Most of the students took them with a grimace, but the football players just sat there, neither accepting nor declining the paper offered, so I laid them on their desks and moved on. Brooklyn cast me a knowing grin when I passed her, and nodded her head in encouragement. I planned it just right, and Isaac was my last stop. I tried to hand him the paper, but he didn’t look up from what he was doing. How could I accidently-on-purpose touch his hand if he didn’t take the paper?
I decided to tap him on the shoulder, though that wouldn’t help me get a vision. He was wearing his letter jacket, and in order for me to see anything, the contact had to be skin-on-skin. But he still didn’t look up. Running out of time, I decided to try to push the paper under the arm he had draped over the desk.
The one he was using to shield his activity. I scooted it under his elbow, tapping it further—when he grabbed my hand and pinned me with a hateful stare.
Electricity shot up my spine. I tried to step back, but he had a death grip on my wrist, and while I didn’t get a vision, the sight before me was enough to stop me dead in my tracks. He was carving into the desk with a pocketknife, the deep gashes resembling barbed wire. When taken line by line, the vandalism looked like nothing more than sharp angles and thick, angry lines. But when taken as a whole, I had to admit, I was a little surprised.
He’d carved my name, each letter looking more like a first-grader did it than a straight-A high school student. I realized he was still glaring at me, his grip tightening with each passing moment. I tried to pull out of it, but he squeezed his fingers around my wrist so hard, I was certain he would break it.
I gasped and looked back at Mr. Gonzales. He was busy reading a message on his desk and didn’t see what was happening.
“Isaac,” I whispered. I didn’t want to get him in trouble—he was a good friend—but his grip was really strong. “Please let me go.”
Instead, he jerked me closer until my nose was almost touching his. I noticed a smudge on his forehead, a dark crimson stain. Then his expression changed, became almost apologetic. He was holding the knife with his other hand, his fingers locked around the blade itself until droplets of blood decorated his artwork.
“Isaac—”
“They want you dead, Lor,” he said, a hint of panic in his voice.
I couldn’t say anything. Any words that formed in my mind got stuck in my throat, and all I could do was stare into Isaac’s frightened face.
“Isaac!” I heard from the front of the room. It was Brooklyn. She must’ve seen what was happening and came running down the aisle.
That caught Mr. G’s attention. He stood and started toward us, but it was Brooklyn’s outburst that startled Isaac into letting go. He stumbled to his feet, shock on his face as he looked at the knife in his bloody hand like he’d never seen it before.
“What is going on?” Mr. Gonzales asked. He stopped short and gaped, his gaze traveling back and forth between Isaac’s hand and his carving. He had good cause to look shocked. Isaac was one of the nicest guys I knew. He would never hurt anyone on purpose, despite his enormous size.
Still gazing at his hand as though wondering whose it was, Isaac dropped the knife. It bounced with an ominously loud thud on my name, then tumbled to the floor. Before anyone could say anything, Mr.
Gonzales picked up the knife with his thumb and index finger, handling it like a crime scene investigator might, then took Isaac by the arm and led him out the door.
“Everyone stay quiet and seated. I’ll be right back.”
But the moment the door closed, the room burst into an uproar of conversation. Half the room was asking me what happened, and the other half had rushed over to see the desk.
Brooklyn shooed them all away and led me back to my own desk, saying, “Boy, Syd wasn’t kidding about her boyfriend acting strange.”
Honestly, I wondered if this day could get any stranger?
Little did I know …
After ending up in the nurse’s office again, this time selecting a stylish blue cold pack for my wrist, Brooke and I headed to the last class of the day, grateful that the end was nigh. Luckily, Foods and
Nutrition was usually a very low-stress class. Even so, a part of me was hoping Ms. Phipps would have another hangover. Sadly, she wasn’t quite the lush we’d hoped she would be. Instead, she gave us a quiz on the video we saw the day before. If I’d actually paid attention, I might have passed it.
But Brooke, dang her, knew every single answer. It was at that moment, at that pivotal turning point in our relationship, that I realized she’d sold her soul to the devil. No way could she have aced that quiz when neither of us paid any attention.
“It’s an absorption thing,” she said. We’d stayed behind to clean the kitchen for extra credit, so the halls were almost empty when we left class. “I just absorb information. I’m like a sponge.”
“You’re like a sphincter.” I said it before I thought. And yet, didn’t regret it. Clearly, I needed to work on a few issues. Resentment was never the answer.
She raised a superior brow, mocking my insolence, but her gaze quickly slid past me. “Jared’s coming.”
I whirled around. Fast. Too fast. So fast, I lost my balance and had to grab on to Brooke’s jacket.
And the world was depending on me.
We were in so much trouble.
Jared smiled as he walked toward us, but it was different—he was different, harder. His gaze was cavalier. His walk was more arrogant than confident. His gait almost taunting.
He strolled up to me. “I’ve actually stumbled upon you without your bodyguard. That’s not an easy thing to do.”
I glanced around, looking for Cameron. He was always right outside my classroom or waiting just down the hall. Brooke stepped to the side to check her phone. Mine beeped too. I ignored it.
“Is there a reason you wanted to catch me without Cameron around?”
The grin that slid across his handsome face was more like a leer. He hooked his thumbs on the pockets of his jeans and leaned against the wall. Most of the students had vacated the premises. We were alone except for a couple of stragglers at the lockers down the hall.
Brooklyn tapped on my arm. “You should check your phone,” she said. When I looked at her, she’d placed a wary expression on Jared, her brows crinkled in distrust.
Jared noticed. His mouth tilted as I took out my phone. Just as it lit up, I heard a clicking of heels and turned to see Tabitha walking toward us, her blond head bouncing, her white teeth visible from a hundred yards.
Then I felt Jared tug at my shirt. I backed away. He’d pulled my neckline and, I could’ve sworn, looked down my shirt. I clasped it to me with one hand. “Did you just look down my shirt?” I couldn’t decide if I should be flattered or offended.
“Ever the good girl.” His grin was gone and he stood eyeing me from underneath hooded lids. No expression on his face. No emotion. “Did you know there were seraphim, sons of God, who came to Earth to marry the daughters of man?”
I blinked at the abrupt change in subject and glanced at my phone. It had a text from Cameron. One word. Run.
“Well, yes,” I said, frowning in confusion. Run? Run where? “They had children who were called nephilim, right? Like what Cameron is.”
His gaze traveled down again, paused on my hips.
I stuffed my phone back into my bag. “Jared, I don’t understand—”
“You don’t understand what I am,” he said, his voice as sharp as steel with a razor’s edge. He tilted his head, his eyes sparkling darkly underneath his lashes. “Did you know that I took the firstborn from ten thousand families in a single night, because one man, one human man, refused to submit to a power greater than his own?”