Cold Fire: A Paranormal Novel Page 9

  I roll my eyes. In all honesty, with everything that’s happened, I forgot all about Caden. The girl who wanted to grill him for an explanation disappeared the second I got home yesterday. It’s only now under the fluorescent school lights that she remerges, squinting out at a world so much changed from the one she knew. In this world, explanations are secondary; survival comes first.

  “It was them, wasn’t it?” I already know the answer but I feel it’s necessary to ask.

  My assailant’s face had been on the news for all of five seconds. I’d never seen him before in my life. Stocky, bushy eyebrows, a buzz cut: he looked for all the world like a normal burglar. Caden nods. Yes. It was them.

  “They know where you live, Melissa.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t stay there anymore.”

  “I—Wait, hold on, are you sure that’s necessary?”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “It’s my home, Caden. It’s my family. I’m sure there’s another way for us to stay safe.”

  “They’re not your—” he begins, and then realises what he’s saying. “Sorry.”

  They’re not your family is what he wants say. I force all thoughts on the topic from my mind. “I’m not leaving,” I tell him, digging in my heels. “No matter what you say. We can install security cameras, get locks on all the windows. It’ll be fine.”

  “No,” he says, gritting his teeth, and I can tell it’s taking all his effort not to explode with frustration, “it won’t be fine. These people, they aren’t going to be deterred by a couple of locks and a security camera. You have no idea what they’re capable of.”

  “Then tell me! Just tell me, Caden. Who. Are. They?”

  He presses his lips firmly together, and I can see he’s debating whether or not he should answer me. Pros and cons flash in his eyes.

  “You said on Friday that you had more to tell me,” I continue. “Hell! You were so desperate to inform me you barely let me go. And now it’s like you rather do anything else. I can’t keep living in this half-world. Everything is so muddled up. I don’t know who I am anymore. Please. Just help me.”

  “Later,” he says at last. “After school.”

  Then he steps out of the alcove and strides away from me down the hall.

  ***

  But ‘after school’ never happens, because in third period homeroom, I’m given a detention slip for skipping class Friday afternoon. Straight away I’m considering ripping it off. But as if reading my mind, my homeroom teachers says, “And if you don’t go, you’ll receive a Saturday detention instead.”

  Perfect.

  Caden eyes me from across the room, and I swear I can see the amused smile in his eyes.

  A minute later, the teacher plants a detention slip on his desk as well. “Today or Saturday,” I hear her say. “It’s your choice.”

  My jaw drops. Caden stares down at the slip on his desk, unmoving. There’s a minute in which everything else fades out, leaving just the two of us in the room; the two of us, frozen and rattled by the fact that Caden, who’s coming and going is never noticed, has just been caught.

  I know he can feel my eyes on him, my unspoken questions hurtling across the space between us, but he won’t look my way. When the bell goes, he’s the first out of the class.

  Detention is held in a small classroom on the ground floor of the building. When I turn up after school, there are already a dozen students from different grades seated at desks. “Take a seat,” the teacher says as I walk in, her face wrinkled and grouchy. No one’s talking and therefore they don’t have anything to do but watch me as I head for a chair in the last row.

  Oh, who am I kidding? I’m sure they’d all have been staring at me anyway.

  “Freak,” someone coughs, splintering the silence. There’s a smattering of muffled laughter. A junior thinks it’s a funny idea to kick his bag in my path, but his timing is all off. I step over it.

  “Idiot,” his friend whispers, punching him in the arm.

  A know-it-all type in the front row raises her hand. “Miss, I’m sure it’s against the law to put students in life-threatening situations. Can I please be let out early? I’m concerned for my safety.”

  Our teacher is in the middle of reading a novel at her desk, a pair of wire frames slid halfway down her nose. She doesn’t even look up when she replies, “No one leaves.”

  “But what if the Crazy Croft hurts us? Shouldn’t we be allowed to go?”

  “Yeah,” a boy calls out, “do we get extra credit if we freeze to death?”

  “Shut up, Riley,” the girl seated beside me yells. “Fucking wimp.”

  Riley gets to his feet, spinning around to face her. He’s the tallest kid I’ve ever seen, which isn’t as intimidating as you’d think, especially when the said kid is also as thin as a twig. “What’d you just call me?”

  “A fucking wimp.”

  “Why don’t you come over here and say that, bitch?”

  “Booo!” another boy yells, cupping a hand around his mouth. “Not cool bro, that’s my sister you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, fuck you too, Levi.”

  “Alright, that’s enough,” the teacher says. She clearly cares more about being disrupted from her reading than the profanities being hurled across the room, disrupting her.

  Riley returns to his seat, his face contorted into a scowl that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

  “You cool, Lau?” Levi says to the girl beside me.

  “As a cucumber,” she responds. “And you? These shits are…well, they’re shits.”

  It takes me a moment to realise she’s not talking to her brother. It takes me another to process that she’s actually talking to me.

  “I’m good,” I say. And I mean it. My entire life has been flipped upside down in a matter of days. I’ve been told I’m not who I think I am, that I’m being hunted, that I’m dying, and that I have supernatural powers, although I’m still not entirely sold on that last one. Also, I’ve been chased. I’ve had a man try to obliterate me with fire shot from his eyes. And just last night, I burnt off a stranger’s face after he tried to strangle me.

  Suddenly school and all its bullies feel like child’s play. I suppose that’s because it is.

  “Have we been introduced? I’m Lauren. I’m in your English class.” She doesn’t extend a hand, but she does smile, meeting my suspicious gaze with fearless brown eyes.

  “I guess there’s no need to tell you my name.”

  “It’s freak, right?” She laughs, only stopping when she notices I’m not doing the same. “Sorry, that was a really bad joke. Let’s pretend like I don’t know your name.”

  “Melissa,” I tell her.

  “Good to officially meet you, Melissa. Nice work with the weather thing by the way. My brother thinks it’s—,” she pinches her thumb and index finger together, “—very cool.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  She’s been leaning across the aisle separating our desks to talk to me, but now she moves back. Conversation over.

  Just as I’m getting comfortable in the newfound silence, however, she bursts out laughing again, her caramel curls bouncing as she shakes her head. “You’re not used to hearing that, are you?” she says, and I realise it’s a delayed reaction to my half-hearted response.

  “Not particularly.”

  “It’s a rare cancer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it true? That you’re the one affecting the weather?”

  I shrug.

  Caden chooses this exact moment to turn up to detention, jogging into the room.

  “You’re late, Coleridge.”

  “My apologies, Mrs. Clark.” His words come out breathy and jagged. He’s clearly winded, though I can’t imagine why.

  “You’re lucky I’m not making you do the Saturday as well. Take a seat.”

  His gaze sweeps the entire room, landing briefly on me. I’m sure he sees me. But he purposefull
y seats himself in the second row, almost as far away from me as he can get.

  Arsehole.

  Lauren catches me watching him. “Hot, right?”

  It’s not exactly the word I’d been thinking, but as long as she doesn’t pick a career in reading people, she’ll be fine.

  “He’s alright.” Though I prefer guys who don’t ignore me in public. “Kind of a douche, though.”

  She groans. “The gorgeous ones always are. For once you know, I’d just like to a meet a good looking guy who doesn’t know he’s good looking or a guy who doesn’t act like a dick because he’s hot enough to get away with it.”

  “We’re in high school,” I tell her. “They’re all dicks.”

  She laughs. “Ouch! Too real, Croft. Dial the truth meter back a notch.”

  “Be quiet, please,” Mrs. Clark says dispassionately. Lauren rests her cheek against her fist and angles her face towards me.

  “You and Caden,” she says, lowering her voice. “You’ve talked, haven’t you?”

  You could say that.

  “Like, maybe I’m just imagining things, but I swear I saw you two sitting together in English a couple weeks ago.” She shakes her head and blushes, suddenly conscious of the fact that she sounds like a creep. “Anyway, I was just wondering is there, like, anything going on there?”

  It takes me a second to understand what she’s asking. “God, no. Definitely not.”

  She nods coolly, but her lips twitch upwards in the beginnings of a smile. “In that case, I was thinking. Since you and Caden sort of know each other, maybe you could like, put in a good word for me? You know, if you want or—”

  I raise my eyebrows. “You’re into Caden?”

  She laughs, slightly embarrassed. “Well, yeah. Is it really that hard to believe?”

  I let my gaze drifts across the room to where Caden sits, working on the homework spread across his desk. Even from this angle I can see the chiselled cut of his jaw, the strong triangular lines of his back, the tautness of his shirt around his arms and shoulders. He’s buried in thought, eyebrows knitted together, eyes flicking back and forth over his work. And somehow, the pensive expression only works to make his face more handsome.

  If only I could get past the black eyes…

  “I’ll talk to him for you,” I say before I can stop myself. “Maybe drop a few hints.”

  Her eyes light up, growing wide. “Seriously? God. You’re the fucking best, you know that?”

  “Up the back! That’s enough!” Mrs. Clark looks up long enough from her book to glare at us.

  Lauren looks back at me and mouths, Thank you.

  I give her a half smile and let the silence sit comfortably down around us. After a while, when I’ve grown tired of staring at my hands, I fold my arms over my desk and rest my head on top, closing my eyes.

  When I open them again, detention is over, and Caden is gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  At lunch the next day, Lauren spots me passing through the courtyard and waves me over. I hesitate, my steps faltering. She’s sitting with a group of six others. They haven’t seen me yet, but I doubt they’ll be very welcoming once they do.

  I shake my head and keep moving. Her smile falls.

  I’ve only gone another five paces when suddenly: “Melissa! Wait up!” Lauren pulls up in front of me looking slightly flustered. She’s got a beige coat on over the top of the regulation uniform, one with a matching belt and round black buttons. It’s long enough that you can’t see her skirt from behind, only her black school stockings. “You should come over. Sit with us.”

  I glance over at her friends again, who are now watching with curiosity. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Of course it’s a good idea. You don’t always have to sit on your own.”

  “At the risk of sounding like a killjoy: yeah, I do.”

  She tilts her head to the side and pouts. “Come on, work with me here! I’m trying to help you out.”

  “I don’t need your help,” I tell her, and keep on walking.

  ***

  The following day, she’s at it again. She catches me at my locker this time, barely minutes after the lunch bell. “Sit with us?” she asks.

  I fight the urge to snap at her. “Why would you want me to?”

  “Because you’re cool and I think you’d get along well with my group? Why else?”

  I slam my locker shut. Lauren backs up a step. “Okay, fine,” she says, hands raised, “think of it this way. You’re doing me a favour by talking to Caden, so I need to do something for you. I owe you.”

  “I don’t need any favours.”

  She smiles. “That’s where you’re wrong. You do. You just don’t know it.”

  I give her my full attention. “You’ve had six months to get to know me and you pick now?”

  “It’s not like people haven’t tried, Melissa. You just push everyone away.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She folds her arms. Sure, her expression reads, dripping with sarcasm.

  I exhale. “It’s just easier this way.”

  She follows me when I head off down the hallway. “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “Melissa, please.” She runs in front of me, blocking my path. I stop, adjusting my hold on my books. We’re at the edge of the courtyard and all I can think of is the blonde tripping me up last week, mocking me as the walls drew close and boxed me in. Of Caden’s voice—a hallucination, no doubt—asking me what I was afraid of. I’m afraid of this: opening up to someone, making a friend, and then being cast aside. I make myself the outsider so no one else can.

  “Please?”

  Lauren’s friends are watching us from across the courtyard, not even covertly. A brunette with green streaks in her hair flashes me a smile. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse.

  I come to a decision. “Alright.”

  Her eyes grow wide. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. Let’s go before I change my mind.”

  She beams.

  Lauren heads over and I follow behind her slowly, coming to a stop before the group. There’s a short moment where everything seems to go quiet like the world is holding its breath. The six students stare up at me, unmoving, mouths agape. And it feels like I’ve slipped into a liminal zone, where a heartbeat is suddenly an infinity, and even time itself is waiting. Waiting for something, for a noise to be made, for a decision to spring forth and influence the future. I can see their eyes. I can see their thoughts spinning behind their eyes, each a mini wheel, revolving through the options: laugh, frown, sneer, or cower. Eventually, someone’s wheel will stop spinning; it’ll land on an emotion, and it’ll spread from their eyes to their faces to each other.

  Green Streaks Girl says, “At last. The Ice Queen has come down from her castle.”

  It lands.

  Everything else is a chain reaction: people smile, laugh and make room for me at the table. One boy I half recognise says, “Kira, that feels like a Frozen reference and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  Levi, the boy from detention, takes a black leather glove out of his pocket and slips it on to shake my hand. “Welcome to the revolution,” he says.

  A blonde girl rolls her eyes. “Enough with the dramatics.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s us against them.”

  “Against who?”

  Green Streaks Girl, a.k.a. Kira, looks across at me. Her eyes are dark as her hair. “Against the ‘Normals,’” she says, forming air quotes. “Levi here is an individualist, which is a nice way of saying he thinks he’s better than everyone else.” She puts a hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “I feel for you. To think you have to put up with him every day.”

  “Kira, you’re literally dating him.”

  Kira shrugs. “What can I say? I’m a good person. I see a nerdy boy with a superiority complex and nice hair, and I just can’t help myself. I have to date him.”

  “
Yeah, you’re a real saint.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed by the way,” Kira says, eyes skipping back to mine, “Levi is Lauren’s twin brother.”

  “Yeah, go me,” Lauren cheers sarcastically. “Alright, down to business. Everyone! Can I get your attention, please?”

  “Oi dickheads, shut the fuck up! My piece of shit sister is trying to speak!”

  The table of six—now seven—falls quiet for the first time since I joined them. “Thanks for that, Levi. That was lovely.” Lauren places her hand on my shoulder. “Now. You all know Melissa, but horrifying as it is, she doesn’t know us. So let’s go around the circle, say our name and one thing about us.”

  A boy I vaguely recognise laughs. “God, Lau, we’re in year twelve, not year seven.”

  “Really? Because you don’t act like it.”

  “Hey,” Kira exclaims, “I’ve got an idea. Cooper, why don’t you go first?”

  “Even better, I’ll go for him,” Lauren says. “Melissa, meet Cooper Jung, ‘mature-est’ person in the room.”

  Cooper is a dark-haired half-Asian kid who looks like he’s still waiting for puberty. He slaps Lauren, frowning. Clearly, mature-est person in the room is some sort of joke.

  “Next up,” Lauren says.

  “I’m Lev—”

  “Nope!” Kira yells. “We’re skipping you, sorry. Melissa already knows you’re cocky hipster trash. Moving on.”

  Levi flips her off. Then blows her a kiss.

  The blonde girl sitting next to him pretends to gag. She smiles. “I’m Piper Codwater.” Piper’s got the longest hair I’ve ever seen. Even in a ponytail, as she wears it now, it falls below her waist.

  “Don’t be fooled by the blonde,” Lauren says, “Piper’s got the best grades out of all of us.”

  “I think you mean the best grades out of the whole school,” she corrects.

  “Okay, Miss Arrogant,” Levi says, “you can stop now.”

  “Kira, go,” Lauren laughs, “before this gets ugly.”

  Kira flips her short brunette hair over to one side of her face. “It’s about time. I’m Kira Merritt, patron saint of kicking arse.” Everyone stares at her. “What? I take martial arts.”