He sounds sad about that, Carrie thought. Like maybe he wished he was as smart as his sister.
She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her tone was slightly softer. “You know, intelligence isn’t set at birth. It can be improved with a little applied education. For instance, take a look around you at this table. Almost everyone here was practically flunking their science courses till I started tutoring them.” She hesitated. “If you ever need any help in that area, by the way, you can always bring your homework here at lunch.” She finished with an attempted half smile.
Surprised by the offer, Tristan smiled back. “Thanks. I may take you up on that. Emily used to help me with my homework, but now that she’s gone off to college...”
“Hey, what am I, chopped liver?” I blurted out with a laugh.
Carrie snickered. “Do not get her help with science unless you really do want to flunk. English is Sav’s forte.”
Michelle nodded, making her short honey-blond hair bounce against the tops of her shoulders. “She brought my C average up to a B+ in English, but she doesn’t know jack about chemistry.”
“No, chemistry’s my area,” Ron argued.
Carrie rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. Just because you understand the elementary table and throwing together a few chemicals doesn’t mean you get science as a whole.”
“Speaking of,” Michelle interrupted Ron’s planned argument. “Did you hear about what happened last week in chem class with Sally Parker and Terrell Stuart? She found out he was cheating with Christie Permetter and threw some chemicals at him during a lab, and...” And with that, Michelle was off and running and nobody could get another word in for at least five minutes while she filled us in on more JHS gossip.
Until Dylan walked in.
“Aw, look, now there’s a matching pair of them,” he sneered as he walked past.
Tristan scowled and clenched his fists. But he didn’t turn to look at Dylan, which made me proud of him. Maybe I was wrong to be so afraid of his losing control.
Michelle muttered, “I cannot believe he and Bethany Brookes are together. What can she possibly see in that jerk?”
“What?” I blurted out, leaning forward in my chair, sure I’d heard her wrong.
“Oh, yeah, for four months now,” Michelle added, her eyes wide. “Talk about the last couple you’d ever think would get together. But she seems to like him for some reason.”
So that was why she didn’t want to welcome me back. She was dating my boyfriend’s former best friend turned archnemesis now and was probably embarrassed about it or something.
But...Bethany Brookes and Dylan Williams? The idea just did not compute. She was so sweet and nice, and he was so...well, not. Was she dating him just to get back at Tristan for leading her on all last summer and this fall?
Tristan twisted in his chair and looked across the cafeteria. Sure enough, Dylan had just dragged a chair over by Bethany, turned it backward with a noisy dragging of metal legs across the linoleum floor, then straddled it. As we watched, he glanced our way, grinned, then leaned over and gave Bethany a kiss on the cheek that made her blush and lean toward him.
A single second of growling was all the warning I got. Next thing I knew, Tristan was gone. He reappeared across the cafeteria, where he held Dylan against the cylinder-shaped room’s curved brown brick wall.
Oh, crap.
CHAPTER 6
I jumped to my feet and tried to remember to move human slow as I wove in between the tables to get to them.
“You son of a—” Tristan began.
Dylan laughed, or tried to. It came out as a wheeze past Tristan’s forearm, which was pressing against Dylan’s throat. “Jealous, Coleman?”
“I’m going to kill you, Williams,” Tristan said, their faces only an inch away from each other. Tristan’s irises had turned silver-white. Oh, so not good.
The thoughts of everyone around us slammed over me like a tidal wave....
Where the heck did he come from?
Whoa, looks like Coleman’s still got the speed even after missing a whole season of practice! I didn’t even see him move across the cafeteria. He’s got to be juicing.
So Tristan isn’t over Bethany after all! I knew he wouldn’t get over the only girl who ever dumped him!
Oh, my God, look at how jealous Coleman is! He ran so fast over here I didn’t even see him coming. He’s going to try to steal Bethany back from Williams. But will she dump Williams for Coleman?
Oooh, look at poor Savannah’s face. How devastating to have to see her boyfriend get so jealous over another girl! Any second now she’s going to start bawling, and...
The descendants were thinking just as loudly. There was no way to shut out the ocean of voices. And way too many humans had noticed how fast Tristan had moved.
I risked closing the distance between us and grabbed Tristan’s shoulder. “Tristan, let him go.”
“He’s—”
“I know. But you’ve got to let him go.” And you’ve got to calm down, I added silently since we were surrounded by both descendants and humans who could easily hear even a whisper in the now dead-quiet cafeteria. Everyone just saw you vamp blur over here. If you bite him, too, the council will have no choice but to go after you. Don’t give the Clann what they want. If you do, Dylan wins.
Tristan growled under his breath. Dylan’s grin wasn’t helping him regain control of his temper. But finally Tristan shoved himself away from Dylan and walked off.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, I followed him back across the cafeteria. My legs felt rubbery as I eased down into my chair again. Then I looked up and realized Tristan was still standing by his chair. I gave him a questioning look, then snuck a peek at his thoughts.
He was immersed in the thoughts of everyone around us.
I reached out and tugged at his hand. He blinked a few times, sank down into his chair, then slouched down in the seat with his arms crossed, lost in everyone else’s thoughts.
Silence at our table, even though the noise level in the rest of the cafeteria had risen back to normal.
“I would have punched him in his stupid face,” Anne said, then casually took a long chug of her soda.
“Anne, that wouldn’t have helped the situation,” Carrie said.
“No, he definitely should have hit him,” Michelle said.
Tristan frowned, feeling like the rope in a game of tug-of-war between listening to my friends’ opinions and everyone else’s loud thoughts. He turned to me. Sorry, Sav. I didn’t even decide to go after him. One second I was here and the next...
I sighed, reached over and patted his thigh. It’s okay. I hoped.
But now everyone thinks I’m jealous about Bethany, and I’m not! I just hate that Dylan’s using her to try to piss me off. She’s a sweet girl. She deserves better than that.
This was definitely an awkward conversation to be having with my boyfriend, silently or otherwise. I tried not to squirm in my seat. Let’s just focus on getting through the rest of lunch without vamping out on anyone else, okay?
One corner of his mouth tightened. Go on and say it. You told me so.
I shook my head, pressing my lips together. Nope, not going to say it.
Why not? You totally earned the right to this time. You warned me that coming here was going to push me too hard too soon, and just like you feared, I lost control.
I