Spellcaster (31 page)

“Still! That could have gone wrong in
so
many ways… .” Angelique trailed off, biting her lip. She shook her head, and when she spoke, she was much calmer. “Okay, it’s not the end of the world. I have to be honest, I’m just really tired and a little cross. When Randi said the spell was fatiguing, I didn’t know she meant I’d feel like I just pulled an all-nighter.”

“Was the spell a mistake? Should we undo it?” I asked hesitantly. I didn’t want to lose my superpowers, but I also didn’t want to cause Angelique any distress.

“No, it’s fine,” she said quickly, picking at the bits of black lace that stuck out of the tulle underneath her plaid skirt. “Randi’s just lounging around in bed all day, watching reality television while I get to go to school,” she added bitterly. “She keeps texting me and gloating. It’s annoying.”

“Has anyone else texted you?” I asked, and she shook her head, knowing who I was talking about.

“No, which is weird—and completely out of character.” Angelique shook her head, bewildered. “I figured she’d be badgering the hell out of me, but I haven’t heard anything from her beyond a text that said, ‘You’ll know where to go by the end of the school day.’”

“Maybe she got into trouble for being a douchebaguette and had her phone taken away from her,” I said hopefully, but Angelique shook her head.

“Please, her family is so far up her sister Jenna’s ass, when she yawns you see them waving,” Angelique snorted. “They wouldn’t notice Megan if she set their apartment on fire.”

“Oh, great. That has me reassured for tonight,” I said dryly.

“Well, it’s just more of a reason to be prepared,” Angelique said. “So, let’s go over it again. Tell me what you’re going to do.”

We sat there for the rest of the lunch period, rehearsing what I was going to do that night until I had everything down cold. If I paid this much attention in Latin, I’d be fluent in the language that no one speaks anymore. I was as confident as could be by the time chemistry started, but when I met Angelique in the quad after our last class my nerves had made a triumphant comeback.

“I haven’t heard a thing from Megan,” Angelique said, shaking her cell phone as if a text message from Megan were somehow stuck in the phone and she could dislodge it.

“Great.” I sighed.
She probably wants to spring some big surprise on us.
“Well, I’m going downstairs to grab my stuff. I guess we’ll just go over to your house and wait. We’ll hear from her eventually, I’m sure.”

I told Angelique I’d meet her back in the quad, and she headed up to her locker on the brightly lit third floor, that lucky witch. The rubber soles of my Mary Janes didn’t make much noise on the stairs as I headed down the staircase to my locker. I was expecting to just grab the books I’d need for the break, and the little bag I’d stashed in my locker with a change of clothing for tonight and a few other essentials.

I sure didn’t expect to find Kristin Thorn standing in front of my locker, trying to cram a thickly folded piece of paper in the metal slots on the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I barked, dropping my heavy backpack on the floor with a
thud,
and Kristin’s body jerked back, surprised by my appearance. For a second, she looked apprehensive—and then her cool, bitchy demeanor returned.

“Don’t talk to me like that, loser,” she snapped. My eyes darted to the emergency exit—it was mercifully shut. During the winter dance, she’d left it open to allow Anthony in. My eyes scanned the basement—it appeared that we were alone in the narrow, locker-lined hallway.

“Putting another one of your nasty little notes in my locker?” I stomped up to her, surprising her by snatching the wadded-up note out of her hands.

“Give me that back,” Kristin demanded in her nasal voice, trying to grab it from me. I put the palm of my hand on her forehead and held my arm straight, holding her back as Kristin’s arms flailed about wildly, trying to hit me. Her fingertips grazed my white shirt, missing my torso by mere centimeters. It was the ultimate move in a game of keep-away, one my brother, Ethan, had perfected anytime I’d discover one of my dolls in his room. They were usually half-dressed, too, the little hormone machine.

“I said, give it back!” Kristin ordered frantically, and I just laughed as I shook the note open with my free hand.

“What does this one say, Kristin? Is this one spelled correctly for once?” I was no stranger to getting cruel little missives in my locker from Kristin and her sycophants. The very first note I got after Brendan and I went public as a couple called me a slut.
Creative.
At the time, it’d hurt—a
lot
—but I’d developed a pretty thick skin since then. I had to: I’d gotten quite a few nasty little notes in the past four months, and usually just crumpled them up and threw them out. It’s hard to take someone seriously when they leave you a note saying, “Your ugly.” My ugly what? The idiot didn’t even know the difference between
your
and
you’re.

“Give it to me!” she whined, her arms flailing about.
I’d love to give it to you. Right in your orange face.

“I will after I read your latest pearl of wisdom.” I smirked. I
never
struck back at Kristin as much as I did at this moment—and in the back of my mind, I knew my triple shot of witchiness was fueling my retaliation—but I didn’t care. I really just didn’t care. She deserved it, and it wasn’t merely my new, bolder side speaking.

I stared down at the note, and then my evil little grin faded. There were instructions to go to an alley between two buildings in Hell’s Kitchen, and then this:

Go up the fire escape. Meet Megan on the roof at 9. Bring her knife.

My palm was still on Kristin’s forehead, holding her away from me. I bent my elbow and shoved her back. Kristin stumbled a few feet and hit her back against the lockers.

“That hurt!” she cried, her hand massaging her shoulder. “I’m telling Casey.”

“You’re lucky that’s all I did,” I seethed, clutching the note tightly in my hand. “So this is all
your
doing? You’re the one who sent Megan after us?”

“She only asked me to leave you this note,” Kristin said nervously.

“And steal Brendan’s headphones, and plant baby powder in his locker, and tell her my class schedule so she could attack me in the park!” I ticked off her crimes, and she flinched at each one. But when I mentioned the Cloisters, Kristin looked at me blankly, her glitter-lined eyes more vacant than usual. “What are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” I growled, taking another step forward. Kristin paled—as pale as she could get with that ridiculous fake tan—and slid down the row of lockers away from me. Then her pompous demeanor returned. She folded her arms and stood stiffly, sticking her hip out.

“Whatever, Emma. You’re a loser and just making things up. You’re just a trashbag and a freak,” she scoffed, striding the few steps she’d retreated to challenge me, a smug grin plastered on her pastel pink lips. “Brendan will see that soon enough.”

I threw my hands in the air and exhaled noisily. “Seriously, Kristin? Again with the Brendan? You sweat my boyfriend so hard, I’m amazed you haven’t died of dehydration.”

She rolled her eyes, turning up her nose at me. The diamond piercing in her nostril twinkled like it was winking at me. “You think you’re like,
so
witty.”

“I’ve had it with you, Kristin,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Because of you, Anthony almost killed me
and
Brendan.” She flinched when I said that. “Never mind that he left you with a nice bloody nose, or did you forget that?”

“He wouldn’t have killed—”

“You weren’t there,” I shouted, stepping closer to her. “Then, you send Megan after us? You put my cousin in the hospital?”

Kristin’s pale brows pulled together in confusion. “What do you mean, put Ashley in the hospital?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, you fake-tanned, nacho-colored bitch!” I took a step closer to her with every word, and Kristin retreated as I advanced, until her back hit the lockers.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Kristin insisted, stomping her foot on the ground in a last display of bravado before looking at me anxiously. I probably looked like I could rip her head off. I sure
felt
like I could. I
wanted
to. “I’m just delivering a note.”

“Fine, message delivered. Now here’s a message for you,” I said coldly, my eyes narrowed into slits as I stared at her. “This ends now. And if you continue your little campaign to ruin my life, and the lives of those I love, I
will
make your life a living hell.”

Kristin laughed, her baby-pink glossed lips turned up in a sneer. “Get over yourself, loser. What else do you need to prove that I’m untouchable? Like, what could
you
possibly do to me?”

“You really want to know what I could do?” I asked, taking a step back as I interlocked my hands, stretching them out until my knuckles cracked. The corner of my mouth turned up in a smirk.
This is going to be so much fun.
I knew I was about to cross a line. I was about to do cartwheels over the line, waving pom-poms in the air victoriously. And I didn’t care.

“Oh, what, are you going to hit me?” she asked, her voice wavering nervously as she looked behind me. I was blocking the exit. I ran over the words from the spell I’d read in Randi’s grimoire—the spell I’d wanted to forget but stuck in my head as if I’d had Angelique’s photographic memory.

Kristin continued to rail against me. She was too busy hurling words like
loser,
trash
and her perennial favorite,
slut,
at me, that she didn’t even notice that I’d whispered, “Give the illusion that we’re in a fire, fill her sight with a burning pyre.”

My palms pricked with heat, and my grip on the note I’d been holding loosened. It slipped out of my palm, twisting with red and yellow flares as it fell, exploding in a ball of fire as it ricocheted off the tip of my shoe.

Kristin shrank against the lockers, panic pinching her face as she stared at the flames spreading in a perfect circle around me.

“You’re a witch!” Kristin screamed, her face screwed up in terror. “You’re just like Megan and that freak Angelique!”

I stepped through the ring of fire as easily as I’d step over a puddle in the street, as the imaginary flames appeared to seize my legs and crawl up my skirt. I stood a few yards before Kristin and cocked my head, holding out my hand as blue-and-orange flames danced across my palm, tickling my skin.

“Aw, do you really want to call us freaks?” I cooed, and pretended to blow her a kiss. The blue flames fluttered like leaves off my palm and hit the floor mere feet from her, bursting into a colorful explosion of heat and fire. The blaze spread—the blustery noise of a raging fire filling the small hallway as flickering crimson-and-orange tongues licked at the lockers lining the walls. The flames spread behind Kristin to block the emergency exit, causing the red paint to bubble and warp under the force of the imagined heat.

“I think it’s time you apologized to me,” I purred calmly, picking an imaginary piece of lint off my shoulder. I inspected the fake lint before flicking it off my fingertip, another tiny fireball that rolled down the hallway, leaving a trail of flame in its wake.

“Fine! I’m sorry!” Kristin cried, her eyeliner mixing with her tears and leaving glittery streaks down her face.

“And you’ll never do it again,” I trilled in a singsong voice, rocking back and forth on my heels.
This is more fun than a trip to Disney.

“Never! I swear!” she cried, shutting her eyes and holding her hands out against the imaginary inferno, which raged around her.

“Ooo-kay,” I said doubtfully. “I don’t think you deserve a second chance, so remember this when you want to piss me off.”

“I’ll leave you alone, I swear,” Kristin sobbed. I considered making her get on her knees to beg me for forgiveness when I heard a gasp behind me.

I whirled around to see Cisco standing at the base of the stairs, one hand holding my math notebook and the other white-knuckled as it gripped the banister.

“What. Is. Going. On?” Cisco whispered, taking a deep breath in between each word as he stared at me, his face a mix of horror and disgust. Then his eyes shifted to Kristin, reminding me about the girl cowering against the lockers. I whirled around—Kristin’s hands clenched white-streaked locks of hair at her temples as she screwed her eyes shut against the horrific sight in front of her. And I was ashamed. Just four months ago, I’d been terrorized by Anthony in the same spot. And now I was doing it to her. Gleefully.

Who are you, Emma? This isn’t you.

I stepped away from her, choking back the metallic taste of bile. I was disgusted and heartbroken by my own shameless behavior. “Restore her sight, break the illusion. Extinguish the fire, restore her vision,” I whispered. I could have shouted it—Kristin wouldn’t have heard me over her weeping, or the roaring of the raging fake inferno. With a subtle hiss, the flames melted into the floor, pools of orange-and-red swirls slithering like liquid mercury into the cracks in the concrete.