Page 10 (1/2)

Savannah

Unfortunately, Greg was anything but back to normal by lunchtime on Monday when I joined hirab so up fro nauseous, I shook ry today

He frowned, his eyes growing even darker and et you souys, does Greg seem different today?" I asked his friends

"Now that you e bite of his nachos "I think it&039;s cuz he&039;s in l-o-v-e"

"Dude," Peter punched his arm "You&039;re not supposed to reveal a dude&039;s secrets like that, ave a half s three words at the houres The guy&039;s been talking about you nonstop ever since"

"Is thatnormal for him?"

"No Not that he hasn&039;t talked about you before But this is so after the dance, calling , I stared down at my hands in my lap What have I done?

"Ah, don&039;t worry about it, Sav," Mark said "He&039;ll co returned and set an overloaded tray in front of ot one of everything"

He wasn&039;t kidding He&039;d bought enough food to create a h of disbelief burst out ofBut I&039; you not to eat or soainst my lips "Here, just eat a little You&039;re too skinny anyways"

A glance around the table shoo , I&039; away froo sit with the girls today"

"Yeah, rowled at his best friend "I kno to look out forfro had never spoken to either of his friends like that He had to be acting this way because of ot any worse

I stood up "Sorry, guys But this is getting out of hand"

"See ya, Sav," Mark said Peter just looked e asped "Greg, I can&039;t believe you&039;re being so rude Peter and Mark are my friends, too, now I don&039;t knohat your problem is with them today, but if it&039;s because of me, you need to stop it" I nodded at Peter and Mark "See you guys later" I turned to walk away

But Greg grabbed azed down at his nose, studying his eyes witha hole to hide in He lookedpossessed, just like those boys outside theo with him or not

"Uh-uh, not cool, man," Peter muttered

I made my voice as steady as I could "Until you can cool off and apologize to your friends, I&039;ll be sitting with the girls" I looked down at his hand clamped onout froers started to go nurip What would I do if he refused? If Ihis noro

The blood rushed back to ht change his mind I tried to keep s,in overdrive, my shoulders hunched orry that he&039;d try to follow me across the cafeteria The forty yards between his table and ed a noret out of that cafeteria with all those people watching and keep going until I was off the ca,and I had walked over toforward to the ho dance Tears burned my eyes and threatened to spill over by the time I reached ht today was Monday"

"It is" Carrie&039;s gaze was too observant for co in her direction

"What&039;d he do?" Anne snapped, half rising fro her ponytail as if in preparation for a battle

I sank down into my chair "Don&039;t-don&039;t worry about it He&039;s just beingweird today He and his buddies started to argue with each other, and I didn&039;t want to listen to it" I was shaking all over My voice didn&039;t sound right even toa deep breath, I held it before slowly letting it out Forcing a s anything "So, Michelle, fill ossip did Ienough to take up the rest of the lunch period Carrie and Anne let her talk uninterrupted, a feat unheard of in the history of our group friendship But I didn&039;t hear a word of it

I kept listening for Greg&039;s approach, dreading the fa to do? My wrist continued to throb where he&039;d grabbed it I snuck a peek at it beneath the table then wished I hadn&039;t The skin was already starting to turn blue with bruises in the distinct shapes of his fingers I pulledthe physical proof of the change in him made it worse, made it too real to pretend away I could feel ether But I had to hold it together I still had two h

And then, as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch period, I re alalked me out of the cafeteria and up to the catwalk Oh, Lord

"Anne, can you ith me a little today? At least to the catwalk?" The words tumbled out so fast I wondered how she even understood me

She scowled but nodded After Carrie and Michelle left with raised eyebrows, Anne and I followed I refused to look over at Greg&039;s table I did not want to give ement to join us

As soon as we exited the cafeteria, Anne stoppedIt&039;s fine, don&039;t worry about it Things will settle down soon" I chewed the inner corner of e of pain to distracthis ring now"

My hand darted up toand chain inside my shirt I couldn&039;t look at her as alked up the steps to the catwalk I peeked behindwith me See you tomorrow"

"Promise you&039;ll call if you needht as well have skipped history today for all that I heard in there The only thing I could focus on was Greg&039;s ring I couldn&039;t stand the feel of it against my skin, so I took it out of my shirt And remembered how easily he&039;d helddance

He&039;ll snap out of it, I tried to reassure , after all

Not anymore Only one direct look fromelse

A little ain, needing to believe it, to believe that I still had it all under control That this would turn out to be just a bad e I&039;d created If it was

If this was a perh, I knew this was alreadywent back to his noret feeling like this Even those boys froebra last year hadn&039;t actually touched h without the physical contact I had the proof on o in a crowded cafeteria What ether?

Would I ever be able to go on a date with hi afraid?

At the end of the day, I found a note froies and promises that he wouldn&039;t be rude to ain I read the letter then folded it up and put it back in my locker I wasn&039;t sure what I should do yet But I kneasn&039;t ready to talk to hiht, but I pretended to be asleep when Nanna checked so I wouldn&039;t have to speak to hirabbed the cordless extension and began to dial my father&039;s phone number Then stopped

What would aze dazed my boyfriend? What would the vampire council do? They&039;d already threatenedIf they found out I had vampire eyes and could sense others&039; emotions around me

I remembered Mom&039;s words from last year, about how both sides feared I would becoainst theaze dazed soainst the Clann? Would they take me away from Nanna and Mom?

No, that could not happen I couldn&039;t risk anyone knowing about this I would just have to find a way to deal with it on my own, like I had before

Besides, it would all be fine soon Greg would recover and go back to his ordinary, sweet self He had to Because if he didn&039;t, I honestly didn&039;t knohat I was going to do

The next day, I stopped by the girls&039; bathroo for me in the cafeteria What if he wasn&039;t recovered yet, or was in the process of recovering, and seeing ain set him back somehow?

The only safe option was to stay away from him and hope that a little more time and distance would help the effects wear off faster

I didn&039;t look into find any ot home after Charmers practice, the first words out of my mouth to Nanna were to tell anyone who called forThankfully she didn&039;t press for an explanation, though the look in her eyes promised she would soon if the proble an hour later made h the narros of the cafeteria doors, took one look at Greg&039;s wild hand gestures and wide eyes at ht back to the nearest girls&039; bathroo counter and stared at -looking eyes like mine cause so much trouble? This was ridiculous I couldn&039;t keep spendingdidn&039;t recover soon, I would have to figure out soh what could I do except break up with him? Even if the effects wore off in the next day or two, I would still continue risking this sas off with him now, for both our sakes After all, this wasn&039;t just about hi other areas of his life, too, like his friendships with Mark and Peter

Then again, how fair would it be to dued, and probably didn&039;t even knohat he was doing under the gaze daze&039;s influence Should he really be held responsible for a change my freaky eyes had caused?

Neverto hih with about the Char forward to his phone calls and notes in ht ofas she entered the bathroo I don&039;t knohat&039;s the right thing to do here And until I can figure it out, I don&039;t think I should see hiure it out all alone in the bathrooood are your friends if we can&039;t protect you fro, Mr Boy Scout hih or cry "Anne-"

"I proh it would help if you told rubby linoleuht But I would have to be careful about what I revealed "Reebra last year?"

She sucked in a breath, the sound echoing off the tiled walls "Sa

She swore "Savannah, what ! It&039;s been five ht maybe it would be okay"

"You know I love you like a sister But that was pretty dang stupid"

"I know I don&039;t suppose he seemed better today? I saw him at our table, but I couldn&039;t hear hiht-up possessed Asked ive you this letter, too" She fished in her pocket then handed me a folded note

His letters always used to make me smile before I even read theers to unfold it The entire sheet of paper was filled with tords repeated over and overI&039;h that felt ave her the note so she could read it for herself, knowing she wouldn&039;t have already without one off the deep end," she whispered, her voice bordering on awe "What did you do?"

"I made eye contact with him Apparently that&039;s all it takes" And suddenly, I couldn&039;t take it any into a monster"

Tristan

The sas as I turned the corner froht hit a too-fa it down today for a change Nice Too freaking nice

Man, hoished I could get her out of my system

I hadn&039;t put a spell on Stanwick to make him hurry and screw up his shot with Savannah, but only because I didn&039;t want to see her upset Otherwise, Eically convinced him to cheat on her or drive her to break up with him for hundreds of different reasons

For now, Stanwick had won Hefor her But as long as he et in the way of that?

In thehistory class with her made it the best or worst period in my schedule

Several yards ahead, Savannah disappeared into the history class&039;s building Anne turned, sawextra ticked off today I expected her to walk past ht up to me and planted herself in my way

"Tristan, I need to talk to you"

"Whatever it is, I didn&039;t do it," I said with a half smile It was the best I could do, and a lot otten from me in months

"Funny No, I ain"

Everything went cold inside ut Savannah was in trouble again? I openedfrolanced back over my shoulder and nearly cursed out loud It was Mr Smythe, Dylan&039;s uncle and a descendant He ithin hearing distance

"Don&039;t knohat you ain I tried to tell her with h

Apparently I wasn&039;t obvious enough "Oh, come on Remember the Warty Boys last year, Arthur? Tiain, take care of soave her a huge, sloink this time Come on, don&039;t be thickheaded and blind

Her eyes widened then narrowed "I should have known all you football jocks are just selfish jerks See you later, snob" She sto that I actually wondered for a few seconds if she&039;d understood Once she was past Mr Sh, she turned back andlate for my class, Mr Coleman?" Mr Smythe said as he drew closer

"No, sir Headed there now"

"And are you going to have to deliver any notes for ain?"

Translation: Would he have to sendbeside Savannah every other day wasn&039;t always the easiest thing in the world Every now and then, I lost control in class and my power spiked When it did, Mr Smythe had to pretend to send me to the office to deliver a note, so I could actually release the excess energy

"Going to try not to, sir"

"Good"

I took the three ce and hurried to my desk While I shoved my books under my desk, I snuck a peek at Savannah And nearly flash burned my books

Despite the makeup, she looked like someone had backhanded both her cheeks No wonder she&039;d left her hair down today She was obviously trying to hide the fact that she&039;d been crying recently, and hard from the looks of it Even her nose ollen and pink Someone had done this to her Frouy Another stalker ht and find out who the new stalker was Wonder what tiets home? Hopefully not too late I&039;d need as much time as possible to load up the protective charms Anyone who ain Ever

Her Char with her necklace No, wait She was doing so else with it

She took off Stanwick&039;s senior ring

I froze I wasn&039;t sure if evenbehind a girl taking off her boyfriend&039;s senior ring She was going to break up with hi ood enough for her, knew he couldn&039;t

Then I saw her face She looked ready to cry again Aw, man, I was a jerk Here I was ready to do a touchdown dance, and she looked like so&039;s face for hurting her like this

Then her sleeve fell away froers, too

Blinding rage filled y level contained and not burn the building down around us all Stanwick&039;s face would more than pay for those bruises on her If he&039;d done it, that is

Confirmation on ot out of volleyball and football practice after school at the same time