Faelorehn (13 page)

“You’ll have to catch a ride home with a friend though Meg.  There’s a teachers’ meeting at the high school this afternoon.”

I nodded as I pulled myself out of her car in the parking lot of Black Lake High.  The final bell had already rung, and I had to visit the office for a tardy slip.  I was never tardy to school, so the whole situation put me in a bad mood for the rest of the morning.

At break Tully and Robyn caught up to me.

“Where were you this morning?” Tully asked.

“Slept in,” was all I said.  It was the truth after all, and I didn’t feel like elaborating.

At lunch we met up with Will and Thomas out on the field.  To my complete horror and agitation, Adam Peders and Josh Turner were on the opposite end, showing off for a posse of freshman girls.  The girls were giggling and falling all over themselves because of the attention they were getting from the two hottest junior boys in the school.

Robyn rolled her eyes and started making barnyard animal sounds.  It was the first time I smiled all day.  Telling myself to forget about the boys, I sat down with my friends under a tall pine tree and started sifting through my lunch.

Everything was going fine until a familiar voice shouted, “Hey Elam.”

I cringed and felt Tully tense up next to me.

Adam sauntered up, his friends following just behind him. 
Lemmings,
I reminded myself, trying not to let my fear show. 
They’re just a bunch of brainless, follow-one-another-off-a-cliff lemmings . . .

“I heard you were thinking about getting some plastic surgery.”

I did
not
want to deal with this today.

“Why, what’s wrong with her?” Josh asked, supplying the next line to what I was sure was going to be an insult.

“Someone told me she was born with her ass where her face is supposed to be.  But I don’t see how fixing it could make a difference.”

It was like someone had poured lukewarm bacon grease all over me while kicking me in the stomach at the same time.

I barely registered Robyn jumping up and practically screaming, “Piss off Peders!” or Thomas standing to defend me, only to be shoved back by one of Adam’s friends while being fed his very own offensive insult.

Above it all, I could hear the laughter.  The freshmen girls giggling and pointing, the other bystanders either shaking their heads in shame or trying to hide their grins.

Suddenly, something inside me snapped.  Normally, I would sit in mortification and wait for my tormenters to leave.  This time, although I remained sitting, a bone-deep anger began to boil within me.  I glared at Adam but he just crossed his arms and simply smirked back, as if to say
‘what are you going to do about it?’

After a silent standoff that lasted a mere few seconds, he snorted and turned to leave, muttering something else to his friends.  I didn’t hear it this time, but the chorus of chuckles made me believe it wasn’t anything pleasant.

“Meg, forget those chauvinist pigs,” Robyn was saying.

But I wasn’t paying attention to her.  I kept glaring after Adam, my anger rising.  I glanced at the few pinecones scattered on the ground around us, still green and not cracked open by the autumn’s heat.  I wished with all my might that I could pick up one of those heavy cones and launch it at Adam’s head.  If only . . .

I knew right away that my anger must have triggered my imagination, because I pictured one of those cones rising up and flying through the air, making a bee line for the back of Adam’s head.

A strange gasp from Tully, and Robyn’s shocked face as she pointed numbly at the airborne pinecone, was the only evidence proving that I wasn’t imagining anything.  The cone cracked against the back of Adam’s head and he went sprawling, face first on the dirt track.

My face drained of all color and my heart almost stopped beating.  I had killed him.  Somehow I had made that pinecone fly through the air and it killed him!  For once in my life, I actually felt like I was going to faint.  Fortunately, the crowd that had swarmed around Adam backed away and I could see him struggling to sit up.  He looked pretty ticked off and when he pulled his hand away from the back of his head, there was blood.  He didn’t look like he had suffered a concussion, though.

I sighed in relief and almost melted into the grass.  I hated Adam, but I didn’t want a murder on my hands.  It took a few more seconds for my mind to clear, and when it did, it dawned upon me that I had absolutely no idea how I had made that pinecone launch itself at my mortal enemy.  Had I really done it?  Used some form of telekinetics I unknowingly possessed?  I guess it could be true, especially knowing what I’d already witnessed and been a part of this year so far.

“Where did that pinecone come from?” Will asked, his voice breaking into my thoughts.

“Robyn, did you throw it?” Tully whispered.

“No!” Robyn insisted.  She gave me a disturbed look, and I merely shrugged, feeling immensely nervous and guilty.

“I’m sitting on the ground.  If I had thrown it, the angle would have been greater.”  Right?  I hoped that made sense.  I bit my lip.  I felt terribly uncomfortable about the whole thing.  Besides, I hadn’t actually thrown it, and if I did admit it, Adam would probably kill me for making a fool out of him in front of half the school.

“Meghan Elam threw it at Adam, I saw her.”

I closed my eyes, wishing for some angel of death to sweep down and take me away.

Robyn hissed beside me.  “That
bitch!
”

She sure was laying on the curse words thick today.

Michaela stepped forward with Veronica and Therese, two other girls from the cheerleading squad.

But no one was looking at them.  They were all looking at me.  I was screwed.

“Come on Meghan,” Thomas murmured as he helped me to my feet.

I stood, a little shaky as a result of all the high drama.  I didn’t know how he thought he was going to protect me.  We were sorely outnumbered.  And my mom had thought a private school was safer than a public one?  At least at a public high school I could have hidden myself in the crowd.

With the help of his friends, Adam stood up and glared so hard at me I suffered from whiplash.

“You are so dead you stupid bitch,” he said loud enough only for those closest to him to hear.

I cringed.  Should I hope for another pinecone to fly at him?  No, that actually might kill him this time.

Before he could make his move, however, the bell signaling the end of lunch sounded shrilly across the campus.  At least I could enjoy a few more hours of life before Adam Peders sought his revenge.

* * *

As soon as the final school bell announced the end of the day, I was out of class and sprinting down the hallway like some marathon endorphin junkie looking for the finish line.  I had grabbed my books for homework between my last two classes, and now I was on my way to Robyn’s car before Adam could find me.  It didn’t matter that I had not actually thrown the pinecone, and there was no way I could explain what had happened.  They already thought I was crazy and the truth would only prove it and give them a reason to do actual harm to me.

I skidded to a stop in front of Robyn’s car just as the rest of the student body started trickling into the lot.  It took me a whopping two minutes (time I could have used racing to the trail that would have taken me the back way home) to remember that Robyn had a meeting with her Wicca friends today, that Tully had a group science project to work on, and that Will and Thomas had band practice until four.  In a sense, it took me two minutes to realize I was a goner.

I cursed and kicked the tire of Robyn’s car.  I knew she wouldn’t take it personally and the only option I had left was to panic.  What was I going to do?  There was no way on this green earth that Adam was going to let my little infraction slide, and I knew he would enlist his thugs to help him hunt me down.  Where were our teachers when you needed them?  Ugh, that’s what I should have done.  I should have ducked into one of the classrooms, feigning confusion on a homework assignment.  At least I would have been safe for a while.  Now I was merely a sitting duck.

A shout and the sound of my name made me jump.  Slowly, I turned my head back towards the school’s main building.

I watched Adam and his gang emerge from the hallway, their heads swiveling as they searched me out.  It was too late.  My friends were preoccupied and I had nowhere else to go; no one to rescue me.  If I tried to walk home now, they would follow me and wait until no one else was around.

Adam’s dark head turned in my direction, and he pointed.  My heart leapt into my throat.  I started moving again, walking as fast as I could towards the public bus bench.  If I was lucky, the bus would pull up and I could get on.  I didn’t care if it took me further from home, as long as it took me further from Adam Peders.  I hopped the bench, and then hurried over to check the schedule.  I cursed as tears of true desperation began to form in my eyes.  The next bus wouldn’t come for another forty minutes.  I was doomed.

My attackers drew closer, crossing the parking lot as if it were a field of cheery daisies.  My stomach was in knots and my breathing was becoming shallow.  It was when Adam was only fifteen feet away that I first heard the growl of an engine.  The sound grew louder until it was right beside me, rumbling smoothly.

“Meghan.”

I took my eyes off of Adam and his friends, all of whom had miraculously stopped in their tracks.  I glanced down and my jaw dropped.  It was Cade.  He was sitting behind the wheel of a fully restored, classic Trans Am, the silver phoenix emblem standing out against the black paint job.  I didn’t know a whole lot about cars, but Logan had been really into sports cars since he could walk, and I’d learned a thing or two.  The Trans Am would make most car enthusiasts drool in envy.

Cade had removed the T-top, presumably to enjoy the fine weather, and was currently leaning slightly towards the passenger side.  I watched in numb shock as he shifted the car into neutral and set the parking break.  Then, reaching over, he pushed open the passenger side door.

“Get in,” he growled.

Tully and Robyn would have been horrified if they knew I was about to get into a car with some strange guy I had met only twice, and who had admitted to details only a stalker would know.  I guess it was a good thing they weren’t around for once.  The person I had been only a month ago would have been horrified as well.  But I was different now, ever since I’d met Cade, and he had insinuated that my visions were not a product of my imagination.  No, I still did not trust him.  At least not completely.  But I had two options to choose from: I could get into the car with him, or I could take my chances with Adam and his knuckle-dragging buddies.  I had been wishing for a miracle, and if that miracle exuded danger and mystery and drove a fast car, well, heck, who could blame me if I was grateful?  Beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

I glanced back at my tormentors.  Adam and his followers weren’t looking at me anymore; they were gawking at the Trans Am. 
Boys
.  I stepped forward and climbed into Cade’s car, and that was when the enchantment broke.

Adam stepped forward angrily.  “Listen you little slu-”

Cade was up and out of his car so fast I wondered if he hadn’t vaporized and somehow reformed just outside his door.  Although he stood with his back to the cars whipping by on the highway, his own vehicle acting as a barrier between him and my classmates, he must have looked quite intimidating.

“You no longer have any dealings with Meghan, and if you ever torment her or insult her again, I’ll be sure to pay you a special visit at your earliest inconvenience.”

Something threatening must have showed on Cade’s face, because despite his calm voice, Adam paled and nodded his head.  Or maybe it was the fact that Cade towered over them.

Adam grabbed his friends roughly and pushed them along, claiming that they had better things to do.

Cade got back into the car, this time at a more normal speed.  He closed the door a little too roughly and snapped on his seatbelt.

“Buckle up,” he said, his voice hard.

I obeyed, too shocked from what had transpired in the past five minutes to do anything else.

He shifted the car into gear and pulled out onto the highway, gaining speed and heading north.  The engine rumbled and the wind tossed my hair over my shoulders.  Luckily, it happened to be another one of those ideal fall days, but there was a subtle chill to the air that drew goose bumps from my skin.  I pulled my sweatshirt more tightly around me and glanced over at the boy, no,
young man
, sitting next to me.

Cade looked very much the same as he had the last time I’d seen him.  He had on a different designer T-shirt, this one a little more fitted than the first one I had seen him in.  I caught a glimpse of something metallic circling his neck.  I squinted.  It looked like a thick braided chain that didn’t quite meet up just in front of his throat.  It seemed familiar, but at the same time, completely foreign.  I shook my head and forgot about it as I studied him further.  My eyes lingered on his shoulders then trailed down his arms to find his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel more tightly than necessary.