Matt Archer: Legend (5 page)

On Monday morning, I stared glumly into my locker, looking
for the motivation to go to English. We were studying
The Scarlet Letter
and I couldn’t think of anything less interesting than a bunch of colonists
blathering about a woman who got knocked up. My bad mood was intensified by Mamie’s
departure back to Helena. Already feeling hollow and discouraged at facing another
week at school, I shoved my books into my backpack without enthusiasm and
closed my locker door, wishing Mom would relent and let me move to D.C. There
wasn’t much left for me here. The “real world” had faded to a dull gray and I
realized with a start that the only time I felt alive anymore was while on the
hunt.

Not sure I liked what that said about me, I started toward
class. Will met me, wearing the predatory smile I’d come to recognize as
“that’s my next girlfriend, bro.” He pointed down the hall. “Who’s the new
girl?”

I turned to catch a glimpse of a tiny girl with curly
golden-brown hair and the most gorgeous brown eyes I’d ever seen. Seriously,
her eyes rivaled Ella’s and I couldn’t give higher praise than that. Except
where Ella was tall with an athletic build, this girl was as delicate as a
living, breathing china doll.

I turned to Will, frowning. “Dude, really? She’s barely five
feet tall, and if she weighs more than ninety pounds soaking wet, I’d be
shocked. You’d break her inside of two minutes.”

“Maybe she needs a big, strong guy to protect her,” he said,
standing taller. “Watch and learn.”

I dropped my face into my hands, but couldn’t make myself
look away, so I peeked between my fingers to see how this went down.

Will sauntered up to the girl. “Hey. I’m Will, head of the
new student welcome association. Need some help finding your next class?”

She craned her neck to look up at him. “Good Lord, they make
‘em big in Billings.”

My best friend, being a jackwagon of the first order, flexed
his biceps by crossing his arms across his wide chest. “In more ways than one.”

Pixie-girl rolled her eyes skyward. “Well, that’s good to
know.” She started to walk away, but Will trailed along behind, which elicited
a very annoyed sigh. “Look, big guy, I don’t take in strays, so stop trying to
follow me home.”

That did it; I cracked up. If I had any cash on me, I’d lay
twenty that Will was about to crash and burn for the very first time.

She stopped right in front of me. “You got a problem, too?”

I choked back another laugh. “No…I’m just enjoying watching
my best friend make a fool of himself.”

“You belong with this one?”

I glanced at Will, who looked pretty shocked by her reaction
to his charms. “Unfortunately.”

She nodded. “Figures…you’re ginormous, too. Well, y’all can
move along. I’m competent enough to find my class without a guard dog.”

“Wait,” Will said as she made her way down the hall. “I
didn’t get your name.”

Without glancing back, she said, “Just so long as you
promise not to follow me…it’s Penn. Penn Stoyer.”

Will followed her a few steps. “Penn? That’s unusual.”

“It’s short for Penelope.” Penn paused and turned to point a
finger at him. “But if you ever call me Penelope, you’re dead to me.”

She started down the hall again and made it about ten yards
before Will called, “At least tell me where you’re from? I can’t place that
accent.”

Penn threw her hands up. “Oklahoma. Now,
Giant-Will-from-Billings, please excuse me. I’d hate to be late on my first
day.”

Then she disappeared into the crowd.

Will stood stunned, his jaw slack and I grinned. “That was
awesome
.
I’ve never seen a girl shoot you down like that.”

“Listen close,” he said, his voice reverent. “I’m swearing
off all other girls until Penn agrees to go out with me. That girl is my
Everest.”

“I know you like a challenge, but you might be getting ahead
of yourself. People
die
trying to climb Everest,” I said. “Look, you
don’t even know her. What if she’s not actually worth the effort?”

“Oh, she’s worth it. I can just tell.” He grinned at me. “How
long do you think it’ll take for me to convince her to say yes?”

“Last time I checked, a woman has to like you enough to talk
to you as a pre-requisite to scoring a date. Come on, we need to go,” I said.
When he didn’t move, I shoved him. “You’re going to be late for first period,
Mr. Romance.”

I steered him toward his Chemistry class, then I went on to
English thinking Penn Stoyer might be the very best thing ever to happen to
Will.

Super-power failures were character building.

* * *

My C in History would be hard to explain to Mom when report
cards came out, but the reason for it was clear. Ella sat two rows over, in the
perfect spot for me to stare as the fluorescent lights caught the highlights in
her auburn hair. Today it was pulled back into a ponytail, and I swore I could
smell her vanilla shampoo from nine feet away. Then there was the awkward
moment when I met her eye for the first time after my not-drunk-dial. With that
kind of distraction, who could concentrate on a lecture over the
Mexican-American war?

Just seeing her was like being stabbed in the guts by a dart
of ice. I knew pain: I’d been slashed open, suffered broken bones, had fallen
off cliffs and out of trees. I knew grief: men had died protecting me and
children had died because I hadn’t been fast enough to save them. This pain?
The kind of pain where your heart’s been ripped out and is walking around on
someone else’s sleeve? Pretty freaking unbearable.

Once, about halfway through class, Ella looked back at me.
Even now, after everything, those green eyes held me captive. She broke eye contact
first, and it was like being abandoned all over again, especially since I knew
she still cared about me. I glared down at my desktop, wishing I could cut
myself free from Tink for a little while, but that was impossible. Maybe Will
was right; maybe I needed to find a new girl and snap out of this funk. But
even if Tink would let me, how could I date someone else when I couldn’t erase
the thought of Ella from my brain?

Better that you focus on the job
, Tink said.
Girls
only serve to distract you.

I glared at my desktop, wondering how she knew what I was
thinking since I didn’t say anything aloud. Probably because I’d been staring
at Ella for the last twenty minutes. Tink liked to lecture me at school—because
she knew I couldn’t argue for fear of looking crazy for talking to myself in
the middle of class. So my retort of, “You’re a girl and what are you doing
right now, if not distracting me?” went unsaid. But I clenched my fists under
my desk, hoping she would get the message and shut up.

The bell rang and I left as
quickly as I could, having absorbed no new knowledge in the last fifty-five
minutes. I pushed my way into the crush of people in the hallway, determined
not to make eye contact with Ella again. Walking fast, with my head down, I
collided with a girl. I didn’t even see her standing there, and I bumped her so
hard that her books spilled across the floor in a sweeping arc. Without even
looking up, I ducked to help pick up the mess, mumbling, “sorry about that.”

“No worries,” a sultry voice
said. “You looked preoccupied.”

I tilted my chin up, coming
face-to-face with Sami Webber—aka, the reason God created cheerleader uniforms.
Blond, gorgeous and built in a way only Michelangelo could duplicate, she was
the lone girl who ever made Ella jealous. Sami’s crush on me had been a sore
subject with her last spring. The funny thing? I hadn’t even noticed Sami’s
attention until Ella mentioned it.

Well, I noticed Sami now. It
was very hard to ignore the way she was bending to get her books
…
giving me a
prime view down the front of her top while her mini-skirt rode high across her
thighs. She seemed to be doing that on purpose, covering—or,
uncovering—her
bases to make sure I saw what most interested me.

It worked.

Somehow I choked out, “I
wasn’t looking where I was going. Really sorry.”

I grabbed her last book and
stood. Sami smiled up at me, telling me she knew more than she let on about
…
well,
everything.

Sami brushed a strand of
blond hair off her shoulders, her eyes crinkled at the corners. “It’s not a big
deal. Thanks for helping me with my books.” She took a few steps closer, until
I was pressed against the wall and she was mere inches away.

My body went
core-of-the-earth hot. Yeah, her crush was still alive and well and right in my
face. “Um, you’re welcome.”

Sami ran a manicured
fingernail across my chest. “Nice shirt. Blue’s a good color on you.”

Danger, danger, meltdown in
progress. I had to get out of here. Sami was cute, but not my type; I needed to
get away before I did something stupid.

I was about to say thanks and
try to move on, but a flash of auburn caught in my peripheral vision. I turned
to spy Ella watching us with a weary expression on her face. That one glance
lit a fire in my gut, flaming up every bit of anger and frustration I’d carried
the last four months.

To hell with types. Will was
right—it was time to forget.

I handed Sami her books. “So,
Sami, I was wondering
…
.you doing anything this Saturday?”

Sami’s smile went from
mysterious to promising. Really, really promising. “Not yet.”

Refusing to look Ella’s
direction, I said, “Good. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

* * *

The rest of the week went by like a funeral dirge.
Ella wouldn’t look at me in History after that. She
wasn’t rude or anything, just…resigned. In truth, I regretted asking Sami out,
but I forgot that every time she showed up at my locker to flirt. If anyone had
asked me two years ago if I thought a hot cheerleader would be hanging all over
me in the halls, I would’ve laughed. Now whenever Sami appeared, always wearing
something that hugged her figure like a second skin, I became brain-dead. I
followed blindly— nodding, smiling, drooling—in her wake. Her shampoo smelled
like roses; I forced myself to forget that I preferred vanilla.

Still, a hard kernel of
doubt, and guilt if I was honest about it, lurked in my chest when I stared at
the back of Ella’s head every afternoon. Worse, I felt a little bit justified
for showing Ella I was moving on, and that pissed me off, too.

Making things even more
uncomfortable, every time I let Sami pull me into a hug in the hallway at
school, the knife-spirit grumbled in my mind. Tink hadn’t snapped me in the
forehead like a bad dog yet, but I kept tensing up whenever Sami was around
just in case. So far, though, all I got were grating tirades about my inability
to behave properly.

Teenagers,
she griped after Sami left me grinning
like a fool in the hallway on Thursday.
No control whatsoever. I should’ve
adjusted your hormone balance while speeding up your growth, but the others
were worried that would cause issues.

I stuck my head inside my locker so no one would hear me
ask, “What others?”

My brothers. They think they know more about the ways of
men and told me to back off. It seems silly that they’d claim to be the experts
about you since we’re not human, but whatever.

I choked back a laugh. “‘But
whatever
?’ Where’d you
pick that up?”

Where do you think? I’m trying to learn your language, er…dude?

“No. Uh-uh. No calling me dude.”

She sighed.
Fine…Matthew.

Growling inside my head, I went to class feeling like a
cosmic joke. I got all the nagging of a girlfriend on the inside, but none of
the benefits of having a real girlfriend on the outside.

And I wasn’t the only one having trouble.

On Friday, I caught Will trying to talk Penn into sitting
with us at lunch—for the fifth day in a row.

“I don’t bite,” he was saying to her when I passed by.
“Unless you ask.”

Tiny Penn put her tray down on the closest table and stood
toe-to-toe with Will. Her head came up to the middle of his chest, but anybody
watching had no doubt that she had the upper hand.

“Oh, great, I can’t even say ‘bite me’ without encouraging
you,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Look, giant-Will-from-Billings, I had to
move here in the middle of my junior year, leaving all my friends behind
because my dad got a promotion. It sucks, okay? I’m running on empty right now
and I need some space. Please attempt to understand.”

With that, she grabbed her tray and hurried to the far side
of the cafeteria.

I followed Will to our regular table. “You know, I feel kind
of bad for her.”

“Yeah, but all I want to do is talk to her.” Will flopped
into his seat. “If she gets to know me a little bit, maybe she’ll like what she
sees, right? Then moving here wouldn’t suck so bad.”

“And maybe you’re trying too hard,” I said, picking at the
grey slab of mystery meat the cafeteria was passing off as meatloaf. I thought
about taking a whiff to see if it was really made out of road kill, but some
things were best left unexamined.

Will huffed out a breath. “Who knows. By the way—cheerleader
inbound, two o’clock.”

I turned to see Sami heading over to our table. She smiled
and waved when she caught me looking and I half-smiled in return.

“Hey, guys.” She leaned against our table, giving Will and
me what I thought was an intentional look down her shirt. “I can’t wait for our
date tomorrow night.”