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“Someone is trying to kill you!”were the first six words I heard from Aera the next day. Aera, whose swollen red eyes and the dark shadows beneath them made my heart break into tiny pieces. Aera, who didn’t care that we had other people in the room.
“Whoa, whoa. Slow your roll, small bean. Good morning to you too,” I replied. “Is this because of the bike? I already returned it to Milo, okay? Or is this because of my clothing choice? Look at me,” I said, showing off my new black bomber jacket with the plain gray hoodie underneath it. “I’m a whole new man now.” Fortunately, Aunt Suzy paid attention to my complaint the other night.
Aera brushed me off. “Listen to me,” she whispered a command, her face moving so close to mine that it made my heart drum against my chest. Just when I thought she couldn’t get any hotter. “I know this is going to sound crazy, and you probably think that I’m kind of being a freak right now, but this is serious,” she continued. “I saw you die.”
I gulped. “You saw me die?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed before lowering her voice again. “I told you not to freak out, right?” I wasn’t. “I’m a psychic, okay? I get visions of people dying in the future, and today, I sawyoudie. You were bleeding … to death. Oh God, you were dead. When the bell rings, someone’s going to shoot you. Like three times as if they’re trying to give you a message with three words—the ‘I-hate-you’ one. Who the hell did you piss off, Gray?”
I blinked and stared off into space with a little bit of head-scratching here and there to help calm myself down before I finally replied with an epic stutter. “O-o-okay.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I meanyes! I believe you.” As a matter of fact, I did. Everything she confessed to me about her visions, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard about it. Well, she never told me directly, but we had a Reddit connection, which she was unaware about. I’d read her posts about her psychic ability, and when I’d looked it up, every death she mentioned had come true. Of course, she’d never replied when I commented under my pseudonym of Snorlax and asked if she was okay. Par for the course, I guess, since she’d also never followed me back on Reddit. No, I wasn’t stalking her. She personally gave me her account name. I was just one of her followers.
“If you believe me,” Aera snapped me out of my thoughts, “you are going to do what I’m going to tell you to do.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I could feel confusion tightening my jaw, though. Because what was she even planning on having me do?
“You are going to have lunch with me later,” she asserted. “And you are not allowed to go to the rooftop or the cafeteria because you are going to be with me.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my fingers across my chin. “Sure. I’d love to have lunch with you.”
“And tomorrow.” Her breath hitched. “If there’s a tomorrow.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What about tomorrow?”
“I’m going to pick you up,” she declared, screwing her eyes shut as if she had just uttered something she never intended to. Or wanted to.
“Oh, come on, small bean. I’m not a girl. Let me pick you up instead,” I offered.
“No, I’ll be the one to pick you up,” she insisted, pointing at herself. “So don’t move until I’m standing at your door.”
“Why?” I couldn’t resist asking. I debated whether or not my heart was racing because I was falling in love all over again or because Aera was slightly creeping me out with her declaration of overprotectiveness. “You don’t even like me.”
“I don’t have to like you to want to save your ass, Gray.” She rolled her eyes at me. Her spunk was part of what I loved about her. However, when her brown eyes landed on mine, all I could see was the panic and the sadness hidden beneath them.
Aera was scared, even if she didn’t want to admit it right to my face.
I smiled, hoping I could somehow lessen her worries. “Just my ass?” I gave her a playful smirk, only to receive a smack on my shoulder. “Ow!”
* * *
By the timethe bell rang for lunch, everyone—excluding Aera and myself—had left their seats and stepped outside, screaming for food.
As if on cue, my stomach growled, and I was empty-handed.
Can you hear me sigh, Aera?
I was the type of guy who depended on the school’s perks: food, food, and more food. It wasn’t that great, but every Tuesday, they offered meat—lots of it—like pork chops and steak with a variety of sauces. Kind of like Taco Tuesday, our school had its very own Meat Tuesday. I used to think maybe the principal secretly loved werewolves and personally added their preferred human food in the school menu.
Aera had a small lunch box on her desk, but she didn’t open it. She simply gawked at it like it was a single piece of gold in a bank vault. According to my werewolf nose, it smelled likejajangmyeon, a thick noodle dish covered in black bean paste, cucumber, sliced beef, and sunny-side-up eggs.
I’m hungry.
If Aera were to offer it to me, I would devour it within a minute.
Aera turned her attention back to me. “Let’s just not eat anything today.”
