Maybe I should get a mean girl ticket system. Now serving Mean Girl 236. Please be sure to have all your insults in order before coming to the window.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Sam announces plainly. “I’m not trying to get back with Connor. He’s all yours.”
“What?” I yelp, followed by me tripping over my own feet. Thankfully, she grabs my arm before I face-plant. I flash her an awkward smile, and my voice climbs several octaves. “Friends. Connor and I are just friends. You…I…uh, rumors not true. Remember?”
Sam rolls her lips and presses them tightly together, but her eyes definitely say she’s laughing at me.This is not how I expected this to go.
After a halting breath, she replies, “I’ve known Connor for a long time. Whatever you are to each other is your business, but…well, let’s just say you have to be pretty special for Connor to risk showing he cares. And it’s obvious he cares about you.” She eyeballs the leather jacket. “They all seem to.”
I feel like I’m experiencing mental whiplash from the extreme change in direction I thought this conversation would go in. While my mind swims, the damn butterflies go into overdrive in my stomach, and I have to physically press a hand to my belly to quiet the little buggers.
“I care about them too…a lot,” I admit, the words soft on my tongue.
“Good,” she affirms, bracing her hand on the door that leads into the cafeteria. “Because for the first time in a long time, we have an Alpha that gives a shit. If you hurt him, directly or through the guys, I will have to kill you. He’s suffered enough for one lifetime.”
“Agreed,” I concede, which startles her enough to look at me.
“He told you?” Her voice shakes, and I think for the first time she isn’t just looking at me, but seeing me.
I let my shadows float to the surface, my past bleed into my gaze, and answer, “He didn’t have to.”
For a moment, she absorbs what I show her, her gaze flicking over me, reassessing. “He said you were different.”
I snort. “That’s an understatement.”
She looks like she’s going to ask more, then shakes her head with a humored smirk, before pushing the door to the cafeteria open. A door that promptly slams into a group of guys loitering on the other side.
When one of them looks like he’s going to say something, she glares him down, with her chin jutted forward and a growl of warning in her throat. His eyes widen, and he puts his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. When she seems satisfied that he won’t do anything, Sam continues to escort me to U.S. History.
“You’re kind of scary, you know that?” I comment with a breathy laugh.
“Thanks,” she chirps with a grin, then escorts me the rest of the way to class.
Chapter 6
Callie
After school, I climb into the passenger seat of Mildred’s black Mercedes, nervous that she’s going to ask how my day went. The answer is not great. Like, I have a roll of condoms with “Slut” written in sharpie on each one in my backpack bad. I was barely able to rip them off my locker door before Donovan saw it and told the others.
“How do you feel about driving lessons today?” she inquires to my utter relief.
“Sure,” I respond, looking around the nice car and fearing what will happen if I scratch it.
“Good. Good,” she murmurs distractedly, her fingers tapping out a short pattern on the steering wheel. “We have to go do something first.”
On closer inspection, I realize I’m not the only one who’s nervous, which makes me even more edgy. “What’s going on?”
She sighs. “Our presence has been requested by the coven. If we don’t comply, Neva has hinted that she may have to get the Council involved. I tried to keep you out of it, but the twit insisted.”
My heart pounds at the mention of the Council. They think I’m still with my father. That my magic is still bound. If they knew the truth, there’s no doubt they’d come for me and kill me, because I’m a spirit witch. Just like they killed my mother. At least that’s what Mildred told me. Honestly, I have no idea what happened to her, but I’d rather not test the theory.
“That woman plays a dangerous game,” my aunt seethes as she pulls away from the school. “If a representative of the Council came here, she risks them finding her unfit and revoking their independent status. Something that was hard-won by witches far greater than her.” Under her breath, she mutters, “Willing to throw it all away just to control us.”
I grip the amulet hanging from my neck, the vibrant blue stone now cool to the touch. Another thing that’s different since the binding spell broke. “Do you think she knows the truth?”
Mildred glances at me sharply, before returning her eyes to the road. “No. I don’t think she knows…all that you are, but she isn’t an idiot. In my efforts to convince her to help us in the past, I may have played too much of my hand.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I assure her, not knowing if it’s true, but feeling like I should say it anyway.
