Betrayal (11 page)

The last bit of anger Eve had been holding onto slipped away. He understood why she’d been so furious. And she understood why he’d wanted her to wait to take the barrier down. He was just trying to keep everybody safe. ‘Thanks, Luke. And I’m sorry too. I should have taken more time to explain instead of just exploding. What the Order did – it made me crazy.’

They continued walking, but hand in hand now. ‘I should have talked to you before I told them you’d blasted it down. The thing was – you weren’t answering the phone.’

‘Oh, so it’s my fault,’ Eve teased, relieved their first fight was over.

‘Well, I’d say yeah, but I’m not ready to have another fight with you any time this century,’ Luke replied.

‘You don’t think they’re going to put it back up, do you?’ she asked.

‘Not without telling you,’ he said. ‘And, if they do, Jess and I will go attack them with swords and kung fu.’

Eve shook her head, feeling another burst of anger at Callum and the Order. ‘That protective barrier completely didn’t work, anyway,’ she said. ‘All the Order managed to do was trap that humongous goo demon in town. Think about it. Those dead animals in the woods – they were killed by the demon while the barrier was up. The demon Callum thought he was protecting Deepdene from was already inside.’

‘I guess predicting demon behaviour isn’t an exact science,’ Luke replied.

‘Which is why the Order should stop acting like it knows everything,’ Eve said.

‘I ought to get in touch with Alanna, tell her not to bother coming now that we – meaning you and Jess – killed the demon the Order was worried about,’ Luke said. ‘Although I guess she might still want to check things out.’

‘Oh, let her come if she wants to,’ Eve commented. Luke had said that Alanna had been on her side about the Order putting up that barrier. Maybe she wasn’t all bad. And it felt right to compromise, to show Luke that she wasn’t a my-way-or-the-highway girl.

They reached Eve’s house, but Luke didn’t let go of her hand. ‘We’re good, right?’

‘Well, there’s still one more thing,’ Eve said, trying not to smile.

‘Uh-oh. What else have I done?’ Luke asked.

‘Jess said that after our fight we had to have wild make-up making out,’ Eve told him. Actually, Jess hadn’t said wild. Eve had added that part.

‘She did?’ Luke released her hand and pulled her close to him.

‘That’s what she said,’ Eve answered. ‘Pooh Bear,’ she added.

He laughed. ‘Well, if we have to, we have to, Bunny. Um, Bunny something. I need a word that rhymes with Bunny.’

‘You don’t need anything,’ Eve told him, looping her arms around his neck.

Luke lowered his lips to hers. The kiss was long, and sweet, and hot. And, yes, a little wild! ‘I was wrong about not wanting to have another fight for a hundred years,’ he said when he lifted his head. ‘I think we should fight as much as possible, just so we can do more of this.’

He kissed her again.

‘What did you get for question eight in that quiz?’ Ben Flood called to Eve after school. She and Luke were heading outside to find Jess so they could all go and meet up with Alanna together.

‘One over three x plus one.’ She and Luke paused so she could answer. ‘That was the hardest one, I thought. Glad I managed to get in some studying time last night.’ She’d taken her algebra book into the bathtub with her before going to bed. She’d showered after the Goopy fight, but she’d felt the need for a long, long bubble bath too.

‘We didn’t even have homework last night,’ Ben said. He looked at Luke. ‘You’re clearly not keeping your girlfriend entertained enough if she has to study for classes where we don’t even have assignments.’

Luke smiled at Eve. ‘I do my best. That’s all I can tell you.’

Eve flushed, thinking of all the kissing they’d done the night before. ‘I studied because I knew we were going to have a quiz,’ she told Ben. ‘He almost always gives quizzes when they are re-running
Desperate Housewives
. Don’t ask me to explain it.’

‘Guess I’ll have to start studying the
TV Guide
,’ Ben said. ‘Thanks for the tip. See you tomorrow.’ He headed into the gym’s side entrance.

‘Got any tips for me?’ Luke joked as they walked outside.

‘You heard Ben. You have to work a little harder to keep your girlfriend from becoming a complete study drudge,’ she answered.

He grabbed her, twisted her into a deep dip, and kissed her, getting them a round of applause from everyone in the quad.

‘Nice,’ Eve said, blushing as she straightened up. ‘Oh, there’s Jess.’ She pointed across the Deepdene High parking lot. A group of kids – all seniors except for Jess – were gathered around Seth’s Escalade – the Cadillac SUV was Seth’s pride and joy – enjoying the afternoon sunshine and the fact that classes were over for the day.

When they walked over, they found the group in the middle of a debate about who should be eligible to be prom queen. ‘What I’m saying is that if a senior guy takes a freshman girl, she should be able to be queen if he’s king,’ Seth said.

Eve smiled. Seth was making it sound all theoretical, but it was clear he was talking about him and Jess.

‘That’s not how it works,’ Lindsey Vissering, captain of the cheerleading squad and a senior, told Seth. ‘Forget the freshman-senior part of it for a minute. The prom queen is not the date of the prom king. The—’

‘Hold up. My sister was prom queen and the guy she went with was prom king,’ Dave Perry protested. ‘If you don’t believe me, just come to our house. There are about a million pictures of them with their crowns on.’

‘But that wasn’t because they were a couple,’ Lindsey explained. ‘Prom queen and king are voted on separately. So a couple might end up queen and king, but not because they’re a couple, because they both happened to get the most votes.’

‘Well, why doesn’t anyone who’s there get the chance to win?’ Seth challenged.

‘Because it’s the
Senior
Prom.
Senior
,’ Carrie Carrothers, also a senior – a senior who happened to be a likely pick for prom queen – told him.

‘Then if I’m elected prom king, I have to do that spotlight dance, or whatever it’s called, with—’ Seth began.

‘Who cares about the spotlight dance?’ Dave interrupted. ‘Who cares about the dance period? I’m all about the after party. Some of the guys were talking about that clearing in the woods instead of the beach because it’s more private. But my parents are all freaked about the arsonist. You guys heard about the fire, right?’

Eve’s heart fluttered. The arsonist, that was her – burning the woods on her anger-filled rampage.

‘In science, Ms Whittier was saying maybe it wasn’t arson. We had that weird heat wave, and she said that could have set up the conditions for a spontaneous wildfire,’ Carrie told the group.

Eve stopped listening to the conversation. The back of her neck was prickling and she had the overwhelming sensation that someone was watching her. She looked over her shoulder. At first she didn’t see anyone looking her way, then she spotted Simon. He was crouched down behind a car over at the edge of the lot.

Only he wasn’t staring at her. He was staring at Jess, who had her arm around Seth’s waist, laughing at something he’d just said. Eve shivered. Simon seemed to get more obsessed with Jess every day.
That slimy demon killed the animals in the woods
, she reminded herself.
It must have killed Pumpkin too. Pumpkin was killed in exactly the same way. Simon’s obsessed, but not animal-murdering crazy
.

Even so, Eve promised herself to keep an extra close watch on Jess. Nothing bad was going to happen to the best friend of the Deepdene Witch!

Luke glanced at his watch. ‘We should get going.’

Eve nodded. Alanna was meeting them at Ola’s Ice Cream Shop in about ten minutes. She signalled to Jess, who gave Seth a quick kiss, then headed over to Eve and Luke.

‘I told Seth I needed to study for finals with you two. Just in case it comes up,’ Jess said as they started for Ola’s.

‘At least there’s no final in history. Only that report.’ Eve stopped walking, horrified.

‘What?’ Luke asked, looking around as if a demon might come popping out from under a car.

‘I forgot to give the report in. And you know how Mr Zhang is about getting things in on time,’ Eve said. ‘I have to run back and get it to him before he leaves. You two go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.’

‘I’ll order for you,’ Luke called after her. ‘I know what you like.’

‘Aww, what a good boyfriend,’ Eve heard Jess say to Luke.

Luke was her boyfriend! Sometimes that was still a little hard to believe. But they’d had their first fight and their first make-up. That made them a real couple.

It was hard to miss Alanna. Luke was willing to bet that every guy who walked into Ola’s noticed her right off. It’s not that she was prettier than Eve, definitely not. But there was something about her. It was as if Alanna expected to be looked at, so you looked. Today she had her long hair swept up on top of her head. With her hair up – and her shirt conveniently cut to fall off one shoulder – it was really easy to see her tattoo of roses and thorns.

Jess elbowed him. ‘I’m here, which pretty much means Eve’s here, so I don’t think you should be staring at Alanna like that. Because if Eve was here, you wouldn’t be.’

‘I wasn’t staring,’ Luke protested. ‘I was just noticing that she was here. As in, “We’re meeting Alanna – and, oh, look, there she is”.’ He started towards the booth in the back where Alanna was sitting.

‘Don’t notice so hard,’ Jess muttered, following close behind him.

Alanna hadn’t seen them yet. She was tapping her teaspoon against the table top, frowning a little. Luke wondered what she was thinking about. The demon attack that the Order had predicted, probably. She’d be relieved to hear that Eve had already taken the demon down. Eve
and
Jess, he reminded himself. He wanted to make sure Alanna knew that Jess had held her own.

‘Hey, Alanna,’ Luke called as they approached. The frown disappeared, and Alanna gave them a big smile. Well, maybe it was directed a little more at him than Jess.

‘It’s great to see you. Sit down, sit down!’ Alanna urged. ‘I ordered us one of those massive sundaes they have here. It’s enough for about eight people, but I couldn’t resist.’

Jess sat down next to Alanna. Luke knew that she was making sure Eve would be next to Luke. Which was fine by him. No place he’d rather be.

‘Where’s Eve?’ Alanna asked. She brushed her fingers lightly across one of the roses of her tattoo.

‘She’ll be right here,’ Jess said quickly, before Luke could answer. ‘She just needed to run back to school for a minute.’

‘Well, you two fill me in on what’s been happening,’ Alanna said. ‘I can’t wait. So, you realized the barrier had been put up, and then what?’

‘Like I told you, Eve used her power to take it down,’ Luke replied. ‘She was really upset that the Order had trapped her in town.’

‘The barrier almost killed her!’ Jess jumped in, eyes bright with anger on behalf of her friend. ‘They really should have told her about it.’

Alanna held up both hands in mock surrender. ‘I agree. I told Callum that. But, basically, I’m powerless at the Order. I’m still just a trainee,’ she told them. ‘So, go on. Eve took down the barrier, and then you found the dead animals all around the town border, right, Luke?’

‘Yeah, and while he was doing that, Eve and I killed the demon,’ Jess put in, a triumphant gleam in her eye.

Alanna’s brow wrinkled. ‘What? What demon?’

‘A gigantic smelly one made of slime, or mud, or something,’ Jess told her. ‘Huge mouth, lots of teeth?’

‘Is that the one the Order has in the database?’ Luke asked.

Alanna shrugged. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell. I can look it up once I get back to the Order.’ She narrowed her eyes and studied Jess. ‘You killed it?’

‘I took out its limbs with kung fu, and Eve zapped it into a puddle of goo,’ Jess said. ‘No thanks to you guys and your invisible fence around the town.’

‘Yeah. In fact, since I found the dead animals inside the boundary, it means the Order put up the force field
after
the demon had already showed up in Deepdene. I want Callum to know that. He ended up putting us all in more danger, not less,’ Luke said.

‘OK. I’ll tell him that as soon as I get back,’ Alanna promised. ‘Are the animals still in place? I’d like to look at them. It might give me an idea what kind of ritual was being performed.’

‘I’ll pass. I got a close enough look at the icky squishiness of the animals when I got some on my shoe,’ Jess said.

‘I left the animals right where they were,’ Luke said as the waitress delivered their mountain of ice cream. He wondered if he should still order Eve some coconut chocolate chip. That was her favourite, and he’d told her that he would order for her, but they already had enough ice cream to choke a couple of elephants. ‘Is there coconut chocolate chip in this?’ he called after the waitress.

‘There’s everything in that,’ she called back. ‘Every flavour, every syrup, every topping.’

That should have Eve covered
, Luke decided.