage it. I don't want it at all! It's terrifying, waking up with no memory of having done something when the evidence is right in front of me. I feel like I'm losing it." Her hands tightened into fists. "I feel like I'm going crazy."
"Well, getting powers and going crazy aren't mutually exclusi—ow."
I elbowed Dillon in the side to shut him up.
Kya stepped towards Fiona and placed a comforting hand on her arm. "You're not going crazy. You just have a new gift and that will take some adjusting to. It won't happen overnight. It's becoming a part of you, and you can't simply get rid of it, Fiona."
"You're not alone here," Quentin said. He looked over at me, prompting me to say something, since I knew her the best.
I gave him a look, letting him know that he and Kya were doing just fine without me. Things didn't exactly go according to plan the last time I was responsible for talking to Fiona.
Fiona turned away from the group and inhaled deeply. Even though I couldn't see her face, I could tell she was trying to compose herself.
"I'll get some water," Porter said, disappearing from the basement.
"I'm sorry," Fiona said, still turned away. "I'm not usually like this. I don't know what's happening with me lately."
"No need to apologize. Here, have a seat," Dillon said, taking her arm and leading her over to the couch.
I moved my homework materials out of the way so she could sit. She then thanked Porter for the glass of water, and even though she only gave him a weak smile, I saw his cheeks redden.
He caught me smirking at him, and the blush deepened.
"Don't," he mumbled.
"Don't what?" I asked, faking innocence.
"We should catch you up on what we've been doing," Kya said to Fiona.
"Which isn't really much," Dillon added.
Fiona nodded.
Then her eyes widened a fraction, like she just remembered something. "I have something else. I can't believe I almost forgot. I found this next to the note I gave you earlier." She dug into her purse and gave me another scrap of paper. "I don't know what it means though."
The piece of paper had another address, but it was one I wasn't familiar with.
"It's in Salem," I said, meeting Quentin's eyes. Reaching for my laptop, I typed it into Google Maps. "It's a house in an old neighborhood."
"You don't know what's at the house?" Quentin asked Fiona.
She shook her head. "Or who she is."
"What is your power exactly? Are you like a human GPS system?" Then Quentin's brows creased as he asked, "Wait, she who?"
Kya craned her neck and looked at the paper in my hand, "What's that say on the back?"
I flipped the piece of paper over.
There were only three letters written on the other side.
Ava.
* * *
A/N: Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed. <3
Please let me know what you think.
This chapter is dedicated to the wonderful nathanturk2 :)