The Sight Seer (8 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“So where were you last night?” Chloe asked as we walked to school the next morning.
The carpet of golden-colored leaves on the ground made a pleasant crunching sound under our shoes, and the air was crisp and clean. It was one of those calm autumn days, without a cloud in the too-blue sky. Seemed like a pity to waste it by going to school.

Unless it was raining, snowing, or cold enough that our fingers went numb the moment we stepped outside
, we walked to school. It was only about fifteen minutes away and being seen in the same car as Dad would, according to Chloe, be much worse. I couldn’t care less, but hey, this was one less thing for Dad to worry about in the morning. Anything to make his life less stressful, I supported. Of course, next year when I turned seventeen and Dad finally let me get my license (he was putting this off as long as possible because the thought of his little girls driving around unsupervised kept him up at night, apparently), Chloe expected her big sister to chauffeur her around town. In a shiny, hot new car, no less. I’m not sure where she imagines this car will come from—Dad, maybe? Apparently it’s his duty as a dad to bestow new cars on his kids once they pass their road tests. Boy, was she in for a surprise when she turned seventeen.

I looked up from reading some texts on my cell phone. There were a couple from Penny that I hadn’t gotten around to answering, but it was no big deal. I’d just talk to her when we got to school.

“Last night?” I repeated.
So much had happened yesterday, it still didn’t feel real. “I went out to eat.”

“With your so-called ‘friend?’” she asked with an evil smile.
“Is he cute? Does he have a brother?”

Ugh, I definitely wasn’t going to introduce her to Evan.
I don’t know who would devour whom, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that mess. The crazy thing is, they would probably get along. Yeah, and they’d spend their time torturing me and Rafe!

“Nope, no siblings,” I told her without even knowing if that was true or not.
I let out a sigh of relief when the school came in sight. Good, no more interrogation from Chloe.

She sent me a knowing look.
“Hmm. You’re not getting off this easy, Gabs. I want to meet him. The sooner, the better.”

Note to self:
Keep Rafe as far away from home as possible. He had already had to deal with Dad, but Chloe was much worse. He had no problems facing demons, but I had a feeling my family would send him screaming out the front door.
              Last night, while waiting for my heart to calm down, I had logged on my computer and done a search for demons and Silver Moon. I don’t know what I had been expecting to find, but I had ended up with a big fat zero. The demon webpages had been full of your stereotypical blood and gore, and there had been nothing in regards to the organization. The thing Rafe said about silver being represented by a crescent moon in alchemy was right, but if he was going to lie about something, why would it be that? Annoyed, I had shut my laptop and gone to bed, mentally preparing a list of questions to bombard Rafe with the next time I saw him.

Chloe and I entered the school, a square-shaped, two-storied building with everything painted a very depressing shade of gray.
Parting ways, Chloe headed upstairs to her locker while I walked down the eastern hallway where the eleventh graders all had their lockers. There was about ten minutes until first period, but my classmates were already gathered in front of the lockers, talking loudly.

Until they saw me.
Then people started staring, and once I passed them I heard whispers, too low for me to make out.

Okay, that was weird.
Did I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe? Was my hair sticking up? No, Chloe would have told me. Maybe I was just being paranoid. I hadn’t done anything, so there was no reason they should be talking about me.

Penny and Harrison were already by their lockers when I got there.
“Is it just me, or is everyone extra weird today?” I said by way of greeting as I spun my lock. When they didn’t answer, I looked up and noticed the grave looks on their faces. My stomach dropped. “Okay, guys, what the hell? You’re scaring me. Did someone die?”

“Where were you all weekend?” Penny asked.
“You never got back to me.”

“Oh.”
Is that why she was so mad? I smiled. “I was busy, no biggie. I was going to answer your texts, but it was too late when I finally saw them.”

“Gabi, I sent them to you Saturday
and
Sunday. You only saw them last night? What were you doing?”

“Nothing!”
If killing demons was considered nothing. “Working and homework.” I made a face. “You know, extremely boring stuff. Oh, and some gardening, as well!” I blabbed on for a full minute about my pumpkins, trailing off when I saw a look of impatience on her face.

“So you weren’t with Rafe yesterday?”

My mouth dropped open. Crap. “How do you know about that?”

Penny crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.
“Because Hannah saw the two of you hugging in the middle of the mall yesterday. Something you obviously can’t be bothered to tell me about.”

Heat rushed to my face.
“We were
not
hugging!”

“Fine,” she said, hurt.
Her words were shaking, and she refused to meet my eye. “Whatever. You want to keep this to yourself, fine. But you don’t have to lie to me, Gabi. I thought we were friends!”

“We are—” She slammed her locker hard, cutting me off.
I winced, watching Penny turn on her heel and stalk away. “Pen, come on, this is ridiculous!”
              She stopped to whirl around and point an accusing finger in my face. “No,
you’re
being ridiculous! I even called you at home yesterday when you didn’t answer my texts! You can’t spare half a minute to get back to me? Too busy doing who-knows-what with Rafe?”

“First of all, we were
not
doing ‘who-knows-what’. And second of all, I didn’t know you called me. Honest.”

“Your dad said he would tell you.”

“My dad,” I said, “was dead to the world in his favorite recliner when I got home. And he didn’t mention it this morning to me. I’m sorry. I would have called had I known, but I didn’t. So it’s not my fault.”

“Fine.”
She crossed her arms across her chest, two red spots forming on her pale cheeks. “But that doesn’t explain why you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Because nothing is!
If you’re going to believe that idiot Hannah over me, then well,
I
should be the one who’s angry, not you.”

Her blue eyes flashed dangerously.
“Alright, whatever. Who cares. Go out and play with your new friend while I spend the weekend finishing up that history project. Maybe I should tell Farnsworth that you didn’t contribute a damn thing. As usual.”

“Penny,” Harrison began, speaking up for the first time.
I shook my head slightly; he shouldn’t have to face Penny’s wrath because of me.

“Penny, I’m sorry,” I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady.
I hated fighting with her. It gave me the worst feeling in the world—like your dog dying on your birthday or something equally horrible.

Maybe it was my voice.
Or maybe it was the tears I was rapidly blinking away. Or maybe it was our classmates, who were eagerly watching our fight play out in the middle of the hallway. But whatever it was, it caused Penny to swallow whatever she was about to say, give me a terse nod, and stalk away.

“Pen,” I said softly, knowing she wouldn’t stop.

Harrison lingered. “Gabi, you know she hates being lied to.”

“I know, it’s just
…” What, complicated? Unbelievable? If I told you you’d want to lock me up and throw away the key? I suppose I could have told her I was with Rafe, but I didn’t want her coming to all sorts of conclusions before Rafe and I even got to wherever it was Penny expected us to be. I wasn’t like her. I hadn’t found my soul mate when I was thirteen. I loved Penny, but sometimes I wanted to shake her and tell her life wasn’t full of happily-ever-after Disney endings.

Harrison was still waiting for me to explain myself.
Leaning against my locker, I sighed. “Look, I don’t know what Hannah saw, but we weren’t hugging. Some…creep banged into me and Rafe caught me before I fell. And,” I continued, holding up my hands to stop him from speaking, “we may have gone out for dinner, but it’s not what she thinks. Or what the entire school thinks.” I looked around; people were still staring at me. “Don’t they have class to get to?”

“They’ll forget all about this by lunch.”

Highly unlikely. I swear half of the eleventh grade was waiting for me to screw up so they could make fun of me. Scowling fiercely, I said, “I don’t care. I just don’t want Pen to be mad.”

“I’ll talk to her.”
Ah, good old reliable Harrison. Always looking out for me. “But it’d probably be better if you talked to her.”

Damn, how did I know he was going to say that?
I lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I’ll try. But she probably won’t like what I have to say.” Which would be a big fat nothing. I needed to come up with some lies before lunchtime.

“As long as you make an effort.
She wants you to talk to her, Gabi, not keep things from her so she has to hear it first from Hannah.” Harrison hesitated. “If you really want to make this up to her, there’s a party on Friday.” He raised his brows at my groan. “Come on, they’re not that horrible.”

“They are.”

“That’s because you never had someone to take.” He let his words hang between us.

“What?
Ask Rafe? No, that’s impossible.” Did Rafe even go to teenage booze-filled parties? Did I want to bring him to one?

WE WERE NOT A COUPLE.
Why did everyone keep insisting that we do couple things?! Argh! I wanted to pull my hair out, I was so annoyed! No wonder I wasn’t dating seriously!

Turning to my locker, I pulled my math book out and shut it harder than I meant to.
“Look, Harrison,” I said, speaking to the locker. “I’ll think about it, but I can’t promise anything. He’s just a friend, no matter what stupid Hannah saw or thinks she saw. She’s an idiot, and I can’t believe you and Pen would believe her over me.” Turning away so he wouldn’t see the tears stinging my eyes, I stalked down the hallway, going the long way to the math classroom so I wouldn’t have to pass my wonderful classmates.

* * *

If Harrison thought I would cool down as the hours progressed, then boy, was he wrong.
The longer I thought about it, the angrier I got. So what if I didn’t text Penny back? And honestly, I’m not allowed to keep something to myself? I have to tell her every little thing?

Shut up.
I know that’s what best friends do. But if she were my best friend, then she should understand that there would come a time when I couldn’t tell her things. You know, top secret-saving-the-world-type things. Ugh, Rafe, why couldn’t you have been a damn spy? That would have been a little easier to get her to swallow. But a demon hunter? Yeah, right.

And oh my god, we had met all of three times, what did she expect me to say about him?
That we had made out and went to third base and I was going to marry him when I turned eighteen? Of all the people who knew me, she should have been the most understanding. She
knows
why I have trouble trusting people, why it’s always been hard for me to open up to others. The fact that she had forgotten this hurt a lot more than I was willing to admit.

So I did the mature thing and skipped lunch altogether.
By the time the three of us had our one afternoon class together, eighth period history, Penny was so mad she made Harrison sit on the other side of the room with her. Whatever, I didn’t care.

I did care when stupid Christian Thompson decided to stop by my desk before the bell ran
g. “I heard you let some guy feel you up in the middle of the mall.”

“As charming as ever, I see, Christian,” I replied with a roll of my eyes.
Christian was all tall, dark and devastatingly handsome, and worse, he knew it. Girls threw themselves at his feet, and he loved every minute of it.

He lowered his head so we were eye to eye.
“Does this mean you’ll finally go out with me?”

“Let me put it this way.”
I threw back my head, giving him my haughtiest look. We’d had this same conversation since last year, and I knew it annoyed him that I, unlike every other girl in our school, was immune to his so-called charms. “I’d rather die.”

“Bitch,” he said.
“At least your sister is more willing.” That struck a nerve, and by the way he smiled cruelly, he knew it.

“Leave her alone.”

His dark eyes flashed in amusement as he continued baiting me. “Oh, I do. She’s the one who keeps throwing herself at me. Desperate little thing, isn’t she?”

I stood up quickly, my chair hitting the desk behind me with a loud clatter.
Everyone fell silent, their eyes locked on the two of us as I stared Christian down. “Shut up about my sister, Thompson.”