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I shook my head as I turned and walked out of
the classroom, so incredibly thankful the day was over that it was
all I could do to keep from running down the hallway towards the
front doors as I screamed “FREEDOM” at the top of my lungs in my
best Braveheart imitation. I really looked forward to getting to
Baker’s; the bookstore might have been small, but it was welcoming
and comfortable and carried a wide range of books and unique
knick-knacks that made it a popular stop for tourists during the
Fall because of the beautiful pallet of colors the leaves outside
the front door displayed. I loved the Blue Ridge Mountains during
all seasons, but in the Fall they just came alive with all sorts of
colors, from deep, russet red to brilliant gold and many various
shades in between. The Blue Ridge Parkway was a favorite tourist
destination for people who liked to be inspired by the colors and
sights of the mountains, and it was also when we did the most
business.

I was so deep in my thoughts that I hadn’t
realized that there was a person standing by my car until I almost
ran her over. I pulled myself back to the present and blinked at
Maria, completely taken aback by her appereance. I had completely
forgotten about my resolve to talk to her about, well, everything,
and the farting butterflies were not only back with a vengeance,
but the little bastards had gotten involved in an orgy and
multiplied exponentially as I met her angry eyes.

“What?” I asked defensively, and scowled when
I realized I had no reason to be defensive at all.

“What?” she mimicked and her lips pulled back
a little to bare her teeth at me. This was so far removed from the
warm and caring person I had grown up with that I snapped from
defensive to very, very angry. I had had enough of this person who
looked like, sounded like, and mostly dressed like my friend, but
who had obviously been taken over by some new species of pod
people.

“What the hell is your problem?” I snarled
and stepped forward until I was almost level with her. “What the
hell is up with the sudden bitch queen routine? Ever since you came
back it’s been like you have two people living inside of you, one
is my best friend that I’ve known all my life, that snuck me ice
cream when Mom grounded me over a missed curfew, that loves the
Earth and everything in it so much that she’s obsessed with finding
a way to recycle Q-tips and wouldn’t hurt anyone else, ever, even
if it meant that she kept her own feelings bottled up inside until
she could find me and we could go somewhere secluded so she could
scream and no one would hear her, and the other is this angry,
bitchy person that I’ve never met before who keeps lashing out at
the people who care most and want to help her. What is WRONG,
Maria?”

My anger left as fast as it arrived, and I
had an idle thought that maybe Akira had been right about my
“spines” because I felt a little like a deflated puffer fish as she
stared at me, shock draining away her own anger until she looked
lost and frightened. She wrapped her arms around her body in a
gesture I was all too familiar with, one she adopted when she was
trying to hold herself together to keep from flying apart like a
jigsaw puzzle that an impatient kid throws around because they
can’t put it together quickly enough.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and I had to
lean forward to hear her. “I don’t know.”

She looked up at me and her eyes did that
strange shift as her hands suddenly lashed out and shoved me, hard
enough that I stumbled backwards, tripped over the curb and lost my
balance. I twisted to try and catch myself, but I wasn’t quite
quick enough and my jaw bounced painfully off the hood of my car
before I managed to lurch drunkenly back in a semblance of
controlled balance. Once I regained my bearings I jerked back
around, shocked at the violent action that was so unlike her, and
found myself staring into strange, milky white eyes.

“Just mind your own damn business!” she
snarled as she stalked away from my car and headed off into the
parking lot.

“Hey, wait!” I yelled and stumbled sideways
as I reeled from the confrontation and painful throbbing in my jaw.
I wasn’t quite thinking straight and made to follow her only to be
pulled back by a hand on my arm.

“Hey, you,” an unfamiliar voice said, and I
turned and found myself staring at an underclassman I had never
interacted with, but that I had seen following Akira around like a
little lost puppy more than once. “I hear you’re working with Akira
on a project.”

“Yeah?” I asked with a sigh. I already knew
where this was going and readied myself to get really nasty if I
had to. Stupid girls who think they’re entitled to “own” someone
simply because they like the way they look and will fight to keep
interlopers away from their idols even if they, themselves, have
never exchanged half a dozen words with their object of adoration.
It happens all the time online between fans of certain movie stars,
but actually seeing it in person made the whole thing seem even
more ridiculous. Stupid Akira who encouraged this embarrassing
behavior by being oblivious and never really addressing it to make
it stop, though maybe he didn’t want it to stop, who knows how a
guy thinks when he has an entourage of fawning fangirls willing to
let him use them as a stepping stool if he so wished.

“Don’t think you’re going to get too close to
him,” the girl said, and I mentally rolled my eyes at the fact that
a) she had yet to let go of my arm and b) her friends obviously
were familiar with my reputation (which was rather formidable if I
did say so myself) and had hung back as they eyed me nervously.

“Or?” I asked nonchalantly and shifted my
body weight slightly as I glanced around at everyone else in the
parking lot. No one aside from the girl’s backup was paying
attention, which meant I was in the clear. Had anyone else been
watching, I wouldn’t have been able to get away with what I was
about to do.

“Or it won’t be healthy for that pretty face
and hair of yours,” the underclassman threatened.

That was such a typical, wanna be tough girl
bully comment that I nearly laughed in her face, but instead I
concentrated on nipping this brewing issue in the bud before it got
too out of hand. I moved fast. My hand darted out and grabbed her
wrist. I jerked her forward and used her surprised stumble to my
advantage and shifted her until her back was to my front with her
right arm twisted painfully behind her. She opened her mouth and
drew in a breath to scream.

“Make a noise,” I hissed into her ear, “and
I’ll break it.”

The girl snapped her mouth shut with a
whimper. I knew she had looked at her backup girls, but they were
either too startled or too scared to step forward to offer her
help. I had a brief thought that this was not what my mother had in
mind when she made me take self-defense classes two years ago, but
I shoved it away. The best defense is a good offense, or in my
case, a twisted arm, a good glare, and a motive to stop them cold
before it got out of hand. They didn’t need to know that I had
never actually broken a person’s arm with this hold before, the
suggestion I could do so was enough to have them all under my
control.

“Let me offer you some free advice,” I said
and kept my voice low as I glared the other girls into submission.
“Making threats is seriously bad for your health. Especially when
they’re in relation to someone else who has the free will to do
whatever, and get to know whomever, he wishes. What’s even worse is
when you think you can threaten
me
. Do it again, and you’ll
wind up with more than a wrenched arm. Understand?”

The girl nodded frantically. I shoved her
away from me with a grunt. Maybe my friends were right about my
temper. Maybe Akira had a point about me having “spines”, but
whatever. If I didn’t shut up the first person to try and warn me
away from working with him, then it would be nothing but dodging
insults, abuse, and other fun things for the entire time it took us
to finish the project. I had too much else going on to want to have
to deal with that.

The underclassman stumbled slightly, then
turned and stared at me, her face pale. Her eyes took up most of
her face as she rubbed the wrist that was, no doubt, starting to
throb from being held in such a painful manner. Not unlike my own
jaw, I thought and brushed it lightly with a finger.

My would be assailant backed up another step,
then turned and fled back into the school and all but one of her
cronies followed behind her. The remaining girl eyeballed me and
grinned, her teeth a white slash against an elegantly beautiful
face the color of dark mocha.

“I told her it wasn’t a good idea to try and
threaten you,” she said, her voice husky and warm as her eyes
filled with wry humor. “But Sheryl never listens to anyone when she
gets a thought in her head. I’m glad you lived up to your
reputation and put her in her place.”

I sighed and rubbed the back of my head as my
shoulders drooped and tension drained off of me in waves, leaving
me feeling slightly shaky and like I had taken two Benadryl
followed by a shot of Nightquil.

“Well,” I said, my voice dry. “I’m glad I
didn’t disappoint.”

“I’m Kat Laundrum,” she said and stuck out
her hand.

“Ah, Jane Alexander,” I replied, a little
surprised by the formality of the introduction as I shook her hand,
but figured what the hell.

“I know,” Kat said and her eyes sparked with
amusement. “I’m glad to finally meet you, though I hate that the
circumstances are rather awkward.”

“Just a little,” I said and my own sense of
humor rose to the occasion as my anger left and I smiled.

“I hope you won’t hold that against me,” she
said. “I have a feeling that Sheryl is probably going to kick me
out of her little group because I stayed behind to talk to
you.”

She seemed extremely unconcerned about this,
and I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“If she does,” I said, “Then you’re more than
welcome to hang out with my friends and me during lunch if you
want, though we’re probably fairly boring.”

“I doubt that,” she said and grinned.
“Thanks, I might take you up on that if it won’t bother your other
friends. I know Maria already, she tutored me in science earlier
this semester, though . . .”

“Though?”

“She’s changed a lot, hasn’t she? These last
few weeks, I mean. It’s another reason I wanted to stay behind and
talk with you, see if you’ve noticed a difference in her. She used
to be so nice, and now she’s, well, you almost feel like you have
to walk on eggshells around her.”

I stared at this strange girl with the
contagious smile and wondered how it was I had never met her before
if Maria had tutored her like she said, though now that she
mentioned it I vaguely remembered Maria mentioning tutoring someone
in science at the start of the school year. That seemed so long ago
after everything that had happened recently, so I wasn’t one
hundred percent sure if she had told me, or if Ryan had passed the
message along.

“Do you know why she’s changed?” Kat suddenly
asked. “I saw her shove you, you know, before Sherryl pulled her
shit. That’s just not like the sweet person who worked with me
earlier this semester, you know?”

“She has changed, but I don’t know how or
why,” I said and winced as I brought my fingers up to the hot,
stinging area at the side of my face. Kat winced in sympathy.

“It’s going to bruise,” she said as she
pulled a compact out of her purse and handed it to me. I could have
used my car’s mirrors, but this was a little easier to maneuver and
didn’t involve me contorting my body into strange angles to get a
look. She was right. The right side of my jaw was a brilliant red
and the area just under my right eye had already started to darken
a little.

“Great,” I said and returned Kat’s compact to
her. “That’s going to go over well at work tonight. Ugh.”

“I should let you get going,” Kat said. She
stepped back and waved before she turned and vanished back into the
building. I was worried about the bruise and the fact that I had no
make-up or concealer with me because I had used the last of it that
morning to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. I didn’t have
time to stop by a drug store, either, to pick up an extra tube,
which meant I was stuck. Mr. Baker was not going to be happy.

“This,” I declared to the interior of my car
as I slid in and buckled my seat belt, “Has been one terrible,
horrible, no good, very bad day. Ugh.”

I dropped my head on my steering wheel, and
then nearly brained myself on the roof when I accidentally made the
horn blare. I groaned, turned on my car and backed out of my
parking spot. I determinedly ignored the few remaining students who
were flipping me the bird for scaring them as badly as I had scared
myself, and joined the lines of people fighting to get out of the
single gate that led off school property. I called Mom and left a
message on her voicemail to let her know I was on my way to work.
At least she couldn’t say I wasn’t doing my part of our bargain, as
it wasn’t my fault if she didn’t answer. I sighed. What a day.

Chapter Four

Baker’s Bookstore was a haven of eclectic
odds and ends. Mr. Baker had started out as a rich, eccentric
bibliophile who collected books and interesting little knickknacks
on his journeys across the globe, but he quickly realized that
lugging fifty to a hundred pounds of paper around is rather
difficult on most days, down right impossible on others; especially
if a person enjoyed flying as much as he did. So he decided that it
was time to pack up, settle down, and subsequently opened up his
own new and used bookstore. The result was a place full of elegant
clutter with shelves piled high with books from all over the world.
Elegant tomes dressed in leather bindings with gilt lettering on
their spines sat next to the latest New York Times bestseller. The
sheer number of volumes that spilled over onto the floor, sprawled
on the small coffee tables, scattered in every nook and cranny
available gave the place a strong impression of organized chaos. It
should, by rights, have felt tight, cramped and claustrophobic, but
I found it warm and homey with freestanding lamps that added a warm
glow to the darker corners. There were a few overstuffed chairs for
browsers to be able to sit and go through their selection, and
while it couldn’t compete with a Barnes and Noble for size, it
certainly had its own charm.