Chapter Nineteen Rain Drop A Pin
Istare after my mother in shock and dismay. Even as the true horror of her words slowly, steadily, sinks in, there’s a part of my brain that’s still focused on the mundane. It’s urging me to get moving, to go to class, to avoid getting on Dr. Fitzhugh’s radar.
But even as I tell myself to at least make an effort to get to the second half of group therapy, I can’t move. It’s like my feet have grown roots as the things my mother said reverberate in my mind over and over again.
Nightmares aren’t so bad.
Calder Academy students will never have their powers.
Iwill never have my powers because I’m never—
I cut that last one off before it can fully form, pretty sure if I let myself think it—let alone believe it—I’ll start screaming and never, ever stop. As it is, I feel like I’m holding on to control by a very thin, very nebulous thread.
Outside, the storm continues to build. It’s raining full-out now, water pouring down in torrents from a sky turned black and oppressive. Wind howls through the oak trees, the leaves chittering and branches bowing to its force.
I step closer to the window, and now that I’m alone I allow myself the weakness of pressing my throbbing, burning cheek against the coolness of the glass. The physical relief is instant, if not the mental. For several seconds, I let myself sink into the chill, and into the strength of the wall, as my knees finally turn to nothing. Just like the rest of me.
Tears burn against the backs of my eyes, and for once I don’t bother to blink them away. Instead, I stare out into the raging storm—and the restless ocean just beyond the fence—and tell myself that she doesn’t mean what she said.
Wedid this to Serena. Calder Academy, with its power dampening and its affirmations and its focus on anything and everything but how to use our magic. We did this to her. We did this to all of them.
We spend four years keeping our students from shifting or performing even the most basic spell, and then we shove them back out into the world as adult paranormals, with all the power that comes with that. Then we say that it’s not our fault they can’t function. That it’s not our fault they keep dying in magical accidents. That it’s not our fault they keep blowing themselves up with a potion or shifting incorrectly or any of the million other ways there are for paranormals to hurt themselves.
And then we just go on about our lives like nothing happened. And in some ways, it hasn’t. People graduate and leave the island, basically disappearing from existence for those of us who are stuck here. So when they die—which so many of them have recently—it doesn’t feel real because it’s no different than them just leaving.
But it is different. It does matter.
Serena matters.
Jaqueline matters.
Blythe and Draven and Marcus matter.
All dead now, and they’re not the only ones.
Carolina matters. My beautiful, self-absorbed, larger-than-life cousin matters. So much.
At least to me. I’m not sure if she matters to anyone else, except my aunt Claudia and uncle Brandt. And even they seem to be moving on. She was their daughter and they loved her, but from the minute she got sent away, it’s like she ceased to exist…long before she actually died.
And now to find out that my mom seems to think this is the best we can do… It’s mind-blowing.
Totally and completely soul-destroying.
How can I be the only one who sees that? And how can I be the only one who wants to do something about it?
Outside, a huge crack of lightning splits the sky. Instinctively, I jump back, but as I do, I see a flash on the path at the very edge of the gym. I lean forward, trying to see it again. But the darkness is back despite the fact that it’s barely mid-afternoon, and I can’t get a clear look at anything that’s much beyond the borders of the quad in front of the building.
Still, I strain my eyes trying to get another glimpse of whatever it is I saw. Because, storm or not, what I caught sight of looked an awful lot like a person.
But who would voluntarily be out in this mess right now—especially since all the other students should be in class? And where could they possibly be going?
I watch the area for several more seconds, willing myself to see another flash of…something. But the rain and the gray have made everything too muddled. I give up, start to turn away, but as I do, another flash of lightning illuminates the sky as thunder booms at practically the same second, and I catch another look at what is, indeed, a person.
A very tall, very broad, very shirtless person, with dark hair plastered to his neck and bold, black tattoos climbing up his back.
Jude.
What the actual hell?
Where could he possibly be going, still shirtless, and covered in still-healing burns?
And what could he possibly have to do that is so important it can’t wait for this storm to be over?
He should be in class right now. Or, if he’s ditching, he should at least be heading back to the dorm to get a shirt and jacket instead of jogging, half naked, toward a huge thicket of trees in the middle of a violent rainstorm.
What if lightning strikes one of the trees and a branch falls on him?
Or worse, what if lightning strikes him?
Not that I care, because I don’t.
But still, sneaking off into the woods during a storm this wild is not normal behavior. He’s obviously up to something, and whatever that something is, I’m betting it’s not good.
A quick glance at my phone tells me I’ve got about forty minutes before class ends. If I hustle, I can probably get away with talking Fitzhugh into a detention that doesn’t involve getting bitten by anything…
But I’m barely halfway down the stairs when my mother’s voice comes over the PA. “Attention, students. Due to the storm, all after-school activities will be canceled for this afternoon. Please report directly to the dorms after the final bell. I repeat, all after-school activities will be canceled for today, and dinner will be served in the dorm common areas instead of the cafeteria. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Dinner at the dorms? I can count on one hand the number of times she’s ordered that in my entire life. Just how bad is this storm supposed to get? And how fast?
I take the last of the stairs two at a time, then glance out a window as soon as I’m in the hallway. As luck would have it, lightning chooses that moment to illuminate the sky, but it doesn’t matter. Jude is already gone.
Damn it.
I pull out my phone and swipe open the weather app. And shit. Just…shit.
It looks like the tropical depression we’ve been watching has moved straight through tropical storm into hurricane. Because of course it has.
And Jude is out in it.
One part of me says that he’ll be fine. Surely Jude won’t actually stay out in this mess for any length of time. And if he does, well…that’s on him.
But the logical part of me is screaming that something is off. That he’s out there doing something he shouldn’t be. And that whatever it is just might get him killed.
Let it go, I tell myself. He’s made it very clear that nothing about him is your business. Let him go.
I try. I really do. But then I think about that Keats poem, and I realize I wasn’t just mad at Keats for ghosting Fanny but at Fanny for letting it happen. I realize I’m mad at her because she didn’t fight for what was important to her.
This has nothing to do with love.
But still, something isn’t right with him. And I just can’t let it go. The rain starts falling harder, and I find myself pulling up his number. I can at least text him, tell him about the orders to get back to the dorm. Right?
But when I pull up our conversation, the last few texts jump out at me.
Jude: Meet me outside the gym.
Me: I can’t. The assembly is mandatory
Jude: Come on, Mandarin. Live a little
Me: Easy for you to say, Sgt. Pepper
Me: We’re going to get in trouble
Jude: I’ll protect you from the big, bad wolves
Me: So you say
Me: But it’s not you they like to chew on
Jude: That’s because you taste better
Me: How do you know what I taste like?
There’s a lapse, and then two minutes later, he wrote:
Jude: Maybe I’d like to know
Needless to say, the conversation ends there. I hightailed it out of the assembly so fast it’s embarrassing to think about. Especially knowing how that night turned out.
Even worse, there are a few more texts after that—all from me, sent at different times over the following few days.
Me: Hey, Bungalow Bill! You weren’t in class this morning. You good?
Me: Should I be worried about you?
Me: Hey, what’s up?
Me: Where are you? Please answer me. I just found out they took Carolina and I’m freaking out
Me: No one will tell me what happened with Carolina. How could they just send her away in the middle of the night?
Me: WHERE ARE YOU?
Me: What’s going on?
Me: Seriously, you’re just going to walk right by me in the hall like I don’t exist?
Me: I don’t understand what’s happening here
And then a couple of days later:
Me: I really miss you
And then, that’s it. Not another text from either of us for the last three years. Until now.
Humiliation churns in my stomach, but I type a quick message.
Me: The storm’s turning into a hurricane. My mom says everyone needs to report to the dorms as soon as school is out
I reread it and start to second-guess what I wrote. Somewhere around the fourth time I read it, I force myself to hit send.
Almost immediately it shows that it can’t be delivered.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Go to class, Clementine, I tell myself even as I head back into the stairwell and race down the stairs.
Go to group therapy. You only have it once a week, and if you miss it, it’s a big deal.
Tomorrow when you’re in some kind of detention hell, you’ll regret not going to class. Especially since Jude will be just fine, enjoying lunch with Ember and their other friends while you risk life and limb.
Go to class.
But even as I exit the stairwell into the hallway that leads to Dr. Fitzhugh’s class, I know I’m not going to go. Instead, I turn in the other direction, and—after glancing to make sure the hall trolls are nowhere to be seen—I race toward the huge double doors at the end of the building.
Don’t do this, Clementine, I tell myself once more. This isn’t your business. You need to go to class.
Go to class.
Go to class.
Go to class.
But no matter what I tell myself, it’s already too late. The truth is it was too late the second I saw Jude walking through the storm.
When I get to the end of the hall, I burst through the double doors without a second thought—that damned Fanny running through my head again—and race straight into the dark, steamy wet.