The quick, sharp pain of something smacking my left cheek yanked me away from my thoughts. "Ouch!" I glanced sideways at Jared. He had an annoyed look on his face, eyebrows scrunched judgingly. His pencil was over at my desk now, and I was certain part of its tip had sunk into my skin. "What the hell was that for?"
"I've asked you the same thing five times already," Jared complained. He reached his arm over my desk to retrieve the pencil, but I snatched it before he could. "See, you ignored me those five times, which means you don't get the privilege of stealing that away from me."
"You could have ripped my eye out," I said, enouncing each word.
"Don't be a drama queen. That Gerome guy would've given you a new cheek—" he rolled his eyes, reaching out for the pencil again. This time the chair tipped forward, and had he not been quick on his feet it would've toppled over. A couple of glances were stolen our way, and I noticed Patricia's eyes following Jared around. She was sitting in one of the far corners with a couple of her friends, her lips twisted with a hidden laugh. "It wouldn't be the first time, now, would it?"
"It's Gideon. Not Gerome." I pointed at him with the pencil and he plucked it from my hand. "And I was just distracted—okay? What were you saying?"
It wasn't a lie. My eyes felt heavy, my thoughts jumbled. I'd woken up to my bed sheets tangled in knots and thrown aside from a few fit-full half hours of vivid dreams where Roy would either chase me down or try to kill Hunter. And the mere thought of having to explain Will everything that happened last night had haunted the back of my mind all day.
He was in the middle of a conversation with Mr. Brown at the moment, his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. A smile I was certain would be snatched away as soon as I broke down the news.
Jared grunted at my side. "I asked whether you wanted to do the Leda and the swan story or the golden shower story."
"Which one was which again?"
I could sense another pencil-strike coming my way, but he replied nonchalantly. "Okay, Leda was King Tyndareus' wife. One day she was attacked by an eagle and Zeus, who had already taken an interest in her due to her stunning beauty, came to rescue her in the shape of a swan. He proceeded to seduce her and—"
"Please tell me this doesn't involve having sex with a swan."
Jared gave a goofy smile. "Some people call it Greek mythology. I, personally, call it Zoophilia at its finest. But then the golden showers story is juicier. So for this one, Danae's father, King Acrisius, was told by an oracle that his daughter's offspring would someday kill him. The dude panicked and locked her up in a bronze prison. Zeus—because of course it would be Zeus—turned himself into golden rain, made his way into her chamber, and—"
"I cannot believe I had to convince Mr. Brown to let me join into your VIP squad," Wilson announced. He'd come up behind us, taking a seat on the empty desk next to Jared. My stomach shifted uneasily. "I thought we were always a threesome. Traitors."
"You're the one who wanted to pair up with Page-Wannabe Sally-Michaels," Jared murmured, pointing at Sally's best friend with the tip of his pencil. She was sitting on the other side of the room. A couple other girls were with her, but she seemed lost in thought—almost flustered.
Will shrugged. "Yeah, bad idea." Before either of us got a chance to ask him why, he went on. "And there's no way in hell you two are doing Greek mythology without me, not after I spent the last twenty minutes of my life convincing that man to let me join in on the fun."
"How did he ever agree to let you switch groups?" I asked, giving Mr. Brown a quick glance. He was an old man—his green glasses were crooked a usual inch to the right—whose work attires never strayed from suspenders and ties. He smelled like day-old coffee and drugstore cologne. Jared swore he had emotional issues, which gave him the tag of the strictest professor in the entire school.
Will had a smug smile on his face. "Let's just say I know my way around things. And I already have the perfect idea for the creative part of the project."
Jared sighed and dug his face into his palms. "All right, rip the Band-Aid. What is it?"
Will glowered at him. He turned to look at me instead, perhaps in hopes that I'd take his plan seriously. "I say we dress up as gods," he explained. "As a matter of fact, I'll be Zeus. I can even be naked and all. The ladies say I have the grace of a swan."
Jared's palms muffled his laughter. "Leda and the swan it is, then."
"I doubt Mr. Raegan would like to see you roaming the halls naked," I said. "Scratch that—doubt anyone at school would like to see you roaming the halls naked.
"Um, everyone wants to see me naked."
"No nudity unless you want an F on your report card, Wilson," Mr. Brown called out, peering at Will over the rim of his glasses.
"Mr. Brown is right. Save us the pain of such atrocity," Nancy, who had been playing with a small cutout of the Titanic, said.
Will turned around to give her a snarky reply that involved her incident with Roger from two weeks ago—according to the rumors, shoes weren't the only things that smacked Roger on the face when Jenna found out he'd cheated on her. Jared took advantage of the moment to slide a piece of paper neatly folded in four at me. Inside, it read,
Didn't you say you had to tell Will about what happened yesterday?
Icy threads of cold water moved through my veins, and I looked back at him with a pleading look. I'd ended up calling him last night after sneaking back into my bedroom, but the conversation had been rather short. Not only was Patricia still at his place but I was also way too tired to explain every living detail of what happened.
"I don't know how," I whispered. It was useless, though. Even with the bell yowling through the speakers, Will turned back around to give us a questioning look.
"You don't know how to what?" he asked.
Jared scratched the back of his head. He gathered his things as fast as he could before pointing at the door. "I gotta go take some books out of my locker, but Liv told me she needs to talk to you."
My eyes widened like plates, but I doubted either of them noticed—or they simply didn't care at all. "Does she?" Will let one of the straps of his backpack hang loose over his shoulder, giving me a smile before his focus returned to Jared. "I think you're the one who needs to talk to us. Mind telling me why Patricia's been going on and on about a little lip-locking action between you two last night?"
The ice in my veins turned to stone. "Lip-locking?" I echoed. "You didn't tell me that."
"Keep your voice down—do you mind," he said, risking a glance on Patricia's direction. She seemed too busy staring at the green flashcard on her desk to notice. The soft edges of humor washed away from Jared's factions then. "And I didn't say anything because...I—ugh, it wasn't like that."
My brows creased. "So you didn't kiss her?"
"I did," he admitted, his cheeks flaring a flaming red. "But I..."
"Hell yeah!" Will yelped. "That's my man. I knew you had it in you, McCall."
Jared's eyes shot an apologetic look my way, but I darted my gaze elsewhere. I didn't mind the idea of my best friend fooling around with girls—if anything, I was more than happy to prove Wilson wrong about Jared's alleged asexuality—but the fact that he was now head over hills for Patricia brewed a different kind of unease inside of me.
Was it some weird sort of Stockholm syndrome?
Granted, she hadn't exactly been the one to kidnap and drug him—but it was still her face the one that Danielle hid behind. It was still the same Patricia whom Jared claimed he didn't find attractive back at Wilson's pre-Halloween party. It was still her.
Didn't he see Danielle every time he saw Patricia like I did?
"I'll, um, go get my things before we head to Gerome's—all right?"
Will looked shocked at that. "Wait. You're coming with us to meet Gideon? I thought it would be just Hunter, the guys, and I looking for Zoe. Dominic actually heard some people saying she'd been at Teardrop last night. I wanted to ask him if he knew anything about that."
My stomach plummeted a thousand feet, and Jared cleared his throat. "I think it's better if I leave you two to it. I'll be at my locker."
Jared was gone before Will could formulate any other questions. He glanced at me with confusion in his eyes, a serious look on his face now.
"We need to talk, huh."
"Yes, but it's better if we take this somewhere a bit more private."
He gave me a slight nod and we ventured through the crowded hallway, into the courtyard area, without saying another word. People were scattered here and there, but I knew none of them would stay there too long. The place always emptied out soon after classes ended, leaving only a couple people who stayed for gym practice.
None of them frequented the courtyard, though, which made the place the perfect spot for cheeky couples to sneak in their private scenes or, in my case, drop a horrible bomb on one of my closest friends.
"You have your panic face on," Will pointed out, brows furrowed. "What's going on?"
"My panic face?"
He nodded. "The one you do when something's driving you nuts. Like that time I told you I'd eaten your sandwich because I wasn't able to find mine inside my lunchbox in seventh grade."
"I think this is a bit more serious than a PB and J sandwich, Will," I murmured.
He let out a nervous chortle, the sides of his mouth quirking up with a hesitant confidence. "Well—what are you waiting for? You're making me anxious. It's not good for my cutis, you know. I'd rather steer clear from wrinkles for as long as I possibly—"
"I spoke with Zoe yesterday."
Will gulped, a brown strand of hair draping over his forehead with the wind.
"You did what?"
"I was at Teardrop when I bumped into her. We spoke for a couple of minutes."
I felt like sinking into a dark hole when his eyes lit up—the same way Zoe's had when she thought Wilson was there last night with me. "Well, these are great news, then. I mean—is she okay? Did she say why she hasn't called me the past few days?"
Bile clawed its way up my throat. It took a lot of effort not to bend over and empty the few granola bars Jared had forced into my stomach throughout the day. "It's complicated, Will."
His expression turned serious. "Complicated how?"
I looked around. I wanted to make sure the courtyard was completely empty before I began my explanation. The last thing I needed was for someone to call Mr. Raegan to tell him his students were smoking weed and talking about a fantasy world that didn't exist—at least not for them.
"Any time now, Liv."
"The other day, after we got Jared back from Lotus Tavern, Gideon told me a Keeper's genes were strictly congenital. So, when I got home, I asked Dad about it.... He panicked, told me not to tell Mom about anything before he got a chance to explain."
Wilson scanned our surroundings, taking a hesitant step forward. "I don't understand. Your father is a Keeper, too?"
"I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. He hid this entire thing from my mom, made sure a witch locked his powers away in the deepest part of his subconscious so that the possibilities of passing them onto me lessened."
"A witch?" he repeated, confusion settling in the corner of his eyes as he narrowed them. "Liv, this is insane—but I still don't get how this has anything to do with you talking to Zoe."
"I'm getting there." I took a deep breath and crossed my arms over my chest. "Yesterday, when we tried to communicate with Sally through the Reaver Blade, it worked. She told me that Roy was messing with her, using her as his personal puppet. She then said Gideon was the only one who could help us, so after I got home I spoke to Dad about everything.
"That's when he told me what he did to hide this world from me, what he did to make me choose to see the human world instead of...this one. But he expected me to act like nothing happened. He wants me to sit back and let Roy unleash Hell on Earth as if it didn't mean people would die."
"And do you blame him?" Wilson asked. He was giving me a questioning look, and it was impossible for me to hide the shock from my face. "He's your father. If anything, he's taking it well by not following you all the way here to keep you on his sight. Hunter shouldn't have dragged you into this world like he did. Your dad is just worried."
A weird sense of anger probed into my body. "Hunter didn't drag me into this world," I said. "He was the only one had the decency to explain to me why I wasn't losing my mind."
"Well, he shouldn't have," Will spat. He ran an angry hand through his hair, the leaves around us rustling on the floor. "He knows better than to involve innocent people into these types of problems. I knew him before and after Pauline—and what he did to her broke him. They shouldn't have let her into their reality in the first place, and if he does that to you—"
"Whoa, buddy, hold your horse right there. Pauline was a human. I'm not."
The more I restated that fact, the more alienated I felt from my own self. Will didn't seem to notice the uneasiness that took over me, though. He only shook his head in disapproval.
"You're as good as one, Liv," he said. "You don't know how to control whatever this is," Will moved his hands up and down, pointing at my body before resuming his thought, "and you can't allow yourself the luxury of dying in the hands of a psychopath while you try to figure it out."
"I won't," I said. "And Gideon's going to help me with that."
Will moaned. The only other sound apart from us in the courtyard came from the half-empty branches swaying above, something that would make you believe that even the trees were trying to listen to what we were saying. "How many times do I have to tell people that they shouldn't trust warlocks?"
"And yet you were willing to go to his place today?"
"Because I'm desperate," he hissed, the veins on his temples bulging. "I don't know what to do anymore. I've scoured every inch of this city trying to find Zoe, but I keep reaching dead ends. We called Gideon because there's nothing else I can do, though now I really have no clue of what's going on since you claim you spoke to her." He gave a low grunt, eyes steady on mine. "Where did you say you saw her again exactly?"
"At Teardrop," I repeated. "I went there after Roy showed up in my room and asked me to join him if I didn't want everything to take the bloodbath path."
"He was in your room?" Will choked on a breath. "Join him? Wh-what does that even mean?"
"That he wants me to unite with him in sacred marriage, Wilson," I fumed. "What do you think it means? He wants me to be a part of his crazy, evil club to take over the world. That's why I went to see Gideon, and when I got there, I found Zoe as well."
"What was she doing there?"
"I'm not sure, but someone was following her," I said, sensing the guilt and pain edging their way back into my stomach. "She asked me to tell you that she's sorry. She said she was trying to make everything work...that she should've listened to you."
A group of laughing middle-schoolers ran past us, making me jump. They were headed toward the opposite side of the courtyard, where the back entrance to the field's bleachers were. I made sure they had left before turning back to look at Will. My heart tore in half when I saw his hazel eyes gleaming under the sun's rays, a light sheen of tears threatening to run down his cheeks.
I'd seen Wilson crying on multiple occasions—like the time he broke his leg in elementary school for trying out parkour on the roof of my house, or the time he laughed way too much thanks to one of Jared's silly poems, or even when he got sick of his parents and how they treated him—but this time it broke every piece of my soul.
This was a different type of pain. This had nothing to do with a broken limb or emotional frustration—this was someone he cared about being taken from him.
"What happened last night, Olivia?" he asked, his voice low and surprisingly steady. "What really happened last night?"
"She made me rush to Gideon's office so that I didn't stay longer than I had to...but then we heard a commotion coming from downstairs and we realized two people were following her. Marcel and Tara, a Vulture and a witch. I caught up with them outside, but they had already opened up a portal and..."
His expression hardened. "And?"
"She's gone, Will. They took her."
Fire flared up his eyes, mirroring the burning sun behind the half-naked, orange trees. He bit his lip then, and I could've sworn his skin became a scaly red for a fraction of a second. This made the hairs on my nape rise.
"What do you mean she's gone?"
"I'm so sorry..." I whispered. "Roy sent them to get her."
"You're telling me it's Roy who has her?" Will's voice was sharp as a razorblade. Something inside of him was bubbling up—quite literally. It was almost as if his body had gotten so hot I could feel it, a bothering heat touching my skin. When he opened his mouth again, his words were bitter and dry. "He wants her for the ritual. And now he has her because I couldn't protect her the way she protected me."
"This is not your fault."
"You don't get it." He shook his head. "She did everything for me when I had no one, when I didn't even know what I was, and I can't even be there when she needs me the most."
I wanted to say the right thing, comfort him, but he turned around and walked toward the lacrosse field before I could. An overwhelming feeling of déjà vu hugged the pit of my stomach when I noticed the beaming red, patterns of scales—moving scales—running up and down his arms. Like he was an angry cat trying to ease down its hair.
I blinked twice to see if they went away.
They didn't, but he did.
I stood there alone in the middle of the sandstone courtyard, which suddenly felt too empty and quiet, trying to process what I'd just seen while mixed emotions ran through my mind. My stomach plunged, and my legs started to move one after the other without the need of a conscious command. I rounded the corner of the main building, right at the end of the courtyard, and hurried my pace after him.
Trees kept moving above me. It wasn't a gentle sway anymore, though. The wind managed to move the leaves under my feet and tiny drops of cold water began to hit my arms and nose. I looked up, partly hoping I didn't see a flying Will in the sky, but all I saw were the incoming swirling, grey clouds getting closer to each other. I could no longer see the sun and the clear blue sky. The weather had switched in a matter of seconds.
I waited there for a moment, lost in the scenery of the incoming storm, when the sudden sound of crackling pulled my gaze back down. My eyes widened when I found the source. "What the..."
Will stood ahead of me. There was a light sheen of sweat—or drizzle—coating his reddened skin. His hand twitched, and the same weird glow that shone out of Gideon's hands yesterday hovered below his palm. This was a fiery red, though, and just a couple of feet closer to me, one of the bushes burned with the same tonality. The small leaves and branches were slowly getting swallowed up into a charcoal color, dying under the flames while the smoke floated up to the sky.
"You just torched this bush," I pointed out, dubious.
"Tell Hunter I won't be making it to Gideon's."
"Wait—Will..."
After a moment of silence, he said, "I need to be alone."
I rose one of my eyebrows accusingly and switched my gaze between him and the bush. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Instead of answering Wilson turned around and started marching toward the gates on the other side. I gave three determined steps to go after him, but as if he could sense my intentions, he shoved his hand outwards and the flames doubled in size. I staggered to the side, feeling the heat grazing my skin. From somewhere near the bushes, I could've sworn I heard glass breaking.
"Are you insane?" I yelled at him.
He glanced over his shoulder once, eyes flaming. He looked angry, flustered, and had I stared at him longer I would've said he resembled a parent whose kid got kidnapped. He reminded me of Glenda. "I said I need to be alone—and you should go home."
"Don't do anything stupid!" My voice came out strangled as I watched him walk away for the second time.
Next to me, the bush started to burn faster. I secretly wished that the rain would put it out before anyone noticed. Taking a glimpse at the sky, the clouds looked a shade darker, but the drops were as light as snowflakes—not merely enough to ease a fire. I thought about calling Hunter, then, put his powers to the test one more time. Maybe he could also control the weather or summon water out of nowhere.
Till this day I didn't even know what he was or wasn't capable of doing.
I reached for my phone, but my luck was five steps behind me. My back pocket was empty. The image of my purse sitting below my chair—with my phone inside of it—flashed through my mind almost instantly, and a muffled curse left my lips.
Plan A was over.
In the middle of coming up with plan B, the memory of Jared's constant complaint flashed through my head. Am I the only one who notices the ridiculous amount of fire extinguishers in this school? Of course. The stupid security protocols.
Before thinking twice, I forced my legs into a run through the outdoor, marbled hallway that led to the main pavilion. Adrenaline warmed my skin the moment I noticed it was still mildly crowded in the lockers area. If any of them decided to take a shortcut to the bleachers or the back gates through the courtyard, they'd find the burning bushes, and I doubted there were any logical explanations for flames the size of a person under a rainy sky.
Behind one of the columns to my left I found fire extinguisher. Unhooking it ended up being more difficult than I thought. The metal straps holding it in place wouldn't give out, and it barely moved with each pull I gave it.
And that's when I saw it: the keyhole at the right end of the bar.
So much for the stupid safety protocols, I thought, giving it another harsh pull. This time, though, instead of finding the straps straddling the extinguisher in place, it seemed as if they were made out of plastic.
Bendable plastic.
With a soft clink the bars ceded. The momentum made me slump backwards into the other column, the heavy extinguisher landing on top of my legs. I propped one of my arms up against the bricks for support while I figured how I'd move the thing back to the bushes quickly enough so that no one noticed—if they hadn't heard its bottom part banging on the floor already.
My hand wrapped around the handle smoothly and I made my way back down the corridor. I was about to reach the end when I heard footsteps and a bunch of voices coming up behind me. Without any hesitation, I threw myself behind one of the columns and tried to get near the shadowy corner.
The voices grew closer and closer until a group of people walked straight past me. I watched their backs as they walked straight out toward the courtyard, a couple of them adjusting their hoods over their heads and others pulling out their umbrellas. The rain had gotten stronger than a drizzle now.
However, it wasn't the rain or the wind or the soft rumble of thunder echoing in the sky that made my mind unravel a thousand questions. Why had none of them noticed the giant flames? They were just around the corner to their right—they must have noticed.
But they hadn't.
My legs moved again, and I hurried my pace at the right end of the corridor, hearing their voices fading to where Wilson and I had first spoken earlier. The scenery in front of me made me stop on my tracks, and I choked on my breath before I fully understood what my eyes were looking at.
I would've recognized the slim silhouette wherever. She wore the same fitting, pink skirt with a white blouse tucked inside of it. Her stilettoes were sinking into the gravel below, and her platinum hair, shielded by a peach-colored umbrella, was neatly pulled into a tight bun. Her back faced me, but as soon as my feet moved the gravel, she turned around. There was a warm smile on her face at first, but it vanished when her eyes met the fire extinguisher I was cradling.
"Olivia?" she asked, one of her arms crossed over her chest. "Is everything all right over there?"
"Yes, Ms. Aldrin," I spat, trying to look behind her in hopes to find the bush that had been there, burning, just five minutes ago. There was nothing, though. No charcoaled, burnt twigs or giant flames or smoke. Just a very confused-looking chemistry teacher staring back at me.
Her eyebrow rose, then. "What are you doing with that thing, dear?"
"Uh...I just thought—" I stopped myself halfway and rearranged my answer. "I thought I saw smoke, so I grabbed the extinguisher and came to check if something was on fire."
Her eyes widened ever so slightly and she gave the entire courtyard a casual onceover. "I haven't seen anything—that's weird."
I blinked twice to make sure it was truly gone, and despite the scary, but now all too natural effort to see if glamour was involved, I found nothing but a green bush standing behind Ms. Aldrin's frail body. For a slight second, her gaze became suspicious, but she switched it back to normal before I could confirm it. "Yeah," I admitted. "Very weird."
She scanned me for a couple of seconds, seemingly waiting for me to say something else. When I didn't, she gave me another smile. "Well, I was about to check up on your lab projects. They've been sitting under horrible weather and I think it ruined the mixtures—would you like to give me a hand?"
I followed her thin finger, which she'd used to point at the small jars laying just a couple of feet near the bush. I'd heard glass breaking before, but all of them stood in perfect state, arranged into a neat line.
"I have to go, actually," I fumbled.
"Oh, that's all right then, dear," she said. "Just one quick thing before you go." I looked back at her and repositioned the extinguisher, which had started sliding out from my grip thanks to the water drops. "You are friends with Hunter Black, right? The new guy."
Thunder rattled the sky, the drops coming down twice their size. For a second it seemed as if she would step closer to me and offer a space under her umbrella, but she held herself put in place. "Yes."
"That's fantastic—would you mind telling him that I really need him to hand me the paperwork to validate that he already saw the past topics? Unfortunately I can't give him too much time. Mr. Raegan wants us to keep an updated student record."
"Sure, I'll tell him."
"Olivia, are you sure you're all right?"
"Everything is great, Ms. Aldrin!"
I hurried back down the marbled corridor and ran several calculations in my head.
A bunch of things didn't add up. The fire, Ms. Aldrin, the breaking glass I heard—which would imply that maybe there were projects behind those bushes, but then wouldn't they be broken? Something didn't feel quite right this time.
I left the fire extinguisher against the concrete wall and headed back into the crowd. Compared to the cold breeze and the smell of wet dirt, the hallway had the particular mismatched encounters of either sweet perfumes or weird, damp smells that came from the boys' locker room.
The odor dissipated into a more tolerable one once I left the inner-gym area behind, and luckily finding Jared in the far end of the hallway wasn't as hard as I thought. It was the very distinct someone standing right next to him, however, that first caught my eye.
She wore a knit, red turtleneck sweater, tugged into a pair of dark blue jeans; the waves in her hair made it look like she'd worn a tight ponytail all day long. Jared seemed lost in the conversation, but instead of the usual lopsided smile that he wore each time Patricia was around, there was a notable edge of wariness in the corner of his eyes. He kept glancing somewhere at the lower part of her right side, way off my sightline.
"Hey—are you ready to leave?"
I looked back with a jump and found Hunter, who looked and smelled like he'd jumped right out of the shower, staring back at me. "Yes."
"What's with the look on your face?"
"I spoke to Will."
His eyebrows rose. "I'm taking he didn't take it too well."
"He lit a bush on fire, Hunter."
"He what?"
I sighed, pushing us closer to the lockers and away from the middle of the crowded hallway. "He got mad, blamed it all on himself, and lit a bush on fire before storming away and telling me to tell you that he wouldn't come with us to Gideon's. Oh, and to top that off, I went to grab the fire extinguisher, and for some reason I was able to unhook it from the wall."
"Aren't they made so that you can do that?"
"That one had a steel bar that could only be taken off with a key."
He pulled the strap of his gym bag tighter over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed slightly. "And you just pulled it off? You broke the bar?" I nodded. "Damn. That's kind of hot, Liv."
I gave him a light push on his arm. "This isn't funny."
"It's probably your powers boosting up," he said, with such natural tone that distressed my already disturbed stomach even more. "I reckon Gideon has a book that specifies each and every power a Keeper may have, but I wouldn't be surprised. You guys can do pretty much anything when it comes to protecting someone or something. It's like your body adapts to whatever you need to do."
"So I could go around lifting cars if I wanted to?"
He gave me a half-smile. "Pretty much, yes."
"There's one more thing..." I said, taking a step closer. "When I managed to unhook the extinguisher and take it to the courtyard, the bush was no longer burning. And I don't mean someone covered it with glamour so that no one noticed. I mean I tried looking at it in every way and it was still the same bush from before."
Hunter glanced at the exit doors at the far end of the hallway. "I mean, it's pouring rain."
"It was just a drizzle when I got there."
"And are you sure it wasn't Will the one who made you think the bush was on fire?"
I took a deep breath. Something didn't feel right. It had been so real. "Ms. Aldrin was there, near the bushes.... She actually asked me if you and I were friends. She was acting a bit weird."
"The chemistry teacher? You think she's the one who put out the fire?"
"I just think there's something off about her."
A teasing smile tugged on the right corner of his mouth. "She's cute."
I crossed my arms. "She's thirty-seven."
"But looks twenty-five." I went in for another push, but he deflected my hand and took a step closer. "What did you answer, though?"
"What?"
"Ms. Aldrin asked if you and I were friends—what did you tell her?"
The question felt tricky on itself. "I said yes."
"Huh," he said. I couldn't quite pinpoint the undertone in his voice. "What did she want?"
"She needs you to give her the paperwork from your old school so that they can validate the credits for the topics we've seen."
Hunter opened his mouth, but Jared's voice came over his. He looked agitated, fumbling through his words. "Guys, I think we have a problem."
"Girl took your breath away?"
Jared gave Hunter a nasty look. "Her name's Patricia. And keep your voice down—she's right there."
Hunter's eyes moved somewhere behind me. I followed his gaze and gave a discrete look over my shoulder. She stood at the exact same spot where I'd seen them talking just five minutes ago. She was staring down at her phone now.
"What happened?" I asked.
"We were hanging out just a second ago, and she started scratching her wrist. I didn't think much about it but then I noticed that she had a mark when her sweater moved up. It looked like two curved lines parallel to each other, with two dark circles starting to form in between."
"Dark circles?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, Liv.... It just looked bad."
"Are you sure it's not a rash?"
"Rashes don't take shapes like that."
Hunter's brows lowered subtly. "Did she tell you how she got that?"
Jared shook his head. "She said she thought it was her allergy acting up. She came over last night and I didn't notice anything. Maybe it happened in her sleep?"
"Olivia's right, though. What makes you sure it's not just that?"
"You can go and look at it yourself," Jared snapped. "It has little veiny looking, red lines surrounding it."
Hunter sighed. "I'd have to look at it to tell you exactly what it can be."
Jared grunted. "She asked me if we could finish the first advance on the chemistry project right now at the library, so you guys go ahead and I'll see if I can drop by your house later, Liv."
"You want me to drop by your house, instead?"
"I'd rather not find Mom in the middle of a romantic scene with Gavin. I think it's their anniversary today," he said, his eyes rolling. "Just text me if anything happens. I'll try to take a picture of Patricia's thing and send it to you."
"Sounds cool to me."
He went in and placed a short kiss on my temple before walking off. "Be careful."
For a short second I felt the urge of telling him to be careful as well; instead, I kept my mouth shut and watched him disappear into the other hallway with Patricia by his side. I wanted to be happy for him—I really did—but all I kept thinking about was the fire incident.
Who had managed to turn it off? And mostimportantly.... How?