Eternity (14 page)

“What are you
doing?!” he exclaimed, coming toward me.

I held up my
hand to motion for him to stop. “Don’t worry, Adrian. Just
watch.”

With a little
extra help from Melissa, the flames at our feet jumped higher and
higher until they were as tall as us. It was amazing, but I didn’t
feel a thing. I couldn’t help but laugh a little as I watched my
clothes turn black.

“Can’t you make
it burn any better than that?” I teased.

“You asked for
it,” Melissa said, grinning. She held her hands out and
concentrated.

Seconds later
we were completely enveloped in flame. I couldn’t see any of the
others through the thick, licking tendrils that surrounded us, but
I enjoyed the sound of the crackling wood and the way the flames
flicked at my skin without having any impact. My clothes were gone
in seconds, but I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing my naked
body through the flames. I could hear the joy in Melissa’s laughter
from somewhere to my left, and I couldn’t help but join her. Not
even the hot smoky air that went into my lungs did any damage.

I thought I
heard Heather shout something through the roar of the flames, but I
didn’t hear what she said. Seconds later the fire was out, leaving
me standing naked in the cold. Heather was close by with our
clothes ready.

“Why’d you
stop?” I asked Melissa.

“Heather said
she heard someone coming. Quick, get dressed, we have to go.”

Adrian appeared
at my side, and he was already dressed. He looked at me
appreciatively before helping me get my clothes on.

“You’ll be
lucky if half the school didn’t see that fire,” he said, but he was
smiling.

Once we were
all dressed we ran off into the woods. We were just in time. I
could see the beams of flashlights shining through the trees not
far from where we had been. I was glad the snow was gone because we
wouldn’t have to worry about leaving footprints.

They caught the
four of us before we made it to the edge of the woods. There were
more teachers out looking for us than I had realized. It was
Victor, the Physical Defence teacher, who found us, and he didn’t
look too happy. We were led straight to the headmaster’s office,
where we had to wait a few minutes for her to come.

“We are so
dead,” Melissa complained.

“It was worth
it,” Adrian said, still smiling. “That was one of the coolest
things I’ve ever seen.”

“What are we
going to tell them?” Heather asked. She didn’t sound as worried as
I expected her to, considering that she didn’t seem like the kind
of person who ever got in trouble.

“The truth,” I
answered firmly. “We’ll probably get in more trouble if we lie
anyway.”

Mrs. Bainbridge
arrived a minute later. “Which of you is responsible?” she asked,
glaring at us. I raised my hand, since it was my idea. She led me
into her office while the others waited outside, carefully guarded
by Victor.

“So, Ms. White,
would you like to tell me why four of my students were outside
after hours playing with fire?” Mrs. Bainbridge asked me once the
door was closed. She sat at her desk and looked at me. Her features
were heavily lined and stern.

“Well, Melissa
and I wanted to test our abilities,” I told her.

“Outside in the
middle of the night?”

“Night is the
best time to work with fire, and it seemed safer to do
outdoors.”

“If all you
wanted to do was test your abilities, why didn’t you ask
permission? Surely Mr. Ramirez might have agreed to help out.”

“I don’t know.
It was a last-minute plan, so we weren’t really thinking.”

“You’re right
about that. You could have burnt the forest down if you weren’t
careful, and you were out in the woods at night completely
unprotected. The rules are in place for a reason, Ms. White. Can
you also explain why Ms. Miller and Mr. Alvarez were present?”

“Heather wanted
to come with us, and we couldn’t stop her. I don’t know what Adrian
was doing. He was by the lake before we got there.”

“Was Mr.
Alvarez in wolf or human form when you arrived?”

“I don’t see
what that has to do with me,” I responded vaguely. I didn’t want to
get him in trouble. Mrs. Bainbridge seemed to notice, and she
frowned.

“Very well. I
shall speak to each of the others alone before your punishment will
be decided. Please send Ms. Cardenas in on your way out.”

I left the
office and told Melissa to go in. Mrs. Bainbridge hadn’t displayed
much emotion during her questioning, so I wasn’t sure how it went.
I told Heather and Adrian as much.

“Don’t worry
about it,” Adrian said. “I don’t think they ever kick anyone out.
We’ll probably get detention or something.”

Victor rolled
his eyes. “Clearly whatever punishment you’ve received in the past
has been ineffective,” he said.

Adrian ignored
him. “Did you finish today’s calculus problems?” he asked me.

“Sure, I did
them after supper.”

“Can you help
me with the last one, maybe over lunch tomorrow?”

“Um, sure,” I
said. Adrian never seemed to need help in Calculus, so I was a
little confused, at least until he winked at me.

After
questioning each of us, which took an hour, Mrs. Bainbridge sent us
girls to bed with the knowledge that we would be polishing the
entire ballroom floor the following evening. She held Adrian back
to give him a separate punishment, and I didn’t hear what it was. I
asked Heather if she’d heard while we walked back to our room, but
she said she hadn’t been paying attention.

“We got off
pretty easy,” Melissa commented. “Of course, it’s not like we were
doing anything horrible anyway.”

I yawned.
“Yeah, I think Adrian was right. It was totally worth it.”

“Agreed,”
Heather added.

Chapter
19

We were all
really tired the next morning. We probably wouldn’t have gotten to
our first class on time if it wasn’t for Rhea, who woke us all up
after Melissa turned the alarm off. We still had to rush, but we
made it. I can’t say I paid much attention to Ms. Coleman’s lecture
about Amun’s time in Egypt, even though it was probably really
interesting.

When I made my
way out of Physical Defence I was bruised and sore. Being tired
hadn’t exactly helped my coordination any, and Kyla Ali was a lot
stronger than she looked. I was going to try to find Adrian to see
what he wanted, but he found me first and pulled me in the opposite
direction of the cafeteria, where they were serving lunch.

“Where are we
going?” I asked through my yawn.

“Didn’t I tell
you I don’t like the cafeteria?”

“I guess, but
that still doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Then let it be
a surprise.”

Adrian led me
to an empty classroom on the second floor that had a nice view of
the courtyard. There were two desks in the room by the windows that
were brought together, and there were two chairs. There was a
basket already on the table that seemed to be filled with food.

“When did you
put that there?” I asked.

“This morning,
before class. It isn’t much, but it’ll do.”

“What are we
doing here?”

Adrian sighed.
“Must you ask so many questions?”

“Must you
refuse to answer them?”

“Only if you
keep asking. If you really want to know, this is our first date,”
Adrian said, smiling. He started getting the food out and putting
it on two plates that he had managed to bring as well.

“I guess I
don’t have any say in the matter, then,” I said, though I didn’t
actually mind. I thought it was kind of sweet.

Adrian rolled
his eyes. “Here,” he said, handing me a plate of food.

When we
finished eating I asked Adrian what his punishment was. He was
reluctant to tell me, but after some prodding he finally
answered.

“I fail one of
my classes,” he told me. “The rules are strict for werewolves, and
I broke one of the most important ones. We’re not allowed to change
unsupervised until we pass a test we have to take in second
year.”

“Good thing she
doesn’t know what happened on Christmas Eve,” I said, feeling a
little guilty. I felt like a bad influence, and not for the first
time that week.

“People break
the rules all the time. They just don’t usually get caught.”

“I guess you
have us to thank for that then. I’m sorry, Adrian. I didn’t know
you were going to be out there.”

“I know you
didn’t, you don’t have to apologize. If anything, I should be
apologizing to you. The teachers weren’t after you last night. They
were looking for me, at least until they saw your fire.”

I was
surprised. “Why would they be looking for you? Did they know you
were out of bed?”

“Yes, and I
have your friend Jack to thank for that.”

“Why would Jack
do something like that? It doesn’t sound like him at all.”

“He doesn’t
like me very much, probably because he’s in love with you. He
didn’t know any more than I did that you would be out there too. He
told Victor, who was on duty in our wing, that I had gone out. I
found out from one of our roommates this morning.”

“You didn’t
tell him that I was out there, did you?”

“As much as I
would have liked to let him know he ended up getting his best
friend in trouble instead of just me, I didn’t. I figured you
wouldn’t be too happy about it if I did.”

“I take it you
don’t like him much either,” I observed. It worried me a little,
but I didn’t know what to do about it.

“Of course not.
The guy’s pathetic. Not only is he totally in love with, but his
petty grudge against me...” He trailed off when he noticed my
expression. “Well, I’m sure he’s not too bad.”

“Don’t talk
about Jack that way.”

Adrian sighed.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you. That doesn’t mean I’m going
to lie.”

“Fine. Let’s
just not talk about it at all.”

“I can live
with that. Besides, I can think of other things I’d rather do than
talk...”

***

It took hours
that night to polish the whole floor, which I thought was pretty
shiny to begin with. We probably could have pretended to polish it
and leave it as it was and no one would notice, except we were
supervised by Mr. Wilcox. He sat on a chair on the stage and read a
book while we worked and barely even bothered to look up. We were
even more exhausted by the time we finished.

“I feel like I
could sleep for days,” Melissa complained. “This has been the
longest day of my life.”

“I know what
you mean,” Heather said, yawning.

I was tired
too, but I was in a pretty good mood anyway, so I didn’t complain.
I hadn’t told my friends about my date at lunch. When they asked me
where I was I told them I had taken a nap, which would actually
have been a good idea, so it was believable. Neither of them liked
Adrian very much, and I was pretty sure Heather was a little afraid
of him. She seemed to be afraid of most werewolves, though she got
along great with Jack. She even had a bit of a crush on him, which
I encouraged whenever I could. I thought they would be great
together.

I felt a little
better rested the next day, though I was still tired. We ended up
working individually in Skills Development, so I decided to work on
my drawing, which I was still getting better at. I don’t mean that
the drawings themselves were of better quality, I mean I was
getting better at controlling what I drew. When I had first started
drawing I drew whatever came to me, but I could now be more
specific, though not as much as I wanted to be. I could choose a
general subject or time, but I didn’t always draw what I
planned.

That day I was
having trouble controlling it, which was probably because of my
fatigue. I tried to draw what Mr. Ramirez would be doing in ten
minutes, and I ended up drawing Jack playing basketball outside. I
then decided to draw Adrian without even specifying the time, just
to make things easier. The picture that I ended up with disturbed
me.

The drawing
wasn’t of Adrian at all. Instead, it was of Michael, who I hadn’t
seen much since before winter break. He appeared to be in the
cafeteria, and I could see a few people in the background. What
bothered me was his expression, which was one of fear. It looked
like he was cowering away from something, and I had never seen
Michael look like that before. Unfortunately, I had no idea when it
was going to happen or what he was afraid of. I thought of showing
the drawing to Mr. Ramirez, but I decided to show it to Michael
instead. At least he would be warned.

I looked for
Michael at lunch time, but I couldn’t find him in the cafeteria.
After asking around, I was told he was practicing with his band in
the music room, so I went to find him there.

I could hear
the music from a little ways down the hall. It seemed they had
finally gotten a new keyboard player, though they weren’t very
good. The band was trying to play a Nightwish song, but they had a
lot of work to do. They stopped playing when they saw me standing
in the doorway.

“Hey, Juliet!”
Leon shouted. He waved as well. Patrick just nodded at me and
flipped through some music.

Michael came up
to me. “What’s up?” he asked. I motioned for him to join me in the
hallway. When we got there I pulled out my drawing and handed it to
him. He studied it for a moment.

“What is this?”
he asked. He looked at me like I was crazy, and I remembered that
he didn’t know about my ability.

“It’s a drawing
of the future,” I told him. “I just thought I should warn you.
These drawings have a habit of becoming true.”

“Did you draw
it yourself?”

“Yes, I drew it
this morning. I don’t know when it will happen though.”