Spiral (Spiral Series) (8 page)

“Come on,” said Andrew, steering me towards the classroom. “Let’s go learn something fascinating about rocks.” I grinned and trailed after him.

Luckily, now that it was break, I hadn’t had to see Haley in days. But school was starting up again soon and I would have to figure out a way to deal with the no-longer-so-new mean girl.

I came back to the present just as my dad finished up with, “Anyway, I’ll be home before you head out tonight, but call if you need anything.”

I nodded and grinned. “Have a good day, Dad.” He brushed my white hair out of the way and kissed the top of my forehead, a little ritual we had stuck with for many years. Then he was gone.

I got up and showered, slowly making my way down to breakfast. It would be hours before Andrew got up, and Olivia had already left. I had the house to myself, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.

Instead of heading back up to my room I flopped down in front of the TV. It was my senior year spring break, after all, surely I had earned a little morning TV. For years I had been talking to my dad about going to Costa Rica for this year’s spring break, but then Olivia had come into the picture and I still couldn’t get over how fast it had happened. Suddenly she had just been there, and my dad had been so smitten that he could barely string sentences together properly.

I sighed. I liked Olivia fine. Well, she was okay, not my mother or anything, but I really wanted my dad to be happy and if that meant Olivia, well then, so be it. I just didn’t understand why they couldn’t have waited a bit longer to not only move in together, but get married. Suddenly it felt as though all sorts of things were piling up during my senior year. The dream, the stepfamily, the new mean girl at school. . . .

Graduation couldn’t come fast enough.

I tried to relax back into the couch. I even succeeded in drifting off at one point, but then I woke up to someone poking my arm.

“WHAT?” I cried out, springing out of my stupor. I looked around groggily, assuring myself that I was safe in my new home’s living room and that the Snake Man who haunted my dreams had not come to claim me like he had the brown-haired girl. I realized that I was trembling and ordered myself to get a grip. Andrew was peering into my face and looking concerned. Awkward.

“Are you alright?” he asked, plainly worried that his new sister was screaming like a banshee in her sleep. That made two of us.

He was still in his PJs, which for guys apparently consisted of an old t-shirt and sweatpants. I scrubbed my face with my hands to hide their shaking. Guys had it so easy.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice thick from sleep and fright, “just dozed off, I guess.” Andrew looked at me with concern and made himself comfortable at the opposite end of the blue sofa.

“You having a hard time sleeping in the new house?” he asked. He had a huge bowl of Frosted Flakes and was shoveling them into his mouth. I almost laughed.

“I guess,” I said. “I’m just used to a smaller house.” My dad worked for the local town office, but Olivia was a lawyer, and judging by the look of the house we had just moved into she did very well.

Andrew nodded. “I’m sure you’ll get used to it, and it’s almost summer, and we’re going to have a great time.”

“Yeah,” I said, not sure why Andrew continued to be so nice to me despite my monosyllabic and shy responses.

“So, you’re going to dinner tonight with your friends?” Andrew asked casually.

Flipping through channels, I nodded. After a long pause I glanced through my lashes at him. He was sitting stock still, watching the TV. Obviously, I was missing something.

“Oh, want to come?” I asked. Duh, I thought to myself, if there was an awards show for idiots, I would definitely win: Nat Monroe, first place in missing the obvious category. Jill would have been laughing at me right then if she had been there.

I gave myself a pat on the back when Andrew’s face instantly brightened. “Yeah, that’d be awesome. I have practice, but I will definitely be free by dinner. I’ll drive you there if you need a ride.”

Andrew, who had been lounging around aimlessly a second ago, was now suddenly filled with energy, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for being nice. It wasn’t my forte; normally I was too shy to invite people to stuff. But Andrew was my family now, so I needed to make more of an effort with him. It was just hard, because my strange looks made everyone uncomfortable, and most people I was nice to weren’t so nice back. But Andrew had never shown the least bit of a sign that I scared him.

I couldn’t understand why he would want to hang out with me anyway. He was the most popular guy in school and could literally do whatever he wanted on a Friday night, and here he was, choosing to hang out with his weird new stepsister and her awesome, but also not popular, friends.

I had texted Jackson to see if he would be coming to dinner and he hadn’t replied, which as far as I could tell meant that he wouldn’t be there. It sucked, because now whenever I thought about Jackson, instead of the happy feeling I used to have I just felt frustration. Jackson had been my rock for years, which was probably why I had a secret crush on him, and his pulling away was hurting more and more.

“I should get going,” said Andrew. He had polished off his breakfast and was now packing up his stuff for baseball practice. Absently, I watched him work. Behind him was the open window, letting in the cool spring air. As I gazed at the outdoors and let my mind start wandering again, I suddenly felt the same creepy sensation I had every time I dreamed of the Snake Man, and just for a second, the barest of moments, I thought I saw something flash in the window. Before I could stop myself I let out a tiny gasp. Andrew instantly looked up, worry written all over his face.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Did I do something?” He looked around himself as if the answer could be found in his gym bag.

I shook my head, letting my white hair fall in front of my face. “No, sorry, it was nothing. Just tired, I guess.” Andrew glanced towards the window and then skeptically back at me. His blue eyes implied that he didn’t believe me, but he didn’t say anything.

Without another word I went back to watching TV. I didn’t look out the window again, but the creepy, slithery sensation stayed with me.

Prospect had been right. I would have gone anyway, no matter what the Elders had wanted me to do. The second I heard that Nat was in danger I would have gone to her. I had been preparing for this moment for years and it was finally here. I only hoped that I could rise to the challenge. Every Silve had a room at Locke, and when I left the Elders I headed straight to mine. I barely spent time there, but I had clothes there, and other things I would need for the trip.

Seeing her had just solidified it in my mind. I needed to protect her. The feeling, my promise to her mother, overwhelmed almost everything else, probably because after the fire I didn’t have much else left.

I tried not to think about the girl I had grown up with. Our mothers had been best friends, and Nat and I had spent all kinds of time together. It had been wonderful, and those memories were locked away in my heart, cherished above everything else.

It was clear from the romance slam that she didn’t remember anything that had happened - or me. Eleanor had told me that would happen. Unicorns have powerful magics at our disposal, and it’s not like the Elders would have sent a scared eight-year-old girl off by herself with memories of her mother burning to death. I just wished they hadn’t erased the memories of me as well.

I didn’t want to admit that the girl who was always floating somewhere on the edges of my consciousness barely knew I was alive.

“Going somewhere?”

I grinned and spun around. The familiar drawl belonged to my best friend, Jar, who was lounging against the door jamb.

Jar and his sister didn’t look anything alike, and Jar’s good looks weren’t clouded by a bitchy personality. My friend was always joking around and laughing. He always thought that the funniest person in the room should be the one making jokes, and he had never been in a situation where he didn’t think he was the funniest person in the room. Years ago, when he saw how much my dad was struggling, he had instantly come to help - that and he wanted to get away from his overbearing family and be independent, which was hard to do as a Silve. With his curly brown hair and a spattering of freckles around dark blue eyes he spent most of his free time with girls, and that’s how he liked it.

At the moment, his dark, well-muscled forearms were crossed in front of his chest, with his brown hair tousled and framing those sparkling eyes.

“You know I am,” I said absently. I would be happy to talk to Jar as long as it didn’t keep me from packing. Now that I was on my way, nothing was going to get in the way of my leaving on time.

“I told her about you,” I added. “Last night.”

Jar rolled his eyes. “Of all the things she should have remembered, I would be at the top of the list.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“How’d she look?” Jar asked carefully. He knew that turning eighteen was difficult for a unicorn, and Natalie was about to go through it alone.

“She looked good,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “She looked how I remembered. She looked a lot like Neil.”

Jar nodded encouragingly. “What’d she do when she saw you?”

I laughed a bit at the memory. “She was shocked. I think the silver eyes thing threw her off.”

Jar grinned. “That and your good looks.”

“I just wanted to explain everything to her, right then and there. Even with her friends there,” I said thoughtfully.

“You know she’s in danger, right, man?” Jar prodded.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m going,” I said tightly, without stopping the process of throwing clothes into a suitcase.

“And you know he’s with her?” Jar pushed. He was always reminding me of Natalie’s Watchful.

Obviously Jar wasn’t going to let this go. Every time I got into a funk about Natalie - which was more often than I was willing to admit - Jar tried to bring me out of it by reminding me that there was already a guy assigned to protect Natalie, a guy who had spent almost every day with her for years.

When I thought about that I wanted to throttle someone. I had known her first and I had known her better than her Watchful ever would, and every night I fell asleep thinking about her smile. That had to mean something. Like, I had to protect her. I was going to protect her.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to act like it didn’t matter and failing. “But he won’t be enough. We need all the help we can get before they really get pissed off.”

“No doubt they’re already really pissed off, but whatever you say,” said Jar. “If you need help, let me know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Help with what? Fighting off witches or getting girls?”

Jar laughed. “I’m pretty sure you’d have the second one covered of you wanted to.”

I didn’t respond to that, but Jar didn’t expect me to. Jar knew what his best friend wanted, what he had always wanted. It was an unfortunate fact that no one else but Nat would do.

“When are you going to tell her?” Jar asked.

I gave him an inscrutable look. “I have to see her a bit more first, then I’ll know.”

Jar agreed. “Well, I have permission to drive you and Eric there.”

“WHAT?” I exploded, throwing the handful of t-shirts I was holding up in the air so that they fell in a heap on the floor. “You’ve GOT to be kidding me.”

Without waiting for Jar’s answer I released a string of expletives that would have made hardened criminals blush.