I choked on my coffee and spent the next minute coughing gracelessly while Bree arched her perfect eyebrows at me.
"Uh," I finally said hoarsely. "Uh. I don't know, really."
She looked at me, and I shifted in my seat.
"It just seems that you guys set off sparks when you're together."
"Sometimes," I admitted.
"Do you still love Cal?"
Just hearing his name, especially spoken, by Bree, made me wince. Bree had thought she was in love with him. They had slept together before Cal and I started going out, which, as I saw it now, Cal had done partly to drive a wedge between Bree and me so that I'd be all the more dependent on him. I still found it hard to stomach the fact that Cal and Bree had had sex, and he and I hadn't, despite how much I had loved him and thought he loved me.
"He tried to kill me," I said faintly, feeling like the coffee shop was too small.
Compassion crossed her face, and she reached across the table to touch my hand. "I know," she said softly. "But I also know you really loved him. How do you feel about him now?"
I still love him, I thought. I am filled with rage and hatred toward him. He said he loved me, he said I was beautiful, he said he wanted to make love to me. He hurt me more than I can say. I miss him, and I hate myself for being so weak.
"I don't know," I finally said.
As I was opening my car door in the parking lot, out of the corner of my eye I saw a guy come out of the video store next door to the coffee place. I glanced up, and my heart stopped beating. He was looking down at a piece of paper in his hand, but I didn't need to see his face. I'd run my fingers through that raggedly-shorn dark hair . . I'd kissed that wide, smooth chest . . I'd stared so many times at those long, powerful legs in their faded blue jeans . .
Then he looked up, and I saw that it wasn't Cal after all. It was a guy I'd never seen before, with pale blue eyes and bad skin. I stood there, stunned in the bright sunlight, while he gave me a funny look, then walked to his car and got in.
It felt like a full minute before my heartbeat returned to normal. I climbed into Das Boot and drove home. But the whole way, I couldn't help checking my rearview mirror to see if anyone was behind me.
Later that day the phone rang. I raced to answer it, knowing it was Hunter.
"Can I come over?" he asked when I picked up the receiver.
When I'd gotten back from seeing Bree, Mom, Dad, and my sister were already home from church. I felt guilty about not having gone with them, so since then I had been trying to do good-daughter-type stuff around the house— shoveling the front walk, picking up my crap from the living room, unloading the dishwasher. Having Hunter over would kind of wreck my attempts at scoring points with my family.
"Yes," I said quickly. My heart kicked up a beat in response to his voice. "How will you get here?"
Silence. I almost laughed as I realized he hadn't thought about that.
"I'll borrow Sky's car," he said finally.
"Do you want me to come get you?" I asked.
"No. Are your parents there? Can we talk alone?"
"Yes, my parents are here, and we can talk alone if you want to stand out on the front porch with my whole family inside wondering what we're talking about."
He sounded irked. "Why can't we just go to your room?"
What planet did he come from? "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I don't live by myself," I said. "I'm seventeen, not nineteen, and I live with my parents. And my parents don't think it's a good idea for boys to be in my room, because there's a bed in there!" Then of course the image of Hunter on my bed made my cheeks burn, and I was sorry I had ever opened my big mouth. What was wrong with me?
"Oh, right. Sorry—I forgot," he said. "But I need to speak to you alone. Can you meet me at the little public park that's by that big grocery store on Route Eleven?"
I thought. "Yes. Ten minutes."
He hung up without saying good-bye.
When I got there, Hunter was standing by Sky's car, waiting for me. He opened Das Boot's door and climbed into the front seat. He was in a tense, angry mood, and the funny thing was, I picked up on that just from waves of sensory stuff I got from him, not from the look on his face or his body language. It was as if he was projecting those feelings and I could just sense them. My witch powers were developing every day, and it was wonderful and a bit scary at the same time.
I waited for him to speak, looking out the windshield, catching the faintest hint of his clean, fresh smell.
"I talked to Bob Unser this morning," he said. "There wasn't any brake fluid in the car, but more than that, the actual brake lines had been severed, right by the fluid reservoir."
I turned to stare at him. "Severed?"
He nodded. "Not cut exactly, not as smooth as that. He couldn't say for sure that someone had cut them. But he did say that it was unusual since both brake lines looked fine when he checked the car last week. It didn't seem like they could simply wear through so quickly."
"Did you check the car for spells, magick?" I asked.
"Yes, of course," he said. "There wasn't anything, apart from the spells of protection I'd put on it."
"So what does that mean? Was this an accident, a person, a witch, what?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "I think it was a person rather than an accident. I think it was a witch because I just don't know that many non witches, and I certainly haven't got any nonwitch enemies."
"Could it have been Cal?" I forced myself to ask. "Or Selene?"
"They're the first ones I thought of, of course," he said matter-of-factly, and the hair on my arms rose. I remembered the guy I'd seen in the parking lot this morning—the one I'd thought was Cal.
"But I still don't think they're in the area," he added. "I run a sweep every day, checking this whole area for signs ol them, and I haven't picked up on anything. Of course, I'm not as powerful as Selene," he said. "Just because I can't feel her doesn't mean she's truly gone. But I can't help thinking that I would pick up on something if they were still around."
"Like what?" I asked. My mouth felt suddenly dry.
"It's hard to say," Hunter said. "I mean, sometimes I do feel. . something. But there are so many other things going on that I can't really delineate it." He frowned. "If you were stronger, we could work together, join our powers."
"I know," I said. I was too freaked to bristle at being called weak. "I'm just a newbie. But what about Sky?"
"Well, Sky and I have already joined our powers," he said. "But you have the potential to be stronger than either of us. That's why you must be studying and learning as much as you can. The faster we can get you up to speed, the faster you can help us, help the council. Maybe even join the council."
"Ha," I exclaimed. "There's no way I'm joining the council! Be a hall monitor for Wicca? No thanks!" Then I realized how that must have sounded to Hunter, who was a member of the council himself, and I wanted to take the words back. Too late.
Hunter pressed his lips together and stared out his window. No one else was around: it was a Sunday afternoon and not warm enough for kids to be on the playground. Silence filled my ears, and I sighed.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean that. I know that what you do is more important than that. Much too important for me to contemplate doing it," I said honestly. "It's just I can hardly manage to dress myself these days, much less think about doing anything more. Everything is so. . overwhelming right now."