He shrugged again. “Why not? This is the modern world. All the books and movies say we’re cool. Why not own up to it, let everyone know what we can—”
Sudden and total fear had me grabbing his shoulder at the base of his neck without thinking. I pulled his face close and growled, “Are you out of your freakin’ mind? If any other descendant heard you talking like that and told the elders, you’d be history.”
He stiffened under my grip, his chin hiking up again so he could meet my stare head-on with a glare of his own. He actually opened his mouth like he was going to argue.
But after a tense moment, he took a deep breath and chuckled. “Hey, man, ease up! I was just messing around. Forget about it.”
“Dylan—”
“I said I was just kidding! Man, can’t you even take a joke?”
I stared at him a few seconds longer, trying to figure out what was going on with him lately. Even joking around about stuff like that was dangerous, and he knew it. So why do it?
The warning bell rang, making me swear under my breath. I had less than a couple minutes now to get all the way across campus to the math and home-ec building. “All right. Are we cool?”
“Yeah, sure.” He lifted his head and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re just looking out for me, right?” He turned away, yelling “Later” over his shoulder as he headed in the opposite direction.
I watched the blond as he strutted off like he owned the world. Then I turned and headed for algebra class. Even if he’d been serious, Dylan was just a hothead with a big mouth. Being the star quarterback for the junior varsity team this year despite only being a freshman hadn’t improved his ego much, either. Hopefully he would come to his senses soon … before the elders had to step in. What he was talking about—the movies, the books—that was Hollywood. People liked the idea of magic. But no way would magical abilities fly in the real world, especially in Jacksonville, Texas. This was a Bible Belt town with conservative, old-school beliefs about religion and magic. Even if descendants held key positions in government and business here, if everyone found out just how powerful most descendants were, they would assume we were a bunch of Satan-worshiping baby murderers or something and run us out of the very town we founded. Dylan needed to remember that the Clann’s power came from the secrets we kept.
Well, one thing was for sure … if Dylan kept screwing around and being late all the time for practice, at least Coach Parker would be willing to help him regain his memory. The head coach had zero tolerance for tardy players, Clann or otherwise, on his teams. He’d probably make Dylan run laps after practice as punishment. That ought to take Dylan’s ego down a notch or two, and would totally serve the idiot right.
Sometimes I honestly couldn’t remember why I still considered him my best friend.
I headed down the hall toward the last class of the day. And toward Savannah. Her flame-bright hair and pale skin were easy to spot in the boring sea of tanned brunettes and blondes. A couple girls called out “Hey, Tristan!” to me, and one of the sophomore cheerleaders even touched my arm and grinned up at me. But I didn’t have time to stop and talk. I was much more interested in watching that redhead. Something about looking at Savannah calmed me down today.
I exited the air-conditioned main building and headed through the sticky spring-afternoon heat along the metal-awning-covered cement catwalk that stretched over the lower outer walkways, connecting the main building to the math building on the far side of the campus. Savannah and her friend were several yards ahead of me. Neither looked back. And yet something about the way Savannah’s shoulders rose up as soon as I saw her … I could almost swear she knew I was watching her. Not for the first time, I wondered if she could somehow sense the focus of my attention. But that was impossible. She wasn’t a descendant, and the Clann would know about any outsiders with special abilities like that.
Except … no normal girl had ever stuck in my mind like she did.
Then again, no girl, normal or otherwise, seemed to mess with my thoughts quite like Savannah did. So maybe I was just desperate to find any reason besides my own weakness to blame for the crazy hold she had on me.
At least she made algebra interesting.
Savannah
“You look like crap,” Anne whispered halfway through class, distracting me from the foggy circle my mind kept whirling around in.
I couldn’t even force a smile to reassure her. Nanna’s special tea hadn’t made a dent in the pain this time. It was all I could do not to bawl like a baby. This was way beyond simple soreness from dancing. Though I’d never been sick before, I was pretty sure I’d finally caught the flu, or something close to it. I had all the symptoms those flu-medicine commercials listed. When I wasn’t freezing, I was burning up. I couldn’t stop shaking. My skin felt like I had another of my annual summer sunburns everywhere my clothes touched. And my head was pounding so loud I’d missed hearing most of Mr. Chandler’s lecture. We were supposed to be working on our homework assignment now. Right, like that was going to happen. Just the idea of grabbing my book from under my desk made the bones in my arms throb. And I sucked at math even on a good day.
I shifted in my desk, and my legs bumped into Tristan’s feet. Crap. I’d forgotten. As usual, the spoiled prince of Jacksonville needed more legroom and had stretched his long legs out at either side of my desk. Turning my seat into a virtual prison, unless I didn’t mind our legs and feet touching every time I moved. Which I really did mind.
Honestly, I could shoot whoever had come up with the evil idea of alphabetical seating. It was alphabetical seating that had first forced Tristan and me to sit beside each other in the fourth grade. And placed him right behind me here in algebra this year.
I was tempted to slump down in my seat and rest my head on the back of my chair. But then my ponytail would land on Tristan’s desk. And then he might start messing with the ends of my hair again, like Anne had caught him doing a few weeks ago. He’d probably been trying to stick gum in it. His best friend from the Clann, Dylan Williams, loved to do that to girls with long hair.
Forcing myself to stay upright, I bit back a groan, propped my spinning head between my hands and checked the clock on the wall again. If I could just make it through this last class of the day …
“Are you okay?” Anne whispered, leaning forward past Tristan. “I’m serious, Sav. You really look—”
“Anne, focus on your work,” Mr. Chandler said from his desk. “Savannah, come see me please.”
I almost whimpered. He wanted me to move?
Gritting my teeth, I pulled myself to my feet, circled around the front of my desk to avoid Tristan’s legs and trudged across the room to the teacher’s desk, praying I wouldn’t barf all over the round little man.
“Anne’s right, you do look sick,” Mr. Chandler murmured. “Would you like to go visit the nurse?”
Great. So everyone thought I looked like crap today. “Um, no, thank you.” I tried not to breathe on him. Wasn’t the flu supposed to be highly contagious? “It’s the last class of the day. I can make it a little longer. Do you mind if I lay my head down on my desk, though?”
“Sure, go ahead. Just be sure to take care of the assignment as soon as you’re feeling better.”
On the way back to my desk, I wrapped my arms around myself as a sudden chill swept over my skin, making me shiver. Then I made the mistake of looking up at the clock again. And missed seeing Tristan’s outstretched leg.
I tripped hard over his foot. My arms wouldn’t budge. No way could I catch myself in time. All I could do was close my eyes and brace for a face-plant on my desk. He’d have a real good time laughing about this later