Charmed (12 page)

“How’s your head?” Bianca asks, giving a small laugh. Chuckles come from the Pretty People table at the back of the room—the table I used to sit at—but otherwise the caf remains completely silent.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I didn’t take you for a linebacker. You should try out for the team.”

Light laughter erupts through the caf, and red blotches sprout up on Bianca’s neck. She clenches her jaw and whips her head around, silencing everyone with a glare. Then she locks her eyes with mine again and levels me with a look of pure hatred.

“You know, people are only being nice to you because they feel bad for you.”

Everyone oohs, and I can’t help the heat that flashes to my cheeks. Of course by “everyone” she means Devon. For a moment I wonder if she’s right, but then I remind myself that I don’t care.

“Well, it’s a good thing that worrying if everyone likes me is no longer my number one priority in life,” I retort. “I don’t care if I’m part of the Pretty People Club anymore.”

“You’re worse than not in the club,” she answers, with enough venom that a chill reaches my bones. “You’re a nobody.”

I don’t want to care, but I can’t help feeling like the words are true. My eyes feel hot with the threat of tears. This can’t be happening.

I don’t consider myself religious, but I pray to God, to Allah, to the freaking Buddha to make Bianca walk away right now, but of course, she doesn’t.

Bianca lights up like a Christmas tree when she notices I’m near tears.

“Aww!” She turns to the cheerleaders, who circle around her. “Look, she’s going to cry.”

A tear slips down my cheek. I wipe it away quickly.

Jessie squeezes my shoulder, but that only makes me angrier. Bianca gives me a little wave, a huge smile on her face, then turns on her heel. I glare at her retreating back as heat spreads through my body. The night in my bedroom when I lost my cool on Jezebel and regretted it the next morning comes flashing into my head, but I shove that thought aside.
I want Bianca to be as humiliated as I am, and right now, I don’t care if that makes me a bad person. I want to hurt her.

The table begins to vibrate. At first I think I’ve imagined it, but then my cafeteria tray rocks so hard it clatters to the floor. The ground rumbles like it’s being punched from beneath me, rattling my spine. Shrieks rise from all around me, just as a siren blares over the intercom.

Someone yells, “Earthquake!”

I panic. I’ve never experienced an earthquake this big before. I don’t even remember what we’re supposed to do.

“Indie, come on!”

Jessie stands next to the table. In the middle of the cafeteria, Bianca and Julia hold their arms out at their sides, trying to keep their balance as the ground rocks beneath them. Pieces of plaster rain down from the old roof.

A low-pitched groan sounds through the room. In a flash, a fissure forms at the center of the cafeteria floor. I can see what’s going to happen.

“No!” I stand up, reaching a hand out. But it’s too late.

The floor cracks open, and Bianca and Julia fall inside.

T
he windows shatter. I cover my head with my arms as glass rains down around me. And then: silence. Dust motes float in the sunlight blasting through the bare window frames. A few students stumble around, stunned.

My heart thrashes against my rib cage. What happened?

For a moment no one makes a sound, and then the wailing starts.

Bianca.

I dash to the wide, jagged crack that runs through the cafeteria and lean over the precipice. Bianca and Julia lie in a heap six feet below.

“Bianca!” I yell.

She moans. And then Julia whines, “Get off me, fatass.”

“Fatass?” Bianca shrieks. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

I nearly collapse from relief.

“Are you guys okay?” I call down.

“We’re buried in a hole in the freaking cafeteria, what do you think?” Bianca snaps.

And to think, for a second there, I had sympathy for her.

“Out of the way!”

I stumble up as Devon, Jarrod, and a few other football players rush past. Devon jumps into the hole, landing nimbly on his feet.

“Stabilize her neck!” someone yells.

“Devon Mills, get out of that hole this instant!” Mrs. Malone appears through the crowd, looking out of place in her red skirt suit and pumps amid all the destruction. I’m jostled to the back of the onlookers. Sirens wail in the distance, rising over the panicked cries around me.

The heat in my stomach simmers.

First, a rainstorm when I was frustrated. And now an earthquake after Bianca pushed me over the edge. Two freak weather phenomena in two days.

It can’t be my fault. It has to be a coincidence.

But the wind that night in my bedroom—I know I didn’t imagine that.

I slap my hand over my mouth, sick to my stomach at the possibility that I could have caused this. Someone could
have died. And as much as I hate Bianca, have mentally wished she’d get hit by a bus or worse, I don’t really want to be responsible for her death. The ground spins beneath me, but this time, it’s not because of an earthquake.

An area of stillness among all the chaos catches my eye. I look across the cafeteria and spot Jessie staring at me. Not crying. Not panicked. Just suspicious.

She knows.

I turn and run.

“You really think you caused it?” Bishop asks.

I scrub my forehead with the palm of my hand, pacing in the shadows outside the school. “I wanted her dead and the ground swallowed her up.”

Bishop exhales through the phone. “Controlling the elements. It’s not supposed to be possible.”

“Well, it is.”

Sirens wail and red lights flash as three ambulances and two fire trucks screech up to the school. It won’t take long for the news crews to arrive. I sink down onto the grass as the chaos unfolds around me.

Bishop is quiet for a moment. “So the ceremony worked,” he says.

“I thought so, but that was over twelve hours ago. The spell should have worn off by now.”

“Well, the spell is obviously not what we thought it was.”

I feel faint as the reality of it all sinks in; if this is true, I should be getting back to Los Demonios as quickly as possible. I’m suddenly desperate to end this call. The spell could be wearing off as we speak.

There’s a beep from the phone. I hold it away from my face and see that I’m getting another call, from the Black Cat. The school didn’t waste any time contacting parents.

“I have to go,” I say. “Aunt Penny’s calling me.”

I switch over to the other line.

“Oh, thank God!” Aunt Penny says as soon as I say hello.

“You heard?”

“Of course I heard. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but Bianca and another girl were hurt.”

She sucks in a breath. “
Bianca
Bianca? As in, your old best friend?”

“The same one.”

“Oh, Indie,” she says. In the background I hear someone ask how much for the bath salts. “Three fifty,” she answers. And then, to me: “Indie, is she…?”

“Alive?” I ask, realizing her question. “Oh God, yes. She’s going to be fine.”

At least, I hope she is. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. My stomach twists. How did I let myself lose control like that again? Do I even
know how
to control myself anymore?

“You sound shaken up,” Aunt Penny says.

She has no idea. “I’m just weirded out. I mean, Bianca could have died. It’s a miracle no one got hurt worse.”

Someone calls for Aunt Penny’s attention again. “One second.” The mouthpiece of the phone is covered. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” She huffs, speaking to me again. “Sorry about that. Where are you?”

“Outside the school.”

“Okay, stay there. I’m going to close the shop and come get you.”

“No!” I shout. “I mean, I’m okay. Don’t close the shop. Halloween season is the busiest time of the year. And I’m fine. I think I’ll just catch a ride home with someone and take a nap. I’m so tired I feel like I could sleep for ages.”

There’s a pause on the other end. “Are you sure?” she asks hesitantly. “I don’t mind. I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’m sure,” I say. “But thanks for the offer.”

“Well, okay. You do need to catch up on your sleep.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and end the call.

It doesn’t make sense for me to rush back to Los Demonios if I can’t figure out how to produce similar results. I need to know that I can do this again. Or something like it, anyway.

I stare at the huge sycamore in the grassy quad, its trunk thick and twisted, its leaves unmoving in the still air. My breathing slows as the heat begins to simmer in my stomach. I stare at the tree and think about a gust of wind blowing through its branches. I think about it so hard that the rest of the world fades to gray.

A loud
crack
splits the air. I blink against the sound, my concentration shattered. When I open my eyes again, it’s to see that the tree is split in half, its jagged edges pointing up at the sky.

Holy. Crap.

Cameramen just arriving on the scene swarm the devastated tree. I can already see the headlines: “Two Freak Events Occur Within Minutes at Local School.”

My fingers shake as I text Bishop. I tell him the same story about going home for a nap, and then call a cab.

I’ve got powers that most witches can’t even fathom, plus ten hours of free time before Aunt Penny is due home from the shop. The writing is on the wall for another trip to Los Demonios.

I
t’s a miracle we don’t get pulled over on the way to Venice Beach. The cab does twenty over the speed limit on the freeway, but I still feel like it’s not fast enough. If traffic weren’t miraculously sparse for midday, I wouldn’t hesitate to climb out the window and fly the rest of the way. It’s been so long since the spell—my powers could fade any minute.

When I finally reach the boardwalk, I practically sprint across the lot. The same freaks are out in force at the Black Market, but I don’t even look twice at them now. To think, just last week I cowered from the cat-bone vendor and now I nod hello to her like we’re best buds or something.

I slow to a jog in front of the old witch’s booth, panting
for air. The black curtains are pulled back, but I don’t see her inside the small shop. That’s when I notice that the bottles and instruments on the worktable have been cleared away. Panic overwhelms me. Maybe the witch isn’t here today. Or worse, maybe she’s left the market for good.

I hang over the counter of the empty booth.

“Hello!” I call out. I want to yell her name but realize I don’t know what it is. “Hello?” I repeat. “Anyone there?”

The back door swings open, and the witch is there. Her hands are white with a powder residue that is also dusted across the front of her tattered apron. I exhale a huge sigh of relief and slump onto the counter.

“Thank God,” I say. “I need your help. Can I come in?” I don’t bother to wait for an answer before letting myself in the side door. The witch’s eyes flash with the first hint of life I’ve seen in them.

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s kind of an emergency.”

She holds eye contact with me for a moment before wordlessly slipping back through the door at the rear of the shop. I follow her into the bowels of the market.

The scent of damp earth becomes stronger with each step I take down the rickety wooden steps, but instead of the darkness that met me last time, the cave is lit up with candles, the crags and cracks of the rock walls cast into deep shadow. The same worktable with bottles and jars strewn across its surface sits in the middle of the cave. The witch gets behind the table and resumes crushing what looks like amethysts
into a crystalline gray dust with a mortar and pestle, like I’m not having a crisis.

“I want to go back,” I announce loudly.

She lays the pestle down and uses a funnel to shake the dust into a round purple bottle with a small opening.

At first I think she must not have heard me, but then she wipes her wrinkled hands on her apron and looks up at me with eyes hazy with sadness.

“You have a death wish?”

“No.” I shift my weight from foot to foot.

She shakes her head. “I trust you brought the payment, then?”

The money I stole from the lockbox feels heavy in my pocket. My whole life, I’ve never even considered taking money from my college fund. Mom worked so hard to save that money, put in every extra penny she could scrounge, and now here I am, just burning through it. Guilt hits me hard.

“Isn’t there some way you could give me a deal? You know, since I’m a repeat customer.”

“If you want a better deal you can find someone else to help you.” She turns.

“Wait!”

I sigh, reaching into my back pocket for the wad of cash. I hold it out in front of me, and she snatches it, her mouth moving as she thumbs through the greenbacks.

“It’s double the amount. I need my car back. I saw it in the parking lot, so I know you still have it.”

Her sharp eyes consider me, then the bills, as if she’s trying to figure out how I could be screwing her over, but then she puts the money inside her apron, grabs a lantern, and passes into a tunnel off the main room. I follow.

It doesn’t seem to help that this is my second time going through with the spell. In fact, I’d argue that I’m more scared knowing what’s coming as she leads me through the low-ceilinged tunnels into the back room with the old chair. She leaves me to gather the supplies. I remember the rusty knife, and the goblet to catch my blood, and feel suddenly sick to my stomach.

She’s back too soon.

The items clank against the stone floor as she dumps them out of her apron. I catch the glint of the knife in the dim light of the lantern.

“What’s your name, anyway?” I ask, my voice tremulous with anxiety or fear or both.

“Sit in the chair,” she orders.

I swallow and do as she says, wiping my slick palms on my skirt. She grabs my wounded arm. I gasp.

“Wait, not that one,” I say, pulling it out of her grasp.

She snatches it back. “Must be the right arm.” She hastily pulls off the bandage, revealing a wound bright pink and puffy with scar tissue.

“But it’s not even healed yet!” I complain.

Her wrinkled fingers hold my arm steady. I look away as the blade slices through my skin, sending waves of pain up my arm. I pass out before the cup’s half full.

It’s the pain that wakes me. My arm throbs in time with my heartbeat, barbs of fire flashing up to my shoulder, stinging every nerve along the way. I look down at the wound and then wish I hadn’t. A fresh gouge an inch deep and four wide stretches in a jagged line across the scar tissue in the crook of my elbow, like a toddler made it with a pair of rusty scissors. Which, actually, isn’t that far off from what happened.

Blood oozes from the wound, saturating the golden sand beneath me. A wave of nausea comes over me and I have to look away before I hurl. I guess I can ixnay a career in medicine.

I listen for the sound of fireballs and lightning, but all I hear is water lapping against a shore and a lone seagull cawing as it circles in the clear blue sky overhead. The air is misty and scented with salt.

Did I travel to the wrong place? Is that even possible?

I rise to my feet on shaky legs, then reach into my pocket for the roll of gauze I brought along. I’d thought it was
plenty at the time I found it in the back of the medicine cabinet at home, but the small roll looks painfully insufficient now. I wrap the gauze tight around my arm until I’ve used up the whole thing. A red stain quickly blooms through the fabric.

Super.

I reach back into my pocket and pull out the two painkillers I brought, which also seem insufficient now. I pop them into my mouth anyway and swallow without water. They sit awkwardly in the back of my throat until I can work up enough saliva to get them down.

And then I sit back down, fighting to catch my breath.

Dark golden sand stretches for a half mile behind me, until it reaches cement seawalls set into a grassy ledge. There’s a lifeguard hut painted in a colorful seventies-flower pattern a few paces from me, and a small, red-roofed hut way off on the left. A modest mountain range speckled with houses rises up around the beach.

I’ve been here before, I realize. Torrance Beach. Bianca claimed it was
the
beach to visit and had forced me to come with her once. We’d quickly discovered it was filled with toddlers in soggy diapers instead of hot surfer dudes and never came back.

I panic as I realize I don’t know if Torrance is in sorcerer territory. Cruz said rebel territory stretched all the way to Redondo Beach. My heart races. I can’t believe I never
thought of this possibility. If I run into Goth Woman or any of the other rebels again, my whole plan could be ruined.

I sit there for a few minutes, panicking and worrying and panicking, but no one comes for me. Of course, the one time it would be convenient to wake up near a battle zone, I get tossed onto an abandoned beach.

I stumble over to the lifeguard hut. The wood creaks as I climb the old steps. Once up top, I put my back to the ocean and shield my eyes from the glare of the sun, looking out over the horizon. But with all the mountains, I only get a better view of the parking lot.

I consider my options.

Ugh.

A thought strikes me: I don’t even know if my magic still works. Who knows how long I was out for before I woke up? I’m hoping to get captured by sorcerers, but that wouldn’t be such a good idea if I had only my basic magic skills.

I decide to try something small to test it.

I focus my stare at the glistening waves a mile out. The heat of my magic moves up quickly into my chest. I think of wind pushing through the calm water, and a ripple, large enough that I know it’s unnatural, cuts through the blue. I have just enough time to smile at my success before the ripple grows so big it looks like a tsunami crashing toward the shore. Which is exactly what it is.

Awesome idea, Indie. A-plus decision.

I grip the beams of the lifeguard hut just as the massive wave arcs up over my head, casting me in its shadow.

I take a deep breath and hold on for dear life as the wave comes crashing down. It hurts worse than I expected, smashing into my body like a sledgehammer. In a moment, I’m completely submerged. The waves rip my body in every direction, pummeling me hard against the wood, churning me like I’m in a washing machine, but I cling to the beam with everything I have. The hut sways under the pressure, like it’s going to uproot from the sand. I’m desperate for a breath, but the water is so vicious I’m afraid that if I let go, I’ll be carried out to sea and pulled under with a current.

When my lungs feel like they’re going to burst, the wave
finally recedes, and my head pops up above the water. I cough and sputter, black spots dancing in my eyes as oxygen slowly returns to my brain.

I don’t know if it’s my wet clothes, or fear, or both of those things, but my whole body is taken over by violent shivering that hurts the bruises quickly forming over every inch of my skin. My new bandage has been pulled loose and hangs in a sopping pile around my wrist, leaving my wound exposed and stinging from the salt water.