Spellcaster. Cara Shultz Lynn

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СКАЧАТЬ “Hell, no!” I practically cried, and a few people turned their heads. I didn’t care if they heard me.

       “Brendan’s not like that,” I stated emphatically. A few of the other students at Vince A, well that was another story. Some of my classmates had blown through more powder than the Olympic skiing team, but Brendan was clean.

       “Sorry,” Jenn said guiltily. “I mean, he’s a DJ, he hangs in clubs…how would I know?”

      “Anyway,” Cisco interrupted, getting back to the story, “Frank couldn’t see what was going on, just that when they were leaving, Casey was hauling Brendan out of the hallway by the back of his collar and down the stairs. I guess to Casey’s office.”

       “Then what?” I asked.

       “Then Frank had to go to class,” Cisco said. “I just don’t get it—why they would think Brendan, of all people, was on drugs? I mean, the guy looks as healthy as they come.”

       “That’s one way to put it,” Jenn murmured, more to herself than me. Incredulous, I elbowed her, and Jenn blushed. “Yeah, sorry. I mean, he doesn’t look cracked out or anything.”

       “That’s because he’s not,” I insisted. I pulled my phone out of my backpack to text Brendan. If he even has his phone with him. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt powerless.

       “This really sucks,” I moaned, dropping against the uncomfortable, upright back of the seat. I kept the phone in my hand, ready to open it as soon as it vibrated.

       “I’m sure it’s fine, and it’s just Casey taking full advantage of the whole zero-tolerance policy. Besides, I bet she’d love for you or Brendan to look a little at fault after the whole Anthony thing gave the school’s image such a black eye,” Cisco mused, and Jenn nodded in agreement.

       “Look, there’s nothing you can do now,” Cisco advised me. “Just put it out of your mind until you talk to him, and maybe you guys can laugh about this later when you’re at his house, counting his mother’s diamonds or, I don’t know, planning a trip to Bulgaria or whatever it is that you do when you’re at his megapalace downtown,” he teased.

       “I don’t think they do much talking,” Jenn said, combing her fingers through her hair as her eyes drifted off to the ceiling of the bus. “I wouldn’t.”

       I smiled—even in light of Jenn’s blatant fantasies about my boyfriend—and threw my arms around both of them.

       “Thanks, guys,” I whispered. They continued to reassure me that this was just a prank—or revenge. Jenn even theorized that it was an attempt from a rival school to take the star basketball player out of commission, but my thoughts kept going back to the spell with Angelique.

      It’s got more hate than you two have love.

      This seemed pretty hateful to me.

       We arrived at the Cloisters, and I kept surreptitiously checking my phone, waiting for Brendan to text me…once they gave him back his bag and cell phone, that is. If they gave it back to him. All I could think about was that he was going to get kicked out…suspended…arrested. The words kept ringing in my ears, louder than anything McNelly said: It’s got more hate than you two have love.

       And that hate was directed at Brendan, not me.

       As we walked through the halls, I ran my fingers along the stone architecture, a brief thought flitting through my mind that I might have walked through these very halls in a past life. The Cloisters were the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval branch, with parts of the structure actually dating as far back as the twelfth century. I scribbled meticulous notes, trying to keep track of what she was saying to share with Brendan later, for the inevitable test that he might fail since he missed the trip. That is, if he’s still a student at Vince A.

       I was surprised that my number-one nemesis at school, Kristin Thorn, and her little horde of hangers-on stayed as far away from me as possible—I had imagined myself being tripped down one of the several uneven, stone staircases in the Cloisters. Then I noticed that Kristin had her phone’s browser open to the Cloisters webpage, and periodically brought up points as if they were her own. No wonder she’s avoiding you—she doesn’t want you to witness her shameless kiss-assery.

       I should have known she wouldn’t keep her distance for long—Brendan’s little scandal provided her with the fodder she needed to jab at me. Just as we were breaking for lunch, I fell behind Cisco and Jenn, kneeling down to fix the twisted strap on my Mary Janes when Kristin sidled up to me. She stomped her red-soled Christian Louboutin heel an inch from my right pinky.

       “Watch it!” I gave her a dirty look, snapping my hand back and briefly wondering if she’d missed her intended target. I bet she had planned to impale my finger with her heel like a shish kebab. I wouldn’t put it past her.

       “Where’s your boyfriend, Emma? Did he have a bad day? I mean, a worse day than usual. Since he’s wasting his time with you, I figure his days usually suck,” she cooed in a baby voice that dropped with false concern. Her fake tan had persisted through the winter—the girl looked like a grilled cheese sandwich in a push-up bra.

       I usually try my best to ignore Kristin—going back at her only made things worse. The school’s resident rich bitch had had it in for me since the second I started school. She’d had a thing for Anthony, and it had been Kristin who had facilitated Anthony’s attack on me last December. Her little role in the ordeal had earned her a week’s suspension. I had thought (hoped?) that Anthony’s brutal treatment of her would soften her cruel streak—and it did, for a little while. But recently, she’d started up with me again. I guess somehow, in her overprivileged, spoiled little brain, she had managed to twist things around to the point of where it was my fault that she had gotten in trouble. That I was the reason Anthony was a psycho. In the past few weeks, her cutthroat behavior was worse than ever—and, of course, her sycophants followed suit. Her much unrequited crush on Brendan just fueled her attacks, even though he’d done everything short of doing an interview in the Vincent Academy Observer proclaiming how uninterested in her he was. I used to wonder why she hadn’t gotten expelled, but realized all too soon that her lax punishment coincided with the purchase of twenty new laptops for the library. Whatever daddy’s little girl wanted, she got—except for Brendan.

       I continued ignoring Kristin as I followed Jenn and Cisco out of the museum—we’d decided to eat lunch in Fort Tryon Park since it was nice out—but she wouldn’t let up.

       “So, the cops came, right? I guess hanging out with your low-class ass is finally rubbing off on him,” she snapped, her overly made-up-for-school-are-you-kidding-me-with-those-false-eyelashes eyes narrowing as she looked me up and down. And then we walked right past Kendall, one of Brendan’s discouragingly pretty, strawberry-blonde ex-flings. Oh, joy.

      “So what’s the story with Brendan, Emma?” Kendall asked, lounging against the banister and crossing her legs—legs so long only the ground stopped them from going on forever. I ignored her and quickened my walk.

       “I know how to make him feel better—better than you could, at least,” Kendall purred as I hurried past. “He had a lot of fun last time,” she called after me, Kristin joining in on her cackling as I tried to push the mental picture of Brendan kissing Kendall, holding her close as those mile-long legs wrapped around him—No!—out of my mind, but it was like an alien invaded my head and was forcing me to think of different scenarios with them. Unrealistic scenarios, too. No one is that bendy.

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