The door jerked open. I watched as Cameron grabbed Noah by the shirt collar and tossed him roughly outside. Noah rolled, but before he could even think about getting to his feet, Cameron slammed him against the brick wall. The few kids that were outside started to gather instantly.
Noah’s eyes didn’t register fear as he struggled against Cameron’s rock-solid hold, but sadness.
I hurried to Cameron’s side. “This is the kid from the Clearing the other day.” Then I looked at Noah. “Noah, why did you grab me?”
“I—I need your help,” he said.
“That’s not a very nice way to ask for it,” I said.
“Lor, really?” Cameron said.
“What?”
“Can you let me handle this?”
“Cameron, he’s a kid.”
Cameron looked back at him. “You’re not a kid, are you?”
Noah’s mouth thinned. “No. I just want to talk to Lorelei. She’s in danger.”
“And you came to warn her by grabbing her throat?”
I stepped closer. “What do you mean, you’re not a kid? Are you a descendant?”
“A descendant?” He seemed almost repulsed by the idea. “No. I just want your help.”
“Cameron,” I said, “this is ridiculous. Let him go.”
“What do you think, Noah? Should I let you go?”
He went still and a smile drifted across his handsome face. “Probably not.”
“Why did you risk coming here?” Cameron asked him.
“To warn you,” he said. “If you don’t stop them, we’re all going to die.”
“Hey!” Coach Chavez was walking toward us, his strides aggressive.
“Damn it,” Cameron said. He looked at Noah hurriedly. “Do you know when?”
“Let go, Lusk.” The coach pushed Cameron off him.
“He was threatening Lorelei,” Cameron said as he let go, and Coach Chavez seemed to calm.
He looked at me. “Did he touch you?”
“No, he just got mad at me.”
“Then you need to file a statement with the counselor. She’ll know what to do from there. You,” he said, looking at Noah, “need to be someplace else.” Thankfully, he didn’t realize Noah wasn’t a student.
Noah headed off, but he turned back and said, “Soon.”
Coach Chavez offered him a warning expression, then pointed in the opposite direction of the school. “You too. Go.”
“Can I get my things?” I pointed inside.
“Hurry.”
I rushed in and gathered the snacks I’d bought, then burst out the door and hurried away. While Cameron’s walk was more like a saunter, unhurried, thoughtful, he caught up to me in only a few steps.
“What was that about?” I asked, looking over my shoulder to make sure Coach Chavez was leaving.
Cameron plucked the MoonPie out of my hands. Then he went for the chocolate milk, and I yanked it back from him.
“Dude, Brooke likes her chocolate milk. Take it and you’re risking my life. Just where the heck have you been?”
He stuffed half the MoonPie in his mouth. “I was eating. I thought you were supposed to stay on the bench. You said you weren’t hungry.”
“I wasn’t.” When he looked at the contents of my arms doubtfully, I added, “I am now. What was that about? Who was that?”
“Noah, apparently.”
“You don’t know him?” When he shook his head, I asked, “Then what is going on?”
“He’s possessed.”
I stopped and stared up at him. “What? You mean, like, with a demon?”
He put his free hand in a pocket. “No, Lor. Not like you. He’s possessed like Brooke was when her parents first brought her to Riley’s Switch, to your grandparents. He’s possessed by a rogue spirit. And he must know things if he came here seeking our help.”
I started forward again. “Then we have to help him. That poor kid.”
“That’s just it,” Cameron said. “I don’t think we were talking to the kid.”
DETENTION
“Nutrition bars?” Brooke moaned as I walked up to her. “Granola? What the heck is up with that?” She grabbed one out of my hand and pointed accusingly. “That machine has Cheetos. I’ve seen them. Orange. Crunchy. How am I supposed to live on this stuff?” I plopped down beside her and let her get it out of her system. After a rant that lasted two whole minutes, she opened the nutrition bar and took a bite. “Strawberry. Yum.”
I sat on the bench beside her in a trance. “You will not believe what just happened.”
“Is that a MoonPie wrapper?” She finally spotted the evidence in Cameron’s hand.
“N-no.”
I handed over her milk before Cameron lost a leg.
“Oh, yes. Milk from my favorite color of cows: brown.”
“Brooke, seriously, you will not believe—”
“I was starving,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t have to revive me. You took, like, forever.”
Ashlee and Glitch walked up then, Ash’s eyes darting around furtively. “Did that kid try to hurt you?”
“What?” Brooke’s gaze bounced back and forth between Ashlee and me. “Who? What happened?” She finally realized I was taken aback. “Lor,” she said, putting a hand on mine, “what happened?”
“That boy from the Clearing. He’s possessed.”
“What boy?” she asked. “That kid in the army jacket?”
I nodded and told her the whole story of what just happened.
“So, what does that mean?” she asked, as clearly disturbed by the idea as I. “Cameron?”
“It means he won’t live much longer with that thing inside him.”
I gasped.
“And it means he knows something. I’ll have to see if the sheriff can find him. Before Vincent does.”
I glanced up in surprise. “Vincent?”
“Did you see his reaction when you mentioned the descendants? There’s no love lost. Did you find an address on Vincent?” he asked Ashlee.
“I’m sorry,” she said, clearly disappointed. “I couldn’t get his file. The cabinets were locked today because Mrs. Terry is out sick.”
“Oh, crap.” I stuffed wrappers in my pockets when I saw Mr. Davis walking toward us. I had no idea why. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
I was so hoping this day would be incident-free.
He turned his big mustache-covered head toward Ashlee. “Ms. Southern, would you mind giving us a minute?”
“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Not at all. I’ll see you later,” she said to Glitch.
He eyed her a long moment. “Oh-kay.”
Maybe he was getting a clue. He turned back to us and shrugged.
“We can do this out here, or I can take you into my office one by one,” Mr. Davis said, his expression grave. “I’m fine with either, but I want to know what happened yesterday.”
Brooke said, “Didn’t the sheriff talk to you?”
His mouth formed a solemn smile, and while it wasn’t actually out of appreciation or humor, it wasn’t harsh or derisive either. It was almost sad. “You kids did a lot of damage yesterday. I don’t even know what to say to the superintendent. To the school board. But one thing I can’t tell them is that you went completely unpunished. One month of after-school detention for all of you, starting today. And that includes Kovach when he comes back.”
“Oh, man,” Glitch said, kicking up dirt.
Brooke stood, indignant. “What? That’s—that’s—”
When Mr. Davis leveled a challenging stare on her, she caved.
“That’s more than fair, Mr. Davis.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cameron said to him. He wasn’t so much challenging Mr. Davis as—and I could hardly believe it—as confiding in him. “And I’m certain Lorelei’s grandparents won’t think so either.”
Mr. Davis stepped forward menacingly. Or at least he menaced me. “Then when you can explain to me
what happened, we’ll talk about it. I’ll be in my office.” He glanced at each of us. “If any of you would like out of ASD.”
After he left, Glitch scoffed at Cameron. “You couldn’t have taken Jared outside where your little wrestling match wouldn’t have caused so much damage?”
Cameron looked down at him. “Why don’t you take some Midol, little man?”
To everyone’s utter surprise, Glitch actually took a swing at Cameron. A swing! Cameron easily sidestepped it, his brows raised as though impressed. But I was not. I ran forward and got in between them. Unfortunately, Glitch was already in the process of trying again. Noble but suicidal.
His fist struck me on the temple, and unlike Cameron, I ate dirt.
In an instant, Cameron had Glitch by the throat and pressed against the wall in a chokehold that was more choke than hold. Brooke and I both ran to him, pulling on his arms.
“Are you psychotic?” Cameron asked him.
But Glitch was just making these gurgling sounds.
“Cameron,” I said in a loud whisper, worried Mr. Davis was still around.
But he didn’t listen to me. Not really a surprise. What did surprise me was when Brooke took her turn at him. “Cameron Lusk, drop him this minute.”
He did. Glitch went down hard. He grabbed his throat and coughed a full minute.
“What are you thinking?” I asked him.
He pushed my hands away, stood, and strode off.
“What has gotten into him?” I asked.
“What has gotten into you?” Brooke asked Cameron.
“He took a swing at me. What did you want me to do?”
“Cameron, you know he can’t hurt you.”
I put a hand on Brooke’s shoulder. “I think that might be the problem.” I strolled to the trash can and started emptying my pockets of trash. “But this is just not the time for these kinds of antics. I’m worried about Glitch.”
“Me too.” She turned and watched him disappear behind the building. “Me too.”
* * *
Maybe I had been accosted one too many times lately. School was beginning to feel more and more like a prison where I didn’t know whom to trust or whom to fear. When I scanned the faces around me, I saw anger. Envy. Excitement. Despair. Jealousy. Distrust. Euphoria. Boredom. All the emotions that ran rampant every minute of every day at every high school across the country—and yet suddenly, I didn’t know anyone. Every emotion was directed at me. Every look of distrust, of anger and jealousy. And I realized I might be a tad egocentric at the moment.
“Okay, I cannot be trusted,” I said as we headed to detention after our last class.
Brooke stopped chewing the granola bar she’d saved and nodded. “Got it,” she said, her words muffled. “Don’t trust you. These things are fantastic.”
By the time we got to detention, all I wanted to do was get back and check on Jared. Instead, I was stuck at school even longer.
Turned out, detention was like prison too, only without uniforms or the constant threat of being shanked. Though Hector Salazar—math geek, chess champion, and all-around overachiever—sat on the opposite side of the room, wearing the angriest scowl on his face I’d ever seen. Maybe shanking was a real possibility after all. He didn’t want to be there any more than I did.
Brooke and I had never been in detention, so we had no idea what to do. Thank goodness Cameron and Glitch had the routine down. They sat at one of the many desks that lined the walls, leaving a space only where the door was and the warden’s desk. Each desk was enclosed on three sides so the students’ backs were to the warden, but allowing the warden to see what the students were doing. That would certainly cut down on note passing.
“I hope I’m not claustrophobic,” Brooke said, sitting at a carrel next to me.
Due to the partition between us, we could see each other only if we leaned back. So, naturally, we leaned back.
“Me too. Now what?”
The moment the words left my mouth, the warden walked in. No, Ms. Mullins walked in. Humiliation burned my cheeks. She now knew my dark secret. My time in the big house was not going as unnoticed as I’d hoped.
“Okay,” she said, her voice a little sharper than usual, “Mr. Gonzales has been detained. Until he gets here, you got me. So get out your homework and get busy.” I figured she had to become a bit harder with us problem students. We were being locked up for a reason.
“You girls better hop to it,” she said to Brooke and me. Pointing us out. Drawing attention our way. We’d be labeled do-gooders in no time. Or worse, snitches. I’d seen enough prison movies to know that was bad.
“Detention or not,” Brooke said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Didn’t you go before we left?”
She ignored me and walked to Ms. Mullins. They spoke for a moment, then Brooke headed out.
“Two minutes,” Ms. Mullins said, her tone edged with warning. She was taking her job as prison warden very seriously.
I dragged out my homework.
“This is ridiculous,” I heard a voice say from the hall. A female voice with a distinctive nasally twang. It was her. The creature.
But …
She walked in accompanied by the saucy click of her heels, clearly appalled at having to be in detention. I couldn’t help but wonder what she did to end up there. What dark path she’d taken, what bad hand fate had dealt her.
But …
She stopped at the warden’s desk. “I was tardy. I’d been at the dentist. Really? That requires after-school detention?”
But she didn’t even come to school this morning. She must have shown up that afternoon. This day just got better and better.
“No, but the five tardy slips before today does. Take a seat, Tabitha, and get out something to work on. You aren’t going anywhere for the next hour.”
After exhaling a sigh that lasted longer than my attention span, she headed to a seat with all the fuss and flourish of a Hollywood starlet. It was the most dramatic entrance I’d seen since the Riley’s Switch rendition of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
I couldn’t help but notice the look of horror on Cameron’s face as he watched her settle in. He wasn’t good with people. If he were, he’d realize his look of horror would be wasted on Tabitha. No look, horrific or otherwise, would faze the creature whose name shall not be spoken aloud.
But she glanced over at us, like she’d been ignoring us but just couldn’t manage it anymore. Her cheeks turned pink. Just barely before she looked away. And in that instant, I felt bad for her.
Not bad enough to offer her solace, but bad.
Glitch leaned over to me. “We can pass notes underneath the partitions.” He wiggled his brows, and I realized he was right. The partitions were just sitting on the desks. Sweet.
Just when I was about to write him, ask him how he’d been since sixth hour, Brooke came back. But not just back. She tore into the room and skidded to a halt by my chair.
“Brooklyn,” Ms. Mullins said, her tone admonishing, but Brooke didn’t seem to notice.
She stood panting with a hand on her chest. “Mr. Davis must have spilled something,” she said before swallowing and trying again. “He’s coming.” The fact that she was out of breath didn’t alarm me. Brooke could be just as melodramatic as Tabitha when she put her crazy little mind to it. It was the look of sheer terror on her face. The genuine fear in her eyes.
A feeling of dread crept over me.
Cameron knelt beside my chair and looked up at her. Glitch cast a quick glance toward Ms. Mullins, then leaned over to listen.
Brooke stopped, forced herself to slow down, and leveled a panicked gaze on me. “Mr. Davis changed ties.”
“What?” I asked, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“It’s red. He’s wearing his red tie.”
Then her meaning sank in. No. That was impossible. It was Wednesday. He only wore his red tie on Fridays. It was tradition, practically an unwritten law. As sure as th
e sun rose each morning, Mr. Davis wore his red tie on Fridays. And then I remembered there were no desks in the middle of the room in my vision. Nothing we could use for cover. All four of us turned to look around the room.
Everyone was staring at us. Ms. Mullins stood and started toward us when Hector stood, turned, and raised a gun. His expression turned into a sneer. I almost fell back in my chair, but Ms. Mullins stepped between us.
Time slowed. I tried to say something, to warn her, but it all happened so fast, I froze, my mind not quite able to absorb the truth of what was happening. My vision was coming true right before my eyes. And I was back in the dream. Shocked and catatonic like a deer in headlights.
But something had changed. Cameron was there, and he hadn’t been in my vision. And unlike me, he did not freeze. He reacted with the decisive speed of a cobra. Before Hector could pull the trigger, Cameron had shoved Ms. Mullins out of the way, but that’s as far as he got before the gun went off.
The sonic boom of gunfire ripped through me, startling me into action. It did the same for Glitch. We both tackled poor Ms. Mullins to the ground as another round was fired. We tumbled to the floor, the eerie sound causing bile to surge hotly into my throat.
While screams of terror filled the room, Brooke rushed toward Cameron. Glitch reached out to grab her but missed. With a curse, he covered Ms. Mullins protectively. I turned to help Cameron as well, and my heart sank when I realized where the bullets were landing. Into Cameron’s chest. Point-blank. One shot after another. Before I could get to my feet, a third shot hit its mark. The blast echoed against the walls as Cameron finally stumbled back, grabbing his chest in pain.
Hector walked forward, each step full of purpose, full of malicious intent, the gun held steady, a smirk in place. He clearly thought he had Cameron beat. He clearly didn’t know Cameron.
Another shot. This time, Cameron didn’t stumble. With a speed too quick for my eyes to register, in a single movement too smooth for my mind to comprehend, Cameron lunged forward, knocked the gun aside, and twisted the boy’s head around. The next sound to meet my ears was the sharp crack of a neck being broken, and Hector slumped to the ground in a heap of torso and limbs.
In the next instant, Brooke was on Cameron. He caught her to him, used her for support as he fell to his knees first. But she was little use when he collapsed all the way to the floor. I got to them as quickly as I could. He groaned with the pain that etched his face, that welded his teeth shut.