That Witch! (3 page)

Lost in thought, she dug through her locker, oblivious to anything and everything around her. She kept her face hidden, just in case Cassidy wanted to taunt her again. She thought if she could just avoid any more confrontation today, everything would be okay, and she could go back to being another invisible blip far off Cassidy Rivers’s radar. She kept her head low until her bestie, Laura, popped up beside her.

“So, how did it go?” Laura asked, plum lips spread in a smile as she tucked her purple-dyed hair behind her multipierced ear.

“Good, I guess,” Brynn quietly responded as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. She had everything ready to go, all the books she needed for her homework, so when the last bell of the day rang, she could bolt straight out to her car without having to fight through the circles of all the other students. “There wasn’t anything I couldn’t answer.”

“Awesomeness!”

“Yeah.” Brynn laughed softly. “You coming over tonight for movies and pizza?”

“Well, duh! It’s Friday night, right?”

“True story. Mom wants to take me shopping tomorrow, but I totally don’t want to go.”

As soon as Brynn turned from her locker, she spotted Cassidy charging her way through the crowd like a rabid beast. Okay, maybe that was a huge exaggeration. Maybe Cassidy was sauntering or taking light, even steps. But every time Brynn saw Miss Perfect Princess, her mind conjured images of evil witches with hooked noses and monsters from the great beyond. Though truthfully, Cassidy didn’t resemble any of those things. She was beautiful, too beautiful, and maybe that’s why Brynn painted a horrific picture of the girl most likely to become a supermodel.

“What are you looking at?” Cassidy snapped, but she didn’t stop walking. She didn’t wait for Brynn’s response.

Brynn would’ve lied anyway. She would’ve said she’d been checking out that crazy knotted necklace hanging from Cassidy’s neck, but truth be told, it was Cassidy she couldn’t take her eyes off of. As much as she hated Cassidy Rivers as a person, she couldn’t help the bizarre attraction she had to the other girl.

“Earth to Brynn,” Laura said, waving her hand in front of Brynn’s face. “You in there?”

Brynn shook her head. “Huh? What? Yeah, I’m here.”

“God, why would you stare at her like that? Don’t you know better by now?”

“I don’t know what came over me.”

“Whatever it was, you’d better get over it fast before you end up as a big red dot on Cassidy’s radar.”

True story. Very, very true. When Cassidy locked in on a target, she didn’t forget them until they were completely and utterly destroyed, and Brynn didn’t want to be a last-minute name added to Cassidy’s “pulverize before high school is over” list.

“Can we just go?” Brynn said as she took her first steps away from her locker. Laura promptly followed, hanging tight to Brynn’s back.

Keeping her head down like always, Brynn made her way through the ambling students and hallway loiterers, down to the last door on the left. Her sixth-period teacher—a tiny, frail woman with gnarled fingers, a bright white granny hairdo, and wire-rimmed bifocals on the tip of her nose—stood at the end of the hallway, yelling at boisterous students about getting to class. No one listened to her. They didn’t show her an ounce of respect. She was sweet, and they were horrible for treating her the way they did. No one would ever do anything about it and the woman wouldn’t take up for herself, and unfortunately, she probably should’ve retired years ago.

“Hi, Mrs. Miller,” Brynn said in passing as she entered her last class of the day.

“Hello, Miss Michaels.”

Brynn gave her a soft smile, then headed over to the desk she’d chosen at the beginning of the school year. It was right up front so she could hear Mrs. Miller read from classic American novels over the low chatter of students who just didn’t seem to care. Choosing that spot had garnered her all sorts of petty nicknames—from brownnoser to teacher’s pet. Not that Brynn cared enough to pay attention. Some stuff simply didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

She sat down, Laura taking her normal spot right beside her, and leaned over into her bag to pull out her textbook, when she caught the scent of flowers wafting by her. It was Cassidy’s perfume. Brynn would never forget that scent as long as she lived. It smelled of roses and jasmine, with a hint of vanilla to soften the overall ambrosia. The smell of it brought a dreamy-eyed smile to Brynn’s face.

“What are you grinning about?” Laura whispered, leaning in close so no one else would hear her.

“I uh… um….”

“Tell me you weren’t smiling at Cassidy. She’s toxic.”

Intoxicating, maybe.
“God, no! Why would I smile at her? She’s totally vapid.”

“True, but….” Laura glanced over her shoulder at Cassidy, then back to Brynn, as if
that
wasn’t obvious. Might as well hang a “we’re talking about you” sign around both their necks. “You’ve been watching her a lot lately. Is there something I need to know about?”

“No!” Brynn blurted.

No, there wasn’t anything anyone needed to know. As far as anyone else was concerned, Brynn and Cassidy were and always would be mortal enemies.

“Don’t bite my head off, sheesh!”

“I’m not. I just….” Brynn shook her head.

She closed her trap and righted herself in her seat the moment she heard the classroom door slam and their dainty English teacher begin to speak. Mrs. Miller called the room to attention and took attendance. That ate away about three minutes of class.

Brynn stayed in her own happy, little bubble, counting away the minutes until Mrs. Miller graced them with a quick read. She daydreamed of lying on her bed, reading or listening to music—maybe some Anne Rice and a little Secondhand Serenade. God, that sounded so incredible right now. Her Zen.

“I have a project for you,” Mrs. Miller said, and immediately Brynn snapped to attention. “We’re going to do a literary scavenger hunt. Five books, one for every month, then a report at the end of the school year. It will be half of your final grade.”

Well, Brynn had no problem with that. American literature was her strongest subject. She knew authors and poets and loved it all. This assignment would give her a perfect grade and kick her GPA up into Ivy League level.

“This is going to be a group project,” Mrs. Miller continued. It still wasn’t a problem. Brynn could work with Laura and everything would be great because they worked so well together. Then the dainty old English teacher said, “I’m assigning partners.”

Brynn bit down on her bottom lip to keep from cursing.

“Laura, I want you paired up with Sarah.”

Wait. No. What? Laura is
my
partner!

She gave her best friend a
this-can’t-be-happening
look as their teacher called out the remaining groups. Brynn couldn’t imagine not working with Laura. This had to be a mistake.

“Brynn Michaels and Cassidy Rivers,” Mrs. Miller said.

And Brynn’s worst nightmare came true.

“No!” both girls said in perfect unison as they bolted up from their respective desks. Brynn’s stare shot to the back corner of the classroom. Cassidy’s glare pierced right through her. This would never, ever work. She couldn’t talk to Cassidy, let alone work on a school project with the bubbly cheerleader.

Failure was imminent.

There went Brynn’s perfect GPA.

There went her Ivy League dreams.

C
ASSIDY
stood at the very back of the class, arms crossed beneath her small breasts as she glared daggers at Mrs. Miller. “You can’t be serious!” she protested. “I won’t work with Marie Laveau. She smells like dusty voodoo dolls and cat carcasses!”

The old lady didn’t seem to care. Her ice-blue gaze shifted slowly to Brynn. She offered the weirdo a sympathetic half smile before refocusing on Cassidy.

“Miss Rivers, it is impolite to call your peers names. If you don’t want to do the assignment, you can fail my class,” she said, with all the calm in the world.

“But, Mrs. Miller!”

“No buts. The partner assignments are final. Now, please sit down so I may continue.”

“Mrs. Miller, she’s crazy! I can’t work with her!”

The moment she spat out those words, something rippled beneath her skin. She felt the fizzing and buzzing of electric energy in her hands.
No. Not now. Please not now.
She tried not to panic as she balled her fingers into fists at her side.

“Miss Rivers, you will sit down and be quiet or you’ll go to the principal’s office,” Mrs. Miller warned. This time, the lady’s voice held a solid tone of resolve and authority that matched the final stare she shot at Cassidy. She held her gaze steady, as if daring her to utter another syllable.

Glaring harder, Cassidy stomped her designer boot-clad foot down against the linoleum floor, creating a thump that echoed across the silent classroom. The fizzling held strong, even as Cassidy took slow breaths. The other students stared in either awe or sympathy. All eyes were on her except for Brynn’s. The freak sat ducked so low into her seat, if she sank down one more inch, her face would hit the edge of the desk.

“This sucks!” Cassidy mumbled.

Huffing, she threw herself back into her seat, ignoring the kids who were still staring at her as if she were a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered at the moment except the certainty of her soon-to-be catastrophic social homicide and that familiar, unwanted churn of witchy energy coursing through her body.

Her mind raced with images of her friends laughing behind her back, whispering that she had to miss cheer practice just to work with the Bride of Frankenstein. The boys would stop fawning over her—something that didn’t really bother her since she never paid attention to them anyways, but they made life easier by offering to carry her books and wash her car. Plus, the jocks always followed her around like puppies waiting for a bone, willing to do anything it took to get her attention. That would all come to a screeching halt the moment she was forced to interact with Freakzilla in public.

Or not….

Maybe, just maybe, if she could only deal with Brynn outside of school, Cassidy could get away with finishing this stupid project without becoming a total outcast. It was the only hope she had of surviving the potential assassination of her social status. And now that she’d figured out a way to save herself, the fizzling started to subside, and Cassidy felt like she could actually relax again.

When she glanced up from the closed English book on her desk, she saw Brynn peering back at her through the crease in her bangs. The moment Brynn caught her looking, the freak whipped around and sank lower—if that was even possible—into her chair. Cassidy only admitted to herself that the girl’s tresses were a pretty shade of pink.

Brynn’s hair was pale and reminded her of cotton candy. As far as Cassidy remembered, Brynn had naturally tawny hair, but sometime over the summer, she’d changed it to the shade it was now. It suited her. The color complimented her usual black clothing and added a hint of femininity to her otherwise hard-rock edge. It made her slightly more approachable.

The truth was, Brynn Michaels scared the hell out of Cassidy. The way she walked around not caring about what people thought about her indicated that she was either entirely too confident or she had the emotional vacuity of a serial killer. She didn’t have any friends save for the reject sitting beside her, nor did she ever seem interested in making any. She never involved herself with school events or functions, and she shied away from anything involving sports. What could she be doing with all her spare time? She could be skinning animals and performing satanic rituals after school—a thought that made Cassidy shudder.

As Mrs. Miller continued to rattle off partner assignments, several kids in the class mumbled unhappily while others squealed softly, no doubt because they’d been paired with someone they liked. Her friend Michelle had just gotten stuck with one of the leaders of the nerd-herd, Ryan Daniels. The kid was one pocket protector away from fulfilling the textbook definition of geekdom. He was a mathlete, the president of the Physics club, on the Chess team, and a junior member of one of the research groups that had recently discovered the Higgs boson particle. He had braces, glasses, and perfectly combed-over hair, which he used entirely too much gel on. The clothes he wore were straight out of a J. Crew catalog, complete with penny loafer shoes.

Cassidy would take all that nerdiness over Brynn’s freakiness any day.

When the teacher who had ruined her life in a matter of seconds finished playing social cupid, she began to read a chapter aloud to the class. Her voice fell back to a soft, almost inaudible pitch. Funny how the old bat could talk loudly enough to put her in her place but she couldn’t stay loud so everyone could actually hear what the hell she was reading. Cassidy flipped through the pages in her book, trying to find where Mrs. Miller was reading from. The boy next to her, Zach, leaned over and whispered, “Page 268.”