Tainted Blood (26 page)

“What is it?” they asked in unison.

I blinked and turned my attention to them. “It’s Kiera and Carter. They’re talking to a witch.”

Julz and Hayden shared a significant glance that I didn’t bother questioning then the three of us hurried through the crowd toward Madam Habitha’s tent. Oliver hadn’t divulged why I needed to keep my distance from Madam Habitha, he’d just told me to stay away from the witch when we’d last encountered her on Halloween and I was sure nothing had changed. But at that moment, Madam Habitha, who had an enormous crystal hanging from her neck, was encouraging Kiera to have a seat before I could stop her.

I lingered just off to the side of the tent with Julz and Hayden and we watched from that distance as the witch began to tell my friend her fortune. Carter had declined, which I thought was wise. With Hayden’s encouragement I stayed just out of sight for fear of upsetting the witch if we interrupted her. We watched as Madam Habitha told Kiera her fortune and it made me remember the first time I’d met the woman, not knowing she was a witch, of course, and also unaware that my date was a vampire.

Carter, whose attention had begun to wander from the scene in front of him, found me at the edge of the tent where we attempted to hide. At first he smiled, but it quickly faded as he realized there was something wrong.

“What?” he mouthed to me, and Madam Habitha’s attention shifted from Kiera to Carter. Her eyes followed Carter’s stare, catching a glimpse of the three of us quickly ducking out of sight. I took a deep breath and checked my phone with disappointment once again as we hid.

Once Kiera’s fortune had been told—something about a bright future and some other mumbo jumbo I couldn’t quite make out—Carter and Kiera made their way to us beside the tent. But not before Madam Habitha spied me. She acted as if she’d just caught sight of me, but I knew she’d already known I was there.
Her dark red lips formed a smile as her eyes fell on me.

“Oh, young princess! Where is your knight?”

I felt a chill run through me. The bad feeling that was lingering hit me hard and my brain insisted Madam Habitha, the witch Oliver wanted me to stay away from, knew something about my boyfriend. Maybe his whereabouts, maybe why he wasn’t responding to my texts or answering my calls… Or even why he wasn’t quite acting like himself.

Kiera and Carter both shot me looks but Carter’s held more importance, more concern. Kiera’s just held curiosity.

I shook myself mentally, and without saying a word, I grabbed Kiera by the wrist and tugged her away from Madam Habitha. Carter followed close behind, as did Hayden and Julz.

“What’s going on?” Kiera called over the noise of the ever growing crowd of people.

She struggled to pull away from me as I whirled around. In a low voice I said, “Stay away from that woman. She’s a…” I trailed off. I couldn’t very well tell Kiera that Madam Habitha was a witch, but I could tell Carter and by the look on his face he knew something wasn’t right. “She’s a fraud,” I finished.

Kiera pulled free of my grip and folded her arms over her chest. “You know, Laney. You’ve changed.” I blinked in surprise. “You used to be so much fun, but now, well, you’ve turned into kind of a bummer.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, still surprised by Kiera’s words.

“Since when do you care if someone here is a fraud or not?” She gestured, referring to the fair.

I wanted to say, “Since I found out
it
’
s
all real,” but I didn’t. I said nothing.

Kiera’s attention soon diverted from me when she spied Hayden and Julz not far from us. She pushed her way to them and away from me. As surprised and, well, upset as I was, it was actually a relief that she’d dropped everything and walked away.

I took that moment to whisper what I knew about Madam Habitha to Carter. We glanced back in the direction of the witch’s tent only to find that she was eyeing us. Taking my arm in his hand, Carter pulled me out of view of the witch and we joined the others once again.

An even stranger, more unsettling, feeling had settled over me.

I tried Oliver’s cell and when there was no answer, I sent him another message asking when he would be joining us. I waited a few minutes but didn’t get a response. I returned my phone to my back pocket and tried to enjoy the fair with my friends, and Julz, but all I could think was that I should get back to Felix and tell him I couldn’t get a hold of Oliver.

Maybe my anxiety was just built up nerves and hurt feelings, maybe he was fine. But I didn’t want to just hope that he was okay and
then
find out he was actually in trouble and I could have done something…

Great, now I was really freaking myself out.

I tried him again, but just as before, I couldn’t reach him. I took a deep breath and told myself it was all in my head and that he’d show. I was distracted by a new menace a moment later and was able to focus elsewhere for a little while.

We encountered a mime, and to Carter it was the equivalent of a clown. He was freaked, and what made it worse was that the mime seemed to be following us.

“That whackadoo mime is following us!” Carter whispered fiercely into my ear.

Maybe it was because we’d both become a bit paranoid and thought
the world was full of
supernatural nutter
s,
w
e were both concerned that the mime might be something more than what he appeared.
We didn’t want to find out what that something more might be, so we made our way out of the fair portion of downtown and continued on to the candy store with our group, desperately hoping we’d ditched the mime back at the fair.

All of us but Julz filled a basket with loose pieces of candy from standing, candy-filled barrels, and after we paid, everyone but Julz stuffed handfuls into their pockets then we began making our way back to the fair.

With the happiness of processed sugar running through my veins I felt a little better and pulled my phone out in the hopes of a response from Oliver. Still nothing, so I popped another piece of candy into my mouth and texted him again.

Where are you?

Just got here. You?

Just left candy store.

Heading that way.

As we got closer to the fair crowd, I watched for Oliver but only spied the mime at first, and I fully agreed with Carter; that mime was super creepy. Thankfully, the mime was busy terrorizing another group of people and I was hoping, as was Carter, that that freaky mime wouldn’t catch sight of us and follow us around again.

I popped a piece of taffy into my mouth and searched the crowd for Oliver once again. I caught sight of him in the distance and it amazed me that looking at him still made my heart race in an excited way. Then I caught sight of the person who was trailing after him and my pulse raced and my cheeks flushed for a whole different reason. Avery was beside him, l
eeching herself to
his space, and I felt anger, pure hot rage, boiling inside of me.

“Hey,” he said to all of us as he reached our group. He eyed Julz for a moment, his eyes narrowing on her, and she took a step back, away from us.

I narrowed my eyes on his and asked, “What is
she
doing here?”
Avery had stopped when Oliver had, standing just to his right, keeping her distance from the rest of us.

Oliver glanced at Avery. She was busy chewing her gum, open mouthed, and scanning her surroundings while twirling a chunk of her long bleached hair.

“We were studying and I mentioned the fair. She said she wanted to come, so I brought her,” he told me and said it like it was no big deal.

It was. It was a very big freaking deal! Especially since he’d neglected to tell me that they would be studying together, again.

I felt fury continue to pulse through every inch of my body. “You were studying,
again
?”

Oliver’s eyes widened and he took my arm and led me away from the others. “Why are you yelling at me?”

I jerked my arm away and shouted, “Are you freaking kidding me? I’m pretty sure you’d be yelling at me, too, if I showed up with Ashton. Especially if I
forgot
to mention that we were studying.” I caught a glimpse of Julz. She was sipping from her water bottle and watching us, taking in every moment.

“That’s totally different,” Oliver scoffed.

“How so?” I folded my arms and squeezed them tightly against me in the hopes I wouldn’t lash out and smack Oliver across the face, or go after Avery, or both. Not that I didn’t want to, I just had enough sense at that moment to control myself, but it was fading, fast, and I squeezed myself tighter.

“She’s not her brother,” Oliver responded and I felt like he might be defending Avery and that did not help with the rage that was steadily growing inside of me.

“Uh, yeah, she is!” I shouted and it drew the attention of a few passersby. “She’s Ashton with boobs!” Boobs that
,
at that very moment, were threatening to pop out of the miniscule piece of fabric that Avery considered a top.

“You know, Laney,” he said in a tone I didn’t quite like. “I never took you for the raging jealous type.”

I didn’t like the look he was giving me, either, so I glared in response. “So, it’s okay when you do it?” I shot back.

He laughed, but it was condescending. “You want to go there?” Those deep green eyes pierced mine, and like an idiot, I nodded, and he continued. “I had every right to be suspicious of you and Carter, and you know it,” he hissed, dipping his head so it was very close to mine.

I could taste the bile rising, and as I fought to keep it back, he turned and walked away from me. I swallowed hard as he made his way out of the crowd and that damn blonde-haired-demon followed after him.

Angry tears stung my eyes and I fought to keep them from falling. My friends were still standing where we’d left them, in the midst of the crowd, and Kiera was busy chatting up Hayden. Carter kept shooting me concerned looks and Julz turned away when my eyes met hers. I was thankful for that. My heart ached and I didn’t want sympathy from any of them.

Honestly, I just wanted to run, to get away from all of it.

It was when I looked past my friends that my need to run increased, and it was accompanied by alarm. Just past my friends and that creepy-ass mime who was apparently trying to stalk us again, I saw Ashton. He was leaning casually against the corner of a nearby building, his arms resting over his chest. He looked…curious about what he’d just seen. I flipped him off and he smiled at me in return. It just made me even madder and a single angry tear broke free. I furiously swiped it away.

I made my way back to my friends and lingered behind the group, even behind Julz, as we headed back to the stage where
Bitten
would soon be playing.

I took a seat on the curb not far from the side of the stage and the others stood nearby. Except Julz, she sat on the curb a few feet away from me.

I fought back more frustrated tears as I sat there on the curb listening to the crowd’s excitement. Excitement I did not share.

How could he?
I wondered to myself. What was Oliver thinking, if he was thinking at all?

Avery was trash. Everyone knew this, including Oliver. I tried to convince myself that nothing was going on with them behind my back and maybe it wasn’t, not on Oliver’s part— yet. But I knew deep down in my heart that Avery was after him. I knew that she wanted him, from the first moment she laid eyes on him, that first night he’d gone to the club with us, I knew she wanted to sink her claws into him.

I just didn’t think he’d be so easily fooled by her catty ways.

The fact that he’d just left and she had followed… It was killing me to think that there could possibly be something… I shook my head to make the bad/terrible/horrible thoughts go away. I took a deep, settling breath and refused to believe he’d do anything to hurt our relationship, to hurt us. But I knew, from experience, that Avery would do her damn
e
dest to make sure it did happen and that scared the hell out of me.

Suddenly the crowd roared with excitement. The band had stepped onto the stage and I did my best to set my heart-wrenching troubles aside and enjoy the show with my friends, and Julz—my boyfriend’s psychotic protégé. But tonight, she didn’t seem to be the Julz that made me nervous; she was acting more like a friend than her maker—my boyfriend—was and that was unsettling.

Like the whole night was turning out to be. Purely unsettling…

Bitten
went right into their set—busting out a song that most of the crowd seemed to know. I wasn’t sure that it was their regular vampire-type crowd, but I imagined that the faithful followers were there. And by the looks of it, I was right.

I stayed on my section of the curb and watched as Felix and Isaac rocked the fans and my friends. My heart was heavy and I was doing my best to enjoy the show but my thoughts were refusing to be set aside. Horrible scenarios were playing through my mind and I kept feeling my stomach plummet even further with each terrible thought.