Crushed (2 page)

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Kristen made a face. “Do you remember our tea parties? Do you? I remember them. I remember Dad making my teddy bear into a Japanese businessman.”

“Maybe he did that because that’s what he’s comfortable with. If he were a dentist, we would have been having tea with a patient. You know, you should just be happy that we have a dad who cared enough to play with us.”

“I still think Mom was right, and I’m tired of being his little puppet.”

“You seriously need to stop listening to Mom.”

“It’s not just Mom. Dad called me reliable, and teachers always look to me to run for office, oversee committees, and tutor failing students.  They don’t even ask if I’ll do it anymore. They just assume I will because they think I’m
reliable
.”

“Wow. You really don’t like that word, do you?”

Kristen wasn’t listening. Ever since her enlightening conversation with her mother, she’d been rethinking her priorities. She was going to make some changes. Thinking aloud, she said, “I’m not going to completely blow my grade point average this year, but I want to try something new just in case I decide later that I don’t want to be a businesswoman. Maybe I’ll even decide I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to be known as Miss Perfect anymore. I’m thinking maybe I should have a little fun this year.”

Brittany caught the end of the conversation. Stepping between her two sisters, she swung her gaze back and forth between them. Her mouth curved, and a wicked glint entered her eyes. “Did I just hear someone say they want to have fun?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Kristen glared at Brittany. The other girl would give her endless crap over wasting her life if she found out about Kristen’s doubts. No way was she going to let Brittany know what their mom had said to her over the summer.

“If you really want to have fun, I can help you.”

“No thanks. Your kind of fun gets people arrested.”

Brittany rolled her eyes. “Relax. I’m not talking about
that
kind of fun. I’m talking about the game. We can make it more interesting. Let’s have a side bet this year, just you and me.”

Kristen’s eyes narrowed. “Side bet?”

“You get to pick my mark, and I’ll pick yours. I want you to crush tall, dark, and scary. If you win, I’ll give you my allowance for the whole year, every cent, and you can take the car to college with you.”

Cyndi’s soft gasp slipped between Brittany’s outrageous statement and Kristen’s reply.

“You’re out of your mind.”

Brittany laughed. “I knew you didn’t have the balls to do it. You’re always bragging about being the queen of Crushed, always bragging that you can put a spell on anyone and make it work. Well, it's time to prove it, sis. I dare you to crush him.” She winked at Cyndi before adding, “I double-dare you.”

“What, are we in kindergarten now?”

Cyndi took a step away from them. “This is getting a little too intense for me. I’m going to find Jake. I haven’t seen him all summer, and I can’t get him on his cell.”

“Do you want to—” Brittany started to ask.

Before the question was out of her mouth, Cyndi nodded. “Then after school, we can—”

“Right. Make sure you—”

“Don’t I always?”

It was that weird, twin thing again. As if dressing alike weren’t enough, the girls had to talk in code. Kristen wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but their telepathic conversations made her feel like an outsider.

She retrieved a yellow notebook and matching mechanical pencil from her locker. Then she hesitated. She needed to talk to Ms. Wilson after math class. Should she take the red notebook and pencil for English, or would she have time to stop at her locker again?

Reading her mind, Brittany sighed. “Yeah, you’re going to have fun this year. You won’t be able to pull your nose out of the schoolbooks long enough to notice if your pants are on fire. You’re too afraid of getting into trouble. Face it, Kris. You’re a good girl, and good girls can’t be bad.”

Kristen threw the yellow notebook and pencil back into the locker, slamming it shut for the second time. She’d show Brittany she didn’t have to be perfect. “I’m going to class unprepared today because I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t be stupid. Take the notebook and pencil, or risk having a heart attack.”

“I can be fun, Britt. Just watch me.”

“Whatever. I hope you aren’t going to freak out anymore today. I want to relax and have a good time this year, not babysit a crazy person. I’m a senior, too, you know. So chill.” She put her sunglasses on and wiggled her fingers. “TTFN.”

The hair at the base of Kristen’s neck prickled, signaling Zach was nearby, probably at his locker. She didn’t understand why she felt his presence like a tangible force. It was ridiculous.

Brittany strutted down the hallway like a model in Paris working the runway. She went in Zach’s direction, and for one horrible second, Kristen thought her sister was actually going to engage him in some stupid form of conversation, one idiot to another.

Kristen let her pent-up breath out in relief as Brittany passed him by.

Satisfied, she reopened her locker and retrieved her supplies. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck continued to bristle. She hated Zach Bevian. So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? Her nerves sizzled whenever he was close by. It wasn’t normal.

She headed for class before her eyes could wander back to him again. A familiar face caught her attention and held it. It was Cyndi’s boyfriend, Jake. Kristen started in his direction but stopped cold when a feminine hand touched his cheek, caressing him, and it wasn’t Cyndi’s. He laughed and bent down to whisper something in the brunette’s ear. Kristen’s biggest rival, Gina Bentley, laughed up at him. The sound was more painful than fingernails on a chalkboard.

Kristen’s heart dropped to her feet, and the blood drained from her face. That lowdown loser had betrayed her sister!

The two cheaters turned at the same time and looked directly at her. Jake at least had the good sense to flush guiltily, but Gina’s smile widened. The nasty girl knew exactly what she was doing. For the past five years, she’d tried to take Kristen’s place in everything from the cheerleading squad to head of the junior prom committee. She’d worked hard to get under Kristen’s skin and failed, so now she was coming at her through her sister.
Big mistake
.

Kristen had seen enough.

She made a mad dash for the restroom, half-afraid she might kill Jake and Gina on the spot. Her hands slammed against the door when she reached it. There were a few students inside the small room, some smoking, others talking. They saw her furious face and decided to make a quick exit.
Smart girls.
Kristen marched back and forth in front of the row of sinks. She couldn’t control the anger anymore. She wanted to kill somebody.

Not just somebody.

She wanted to kill Jake and Gina.

But first, she had to break the news to Cyndi. How was she supposed to do that? Poor Cyndi had a big heart that broke over the slightest bad news. She couldn’t possibly withstand this kind of pain. Kristen hissed between her teeth, releasing some of the rage, just enough to keep from exploding.

The mirrors above the sinks began to rattle. Kristen watched as her image rippled. The mirrors shook harder and harder until they shattered. Pieces fell to the floor like jagged raindrops. Her hands trembled. Now what was she going to do with the
rest
of her building fury?

Kristen paced in front of the broken mirrors while absently biting her lower lip. Her mind conjured the image of Jake and Gina together again and again. That jerk was going to break Cyndi’s heart, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. She had to warn her sister. If she didn’t tell Cyndi, Gina would. That stupid girl would probably take an ad out in the school paper.

Kristen… wanted… to…
scream!

The door opened, and both of her sisters rushed in just in time to keep her from blowing up the toilets. Cyndi stopped cold and gasped at the sight of the mirrors, but Brittany didn’t look surprised. She rolled her eyes before ordering Cyndi to take care of the mess.

“Fix the mirrors,” Brittany instructed her twin, “and do it fast. I heard one of the kids telling Mr. Gleason about the noise, so we only have a short time before he gets a female teacher in here.”

Cyndi moved to the center of the room and waved her hands in the air. The glass slowly floated up. Pieces, big and small, returned to the wall and fit together like a puzzle. In seconds, the mirrors were restored to their original state. Each of the girls had a special talent, and Cyndi was the fixer. She could salvage almost anything.

Good thing for them, since they unintentionally broke stuff when they got angry.

“What is it with you today?” Brittany asked Kristen. “Since when did you become such a freak?”

Kristen turned to Cyndi in desperation, the truth on her lips. She tried to find the words, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hurt her sister. It would be so much better if Cyndi could be the one to dump Jake. A sly idea curved the ends of Kristen’s mouth. Smiling, she asked, “Can I borrow your brush?” Cyndi started to open her purse, but Kristen snatched it out of her hands. “It’s okay. I’ll get it.”

She reached inside and grabbed the bottle of Crushed powder instead. Turning away from the girls, she poured a small amount of green dust into her hand and slipped it into the side pocket of her own purse. She was going to save her sister from heartache even if she had to be sneaky about it.

The door opened, and a teacher stepped inside.

“What is going on in here?” Miss Young asked. “Students reported hearing glass break.”

“I don’t know why they would say that.” Kristen flashed a confident smile at the teacher as she went to the sink. She turned a faucet on and squirted a quarter-sized amount of liquid soap into one hand. Her sisters followed her lead. She added, “You know how some kids are on the first day of school. It’s probably just a prank.”

“Yes, well, you’d better get to class. All of you.”

“We’re on our way now.”

The teacher left, satisfied.

“Are you going to tell us why you smashed the mirrors?” Brittany asked with arms folded over her chest and a pinched look to her face.

“Simple,” Kristen said while drying her hands on a brown paper towel. “I’m just trying to shake my good girl image and have fun like you wanted.”

Brittany raised her voice. “Why did you break the stinking mirrors?”

“I already told you.”

“I don’t believe you. Try again.”

Kristen left the restroom, still blinded by fury and in no mood for a game of Twenty Questions. Brittany’s annoying voice trailed after her. “What are you planning to do now?”

The hallway was empty, with one huge exception. Zach Bevian. 

It didn’t surprise her to see him talking on his cell. She’d had a class with him once. Tardy was his middle name. If he were going to show up at all, it would be five to ten minutes late. The loser probably wanted to make a grand entrance so everyone would look at him. He finished his conversation and tucked the cell phone into his snug jeans. She was surprised there was enough room in those pockets for something wider than a quarter.

Too bad for him that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She could be wild and fun and impulsive. She would show Brittany that Kristen Noah was not your typical good girl. There wasn’t any reason why she couldn’t get decent grades and have fun at the same time. When she was done experimenting with her wild side, Brittany would beg her to play nice again. Reaching into her purse, Kristen pulled a long, skinny, glass vial out. Emptying the pink dust into one hand, she walked straight up to Zach. Before she had the chance to come to her senses or count the number of ways this could go wrong, she blew the dust into his face. A pink cloud floated around him for a second. It dissipated quickly. He stared at her in stunned silence.

The Crushed spell had that effect on people. Boys gazed into space once they were hit with it. The spell momentarily distorted their thinking. Soon, he would be following her around, doing her bidding, making puppy-love eyes at her. She could hardly wait.

The vision of him following her around brought a smile to her face. She continued to walk, barely missing a step.

Cyndi’s shocked voice reached her ears. “She didn’t.”

“She did,” Brittany said.

“But we aren’t supposed to start the game until next week.”

“Tell that to the cheater.”

Kristen felt better already. She felt so good that she stopped to fix her face. She pulled a mirror from her purse and reapplied her signature lipstick before going to class. Candy Apple Crush. It was deep red, her favorite color, with diamond-like sparkles and a hint of gloss. Her mother had it specially made for her in New York.

She compressed her lips to evenly distribute the color. The mirror caught Zach Bevian’s reflection. He was still standing there with wide eyes and an open mouth. The poor guy didn’t look like he even remembered his own name.

Regrets began to pile on top of her head. Someone with a will as strong as Zach’s was going to be hard to control. She might actually lose the game this year. She really shouldn’t have crushed him, but she needed the money that a side bet with Brittany would give her.

His expression changed from puzzlement to pure hatred. He glared at her with a murderous glint in his eyes. Startled, she whipped around to look at him, but he was rummaging around in his locker again.

She must have imagined the hatred in his eyes. Victims of the Crushed spell were instantly in love with the witch who brewed the potion. A painful lump lodged in her throat, and remorse hung over her like a dark cloud. Blowing the dust into his face had been a huge mistake. This could ruin everything.

###

Zach slammed the door so hard that it rattled the diamond-cut windows. He stormed through the foyer and thundered past the hand-carved staircase on his way to the study where he could contemplate his revenge in private. That little witch was going to be sorry.

Little witch was his nickname for her, what he called her in his head, where no one else could hear. Last year, while watching her abuse her powers and lead a boy around like a dog on a leash, the nickname had been his only solace. He couldn’t accuse her without giving away his secret, so he mocked her instead. But the insult wasn’t in the word ‘witch’. The put-down was in the ‘little’, spoken with contempt beneath his breath. She and her sisters thought they were powerful, but they had no idea what true power was.

Fists clenched, he walked past the stone fireplace without looking at it. Changing direction with a sharp turn, he went into the family room instead.

Furious, he stood in the center of the massive room and released a slow, audible breath.

The mansion quaked. A picture fell from the mantle, and a vase toppled off the corner table. Hearing the glass break fueled his anger. The mansion shook harder, but he didn’t care if the roof caved in on his head. He was so angry that not even a ton of wood and stone could hurt him.

He turned around slowly and found his sister below the great arch between rooms, hands covering her head in an effort to protect it from the falling debris she probably imagined was on its way. In his need to blow off steam, he had forgotten she was in the house. Her dark brown eyes were wide, terrified.

“Are you okay?” he asked, immediately concerned.

“In an earthquake you are supposed to stand in a doorway. There are earthquakes in California. We live in California now. You should stand over here in the doorway. You’re supposed to stand in the doorway during an earthquake, and this is an earthquake. I’ve never been in one, but I’ve read about them.”

Physically, his sister was twenty; mentally, she was a great deal younger. His parents had figured out there was something wrong with her when she turned five, but they couldn’t take her to a doctor because she was already using her powers by then. Their mother had turned to the Internet, researching Morgan’s behavior, and she’d come up with a few possibilities. Autism had been at the top of the list.

Morgan thought as a child, but she could do some amazing things, like remember everything she read word for word. Other people called it a photographic memory. He just called it awesome.

Shame filled him, and the house stopped shaking. “It wasn’t an earthquake, Morgan. It was just me. I’m sorry. I lost control of my powers for a second. It won’t happen again.”

“Why are you home?” She lowered her hands. “This morning you told me you would be here at three o’clock. I wrote it down.” Morgan marched over to the coffee table where she’d left her notebook. She opened it and showed him a page. “See? It says right here that Zach is going to be home at three. We’re going to have a snack together, and then you’re going to make dinner for me at six.”

“I had a small problem at school.”

“But you told me you had to go to school and blend in. You said you needed to fly below the radar. You told me we had to be careful so no one would figure out our secret.”

Leave it to Morgan to remember every single word he ever spoke. She probably wrote it down in her notebook, every syllable. He sighed and rubbed the throbbing place between his eyes. No one could make his head ache like Morgan. He said, “I tried to stick to the plan, but something happened.”

“You aren’t supposed to be home until three o’clock. It isn’t three o’clock yet. I haven’t had lunch. I was about to have my morning snack, peanut butter and graham crackers, but the house started shaking. I forgot to eat.”

Zach dropped on the sofa, arms crossed, feeling guiltier by the second. It was his job to take care of Morgan, not to scare her to death. He stared at the paneled wall without seeing it and mumbled, “You can have your snack now.”

Morgan dipped her head to look at her watch. Dark brown hair fell forward, covering her quizzical face. “I can’t eat my snack now. The time is six minutes after ten. I have to eat my snack at ten o’clock.”

“It will be okay, Morgan. This one time you can eat a few minutes late.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t eat my peanut butter and graham crackers. The time is six minutes after ten. I eat my snack at ten o’clock.”

The anger began to build in his chest again, but he swallowed it quickly.

She was the reason he hadn’t done anything about the Noah sisters. He didn’t want anyone to find out about Morgan and tell the witches’ council, so he had watched those girls from a distance as they’d played their stupid game. No one knew it, not even Morgan, but he had a small vial of blue dust hidden in a secret drawer in his cherry-wood headboard upstairs.

He had made his own love spell potion after realizing what the Noah sisters were doing. Daydreaming about enchanting the triplets and making them do humiliating things had gotten him through some tough times his junior year, but he’d been afraid to actually do it. Love spells had a tendency to not work properly when used on other witches; although, he suspected he had enough power to make it work.

To get her mind off her missed snack, he decided to tell Morgan about his day. “That stupid little witch blew pink crap into my face. I should have melted her on the spot.”

Morgan looked faintly alarmed. “Are we allowed to do that? You told me we aren’t supposed to hurt people.” She flipped her notebook to another page and shoved it under his nose. “See? Right there.” She pointed at the neatly printed sentences. “We aren’t supposed to hurt anyone. It’s an important rule. You said so. I underlined it three times.”

Indeed, she had.

Zach swallowed his anger at Kristen Noah and chose his words carefully. Empathy was a foreign concept to Morgan. If he didn’t spell it out for her, she might use her powers to hurt somebody.