Chapter 12 - All Eyes on Me

  “What are you even talking about?” I shrugged off his concern and tried to trudge past him. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back toward him with surprising strength, giving me a close look at the horrified expression painted on his face.

  ”But Ky... you smell!”

  I narrowed my eyes and tugged my hand away from his grasp. ”Thanks, but I showered this morning.”

  He took an exasperated breath. “No! I mean, you smell wrong! You smell like a rogue!”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked when the bell rang. The noise was so intense to my sensitive ears I instantly dropped to my knees, cupping my hands over them. My eardrums felt like they were about to burst and my head ached. After a few moments it reduced to a more manageable level. “Jeez, why is the bell so loud this year?”

  My reaction seemed to have only increased Benji’s panic, concern dripping off his face. “Please, Ky. Just go home,” he begged once more, but I just rolled my eyes.

  “Bro, stop freaking out. I’ll be fine,” I turned back around and did my best to weave between other students who were also rushing to get inside the building.

  “I’ll see you at band,” I said, giving him a final glance before disappearing into the crowd.

  I got the feeling that he was still whimpering at the front of the school. Whatever. He was being weird today. There was enough nagging from home; I didn’t need it from him too.

  After a few steps into school, I took out my phone. There was still about three minutes before the warning bell so I had time to get to my old locker and put some new school materials away. It was basically an unwritten rule that day one of school was actually pointless. Everyone ends up just sitting around listening to the teachers talk about themselves and how many little brats they still have running in their homes. Then we get the joy of being part of some overly used ice-breakers so everyone who already knows one another can get to know each other...again.

  Maybe I should have stayed home after all to avoid the boredom of today.

  I shook the idea out of my head, because with Mom being a teacher she wouldn’t appreciate the idea. And Dad... My stomach sank and my hand stilled on the lock when I remembered what I said to him at breakfast. I was an ass. I knew I was. I should’ve apologized then.

  It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t grow up with magic and all the expectations that came with being part of the supernatural world. He grew up with a mundane family doing mundane things. The highlight of his life was his DnD group in college and meeting Mom, finding out the things he dreamed about were real. That things like monsters, magic, mages, witches... all of it was real and had been living all around him his entire life.

  Just like how I was now learning how to navigate through it all. How now that I had become an adult to the mage community, I would be exposed to so much more of the supernatural. And how... all of that was now even more complicated because I was also a werewolf who happened to be capable of using magic.

  Blood appeared on my knuckles and I blinked in surprise. Somehow in my thoughts I had punched my locker a few times. The skin had peeled back a bit but other than that, it wasn’t a bad wound. I groaned in frustration and finally opened up my locker, placing half of my empty notebooks inside since I probably wouldn’t need them today.

  There was a bit of whispering to my left and instinctively I glanced that way. Two girls were watching me, and as our eyes met, my ears picked up a startled gasp from them before they looked away. I narrowed my eyes. Just what could they have been talking about? Turning back to my locker, I put in the last few items inside and closed it, acting as if I wasn’t trying to pick up what they were saying. Perhaps if I enhanced my hearing a bit...

  “...I don’t get it. Why hasn’t anyone killed it yet?”

  I couldn’t help looking back at them again, this time in shock. That seemed to make them scream and they ran away from me. What the heck was going on? And what did they mean by kill it? The instant I started to notice the hum in the back of my mind, I was reminded that I wasn’t really alone anymore and that Bleddyn was lurking somewhere. Slamming my locker shut, I started to whistle a song my friends and I had been practicing, my fingers imagining the positions on my guitar all in effort to ignore the damned familiar. Wolf. Whatever. He said he’d keep quiet and the best way to do that was to keep him out of my mind as much as possible.

  First period for me this year was English and I did my best to wade through the sea of students in the hallway just before the warning bell rang. But the strangest things kept on happening as I neared class. I recognized most of the faces of the students in my graduating year. No one had ever really paid me any attention. We were just classmates. Acquaintances. Other than Benji and Cayetana, no one ever really talked to me or gave me the time of day outside of required classroom interactions.

  But it was completely different today. Every so often, I’d pass someone and they’d either immediately recoil from me or glare at me as if I’d kicked their puppy or something. And while I found the surprise and fear shocking, it was the stares that I couldn’t get over. That sudden and unreasonable look of hatred.

  I picked up my pace and ran into my classroom. My eyes zeroed in on the farthest seat in the back and I took it.

  “Oh hell no. It’s in this class?!”

  The words were said in a harsh whisper. For a moment it sounded as if whoever spoke it was right behind me, yet when I turned around I saw it was two girls sitting at the front of the classroom. Unlike the two in hallway who looked away quickly, these two were so very obviously part of the mean crowd. Their eyes were hard. Cold. I could nearly hear the grinding of their teeth. And to make things stranger, they looked tense. As if any second they were preparing to leap up and go on the attack. And for some reason, I had a strong feeling it was me they wanted to jump.

  I...I didn’t understand.

  My pocket vibrated and I broke eye contact to look at my phone.

  BENJI: KY! THEY KNOW! YOU NEED TO LEAVE!!

  My heart sank the instant I read it. But the rational side of my mind knew that what Benji was saying couldn’t be what I thought it was. No one knew I had magic. I hid it well, other than with them, of course. He had to be talking about something else. I was about to write him a reply when he sent several more messages in rapid succession.

  BENJI: OMG Ky! Pick up your phone!! Don’t leave me on read!

  BENJI: For the love of all that’s good, I’ll give you fries the entire year! JUST GO HOME.

  Oh, for the love of God. First Dad telling me what to do, and now Benji. I punched in a reply.

  KY: Jeez, Benji, lay off. Stop freaking out over nothing. I’m fine. We’re in school. What could possibly happen?

  The final bell rang and the teacher began class, so I had to shove my phone away or risk getting it confiscated. I was unlucky that I had this teacher, Ms. Addams. She was known as the hardass teacher, often giving extensive writing assignments and being extremely rigid in terms of the school rules. Rumor had it she chucked a student’s cell phone in front of an oncoming bus and let it get smashed. Mom said that any teacher that actually did something like that would probably get fired, so I took the story with a grain of salt.

  But the longer she talked the more I was to believe it, and soon I was dreading being in her class. I’d love to have my schedule changed but the counselors already drove the point home during articulation last year that they wouldn’t change classes just because a student “doesn’t like a teacher.” Just my luck.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Something I could not miss, however, was that every time Ms. Addams turned to write something on the board, the girls up front would resume their game of glaring at me. Hell, I was quite sure if they kept this up their faces would get stuck that way. But seriously, what the hell was their problem?

  This continued a few more times. Look kind and attentive while Ms. Addams was watching, then suddenly swap to the hellish eyes of death when she looked away. It was so ridiculous that other students were starting to notice and wonder what was up. And that made me even more nervous. I’d coasted all freshman year with little attention and I sure as hell wanted to keep that up again. Because attention meant the chance of getting caught. And getting caught meant danger.

  Mom had only told me bits and pieces of what happened to people who were seen using their magic by the wrong people. Sometimes, those people were so shocked that they started to sound like lunatics. They’d tell everyone what they’d seen, and while I think no one believing them wasn’t a bad thing, it could start to attract people who DO believe them. Witches and hunters were the most common threats.

  Hunters were pretty obvious. They’d been around for years, hunting anything to do with the supernatural because it went against their beliefs and religion. It was strongly implied that they were responsible for the events that happened in Boston. Countless mages killed, tried, and sent away due to their fear. Mom said they were more flexible now though, sometimes joining other mage guilds to hunt rivals. Or even working with witches.

  Ah yes, those. Witches. They were probably the worst of the two. I mean, granted, being killed off is bad, but witches are capable of doing more harm. Imprisoning a mage’s soul to fuel their spells is just one example of the horrors they could do. Especially for children, a common belief was they siphoned the magic and life out of them to keep themselves young and immortal. Or was it something else? It sounded like the plot of Hocus Pocus, but mundanes honestly don’t know just how on the nose they were about that story.

  When the bell rang for next class, I rushed out of there as fast as I could. I was afraid the girls up front would try to corner me but they didn’t. Band was my next class and I just hoped that Benji didn’t bother me too much. I already had too many ideas flying through my head; I couldn’t have him feeding into my fears so much as he had already.

  “Ky? Are you ok? Your face looks so pale,” said Cayetana when I saw her. We both took our seats at the far corner of the room near the percussionists. It was our usual spot since it allowed us to stay near Benji.

  “I’m fine. Just some girls being weird in first period.”

  She laughed. “Oh no! Did they try to hit on you? Too bad they’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  I grimaced. “Shut up. No. It wasn’t like that. They just kept giving me... these weird looks.”

  “Weird looks? Care to explain more than that?”

  “You know what I mean. Like... death glares. Like I did something wrong.”

  “Did you do something wrong?”

  “No! I don’t even know them. I mean, I’ve seen them around since we’re in the same grade, but I’ve never interacted with them before.”

  She hummed and pulled out a pink folder filled with sheet music to songs we’d been thinking of practicing. “Well, don’t know what to tell ya. Girls be scary these days.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “I guess. It just didn’t feel... normal.”

  I should have chosen my words better. Her folder was immediately dropped on the floor and she spun quickly to me with hopeful eyes. “Like paranormal!? Tell me everything. What did they do? Did their eyes glow? Did they bare their teeth at you? Tell me! TELL ME!”

  “I see we’re already obsessed on day one of school,” said Benji, joining us. I gave him a sideways glance and raised a brow at how...nonchalant he was acting. As if he wasn’t freaking out just an hour ago. “There is nothing paranormal about cheerleaders, Cayetana.”

  She slumped in her seat. “You didn’t say they were cheerleaders. That explains everything. How boring.”

  “What were you two talking about anyway?”

  “Just how Ky is suddenly a magnet for mean looks.”

  This time, when Benji and my eyes met, there definitely was a hint of something there. A small flicker of worry. I couldn’t help but be curious about his change in behavior. As if he intended for me to see that worry despite how brief it was. Almost as if he...

  ...almost as if he was trying to keep Cayetana out of the loop.

  But why?

  I didn’t get too long to dwell on it since our band teacher began class. If the beginning of the year was to be the same as last year, he’d focus entirely on the students in marching band and ignore us normies for the first couple of weeks anyway. It sucked for Benji, because he was pretty much voluntold to join by the other drummers since he was good. And it had something to do about supporting his Greywood neighborhood for some stupid HoA reason.

  Cayetana spent the time here discussing which songs we should try out for battle of the bands. We didn’t have our guitars with us today - and our teacher would have gotten upset if our music interrupted them during practice - so the best we could do was play air guitar while she hummed the lyrics. The theme this year was punk rock and all three of us geeked out at the opportunity to show off our vibe. It was hard to miss how Cayetana had started wearing more smokey eyeliner and even the frayed stockings she could get away with before getting dress-coded. I couldn’t help but admit that I, too, was starting to think about dressing up the style to advertise for our event.

  “Is Benji alright?”

  We were reading up the lyrics to a Paramore song when Cayetana asked. My eyes darted from her to Benji across the room with the other drummers. Our eyes met a moment before he nodded with a shallow smile and then went back to working his snare drum.

  “He’s been kind of weird all day,” I groaned.

  “Any idea why?”

  “No.”

  She bit her lip a moment before gasping and covering her mouth. “Oh. My. God. Ky!”

  “What?”

  “The stares. The smiles!”

  I narrowed my eyes at her but then groaned and rolled my eyes as my mind connected the dots. “It’s not THAT!”

  “How could it not be? He likes you! Look at him smiling at you this whole time.”

  I heard Benji cough, and we both couldn’t help noticing him staggering over as another drummer patted his back.

  “No, it’s not,” I said more firmly. “I’ve never liked Benji that way.”

  “How come? He’s cute. And somehow has muscles even though he sucks ass at sports.”

  “Not my type.”

  “Oh right! Your type is red-headed football captains. I remember now. Yeah, Benji has no chance.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Already images of Rory appeared again at the lake and I struggled to shove them out of my mind. “I do not like the football captain.”

  “Sure sure.”

  “Whatever.” I looked at the clock on the far wall. There was still about fifteen minutes of class left now. I got up to stretch and put my sheet music away. “I’m gonna use the bathroom before class is over. Watch my stuff?”

  “Wow, I bring up football hottie, and you’re spending the last fifteen minutes of class in the bathroom. Don’t work your hands too hard,” she grinned.

  “I hate you,” I squinted my eyes and flipped her off. “Be back.” She said another vulgar retort as I walked away but I ignored her.

  At the end of the hall I found out that the music restrooms were closed for repairs and I was forced to take the one further in the building. The noise of teachers talking and giving instruction was muffled behind closed doors as I walked the halls. For a moment, the normalcy of it all was comforting to me. As if life over the weekend hadn’t been much different at all and I wasn’t given a focus. That I didn’t encounter Rory or get humiliated by his disgust of me. Or having ever met Bleddyn.

  The bathroom was empty when I got inside. Didn’t mean it didn’t smell. Day one and already some kid had decided to stink up the place. The poor janitors were going to have a field day... I did my business at a urinal and started to wash my hands when I felt my pocket vibrate with a message.

  “What now, Benji,” I growled to no one. After I dried out my hands, I pulled out my phone and once again, what he wrote made my heart drop.

  BENJI: RUN!!!!!!!

  I didn’t get the time to fully process his warning. As soon as I reached the door it was ripped from my hands and I found myself staring wide-eyed at two guys made of muscle. Large hands knocked me down and I was shoved back into the bathroom with incredible strength, sliding back toward the wall. The force knocked my phone away from my grasp and I spied it under a stall and far from reach.

  “Well, well, well,” said the blonde of the two. “Look what we have here, Evan. It seems I was right. The rogue did have the gall to come to our turf.”

  I saw who I assumed was Evan shrug and gaped as he turned around to shut the door and lock it. “Whatever, Jake. You were right. Now just get this over with. We can’t have too much of a mess in school.”

  Jake laughed and cracked his knuckles, all while keeping his eyes glued to me. “This is great. I’ve never killed anyone in school before.”

  And then he lunged at me.