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“Okay. I have something that only requires a quick answer. Who’s your boss?”
The principal grimaced at the shredder and leaned forward. “Boris Krostinova. He’s been leading us for over a hundred years now. He believes—”
I froze and the shredder idled while it waited for something to do. “A hundred years? He must be ancient. Does he order people around from his hospital bed? Geez, he’d have to be on machines or something.”
Fawn quirked a brow. “So they didn’t tell you everything either.”
“I’ve learned a hell of a lot more from them.” That wasn’t exactly true, but Fawn and Linton didn’t know that.
“Let’s move on.” The chair creaked under Mr. Linton as he squirmed.
Good, I’d thrown them.
“We live more than ten times longer than non-sorcerers.” Fawn lifted one shoulder. “Unless we get knocked off, of course.”
“Wow. That long?” I blinked. “What else?”
“There’s so much to go over.” She pursed her lips. “We have our mental powers, but we’re also physically stronger. Much stronger, actually. Our perceptions are better too.”
“And I haven’t noticed this because…” I continued flipping through Hayden’s file.
She smiled. “You haven’t tried. Just like with the mind tricks, you couldn’t do it until you knew you could.”
No wonder Chait thought he could take Hayden. He probably could. But once Hayden began using his powers and he combined it with his fighting skills, few would be able to handle him.
I fed more paper into the shredder. “Do we get stronger as we get older or anything like that?”
“That’s only with werewolves and vampires,” Linton answered. “They have no expiration date or any limit on how strong they get.”
My mouth dropped open. Vampires and werewolves? Their existence hadn’t occurred to me. “Are you joking?”
“No,” Linton answered. I believed him since he wasn’t the humorous type.
“Are we in danger from them?”
“All supernatural races are extremely prejudiced. We generally stick to our own kind. Werewolves are an especially grumpy lot. And they hate vampires.”
“Well, everyone knows that.” I snorted, suppressing a giggle.
They both stared, straight faced.
I turned off the shredder and handed Mr. Linton the much thi
“I have a faculty meeting,” my principal said.
“We’ll be in touch.” Fawn smiled, looking more relaxed than I’d ever seen her. Maybe she was trying a new way to soothe me, since using her powers on me only pissed me off.
“I have to go. Hayden’s waiting for me.”
“Oh.” She glanced at Mr. Linton. “I thought you told him we no longer needed him.”
“I did.” I felt the need to explain why they’d still see us together. “But we’re sort of involved now.”
We were, but not in the way they’d take it. My talent at playing with shades of the truth alarmed me slightly. It didn’t feel like me. Being deceptive wasn’t something I’d ever be comfortable with. But if I wanted to live to see my eighteenth birthday, I’d have to get used to it.
“Then he may have found out about us anyway?” Mr. Linton raised a brow.
“Oh, yeah. That.” Of course their spy would tell them that I’d let Hayden in on our secret. “They involved Hayden when they kidnapped me. I didn’t want Hayden going all Terminator on them. He’d get hurt. So I warned him. Don’t worry. He’ll probably dump me soon anyway. And with his reputation, if he spills, no one will believe him.”
I gri
“Tessa?” Mr. Linton said as I got to the door. I looked over my shoulder, wishing I’d moved faster. “We’d like to show you Headquarters, have you meet the rest of us.”
“I don’t know…”
Fawn chuckled softly. “We’re not going to kidnap you. But you’ve spent a good deal of time with them and we think it should be balanced. What do you say? Sunday?”
Oh, how could I get out of this?
“I’m sure your buddies will be right behind us, so it’s not as if we’d hurt you, even if we wanted to,” Linton said.
“I suppose,” I said for lack of an excuse. It’s not like I could reject them so early in the game. That could put me in danger even sooner.
“Tessa,” Fawn began. “Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what’s going on and who to trust. They were smart to have someone young and attractive contact you and make you feel comfortable. My guess is that they set up the kidnapping, so that Chait would look like the good guy when he got mad at them.”
They made a good point.
“If they did a decent job of presenting themselves, that’s all it means. That they’ve shown you exactly what they want you to see.” Linton stood and leaned over his desk, his palms on the surface. “You can’t always judge a book by its cover, right? Don’t let a pretty face sway you into making a huge mistake.”
I nodded and slipped out the door before they pushed me for a time on Sunday. They’d call or text me, but at least I’d have time to think about my answer before then.
Chapter Twenty
Hayden
Tessa spotted me and headed toward my car, her hand outstretched and holding a letter. “Here you go. I read it. Looks good. And I personally shredded most of your file. Too bad I didn’t have time to study it. Looked like fascinating reading.”
“Smart ass.” I took a moment to read the letter before starting the car. Tessa was right. The letter looked good. Damn good. “I was thinking we should use the gym at my house, instead of the karate studio. I feel guilty taking up space when someone could be renting it. Not to mention the fact that we’re more vulnerable in a public place.”
Right. I’d been kidnapped outside the studio. “Your house has its own gym? Of course it does. It’s like ten times the size of a normal house.” And those abs… “Will we have enough privacy though? We can’t have anyone walking in.”
“If we close and lock the doors.” I winked at her. “Or we could go to my room where there’s a comfortable bed. Plenty of privacy there. We could work on wrestling.”
She punched my shoulder. “I didn’t mean it that way. We have to talk, remember?”
“In that case, doesn’t look like we have time to practice today. We’ll go to my place. When we’re done with our chat, we’ll eat before you go to work.”
She nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
* * * *
Tessa procrastinated, setting a trophy down then picking up another. It had only been twenty seconds since we’d arrived at my guesthouse. I grew impatient anyway. And anxious. Since they no longer needed me to guard Tessa, was she pla
I really wanted that excuse.
“Tessa, spit it out already.”
She set the trophy down and pivoted to face me. “I want to do that experiment again. You know, when I asked you to cover your eyes and get the keys?”
Not what I was expecting. But if her strange research sped things up, I was game. “Sure. Whatever.” I grabbed my keys from the hook by the door and dropped them on the dining room table. Familiar with the routine, I turned around, closed my eyes and reached behind me.
“Hold on.” The keys jingled. “One more second.” I wasn’t sure what she was doing but decided to humor her by waiting patiently. “Okay, find the keys,” she said.
It was too easy. The keys practically found me. I opened my eyes and held them out. “Now what?”
In her hand sat her cell phone. “I’m trying to figure out a way to tell you, so you don’t freak.” Her front teeth scraped her bottom lip. “When we did this the other day…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not writing a story about a girl who was blindfolded and kidnapped or whatever I told you.” She took a deep breath. “It was a test to see if you could move the keys with your mind.”