Aftermath (11 page)

I left Hayden in the
hall to go to my next class, which was one of my classes with Luke.
Luckily, I made it there before him and couldn’t care less if he
showed up today or not.

Luke sat in the desk
next to me. I ignored him, pulling out my notebook and concentrating
on the board ahead. I was
officially
mad at him. It was one
thing for him to keep giving me a hard time about being with Hayden,
but it ticked me off that he was with Stephanie. She was evil.
Couldn’t he, who killed demons with his own hands, realize that?
And now I had to run for Mardi Gras Queen because of him. Or her. I
didn’t know whose fault it was but I had already gone through every
possible scenario to back out of it and it wasn’t looking good.

“Hey, Ana,” Luke
called from beside me.

I pressed my lips
together.

“The silent
treatment, huh?” He was amused. “Maybe I deserve it? At least I
know now you
are
jealous.”

I whipped around to
face him, “I am not—“

“Could everyone pass
up their assignments from yesterday, please?” Rachel started the
class and Luke chuckled softly. He knew just how to push my buttons.
I passed my assignment to the girl in front of me. “Today we will
be reading out loud about the fur trade and then answering the
questions after the chapter.” I looked away from Luke as Rachel
collected the papers in the front row. “Thank you to all of you who
did the research yesterday, despite lack of books. We will be working
in pairs today as we only have enough books for each pair to get one,
so I apologize, but, with hope, working together will make it go
quickly.”

Students started moving
and turning their desks. I felt a desk bump against mine and the
all-too-familiar, alluring scent assaulted my nostrils.

“Partner?” Luke
raised his eyebrows at me and I stared back at him, my blue eyes to
his hazel.

I shook my head
fervently. “Oh, no. I don’t think so.”

Luke looked a little
disappointed but recovered. “Well, too bad. Looks like you’re out
of luck.” The words were laced with venom.

I looked helplessly
around the room, and he was right. Once again, I was stuck being his
partner. I stared him down, shooting daggers at him.

Rachel came by and
dropped a book on my desk; the sound caused me to lean back. What was
going on with her? We definitely had a lot to sort out later.

“Do you want to
record or should I?” I asked, flipping the pages of the book to the
correct chapter.

He was taken aback by
my tone. “Um, I can.”

Yeah, now he tried to
be nice.

“Ok, first question:
What states were most impacted by the North American fur trade, and
why?”

I flipped forward
through the chapter making sure I had the correct answer before
having him write it down.

“What are you
writing?” I looked on nervously as he scribbled away on our paper.

“The answer,” he
said obviously.

I rolled my eyes at
him. “Let’s just pretend you don’t know all the answers this
time. I’ll tell them to you and you can just write, okay?”

“Whatever.”

“Okay, next
question—“

“If I do this for
you, will you at least listen to me?” I hated how his eyes looked
almost vulnerable because this good side of Luke was even more
dangerous to my resolve.

“What? No. You think
by helping me unwillingly cheat on the assignment, I should reward
you?”

“It’s not cheating
since I already know the answers.”

“You know what I
mean. We are supposed to look them up.
Together
.”

His smug smile
returned. “Together? I like the sound of that.”

“Well, you'd better
get used to liking the sound of it with Stephanie. Maybe you two are
perfect for each other after all.” I pointed my pencil at him.
“Okay now, on to question two.”

He sighed and I was skimming a
paragraph when a torn piece of paper slid in front of me.

Why
are you mad at me?

I looked up at him and smiled.
“What, are we in 2nd grade?” But I couldn’t resist replying.

Anything I say is going to make you think
I am jealous. I’m not mad at you for dating, I’m mad that it’s
Stephanie. You know we don’t like each other- is that why you chose
her?

I pushed the note towards him and
continued trying to read about fur trading in North America. A second
later, another note blocked my view.

If it was anyone else, I
wouldn’t get a reaction out of you. Plus, why not? I don’t see
anything wrong with her. She is obviously interested in me. At least
someone is.

You and I are just friends, so what you do
is none of my business but please keep the trash out of the house.

Ha ha. Ouch. Didn’t know you
had it in you Ana. Me like.

You have no idea what I am capable of. But
seriously. I don’t trust her. If you insist on dating her, don’t
bring her to the house. I live there too ya know.

I heard him fight a
chuckle as he scribbled something on the piece of paper.

“Okay, that’s
enough.” I crumpled up the note he handed back to me. “I’ve
said what I had to say. If you want to continue a civil relationship,
please respect that.”

“Anything for you,
Ana.” And I hated how serious he sounded. I really didn’t know
how to act in front of Luke anymore. I cared for him, but I loved
Hayden. I couldn’t keep allowing him to make me question that. Yet
every time I tried to pull away, he just pulled me back in. I
shouldn’t make a big deal about it. I should be able to act
normally with my boyfriend’s brother.

As the class ended and
I was putting my notebook back in my bag, I noticed someone hovering
beside my desk. My head shot up to find an unfamiliar face.

“You’re Adriana,
right?” A girl I didn’t know was in our class spoke.

“Yes? I’m sorry, I
didn’t catch your name?” Sitting in the back, I hadn’t noticed
her before but she was beginning to look familiar.

“I’m Bailey. Do you
volunteer at Habitat?”

“Yeah. I don’t
think I’ve seen you there - do you as well?”

“Not really.” She
smiled sheepishly. “My church group dragged us out there one time.
I think it’s great that you do, though.” At first I was hesitant
about why she was being so nice to me but she sounded genuine and
just as wary as I was.

“Oh, well thank you.”
I slung my bag over my shoulders and stood up.

“I should be thanking
you,” she said after I thought our conversation was over.

I looked at her
quizzically, waiting for her to explain.

“For helping me out
in English. Stephanie didn’t have a pencil so…”

Oh! It was the girl I
gave the pen to in English. My mind was so busy thinking of other
things that I didn’t put two-and-two together. “You don’t need
to defend Stephanie. I’m sure she had plenty of pencils. She knew
what she was doing.”

Bailey nodded in
realization. “I don’t know why I let her push me around. All I
used to want was to be her friend but today I was so humiliated; I
probably would have not even taken the test if I'd had to ask someone
else for a pen.” She looked off to the side, thoughtfully. I
couldn’t imagine why she divulged all this information to me. She
was nice, but wasn’t she afraid I would use it against her? Did she
feel like she could trust me? I started to tell her goodbye as I
noticed Luke was waiting patiently at the door.

“So, I heard you are
running for Queen?” Bailey added as I made my getaway.

“My friends kind of
made me do it, but I am warming up to the idea.” I smiled as we
walked together toward the door.

She looked at Luke, and
her breathing hitched in intimidation. “Well, you have my vote,”
she managed to get out in one breath. Luke smiled charmingly at her
and she fled.

“What was that
about?” Luke bumped my shoulders as I walked to his side.

“Why do you care?”
I reminded him.

He tipped his head back
in laughter then he bowed, holding his arm out for me to walk through
the door. “My Queen…”

I woke up screaming.
Again.

My worst nightmare had just
happened. Literally. I had always complained that I had never known
who the people were in my dreams. I guess the saying, "be
careful what you wish" for is true. So many people. So many
familiarities. My first instinct was to cry, but then I realized it
hadn’t happened yet. I still could keep it from happening. My eyes
shot open and the rest of my body followed. As I sat up, I looked
around the room for something familiar. Hayden wasn’t in sight. I
grabbed my phone, nearly ripping it off the charger as I started to
write to him.

Me:
I hope you are just
down stairs.

I doubted it but sent it anyway.

Hayden:
Good morning to you, too.
I take it you haven’t
had
your coffee yet?

Me:
Funny, but seriously.
Where are you????

Hayden:
Iss everything ok?

Hayden misspelled a word. I must
have over done it with the three question marks.

Me:
Sorry, everything’s fine
here. Are you on a Hunt?
Why
wouldn’t you wake me
to say goodbye?

I could picture him wincing as I
typed the word Hunt.

Hayden:
Yes, Adriana. I’m finishing
up now. And I did kiss
you goodbye.
A lot. I tried to wake you
but you were out cold.
Tell me what’s going
on?

Something dropped in my heart. I had
that kind of nightmare and I couldn’t even wake up from it? That is
beyond unsettling.

Me:
I had a really bad
nightmare last night.
Luke Hunting
Mr. Christian.
Please get home now.

I waited a good thirty seconds before I received his reply.

Hayden:
On my way.

As I waited for Hayden
to come back, the details from my dream haunted me. I replayed it in
my mind at least ten times. With all certainty, I was sure. Luke
would kill Mr. Christian. It would happen only three days from now,
at the masquerade ball. I could see the dress I was wearing, the
music they were playing. And Luke. Killing. Doing what he does best.
With his bare hands. I ran down the stairs before I knew what my feet
were doing.

“Luke, I need to talk
to you.”

He glanced over his
shoulder before turning his head back to the television. “I hope
you’re not going to school looking like that.”

My lips pressed into a
hard line. I was too worried to be hurt by his words.

“Ana, I’m kidding.
You know you never look less than perfect.” He sighed and went back
to the TV. “You’re beautiful,” he mumbled.

“I need to talk to
you. Now.” I put my hands on my hips to feign authority. I heard
the TV click off but I didn’t look away from him. He got up slowly,
drawing it out just to get a rise out of me, relishing in his
position that I finally wanted something from him.
How dare he?
I was irritated but only because I knew I wouldn’t get him to
listen to me. Surely I would have some hoops to jump through. Didn’t
he see that this was serious? This wasn’t just another hunt, this
was someone’s life—a human's.

Before I knew it, he
was right in front of me. His head cocked to the side, he looked at
me trying to gauge my emotions. I quickly changed them—anger,
urgency, fear—that’s what I wanted to project. Seriousness.

A lazy smile crept over
his face. “You wanted to talk to me?”

I regained control of
my thoughts, “Yes. It’s about a dream I had. Come on, let’s
talk about this in the kitchen.” I turned back when I noticed he
wasn’t following me as I walked toward the kitchen. Once again, he
showed me I was at his will.

“If it’s another
adventure you want, all you have to do is ask.” His lazy smile got
a whole lot more sinister.

“No, Luke. That’s
not what I meant. Please, let’s talk.” Again, I turned toward the
kitchen.

“Fine,” he
relinquished. He lightly caressed my arm as he spoke. “Tell me
about your dream. I’m glad you came to me about it.” His look was
genuine and it hurt me for what I was about to tell him next.

I opened my mouth to
speak but the front door whipped open, slamming against the wall.
“Ana!” He called out and then lowered his voice as he saw me in
front of him with Luke. “Is everything okay? Did you tell him?”
Hayden looked worried.

“Um, no. I…”

“Tell me what?”
Luke interrupted. He looked at Hayden and then back at me. The
realization dawned on his face. “So you wanted to tell me about
your dream because I had something to do with it?” He was mildly
angry.

“It’s not what you
think. In my dream, you were on a hunt but who you killed was human.”
I got the words out, hoping I would make sense.

“So that’s what
this is — an intervention?” Now he was more than mildly pissed.
“You called Hayden here because, what? You couldn’t tell me
yourself?”

“She was worried. Who
you killed wasn’t just a human; it is someone she’s close to.”

“I was talking to
her, not you Hayden.” Luke didn’t take his eyes off of me.
“Answer me, Ana. You called Hayden before you even came down to
talk to me about it?”

Called, texted there’s
a difference. I wondered if I should push this white lie. I sunk my
teeth into my lower lip, knowing that I couldn’t. Luke was always
straight forward with me. “I did.”

Luke bowed his head.

“Just listen to me.
My dream took place at the ball at Ecole. For some reason, a Hunt
leads you there. And for an even more unknown reason, you killed Mr.
Christian. My boss, my dad’s friend, and my uncle for all intents
and purposes.” I took a step toward him. “I don’t want a repeat
of what we already went through; please just promise me you’ll stay
away from the ball.”