Hunters of Chaos (4 page)

“Going or staying, Ana!” Nicole called from down the hall.

Staying,
I thought.

M
AYBE
I
WAS HALLUCINATING
. M
AYBE
I'd gotten sick on the plane and this whole thing was some kind of crazy fever dream. What else could possibly have explained the jet sitting in the middle of the school grounds?

I was all set to tell my new roommate that she should probably take me to the nurse, when she walked right up to what I was sure had to be a mirage and knocked on its shimmering metal side.
Thunk thunk thunk.

“You mean to tell me that thing is real?” I said, blinking in disbelief.

Nicole crinkled her perfect nose. “I know, right? I told you this place was sick.”

“And students can actually use it?” For a brief shining moment, I pictured myself hopping in the plane and flying it right back to Ohio, where things made sense.

“Not exactly,” Nicole said, bursting my bubble. She rolled her eyes. “Supposedly it's only for emergencies, and you need all kinds of permission. But I happen to know that Tammy Winston used it last year to fly home and get a nose job. She denies it, of course. Claims she went home for her grandma's funeral, but when she came back her nose was all pointy, like she'd had part of it shaved right off.”

“Hey!” a deep voice shouted from the end of the short runway. “I told you already. This area is off limits unless you are flying somewhere!”

I turned to see a short, olive-skinned man with a scruffy gray beard stalking toward us. His saggy knees, which peeked out of the bottom of a pair of khaki shorts, dimpled with each step, his shoes slapping against the pavement. As he approached, his gaze landed on me, and he stopped short. I watched as his eyes narrowed a bit and he tilted his head. For a moment he almost smiled, as if he'd seen an old friend in an unexpected place. But he quickly shook it off and turned toward Nicole, glaring at her hand, which was still resting on the jet.

Finally she lifted both her hands in the air and backed away until she was standing next to me. “All right, all right. Relax, Antonio. Don't have an aneurysm. I was just showing the new girl your pride and joy.”

Antonio grunted, took a white rag out of his back pocket, and started polishing the spot where Nicole's hand had been. He muttered under his breath in what I think was Italian.

Nicole leaned toward me and whispered, “He's the pilot. He's been here for, like, ever.”

I shot a glance at Antonio. If he had been here for that long, he had to have known my mom. Maybe that's why he'd looked like he recognized me.

Nicole squeezed my arm and shook her head before I could say good-bye to Antonio, or maybe ask him a question about my parents. She pointed at his back and swirled her index finger in a circle near her ear—snarky sign language for,
Don't bother. He's crazy.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the landing strip. “Come on, Ana. I want to show you the stables.”

If I had been drinking anything, I'd have spit it out when she said that. “Stables? As in for horses?”

Nicole just laughed and pinched my cheek as if I were an adorable two-year-old. “Aw, you're so cute,” she said. “You don't know anything!”

After I followed Nicole around some winding pathways lined with flowers, we reached a dark wood structure with an open entryway on either side. I could see rows and rows of horses in separate stalls, some drinking out of buckets of water, some neighing and stomping their hooves. I'd expected it to smell like a gross combo of manure and . . . well, horse, in there, but instead it smelled like freshly cut grass and apples. There was a group of girls in the last stall, crowded around a chestnut-brown mare. The one brushing the horse's mane was wearing a chic riding outfit, right down to the black leather boots.

“Oh my God, Jessica!” Nicole squealed, rushing forward with her arms wide open. “When did you get here?”

Jessica stopped brushing the horse and greeted Nicole with a smile. The two of them hugged and made kissing sounds on either side of the other girl's face, though their lips never made actual contact. “Just got here this morning,” Jessica said, tucking a loose strand of auburn hair behind her ear. “But Mother insisted that I get in some riding practice right away. You know how it is.”

“Do I,” Nicole answered. “My mom had me get here two weeks ago so I could prep for classes before they even started.”

“Nightmare,” declared a girl with dark brown skin and round, expressive eyes. As she wrapped one of her black hair twists around her finger, she shook her head as if the thought of getting to school two weeks early was the worst thing she could imagine. She wore a white knit jumpsuit that I was pretty sure I'd seen Rihanna wear once on the cover of
Teen Vogue
.

Nicole shrugged. “It isn't so bad now that my new roomie is finally here. Ladies”—she put her hand on my back and prodded me forward—“meet Ana.”

I noticed that the other girls took a beat before reacting, as if they were waiting for a cue from Nicole. But after she smiled, they did too, and crowded closer, introducing themselves and shooting all kinds of questions at me. Where was I from? What did my parents do? Where did I spend my summers? I wasn't sure how to answer. I had a feeling that telling them I spent my summers in Ohio taking swimming classes at the Y and going to museums with my aunt and uncle wouldn't exactly impress. Before I could figure out how to respond, a petite brunette with sharp features who'd been standing in the back came forward, cradling a Chihuahua in a pink, rhinestone-encrusted collar. Nicole gave my shoulder a subtle nudge and rubbed the side of her nose as if she was scratching an itch. But her sly smile let me know that the brunette was none other than Tammy Winston.

“Forget where you spend your summers,” Tammy said with a slight Southern twang. “I want to know where you got that skirt. It's gorgeous. Is it vintage?”

I shot Nicole a nervous look. “Oh, this?” I said, smoothing my now sweaty palms over the smooth fabric. “Actually, Nicole—”

“—asked her the same thing when I saw it,” Nicole broke in. “But duh, of course it's from the new Vivienne Westwood collection.”

The rest of the girls regarded me with renewed interest. “Good taste,” Tammy said. “I might just have to go raid your closet now.”

I swallowed the lump that instantly formed in my throat. If she raided my pathetic side of the closet, the jig would most definitely be up.

“Sorry, Tammy,” Nicole said in a singsong voice. “No time for that right now. My new bestie and I have a campus tour to finish. See you girls later, m'kay? Ciao.”

Nicole spun on her heel and strutted out of the stable, her bouncy blond hair swinging behind her. She didn't even glance backward, but I knew she wanted me to follow her. I turned awkwardly to the group. “Um, it was nice meeting all of you.”

Jessica, who had gone back to brushing her horse's mane, smiled and said, “You too. Welcome to Temple, Ana.”

I caught up to Nicole just outside the stables. “Hey, thanks for saving me back there,” I said. “You didn't have to.”

“Are you kidding?” Nicole answered, slowing her pace a bit. “Ana, those girls are piranhas. If they'd known you were rocking my hand-me-downs, they'd have chewed you up and spit you out.”

“I . . . really? I don't know. They didn't seem that bad to me.”

“You'll have to trust me on this one,” Nicole said. “You're lucky I was there. I mean, Jessica's okay, considering. . . .”

“Considering what?”

Nicole finally broke her stride and faced me. “Well,” she said, taking a quick peek over her shoulder then leaning toward me with big blue eyes. “You didn't hear this from me, but Jessica's only at this school because back home she was way too boy crazy. So her parents figured how much trouble could she get into at an all-girls school in the middle of the desert, you know? Good thing her family is loaded, because she's not the brightest bulb in the box.”

“Oh,” I said dumbly. I thought back to how happy Nicole had seemed to see Jessica—the hug, the air kisses. Had that all been an act?

“And Tanya,” she went on, talking about the girl in the white jumpsuit, “her mom used to be a model. But you would never know it looking at her, am I right?”

“I don't know. I thought she was pretty.”

Nicole made a huffing sound. “With those pores?”

It went on like that as she continued to show me around the school. Every time we passed someone, Nicole introduced her as a close friend and then whispered a piece of gossip about her as soon as she was out of earshot. Already I knew that Maria's parents, both high-powered lawyers, were going through a messy divorce. Sindu had been adopted. Tracy had gotten caught cheating on a test once and had almost been kicked out of Temple. Diane's family was rich only because her dad had won the lottery, which is why she had such awful taste in clothes, according to Nicole.

The whole time she spoke, I stayed quiet. Maybe it was corny, but Aunt Teppy had always told me not to say anything behind someone's back that you wouldn't say to her face. But Nicole clearly didn't feel that way. I considered calling her out on how mean she was being. But then I remembered how nice she had been to me all day, how she had lent me her clothes and let everyone believe they were mine. She couldn't be all bad. Besides, if the other girls really were piranhas like she said, maybe it was good that my new “bestie” was a shark. How lost would I have felt without her?

So I tuned out the gossip and just focused on the gorgeous place I'd be living for the next school year. In addition to the horse stables and the jet, there was an Olympic-size pool, an outdoor track, a kennel for students' pets, hiking trails, and tennis courts. Even the cafeteria looked more like a five-star restaurant. Had my mom and dad really gone here? And had they actually fit in? I doubted that I ever would.

Nicole was about to show me the library when Katy Perry's voice sang out from her pocket, and she whipped out a smartphone. “
Bonjour,
” Nicole answered. After a pause, her eyes went round and her mouth dropped open as if she'd just heard something especially juicy. “Shut. Up. Oh my God, she didn't!” she cried. “Tell me
every
thing.”

I slowly drifted away from Nicole, figuring she'd come find me when she was done. I wandered around the back of the library, past a row of trees, and came to a wide grassy field opposite a set of metal risers. A group of girls sat on the highest row with books open on their laps. I was wondering what they could be studying since classes hadn't started yet when a male voice shouted, “Watch out!”

I turned in the direction of the voice and saw a small orange ball hurtling toward my head. Without even thinking, I shot my hand up and caught it.

“Nice catch,” the boy who'd shouted said.

Wait—the
boy
? What was a boy doing here?
An extremely cute boy.

He seemed to be around my age and had unblemished golden skin and sun-streaked blond hair, neatly trimmed to frame his thin face. His eyes were a color I couldn't quite define—some mixture of blue and green—and his smile was easy and sincere.
Whoa,
I thought, feeling my knees buckle. I'd thought the jet would be the most amazing thing I'd see all day, but I guess I was wrong.

“You've got good reflexes,” he said. “Have you thought about going out for the lacrosse team?” I must have been staring at him in a strange way, because he furrowed his brows at me. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to.” I shook my head and handed him the lacrosse ball. “It's just, I wasn't expecting to see any boys here. Isn't this an all-girls school?”

“Oh, that,” he said. “You must be new. You've met Principal Ferris, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, she's my mom. We live here. Since my mother's the principal, I have special permission to go to Temple. The public school at the far end of the valley lets me play on their boys' teams. I'm Jason, by the way.” He stuck the lacrosse ball under his left arm and reached out to shake my hand. As soon as my palm touched his, the girls in the bleachers stirred. When I turned to look, I caught them ogling us for a second, and then they all bowed their heads and started flipping pages—all except for one pretty Asian girl who sat with her back straight and her head held high. We locked eyes as if she were daring me to a staring contest. I lost.
Oh, now I get it,
I thought as I blinked and turned away. They were studying, all right. They just weren't studying books. From their spot on the risers, they had a perfect view of Jason as he practiced tossing lacrosse balls into the net.

“I'm Ana Cetzal,” I said, focusing on Jason and doing my best to ignore our audience. “And you're right—I am new. I just got here today, actually. My roommate has been showing me around.”

Jason started tossing the orange ball from hand to hand. “Too bad,” he said. “I was just about to offer to do that.”

He smiled, and my heart fluttered in my chest like a strip of paper in a breeze. No wonder the bleacher girls were openly stalking him. As the only boy at Temple, he probably got plenty of looks. But he also happened to be completely crush-worthy, turning those looks into stares.

And I had to admit he had my total attention. I almost told him he was free to give me the rest of the tour since my guide had gotten sidetracked. But just as I opened my mouth, Nicole came running up, slightly out of breath.

“There you are!” she cried.

And here's the part where the cute guy becomes entranced by Marilyn Monroe, and the potato farmer disappears into the background
. But when Jason saw Nicole approaching, he scowled.