Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public Series) (10 page)

Still, by the end of the day I was exhausted.

At dinner that night I sat down next to Sip, who I hadn’t had one class with all through the second half of the day. I was mortified when Lisabelle joined us and, before I could say a word to Sip myself, gave her a detailed recap of my screaming in the middle of class, everyone else’s shock, and Zervos throwing me out.

Sip covered her mouth as she listened. “I can’t believe you screamed,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I did,” I said dejectedly. “And Zervos will probably get me kicked out for sure now.”

“He doesn’t have that authority,” said Lisabelle. “It’s not like screaming violates your probation.”

Not wanting to talk about it, I asked, “What happened after I left?”

“Nothing,” said Lisabelle, shrugging. “Camilla started to talk shit about you, and Keller finally told her to shut up.”

“Keller didn’t strike me as that nice,” I said.

“Telling someone to....” Sip couldn’t bring herself to say “shut up” so instead she said, “...do something like that isn’t nice.”

“Don’t look now,” said Lisabelle, “But the round-faced boy is coming.”

“You know his name is Lough,” said Sip, glaring at Lisabelle.

“Yes, but his face is SO round,” said Lisabelle, laughing. Catching Sip’s stern glare she said, “Sorry. I’m sorry.” But she continued to grin.

“What’s his talent again?” I asked Sip.

“Dream giver,” said Lisabelle instantly. “Rare. Strong. He comes from a family of them, but it’s sort of a useless talent.”

Sip looked ready to argue, but Lough had reached our table.

“Hi,” he said, coming to a full stop and smiling around. He even smiled at Lisabelle, while she glared daggers back at him.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked, oblivious to Lisabelle’s hatred.

“Please do,” said Sip, scooting over so that he had room.

“Thanks,” he said. “There’s only one other dream major and he’s always busy,” he said, pointing to a blond guy over in the corner. At that moment he had his face glued to a girl’s face and he didn’t appear to have any intention of coming up for air. “He has a girlfriend,” added Lough. “That would never happen in a high school cafeteria.

“Thank you, captain of the obvious,” Lisabelle scoffed. “What’s wrong with dating? Or, not dating?” Lisabelle’s eyes were locked on him.

Lough went bright red. “Nothing,” he muttered.

“Stop making him uncomfortable,” Sip chided Lisabelle.

Lisabelle raised her black eyebrows and kept eating.

“Are you okay?” Lough asked me. He looked genuinely concerned.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “Thanks.”

“Hellhounds are scary,” he said. “And thanks for earlier. You took a risk helping me.”

“Yeah,” I said. It didn’t feel like I had taken a risk. It felt like I was the only student here who was a fish out of water. I was a dolphin swimming in a sea of sharks. There was no way I was going to tell him about the night Cale walked me home. Thinking of Cale reminded me that he and I still hadn’t had a chance to talk. I wanted an explanation for what he was doing there. I also wanted an explanation for why a hellhound had been following me.

I looked around, but I didn’t see him anywhere. Instead, I saw Keller, who was watching me again. I was tired of it. I had had a really long two days and nothing had gone well. Now this kid was always watching me and laughing with his other fallen angel friends. But I wasn’t something to be laughed at. College was hard enough without people you didn’t know giving you weird looks when they didn’t think you were paying attention.

Making up my mind to do something about it, I pushed my chair back and stood up.

“Excuse me,” I said to my friends. Lisabelle frowned at me, but Sip and Lough were busy talking to each other and barely acknowledged that I was leaving.

I marched towards Keller. He was sitting with a group of his friends; I recognized two of them as guys I saw him with often. I’d had a class with each of them, and I knew that their names were Nate and Marcus. Nate was tall and thin, while Marcus was short and stocky.

Keller watched me coming, but it took him until I was almost to his table to realize that I was headed right towards him. His smug smile faltered.

I put my hands on my hips and said, “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

His smile instantly returned. My irritation level skyrocketed.

“What do you mean?” he asked, folding his hands in his lap.

“I mean,” I said, “you’re always harassing me. Leave me alone!”

“I’m not always harassing you. How am I?” He watched my face closely. His smiled broadened. “Right?”

“Hey, Charlotte,” said Cale from behind me. I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t happy I was talking to Keller.

“What?” I snapped. Then, realizing how rude I sounded, I said, “Sorry, long day.”

“So I hear,” said Cale, eyeing Keller.

“I can tell you from my firsthand experience that she handled herself admirably,” Keller offered. Somehow even that sounded like he was making fun of me. His smile had disappeared, though. He was about as happy to be talking to Cale as Cale was to be talking to him.

“I just wanted to see when you wanted to get together and catch up,” said Cale, looking at me and ignoring Keller.

“Um, yeah, any time,” I said, trying to smile.

“How about breakfast tomorrow?” asked Cale. He had turned his back to Keller’s table and refused to look at him.

“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great. I need to hear all about how you ended up here.”

Cale’s face reddened. “Yeah, it’s not that interesting.”

“You sure your girlfriend’s okay with you having breakfast with, well, a girl?” Keller asked, raising his eyebrows at Cale.

“My girlfriend doesn’t control me,” said Cale, looking at an invisible dot somewhere on the wall behind Keller. I could see his chest puff out and his shoulders square as he said it.

“Who’s your girlfriend?” I wanted to know. Given how Cale had acted around me, I had been picturing him as single.

When Cale took too long to answer, Keller very casually said, “Oh, you don’t know? Camilla Van Rothson. His girlfriend is Camilla.”

I had gone over to Keller’s table to tell him off. That had failed miserably. Worse, I was about to get terrible news.

After Cale wandered away, red-faced, I turned back to Keller with my arms folded. I might be all shy in class, but not now. I was going to stand up for myself.

“Oh, right, you wanted to know what I wanted,” Keller said quietly. “I wanted you to know that I’m your new tutor.”

Oh, no way!

To him I said, “Don’t you have better things to do? Like, sharpen knives or something?”

Keller laughed. “No, and I’m very good at what I do,” he said. “And we have a lot of classes together, so the President thought I could help.”

“I don’t like it,” I informed him.

Keller rose more gracefully than I would have thought possible, and walked over to me. “What you like isn’t the most important thing at the moment. The most important thing is that you are trained. I am the best one to help you with that,” he said. He was so close I could see the slight sprinkling of freckles over his nose. I wondered if he used Chapstick, then chided myself for looking at his lips.

“Fine,” I said. “When do we start?”

“Before your date tomorrow,” he said. “In the library. I’ll fit you in before my knife sharpening.” He walked away without another word.

It was bad enough to have Keller as my tutor, but before breakfast? I didn’t like getting up early; I never had. At the normal college I had planned to attend, I hadn’t signed up for any classes that started before noon. The President hadn’t acted like she was punishing me when she decided to let me stay at a paranormal school when I couldn’t do anything paranormal, but she definitely was.

I wandered back to my friends and finished dinner in silence. It was a long time before I could sleep that night. The homework was already piling up. The professors thought that assigning three chapters of reading per class was normal. I wondered if they knew eighteen-year-olds needed sleep too. I gave up halfway through and went to bed more frustrated than when I’d gotten up that morning. I was still going to meet Cale, but I was pretty sure Camilla might try to kill me because of it.

Before I left for the library the next morning I put on a sweater and jeans, wrapped a light blue scarf around my neck, and brushed my hair out.

Outside, the entire campus was empty and there was a thin mist drifting over everything.

The library building was just as ultramodern as all the others. It was four stories high, and through the long, glass-paneled windows I could see stacks and stacks of books on every floor.

The big metal doors opened silently, and I noticed that the first floor was filled with long, dark, wooden tables surrounded by chairs upholstered with black leather. Each table was illuminated, but I couldn’t see where the light was coming form.

Sitting in the middle of it all was Keller, reading a book. He looked quiet and peaceful. It was the first time I had seen him look unguarded. Without the usual furrowed brow, his face was smooth and concentrated.

Not wanting to be caught staring, I walked into the open.

Without looking up from his book, which I could see was titled
Adventures of the First Fire Werewolves
,
he said, “You were staring at me.”

“No, I wasn’t,” I said. “I just got here.”

He closed his book and left it on his lap, sitting back and clasping his hands behind his head. “You aren’t a very good liar. Don’t worry. This is supposed to help you.”

I was surprised. Keller hadn’t seemed like the warm and cuddly type, but he was trying to be nice. “You sound like my brother,” I said.

“Wonderful,” Keller muttered.

When I raised my eyebrows he said, “Are you close?”

“Yeah,” I said. I felt a pang when I thought about Ricky. Hopefully I could write to him this weekend. Meanwhile, I ignored Keller’s accusation that I was lying. There was something that pulled me towards Keller, and the more I resisted the stronger it became.

I folded my arms over my chest and glared at him. “So, what are we doing here?”

“You should sit,” he said, indicating the chair opposite him.

Reluctantly, I sat.

Keller leaned forward in his chair. “So, what do you know about paranormals?” he asked. “What has your family told you?”

I shifted. “I don’t know much,” I said.

“Your family didn’t tell you anything?” he asked.

“No,” I said, glaring at the floor.

Somehow, Keller knew enough not to press. “Alright, here’s what you should know,” he began.

“Wait,” I said. “I thought you were going to help me with magic. I’m supposed to be able to do magic.” Maybe if I tell enough people, I thought, it will be true.