AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He sighed and headed toward Ms. Vickers’s door.
As he moved past the new girl, he caught her scent, something sweet with a spicy kick to it, cinnamon over apples.
She was still watching him. “Like what you see?”
She said it boldly, but not cattily. Like a genuine question—without any doubt of the answer.
It embarrassed him anyway. He shouldn’t have been staring.
He opened his mouth to answer, not even knowing what to say. An apology? Something cocky, like Yeah, I do?
But one of the guys in the late line said, “I like what I see, baby!” And the guy next to him gave him a high five and said, “Why don’t you show us a little more—”
“Leave her alone,” Hunter snapped. He took a step toward them, and they mocked him, pretending to be afraid.
“Boys!” said the secretary.
The girl rolled her eyes, shoved the papers in her messenger bag, and turned for the door.
So that was that.
Like it mattered. He turned back for Vickers’s office. The door was half open, and he pushed it wide, wondering why on earth he’d been called down here.
And then he saw the student in the chair, the girl with a tear-streaked face who was cradling her wrist, and his heart just about stopped.
Calla Dean.
Kate stood in the empty hallway and checked her phone. Already, a message from Silver.
Honestly. She’d been here fifteen minutes.
Surveillance only. Do not engage.
As if he hadn’t told her that enough times this morning. Like she was stupid enough to engage with a bunch of rogue Elementals right here in the middle of school. The caution tape lining some of the hallways was proof enough of their propensity for destruction.
What did Silver think she was going to do? Start a fight in the cafeteria?
Her phone buzzed, the silent feature loud in the empty hallway.
Meet anyone interesting yet?
She snorted at the phone. The secretary had been interesting because she’d misspelled Kate’s name twice—and how hard was it to spell Kate Sullivan? The boys in the office had been interesting because they lived up to every promise about high school, leering at her like she was a pinup poster instead of a real live girl.
Except that boy with the piercings and the white streak in his hair.
He’d been interesting because of the way the air hung quiet around him, as if he walked in a sphere of his own control.
The phone buzzed again.
Status?
God! She was tempted to take a picture of her middle finger and send it back. Her fingers flew across the screen.
Heading to first period. Maybe you can do something more useful than texting me.
As soon as she pressed SEND, she regretted it. Silver stood between her and more missions like this. She started to type a new message that would take the sarcasm out of the first, when one of the classroom doors flew open.
A middle-aged teacher in a tweed sport coat and wire-rimmed glasses stood there. Students in his classroom, seated by twos at lab tables, peered out curiously.
