Suddenly I felt eyes watching me from behind, I stepped on the gas and without looking back tore through the streets of Hopewell until I reached home.
I opened the back door to a dark and empty house and flicked on the kitchen light. A note from my mom was waiting on the counter.
Out with Nate. Food in fridge. Love, Mom Good, I thought to myself. At least I didn’t have to explain my shaky emotional state. I was such a wreck she was sure to think I robbed a bank or was doing drugs or something. I tried to calm myself, replaying what had happened. I freaked out at a pile of leaves in a cemetery. That’s all they were. Just leaves. I kept telling myself that and tried to settle my nerves.
I wasn’t hungry, but instead, felt a little crampy. I checked the calendar. Yeesh. Twenty-eight days already? I headed up for a nice warm shower to ease the lingering chill, flicking on every light switch along the way.
The warm water streamed down my skin but I was still shivering. If the shower had been any hotter my skin would have burned. I leaned my forehead against the tiled wall, feeling the water soak my hair and trickle down my nose where it plunked to my feet. It didn’t help. I turned the water off and wrapped myself in a soft towel.
Plodding to my room, I got into my pajamas and sat on the end of my bed, feeling both tense and strangely empty.
The after effects of Hadrian should be long gone by now. In fact, most of the kids in school were acting completely normal. The ones who had suddenly looked empty, showing that their guardians had been taken, were fine now. I remembered the way the air would grow chilly whenever their guardians were ripped away. That wasn’t happening now. Things seemed back to normal. Well, except for Brynn. But maybe she never even had a guardian.
I thought of Garreth.
No, things weren’t normal.
Things sucked.
I flopped back on my bed, my wet red hair falling in chunky tangles, as I hadn’t bothered to comb it. I curled up tightly on my side, pulling my quilt up to cover my legs. I felt cold and sick and empty.
Was it possible this was all my fault? Did he stay here too long? Long enough to make him act and feel like a real human? Maybe this was a really bad side effect of being earthbound. But isn’t that what I wanted for him when I watched him follow Derek down the hall? This must be why he’s mad at me. I caused this.
I tucked the quilt beneath my head. My covers were getting wet from my hair, making me cold all over again. I tried to stay focused on Garreth, but other thoughts wormed their way in. I needed to figure this out, not only to help him but also to keep myself from losing my mind. But my mind strayed to places it didn’t belong.
Sleep was coming for me. I was floating in myself as the fear I felt inside seeped away. I thought of black feathers and wings …
I willed Garreth’s face to appear in my mind, but his face changed to another … one with dark hair, pale skin, green eyes …
I felt a crushing sensation in my chest.
And I felt miserably guilty.
“Wake up, Teagan. School,” my mother called from the hallway.
Without Garreth, I was totally unprepared for her morning knock at my door. I refused to start the day feeling empty, so I refocused. Stretching my arms and legs as far as they would allow, I remembered it was Wednesday and in two days I would be sitting down to dinner with Brynn and Nate.
Hmmm. Maybe Ryan’s right. Maybe there is a way to find out what she’s up to.
“I’m up,” I answered back, hearing my mom close the bathroom door.
Surprisingly, I had slept fairly well. I didn’t ache so much and no longer felt chilled. I lifted my hand to the top of my head and felt the chaos. I had forgotten about my hair and would have to spend extra time this morning trying to tame it.
I sat up and looked around. My room was the same as always. I wasn’t expecting any company this morning so I flipped the covers back, ready to swing my legs over the side of my bed.
Then I saw it. It had been next to me all night, under my covers.
I picked it up and looked around, but there was nothing, not even in the corners where the shadows fell silently.
I took the feather between my fingers. It was so long that the ends brushed my lips. I closed my eyes, thinking of him. Then, I took the sharp end of the quill and very lightly, pricked the inside of my arm. I opened my eyes to see a dot of red expand from the tiny puncture and swell like a crimson bead on my skin.
I drew a shaky breath into my throat.
If I closed my eyes again, I would see it, the picture of us. The one that refused to go away.
… his wings beating wildly, lifting us up off the stone floor of the chamber … the loose quills piercing the tender flesh of my arms as he held me close to him and then the delicious sensation of his lips pressed against my skin, kissing away the pain …
Quickly, I grabbed a tissue from my nightstand and dabbed my arm, holding it down a few seconds to stop the bleeding. I looked around, feeling paranoid.
I don’t believe I just did that.
One-handedly, I made my bed the best I could, tucking the feather into the underside of my pillowcase. In a flash I got dressed, spritzed the unruly mop on my head with the water bottle I kept on my dresser and bounded down the steps, remembering to eat breakfast. For some reason, I couldn’t help the smile from creeping onto my face. I tried to put a finger on my feelings. Was I happy? I was still nervous. I mean, a feather managed to get stuck underneath my pillow sometime during the night. How normal was that? But I felt safer now, to a degree.
Even if the feather was black.
And the feeling stayed with me all the way to school. My classes came and went without incident. Nothing fell out of my locker except the usual calculus book, which I kicked every time it jumped out at me. I saw Ryan before homeroom and then again before lunch and both times he appeared apprehensive. He probably thought that overnight, rationality had permeated my senses, making me realize that I really did hate him. Even with my reassurance, he didn’t seem too convinced.
It didn’t help that by the end of the day, my cramps were killing me and I was positive Ryan thought my sudden withdrawal had something to do with him. How do you explain cramps to a guy? I knew the answer to that one. You don’t. Instead, I made my way to the third floor bathroom.
I was just about to grab my purse from the metal hook on the last stall door when a small group of girls strolled in. I recognized their voices immediately. Peeking through the little, narrow opening by the door, I had a sideways view of Sage and Lauren. They were at the mirror, primping, obviously in love with themselves. Emily was leaning down, and from what I could tell, she was rolling a miniature lint roller up and down her expensive black tights. I realized then that Brynn was not with them and I strained my vision, pressing my face right up to the door in case she was further away out of range. Not only were they without Brynn, but the absent leader of their hateful little group was also the topic of their discussion.
“What is her obsession with that girl?” Lauren’s squeaky voice filled the tiled room.
“Beats me.”
It was Sage who answered her, her gold bracelets jingled as she held her arm up, looking for signs of white beneath her brown, toned arms.
Who would wear a tank top in fall?
As I eavesdropped, it amazed me how superficial their group really was. Not that I thought any of them held any depth or consideration, but it dawned on me how tactless they truly were. To each other. They were bashing Brynn as if she were an outsider, which shocked me. I thought their type stuck together. But as they recounted Brynn’s personal business, I realized they were also talking about me.
Emily chimed in then, tucking her trusty little lint roller back into her bag, “I know, all she does is talk about how she’s going to ruin the girl’s life. I mean, come on! Why bother!”
“Hello? Her dad is dating her mother. That practically makes them sisters.”
“Eew.”
I pressed my ear to the opening but they were walking further away from the mirror.
“Well, whatever she’s planning to do, I hope she gets on with it. She’s acting weird.”
“Yeah, I like wearing black and all, but … save it for the runway.” Lauren let her sentence trail off as soon as the lip gloss applicator touched her already perfect mouth. “What’s with that book she keeps looking for? The one in her dad’s library?”
“Who cares! I say this Friday we go to that party without her. I mean, she’s got some little dinner to go to anyway, doesn’t she?” Sage was clearly annoyed. “I’m not ruining another good party at Marc Slater’s just so Brynn can play scavenger hunt through her dad’s dusty old medical books. I heard Marc found his dad’s stash of rum!”
“You’re right, but do you think he put her up to it?” Lauren asked as they filed out.