The Nightmare Dilemma (Arkwell Academy) (30 page)

“There’s really not time, Eli,” Selene said over her shoulder.

“Please.”

I stopped and pulled out of Selene’s grasp. “I’ll catch up.” She considered arguing for a second, but then nodded once and hurried on, leaving me alone with Eli.

I turned and faced him, my heartbeat already picking up. “What is it?”

Eli ran his hands through his hair, not meeting my gaze. “I … I just need you to promise me something.”

I didn’t respond, but waited for him to go on.

“Just promise me that no matter what happens you won’t get back together with Paul,” he said in a single breath.

Really? Of all the things he could say that was it? I closed my eyes, disappointment and frustration clouding my good judgment. I opened them again and said, “I can’t promise you that. Everybody deserves a second chance. Even Paul.” I wasn’t being spiteful, although I had no plans of getting back together with him. I really did mean it. If more people believed in second chances and forgiveness, then the massacre of my kind all those years ago might never have happened.

Eli stared at me, his expression masked. I expected him to be angry—I half wanted him to be angry—but he looked only cold, a human ice sculpture. I waited a couple of seconds for him to say something, but he didn’t.

I sighed and wrapped my arms around my sides. “And at least he shows some interest in me, even if there is an ulterior motive behind it. It’s better than nothing.”

Eli flinched, my words hitting the mark. He shook his head, exhaling. “I’m sorry, Dusty.”

And there it was again—a nonsensical apology. I’d finally had enough. “You know, I don’t get you at all. One minute you’re kissing me and touching me like you want something more, and the next you’re all whoops, just kidding.” I raised my hands in emphasis. “And now this stuff with Paul. I mean, why do you even care if I get back with him? It’s not like we’re together.”

Eli closed the distance between us in one step and put his hands on my shoulders. If he had been ice before, he was fire now. “I can’t stand the idea of you with him. And I do want more from you … so much more. You have no idea.” The look in his eyes as he spoke took my breath away. I didn’t move, waiting for him to kiss me, to make good on that look.

Instead he stepped back, letting go of me. “But I can’t …
we
can’t.”

“Why not?” I said, breathless, a terrible wrenching in my chest.

Eli lowered his gaze. “I can’t tell you.” I started to protest, but he cut me off. “I promised I wouldn’t and I have to keep my word. But there is a reason, Dusty.”

“What reason?” I dared a step nearer him.

Eli stepped back. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” And then he turned and hurried out the door. I went after him, but he disappeared down another hallway so quickly it might’ve been magic. And when I called out for him to stop, only silence greeted me.

I left then too, more confused and hurt than ever and with a sadness tugging on my heart like a sinking anchor. If I wasn’t careful, I would drown.

27

Shakedown

I decided I believed Eli’s reasons for not telling me why we couldn’t be together were genuine, but that didn’t make the not knowing any easier. I was up half the night thinking about it. I wondered if there was something wrong with him. The whole thing might’ve been a scene out of a soap opera where one of the characters finds out he’s got some terminal condition and he breaks it off with the love interest to try and save her from the heartbreak of losing him. That might be a cliché, but I imagined the premise was true enough.

Only … if Eli was sick, why would he have promised somebody else not to tell me about it? It didn’t make sense. Plus, the idea of him being sick was too horrible to consider even for a second. Then I wondered if maybe it was the other way around, that there was something wrong with me that I didn’t know about. But I couldn’t see how that was possible.

No, I didn’t think there would be any guessing the truth. I would just have to learn it for myself, some way or another. But not right now. There were too many other important things to worry about.

Nevertheless, stuff between us was weird the next day. We didn’t ignore each other, but we were both tense and far too quiet. Selene didn’t comment about it, but that was only because I’d told her what Eli had said. To my relief and disappointment she hadn’t speculated what his reasons might be. There just wasn’t enough to speculate on, I supposed.

When lunchtime rolled around, Eli and I ate quickly and then slipped out. We didn’t talk as we walked along, making our way to Finnegan Hall. The air around us seemed charged with electricity.

As we reached the door to Miss Norton’s classroom, Eli touched my arm. “You wait out here in case anyone comes by.”

I nodded, and he slipped inside. Time seemed to slow as I waited, silently walking up and down the corridor on the lookout for unwelcome guests. Every time I checked my watch, I expected to find that ten minutes had passed, but it always turned out to be one or two.

Then when ten minutes had finally come and gone, I turned to the door into the classroom, ready to pull him out of there. We were cutting it close. But just as I reached for the handle, the door swung open.

Eli jumped, startled to find me standing so close.

“What took you so long?” I peered into the classroom.

He ran his hands down the front of his shirt. “Nothing. I just wanted to be thorough.”

The sound of approaching footsteps echoed toward us, and we both darted down the hallway and around the corner, out of sight.

As we climbed down the stairs, I said, “Did you find anything useful?”

Eli sighed. “Not a thing.”

“Really?” I craned my head to look at him, and my foot caught on the step. Eli grabbed my arm, keeping me upright. But he let go almost at once, as if touching me was as dangerous as trying to handle a live wire. Yeah, this tension between us was really starting to suck.

But it only got worse later when we squeezed into the broom cupboard across the hall from Miss Norton’s office after fifth period. With the two of us in there, I had to practically stand on top of him. As it was, Eli wrapped his arms around my waist, the tight confines demanding it. The only good thing about the situation was that it was too dark for me to see his face. But I could hear his breathing, and each time he moved so much as an inch, my whole body reacted, tingles traveling over my skin in pleasant, yet unwelcome waves.

I tried to ignore the sensation by forcing my mind on the task ahead of us, but thoughts of what it would feel like to lean forward and kiss him in the dark kept pushing their way to the front of my mind. I decided it was a very good thing that I wasn’t exceptionally skilled at telepathy. I definitely didn’t want to know what thoughts
Eli
was entertaining every time his fingers moved against my back.

Finally, we heard the bell sound for the start of sixth period. Thank goodness. We waited a couple of seconds, and then Eli leaned even closer to me, reaching his hand toward the door. For a second his distinctive smell—something dark and musky and completely masculine—overwhelmed me, making me lightheaded.

As soon as the door opened I stepped out, taking a huge breath and blinking in the sudden brightness. Eli looked a little flushed, and the sight of it made my body burn even hotter than it already was. I turned away from him, embarrassed and annoyed at myself. I’d been attracted to him for months, but now that I knew for sure he wanted me too but that we couldn’t be together for some mysterious reason, my attraction to him had tripled. Quadrupled even. Go figure.

Stupid, rebellious nature.

Eli brushed past me on the way to the door to Miss Norton’s office. He pulled the moonwort key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. I hurried after him, my breath quickening from sudden adrenaline at what we were doing.

I looked around at the untidy sprawl of bookshelves and the paper-strewn desk.

Eli strode to the desk. “Let’s get a move on.”

He took one side of the desk while I took the other. There was a lot, but at least we were looking for something specific—anything to do with the Beltane Festival.

“Found it,” Eli said a few minutes later. He pulled out a folder from beneath the rubble of essays and homework assignments and opened it.

I came around the desk to see the contents more clearly. Eli stepped aside to allow me room, his body rigid as if he feared touching me again. He flipped through the folder’s contents. “Here we go.” He handed me a slip of paper. “Looks like the list of participants.”

I scanned the names, committing the ones I didn’t already know to memory.

“And this looks like stage blocking,” Eli said, unfolding a map.

I set down the list of names and leaned toward the map to examine it more closely, unsure of what Eli meant. According to the label, this was the inner island of Lyonshold. I searched the map for Senate Hall, knowing it was here somewhere, and saw it was dead center of the island. In the open area surrounding the hall, someone had drawn little circles in a regular pattern. Inside the circles were written the names of the same Terra Tribe members on the list I’d just read.

“So now we know where they’ll be,” I said, drawing a line between two of the circles with my finger. “But we still don’t know what’s going to happen when they light those torches.”

“No but—” Eli broke off as the doorknob rattled, making us both jump.

I sucked in a breath. “Did you lock it?”

Eli nodded, his eyes darting around the room, no doubt looking for cover. But there wasn’t any, not unless Miss Norton was so drunk her vision was impaired.

“Dusty,” a voice called from the other side of the door. “You in there?”

Realizing it was Selene, I dashed for the door, unlocked it, and yanked it open.

Selene fell into the room. “Come on! Miss Norton’s on her way.”

I didn’t waste time with questions—like how on earth she could know that—but bolted through the door, shouting over my shoulder for Eli to follow.

He did, slamming the door closed behind him. The three of us started to move down the hallway, but an outraged scream froze us in place.

“What were you doing in my office?”

We all turned to see Miss Norton charging us, her little fairy ears making her look like a lioness getting ready to take down a herd of wildebeests. I gulped, trying to come up with an excuse. None came.

Sometimes when you’re caught, you’re caught.

*   *   *

For the first time since starting my career at Arkwell, I was sent to the principal’s office with two accomplices. I’d sorta hoped that would make it more fun, or at least more bearable, but it didn’t. Not really.

There wasn’t room for all three of us inside of Dr. Hendershaw’s office, so the Will Guard who’d escorted us to the admin building—including Captain Gargrave, much to my dismay—put us in the same conference room where Sheriff Brackenberry and Lady Elaine had first recruited me to spy on Paul.

I wasn’t happy to be back here.

Neither were Selene or Eli, but we didn’t have time to bemoan our unfortunate luck as we decided on our collective story.

“Let’s just tell them the truth,” Eli said after several failed attempts at a believable excuse. “We know the Terra Tribe is planning something and this will make sure they get stopped.”

“Fine,” I said. “But we can’t tell them the stuff about Paul.”

Eli drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair. “Oh? Why not?”

“Because we promised him we wouldn’t until we had proof, and we don’t have it yet.”

The door behind us opened before Eli could reply. We all turned to look as Sheriff Brackenberry and Lady Elaine stepped in. The former looked bemused and the latter concerned. But neither said anything until after they’d shut the door and sat down. Sheriff Brackenberry leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on the table. “You’ve got two minutes to convince me you had a good reason to break into a teacher’s office.”

Eli started to answer, but I spoke over him. I had a lot more experience dealing with Brackenberry, and I didn’t trust him not to mention Paul. “We think Miss Norton is helping a student organization plan some kind of protest during the Beltane Festival,” I began. Then I told him everything we knew and suspected about the Terra Tribe, including their involvement in the protest on campus the other day as well as Britney’s connection to the group.

When I finished, Brackenberry sat back in his chair and stroked his beard. I waited with my teeth clenched. As far as I could tell, this could go either way—big, big trouble or us getting off easy.

The sheriff glanced at Lady Elaine. She shrugged, the gesture weirdly articulate with her bony shoulders visible in the snug turtleneck she wore. “Miss Norton
is
the faculty advisor for the group.”

Brackenberry grunted then faced me again. “Do you have any proof that Miss Norton was involved in orchestrating whatever this demonstration is?”

I shook my head, reluctantly. A couple of marks on a map and a last-minute appearance at the meeting didn’t constitute proof. Besides, all indicators were that the lighting of the torches was an official part of the Beltane Festival.

“I see.” Brackenberry cracked his knuckles, the sound as loud as tree branches snapping. “We’ll look into the claims about the festival, but I need to know if in your little investigation one of you took some kind of magical stick out of Miss Norton’s classroom. She says it went missing this very day, and that strikes me as quite a coincidence.”

It took every ounce of my self-control not to look at Eli. Miss Norton kept the talking stick—surely the object in question—in her classroom, at least during the school day, and he would’ve had a perfect opportunity to take it if he wanted to. Not that he had any reason for taking it that I knew of.

“No, we did not,” Eli replied, coolly.

Brackenberry turned that accusing gaze on me. “Well, then, you won’t mind turning out your pockets for me, will you?”

“Nope.” I stood up and did as he asked, although how he thought I would be able to hide that thing inside these jeans was beyond me.