“Hi there, Lance,” Max said, his tone precautious as he surveyed the angry man in front of him. I had followed Max to the door, but before it was fully open, I decided to try some magic I had never tried before. I wanted my appearance to look slightly different, but only to whoever was on the other side, which turned out to be a good choice on my part since the guy from the parking lot was standing there looking vicious. I did my best to make my hair look darker, a light brown, to this guy, and to look taller. I also wanted my sweater to change from purple to red, but again, only to his eyes.
He wasn’t looking at me, not at first. When Max asked him what was going on, Lance--which was not the name I would’ve picked for a guy who looked like that--was gritting his death. “My boy here?” he asked, looking over Max’s head into the living room. “My damn truc
Lance did not come back to get his son before we left a couple of hours later. I was a little disappointed when I had to switch the sports car back into a truck a few miles outside of the city, when no other vehicles were around. We pulled over and got out, just in case. The last thing I needed was to accidentally attach myself to the vehicle or embed Ben into the engine or something.Once we were back in our proper ride, on our way to Whispering Hollow, Ben reached over and took my hand. “We got lucky back there, you know?”“Why because Lance is a jerk who got what he deserved?” I asked, rubbing my thumb over Ben’s knuckles.“Because he’s a big dude who could’ve tried to do some major damage.”I s
I wanted to go talk to Sam. Even though I was exhausted, my stomach was so full, I felt like I could throw up at any moment, and I had no idea what I might say to him when I found him, I wanted to track him down and get him to talk to me. It had been too long. He hadn’t been here when we returned from France like he was supposed to be. He was meant to greet us at the airport, and even though it had been nice to see Brice, it hadn’t been the same.Now, he was out in the woods somewhere, feeling depressed or angry about the situation with Starla, maybe both, and there was nothing I could do to help him.Or was there? I wouldn’t know until I got a chance to find him.I looked at Ben, an unasked question in my eyes as I studied his face. He gave me a single nod, and for once, I had an inkling as to wha
“What happened, Sam?” I prompted, my hand sliding up his arm to rest on his massive shoulder. I thought about wrapping my arm around him, but it wasn’t quite long enough to reach when we were sitting like this, and I wasn’t going to get any closer to him than that.He slowly shook his head. “It’s hard to say,” he said, his voice a growl of a whisper. I didn’t press him to say more, so I waited patiently while he decided what he was going to say. “I wanted to marry her, I really did. When I left for Vegas, I thought that we were doing the right thing. Sure, we’re young, but when you know someone is your soulmate, I don’t know what difference it makes, you know? It’s not like I’m ever going to stop loving Starla.”His shoulders slumped forward, heavy with emotion. I
The weekend went by quickly, even though we had three days left of our break. We went back to school Monday morning without having seen much of Starla at all. Raven went up and checked on her several times, bringing her food and even bringing her laundry down to wash it. When we got into the vehicles to head to school Monday morning, I ended up in the back of Ben’s truck next to Starla somehow. Normally, I sat in the front with Ben, but Joshua had raced me, and I’d lost. Melanie insisted on getting in the back with us, instead of just riding with Brice, which made me have to slide over into the middle, right next to Starla.We’ve never been friends, but I’ve been trying my best to get along with her because she is dating Sam, which makes her important to him, and whoever is important to him is important to me. But… when I slid into the center seat, she scooted as close to the
The new girl was all the buzz throughout the day. By the time lunch arrived, it seemed like everyone was talking about Fionna. I couldn’t blame people for being curious about her. She was beautiful, but not in an obvious way. She was interesting looking, that was for certain. I knew very little about her and didn’t have her in any of my classes between art and lunch. Still, when we all sat down to eat, everyone seemed to be looking around to see who she would sit with.Fionna was offered a seat next to Starla at the table she’d been sitting at for most of the school year, with her two best friends and a few guys who played on the basketball team. Fionna looked a little out of place there, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. I tried not to stare at her. After all, it had made me super uncomfortable when I’d looked up in art class and saw her glassy eyes focused
The first day back to school after a long break is usually excruciating, but this Monday seemed to stretch on for weeks. By the time I got to drama class, the last period of the day, I felt like I’d already been in school long enough to have reached graduation.Fionna was not in any of my other classes, and when the bell rang for seventh period, and she hadn’t joined us, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I was so glad that she wouldn’t be in any of my classes other than art. The thought that she might have to change her schedule, like Ben had had to, came to mind, but I had to force it away for my own sanity’s sake. I could make it through one class a day with her, especially since she sat behind me, but any more than that, I might not be able to handle.Brice sat next to me, as usual. Starla was across the room. While Ms. Piper gave
Ms. Piper got up from her desk and rushed to the classroom door to look out. The entire school was black, as far as we could tell, like the electricity had all gone out. There was a row of windows in the classroom, but it was a dark wintry day, so not a lot of sunlight was filtering in. Without the buzz of the overhead lights and the computers we normally heard, it was a little eerie. I looked from Ms. Piper to Brice and then back again. He shrugged, but I could tell he wasn’t alarmed. The teacher, on the other hand, looked as if she didn’t know what to do, but she seemed to think that something was wrong.She stood there for almost a minute, which seemed to take a long time under the circumstances, before her cell phone rang. Ms. Piper pulled it out of her pocket and answered it, tentatively. “Hello?”Of course, all we could hear was he
I pushed the door to Ms. Grover’s classroom open slowly. An eerie blue glow was emanating around the barrier, like something out of a sci-fi movie. The energy was odd, even in the hallway right outside of the door, like something from a horror movie.Once the door was open, I could see what the problem was--sort of. It almost rubbed my eyes, it was so surreal. Everything I was looking at seemed like it couldn’t possibly be real.The room was full of electrical blue charges, fizzling and sizzling around in the air. In the middle of the room, Fionna Flamingo sat at a desk, her hair standing on end, like she’d touched one of those Tesla balls at the science museum. Around her, fifteen or so kids were floating in the air, many of them upside down, all of them with shocked expressions frozen on their faces. They drifted around her, floating u