13 to Life (25 page)

“Probably.”

“Good.” Sophia left then, too.

With a groan I looked at the paper.

Beauty’s only skin deep.

Everybody has ugly days.

We’re all made of the same stuff underneath.

Acting right is better than looking right.

Realize what makes you special beyond looks.

Evil can look pretty on the outside.

I read her brainstormed list twice. Then I ran my finger down the left-hand column of letters.
What?
BEWARE. Beware? Beware what? I jumped up, knocking over my chair as I headed to the door. Did Sophia realize what she’d written?

And then, my hands pressed to the door, I heard it, a faint clicking on tile like a dog padded along up the hall. And the whuffling. The sound of something big scenting, searching . . .
Hunting. In the high school. I turned the deadbolt and fumbled for my cell phone. The clicking and breathing got louder.

It was coming.

Open, my cell phone scanned for a signal. It found nothing. I held it out. I held it up. I paced the space in front of the door, tilting the phone, cursing the phone. . . .

Nothing. Except the steadily growing noise of the beast approaching. That was when I noticed the window.

Junction High had been around for years. Okay, easily several decades, maybe a half-century. It used to be one story and handled kids from Junction and a couple of smaller nearby towns. If you dared call them towns. As Junction grew, the school changed, but slowly. In pieces, slow starts and sudden stops.

The door to the faculty lounge looked like solid wood. So it was old. Sturdy. A single long, thin window ran near the knob, reinforced with metal wires that cut smart diagonals just below the glass surface.
Holy crap,
I realized as my feet moved my reluctant body closer,
I’ll see it
. . .

My hands rested on either side of the window, my face so near my breath fogged the window’s middle.

And then it was there. Slipping by the window, a ridge of dark auburn fur stretched like a saddle mark across shoulders so high they were easily halfway up the window. I gasped, realizing its sheer height.

It stopped, hearing me. Right on the other side of the door I leaned against. My heart stopped, too, as the thing turned and a pointed ear pricked in my direction. It nearly bent in half as it circled back—my face still firmly pressed to the warming glass in horror. Hot breath puffed beneath the door. With a snort that toasted my toes, it assessed me. Then it was off, streaking down the hall, I with only a look at its thickly furred back.

I collapsed onto the floor, my back resting against the door. What
was
that thing?

Hours after the creature was gone and I was safely home my brain replayed over and over the moment the beast crossed in front of that narrow window, adding a frightening prelude to my standard nightmare.

Still exhausted when I woke the next morning, I did everything robotically. I did my chores without Pietr (he’d probably given up on helping me), never speaking to the horses. I got changed, never worrying about matching my clothes. I ate breakfast, never tasting it, and stumbled down the aisle of the bus, falling into the seat next to Pietr, limp as a—wet noodle? A rag doll? Sure, both were clichés, but there was a reason for that. They were fitting. Unlike my T-shirt, I realized.

A leftover from last year, it clung to parts of me that simply hadn’t existed then, and—I felt a faint draft of air circle my waist. Terrific. The terrible tee also revealed my stomach whenever I leaned any direction. I tried to tug at its hem to lengthen it and heard a
pop.

Pietr glanced at me.

I blushed. Fabulous. Somewhere, a seam waited to betray me.

Pietr brushed against me, leaning forward to catch my backpack as it flopped off the seat. Inhaling deeply, he straightened
and peered at me—and around me—like he was confused by the air itself. He looked past me. Down the aisle.

“Expecting someone?”

“No. Where were you last night?” he asked, his voice so low I leaned in to catch his words.

“School. Working on a story.”

“The phantom wolf thing?”

“Oddly enough, no.”

He tilted his head. “Why ‘oddly enough’?”

Would he think I was nuts if I told him what I saw last night in the school’s main hall? I mean, whether I wanted to or not, I really did like Pietr.
Really.
Should I risk his feelings changing toward me by telling the truth? I shrugged. “Oddly enough because it seems I’m always working on that story,” I said.
Ugh.

He nodded, but I still read questions darting through the depths of his brilliant blue eyes. My only question was: How many more lies could I tell before I got caught? Okay, not my only question. I also wanted to know how I could switch out of the terrible tee.

The bus finally came to a wheezing stop, brakes grinding. Everyone rose in unison and began to shuffle out.

“What the—” I knocked into the underclassman in front of me and felt Pietr, hot as noon, bump against me.

Someone had stopped on the bus steps.

“Move it, Stella,” someone else admonished, but Stella was stunned.

I followed her gaze.

A swarm of police officers mingled and muttered on the sidewalk. Officer Kent stood at the group’s edge, carrying his ever-present cup of coffee, eyes flickering from the uniformed officers scratching their heads to our bus number. Lucky thirteen. He separated himself from the group as we got off the bus.

“Strangest thing—”

“I just don’t know what sort of—”

“Can’t be a—”

“Not a dog, either—”

Kent was beside us, eyeing Pietr. “Rusakova. I presume your siblings are—”

“Driving separately,” Pietr stated.

“Hmm. Glad you’re still making it to class.” Kent looked Pietr up and down.

“He won’t be if he gets stopped here,” I snapped, grabbing Pietr’s arm.

Kent glared at me, but stepped aside and I tugged Pietr closer to the school’s doors before I released him.

“
Spahseebuh.
Thanks.”

“Yeah. You’re welcome. Don’t know what came over me,” I admitted. “What the heck was that about?”

Stella circled us, hopping from one foot to the other, eyes bright as she assessed Pietr. “Did you do it?”

“Do what?” His expression seemed blank.

“Shred the Guidance Office!”

“What?” I gasped.

“Someone or some
thing
got in there and tossed the files around,” Stella explained. Her interest in me as a suspect had waned. She probably wanted to congratulate the guilty rebel. My question and tone ruled me out.

Sophia, Sarah, and Amy joined us.

I peered between their shoulders at the gathering crowd of students clogging the hall leading to Guidance.

Sarah nudged closer to Pietr. “Weren’t you and Sophia here late last night, Jessica?”

Stella’s eyes popped.

Sophia shook her head and whispered, “I left before five.”

Amy crossed her arms and squared off with Sarah. “And as pissed as Jessie may be at Guidance’s fumbled attempts to help her, she would
never
. I swear, Sarah, it’s like you don’t know her at all.”

Sarah’s face fell just the slightest bit.

“Geez.” I rolled my eyes. “Besides, I wasn’t the only one here. Derek and Jack were in the building, too. We saw them before Soph headed out.”

Sophia stayed silent. I thought of the strange note hidden in Sophia’s brainstormed list. Did she know—had she somehow known? Was normally quiet Sophia—the same normally quiet Sophie who utterly snapped at Derek last night—was she connected to the shredding of the Guidance Office? I shook my head, my feet dragging me behind my peers and into school.

So why “BEWARE”? Rubbing my forehead, I shoved the question from my mind. Sure, Sophia had changed during eighth grade, but to presume she somehow knew something—had tried to warn me about something roaming the school . . . it would mean the world was a far weirder place than I’d thought. I was barely ready to deal with my own issues. Questioning the way of the world—that was too much.

In the middle of lit, Pietr passed me a note. It was brief and, for a moment, puzzling.

Can you keep your promise? Today is the day.

I thought about the date. My promise? Oh.
Crap.
I scribbled back.

Your parents?

He nodded and my stomach clenched. I knew it was coming up—he’d said that much—but I’d forgotten his parents had died on this date.
Crap, crap, crap!

He watched me. There was only one way I could answer.

I nodded and turned back, pretending to listen to what Ms. Ashton said. “Shakespeare speaks of Romeo and Juliet as being ‘a pair of star-cross’d lovers’ in Act One’s prologue. Romeo also says, ‘My mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars’ as he’s on his way to the Capulet party—where he meets Juliet. So, for your writing assignment tonight, answer this: Are these two kids doomed by destiny? Are their lives and ours part of some huge cosmic plan, or do we make our Fate and create our own luck? Five hundred to one thousand words,” she concluded as the bell rang.

I groaned, knowing lit had just passed me by in a haze of words. So I let math do the same the following period. Lunch was far from spectacular, and although I nodded at the appropriate moments and said, “No way,” and “Uh-huh,” at all the right times, I had no sense at all of what we discussed.

Art replaced gym, and I struggled to regain my focus for the beginning of a pottery unit I heard we’d be starting. But Mrs. Hahn greeted us at the door with a frown. “Don’t get too settled,” she announced. “We have an assembly. Set your stuff down, I’ll be locking up,” she assured.

There was a mix of hoots of pleasure and sighs of disappointment at the news of a blown day of class. I didn’t need to look to see who did which, the division of jocks and nerds usually made it clear. A couple guys were hanging around the sink as we started setting our bags down, and I heard the water turn on, but didn’t think anything of it until Mrs. Hahn shouted and I was soaked as collateral damage from their impromptu water battle.

My shirt was dripping. Mrs. Hahn glared at the unrepentant boys. “Clean up that mess,” she ordered. She looked at me in disdain. “You’ll need to change into your gym shirt, I guess.”

I just looked at her blankly, thinking that as angry as I was, surely the water would turn to steam and evaporate right off of me at any moment. Which would only further shrink the terrible tee. Great.

Pietr’s eyes were glued to me as much as the back of my wet shirt was. “Here,” he said, pulling off his sweater and leaving just a T-shirt underneath. He tossed the sweater to me.

Sarah nobly ignored the entire exchange, chin up.

“Thanks,” I muttered, racing to the restroom. It took only a moment to yank off my shirt and replace it with Pietr’s sweater. As I quickly checked my hair in the mirror, I noticed how his sweater swallowed me up, large at the neck, long on my arms and hanging below my hips. Like a winter wind playing through pine branches, Pietr’s scent was interwoven with the sweater’s variegated yarn. I inhaled deeply, trying to catch some sense of him—to understand his reckless ways.

Nothing happened. My life wasn’t filled with magical understanding and epiphanies, just tragedy and stale struggle. I reached into my pocket and rubbed my worry stone.

Although my outfit certainly wasn’t any sort of fashion statement, it was better than wearing my gym shirt. And far more comfortable than the T-shirt I wrung out in the sink. I’d hand it down to Annabelle Lee as a work shirt. If she ever
worked
.

I pushed the sweater’s sleeves up above my elbows to open the door and rushed back to class. Mrs. Hahn had halted the class’s questionable progress for my return.

“Get in line,” Mrs. Hahn said, pointing to the line’s head. I followed her instructions, standing right in front of Pietr to lead the unruly line.

“Thanks,” I whispered again, just over my shoulder. “What’s the assembly on?”

“An antidrug message and demonstration.”

I nodded.

It was a quick walk to the gymnasium and even from the hall I could see we were nearly the last class to arrive. A banner was angled above the gymnasium’s doors proclaiming Live Free, No Drugs for Me! The bleachers nearly overflowed with uncomfortable and shifting students.

VP Perlson was standing beside a state police officer, chatting and eyeing the K-9 unit seated obediently nearby. A remarkable-looking German shepherd, its regal profile and thick ruff of fur on its chest made it appear majestic; I thought about how shabby Maggie and Hunter would look beside it.

“In and to the left,” Mrs. Hahn instructed, pointing to one of the few open areas on the bleachers. I watched the dog, wondering how it could be so calm with so many anxious kids around. Hunter would have been peeing on members of the front row while Maggie barked encouragement.

Cute,
I thought, noticing the crisply folded sky blue bandanna around its neck. It made it somehow look less threatening. I wondered if it was intentional when demonstrating a K-9’s abilities to students. Earn their trust, impress them with its prowess and then, when their guard was down, search their lockers!

And then, as if it knew I was thinking about it, the dog turned and looked at me. Its head tilted, ears perked, it tipped its glossy nose, angling for a scent.

It stood. Facing me.

The officer put his hand down firmly before the dog and I saw his mouth form the single word:
Stay.

The dog sprang forward, unbidden, yanked the leash free from the officer’s hand and—

—charged.

Its ears flattened, its long mouth opened, teeth glistening, eyes fixed on the most certain target of its life—me. I couldn’t move.

My mind struggled to grasp the speed at which everything was happening. . . . At that moment I had the rather mundane thought the cheery bandanna was awfully misleading. . . .