Rua (Rua, book 1) (15 page)

“Feel okay?” Kara said.

Celeste opened her eyes and dared a peek. “I feel good.”

“Excellent. Dial it back a bit, don’t be so open, but keep the door propped open. Understand?”

Celeste closed her eyes again. She pictured a round doorway, watching it get smaller in her mind until it was barely the size of a pin prick. “Okay. I think I got it.”

“Good. Open your eyes.” Kara said.

Celeste did. Her body still buzzed a little, but she was almost normal. “Oh, my God. Did I do it?”

Kara laughed. “Yep. Told you. Just takes some practice. Just leave it cracked like that, you’ll feel sick if something goes wrong, then you can shut it down immediately.”

“Oh, thank God. Finally.” Celeste plopped down on the mushroom-shaped chair. “Only took me several weeks of daily practice,” she said. “No more headaches?”

“No more headaches.” Kara sat behind her desk, pulled out two bottles of water, then tossed one to Celeste.

Celeste chugged half of it. This stuff was hard work.

“So how are things going?” Kara said.

“Oh, now you’re back to regular school counselor?”

“Uh huh. I should at least pretend to do my job,” Kara said. “So?” She swiveled her chair to face Celeste.

“Fine,” Celeste said.

“How are things with your parents?”

Celeste shrugged. “Good.”

“How about school, Rylan? Your friends? Any problems?” Kara asked.

“All fine.” The bell rang, mercifully cutting off any further probing.

Kara grabbed her notebook, scribbled off a quick note, then handed it to Celeste. “Here’s your note in case your teacher needs it.”

“Thanks.” Celeste left the office, note in hand.

Outside in the hallway, Jennifer was lying in wait, flanked by two of her friends. “What’re you doing in there, freak? Need a shrink?”

Celeste tried to step around her, but Jennifer and her friends blocked her path.

“Does poor Celeste need counseling? Does your little boyfriend know that you go to the school shrink almost every day?” She’d raised her voice to almost shouting. Students paused in the hallways, staring them down.

Celeste flushed deep red, then pushed past Jennifer and walked away. Stupid girl. Most of her fellow classmates carefully averted their eyes as she walked to her next class. Sure, they felt sorry for her and probably wanted to talk to her, but none dared, lest they faced the wrath of Jennifer.

She let her shoulders fall, until one very strong hand wrapped around hers, pulling her to a complete stop.

Rylan stepped in front of her, bending down to brush his lips close to her mouth. His warmth radiated against her skin, sending goose bumps down her spine. “Hello,” he said in a voice only she could hear.

“Hi.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. She sighed against his chest, breathing in his smell.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing.” She pulled away and tried to smile.

“Jennifer again?” He scanned the hallway behind her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Celeste said.

He ran his thumb down her hairline, across her forehead, grazing her ear and landing near her collarbone. “Oh, I’m not concerned about her at all.” He kissed her on the forehead then led her into class.

She was busy trying to scribble down all the algebra equations scrawled on the blackboard when a note landed on her desk. “Celeste” was written in curly, girlish script on the front.

She carefully opened it so the crinkly yellow paper wouldn’t alert the teacher to its presence.
HOAR! 
sprawled across the page in blood red ink.

She glanced over at Jennifer in her usual spot against the blackboard. She wore a way too low-cut tight blue shirt with skinny jeans. When she noticed Celeste looking, she lifted her middle finger and used it to scratch her forehead.

Celeste kept her face neutral, crumpled the note and shoved it to the floor, then continued writing in her notebook. She burned with anger, but there was no way she’d let Jennifer know she’d gotten under her skin.

Tink poked her in the back.

She pretended to scratch the back of her head so she could retrieve the note he passed her.

What did she say? Want me to kick her butt? 
he’d written in his long, looping, scrawl.

She marked out his words before she answered. It was their custom to cover their tracks in case a teacher picked it up.

She wrote “hoar.” She’s so dumb she can’t even spell it right.

She passed it back to him and he snickered.

The bell rang. Rylan stood, shouldered her backpack and his, and she followed him out. Tink was right behind them.

Jennifer waited in the hallway, but she just ignored her. Tink didn’t.

“Learn how to spell, moron,” he said.

“Oh, can’t let the little lady fight her own battles?” she countered.

Rylan crossed his arms. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Celeste said. “Let’s go.”

“No, not nothing.” Tink pointed at Jennifer, “She wrote a note to Celeste, calling her a whore, but of course she spelled it wrong because she’s a dumb twit.”

Rylan turned to Jennifer. “Leave us alone. I’m not interested, and I never was. You’re pathetic.” He turned his back on her.

Celeste watched her, expecting her to explode in a torrent of anger. Instead, her eyes filled with tears and she ran down the hallway, pushing students out of her way.

“See?” Tink said. “All the pretty is just a mask. Inside, she’s an insecure, stupid child who needs to get beat up.”

Rylan grabbed her hand and urged her forward. “It’s my fault. I brought this on us.”

“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about her,” Celeste said.

But as much as she brushed it off this day as she did every day, being an enemy of Jennifer was not fun. Almost everyone had stopped talking to her out of fear of Jennifer’s retribution. Gross things ended up in her locker, Tink’s car had been keyed, and her social life was pretty much shut down, except for Tink and Rylan. Oh well, not that she could have a normal high school life anyway.

After classes, Celeste walked out to her locker, opened it, and tried unsuccessfully to shove her whole backpack in. “Come on,” she muttered to herself. She was supposed to meet Rylan by his car. She yanked out a book, threw it at the bottom of her locker, then slammed the door shut. Stupid locker.

“In a hurry?”

She looked up to meet Jennifer’s ice-queen gaze.

“Uh huh.” She re-shouldered her purse and made her way around Jennifer.

Jennifer held out her arm to stop her.

Celeste pushed it off. “What do you want?”

Jennifer pivoted on her expensive heels until she faced Celeste again. “I want to know why you think you can steal my boyfriend and get away with it.”

“He wasn’t your boyfriend.”

Jennifer stepped forward until she was most definitely in Celeste’s personal space. “You don’t want to screw with me.”

Celeste squeezed her hands in a fist to hide the purple flame she was sure burned. “And you don’t want to screw with me.”

Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “You stupid little bitch.” She shoved Celeste back against the lockers. Hard.

Celeste regained her footing, and threw her backpack on the floor. “Are you kidding me?” She shoved her back. Jennifer waivered on her ridiculous stripper heels, then went down. She landed on her butt.

Jennifer struggled to stand up. “Oh, it’s on now.” She finally regained her footing and backed a few feet away. “I’m going to steal him from you. I’ll do things to him you haven’t even dreamed of. You will be left in my dust.” She pointed her finger at Celeste. “You’re dead.”

“Yeah?” She was pissed now. She knew she should walk away like an adult, but she was too damn mad. “Then why are you walking away?”

Mr. Cruthers, their English teacher, appeared in the hallway. “Is something going on?”

Jennifer smoothed her hair. “No, Mr. Cruthers,” she said in a saccharine voice.

He glanced at Celeste, red-faced with clenched fists. “Ms. Shreeve?”

Celeste dropped her tense shoulders. “No, sir.”

“Go on home, then. School has been out for ten minutes.”

He waited in the hallway until they both left, Celeste out the front entrance, Jennifer out the back.

***

Having an evil beauty-queen hate her had became her norm. Not good, or okay, but just there. She reflected on that while she shoved another piece of chocolate into her face.

“Oh, my God, this is so freaking good,” she said.

“I know, right? My mom’s the best cake-baker ever,” Tink said.

Tink and Celeste were encased in his huge room. The floor was littered with soda cans, chips, and cupcake wrappers. A small black bird pecked bits of crushed cereal from a paper plate while Tink gently pet it.

“This is so cool. I’m going to name him Raven,” he said.

“Raven? How clever.” Celeste had switched to nachos, and she spoke between mouthfuls of chips drenched in queso. “Um, can you start the movie again? They were just getting ready to do it.”

“Fine, fine.” He picked up the remote, but three sharp raps on the door caused him to lower it again. “Yes?” he called out. He glanced at Celeste.

Oh, right. The bird. She sent it out the open window.

Mrs. McDawn opened the door. “Kids? You doing okay in here?” She wore a muted pink pants-suite and a scarf. Her light blond hair was carefully styled in a flip.

“We’re doing great. Thanks Mrs. McDawn.”

She smiled at Celeste, until her eyes rested on the paper plate of crushed cereal. “Tony, what is that?”

“Um, we were going to feed the birds out the window,” Tink said.

She glanced out the window, raising two perfectly shaped brows. “Honey, I don’t know about that. Do you guys want some more nachos?”

“Sure, Mom.”

One more smile, and she was gone.

“Your mom is so nice. I love coming over here,” Celeste said.

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool.” He rolled over on the line of pillows strewn across the floor. “So, there’s something I want to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re like, my best friend ever, and I adore you,” he said.

“Aw, Tink. Back at you.”

He sat up, scrunching the pillows on the wall behind him to cushion his back.

“So, how was Jennifer today?” he asked.

“For reals, Tink. Don’t ever leave school without me again. Same stuff, different week. She still shouts at me in the hallway and tries to taunt me at lunch. It’s kind of ridiculous.”

“She’s just jealous of you. You’re prettier than her, smarter than her, you have a way more fabulous bestie than she does, and,”—he tossed a candy bar her way—“you have Rylan.”

“Thanks. You are too kind, my friend.”

“So, now that you’ve been dating Rylan for several weeks, are you feeling all girlfriendy?”

“I do. Maybe I should demand his letter jacket and class ring,” she said.

“That’s what you want from him? Because if I had man like that I would be more interested in his, ahem, other attributes.” Tink waggled his eyebrows at her.

‘Tink! You’re disgusting!” She stood, pointed her nose in the air, and placed her hands on her hips. “Besides, I’m a virtuous little angel!” She grabbed the nearest pillow and tossed it at him.

It hid him hard, knocking the cupcake out of his hand. It landed on the floor, frosting side down. “Oh, little one, it is on!” He returned fire.

The pillow fight was epic, and it was the most fun she’d had since she found out she was
Tuatha
.

Chapter 14

The bell rang, piercing her relaxed brain like an ice pick.

She stood with the rest of her classmates, but her attention was focused on Rylan, walking out of class in front of her.

He pulled her into a one-armed hug as she exited the classroom.

“Get a freakin’ room. The PDA only gets worse and worse with you two.” Tink came out of the classroom behind him them and gave both a gentle push on the back.

“I’m sorry, didn’t know you were serving hater today,” Rylan joked back.

This made Celeste laugh extra hard, since Rylan never used Tink style language. She was beyond lucky her two boys got along so well.

“I’m going to take off,” Rylan said once they got out in the hallway.

“Um, we still have three classes left,” Celeste said.

“I know. I’m skipping,” he said.

“You rebel half-fairy,” Tink said.

Rylan flipped him the middle finger then returned his attention to Celeste. “Dinner?”

“Sure. Where shall we meet?”

“No meeting up,” he said. “I would like to come get you. Is 6:00 okay?”

“If you come get me, then my parents will be there, and they’ll probably want to meet you,” she said.

He nodded slowly. “Right. That’s kind of the idea. I think it is only appropriate, don’t you?”

“Sure.” She swallowed her panic. “Of course.”

“Perfect. See you tonight.” He speed-walked to the exit to get out before the teachers noticed he was leaving. “Oh! Wear something nice,” he called over his shoulder.

Tink leaned against the wall, bending his knees until he was level with Celeste. “Tisk tisk! You still haven’t told your parents about him, have you?”

“Not in so many words,” she said.

“Hmm. Evasive maneuvers. Nice, but no dice. Let’s start with question one: Have you told your parents that you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“All right Ms. Shreeve. Number two: have you told your parents that you go out on dates with Rylan?”

“Nope,” she said.

“Figured. And the final: have you told them you are with me, when in fact, you are out with Rylan?”

“Um, maybe?”

“Oh, my dear. You are screwed.”

***

When Tink dropped her off, stress pulled at her nerves. She’d been so wrapped up in the
Sidhe
and school drama, she hadn’t gotten around to relaying the fact she had a boyfriend to her parents.

She found her parents in the living room in her dad’s pre-trip ritual. Together, they pulled all of the items her dad needed to pack for his business trip abroad and laid them out on the couch. It was the only way her dad could make sure everything he needed made it in.