CHAPTER ELEVEN
T
he secretary, Mrs. Handy, listened to a conversation on the phone, gesturing that I should sit.
That was okay with me.
I selected the corner seat and melted into it with an exhausted sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose.
I’d never been sent to the principal’s office in my life.
Willa, an ethereal voice hissed, making me gasp and sit up.
“Oh, shit!” Manuel yelped, his face losing its mischievous look in an instant.
I jumped about a foot in the air, because I hadn’t heard anyone approach.
“Emmanuel!” Mrs. Handy scolded, having finished her phone conversation. “What were you thinking, trying to scare the poor girl like that? I should call your mother.”
Manuel clasped a hand over his heart. “I didn’t know she’d have a heart attack and give me one too. I thought you heard me or something, but you jumped higher than I did.”
I lowered my face to my knees and breathed.
“Are you okay there, mouse?” Manuel poked my shoulder.
Was there a tattoo on my forehead that read, “Please, world, throw the worst nicknames you can think of at me?”
I turned, peeking up at him with one visible eye. “Mouse?”
He grinned. “Yeah, you might have some sass in you, but you’re still jumpy.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Bad dream?”
“Wasn’t sleeping.”
“Ah, bad life then.” His deep gaze stayed steady on me, like he’d peeled away my skin to analyze my soul. A brow arched on his forehead at whatever he found. “So it’s true then?”
“Define ‘it.’”
Mrs. Handy broke up his assessment. “Ms. Walker? I smoothed things over with the principal, and he says that after-school detention is enough. However, I think it’s best that you stay here for the rest of the period.
We can let Mr. Watkins cool down.” Her nose scrunched up as she smiled at me and nodded.
“How does that sound? Like a plan? Good. You sit there and rest. You look like you could use a nap. Not getting any sleep, huh?”
“Here and there,” I replied with a tired grin mustered up from the fact that it hadn’t crossed my mind that Watkins had already called, nor that she’d speak up in my defense to the principal without hearing my side of the story.
She could have what little remained of my goodwill and energy for that alone.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, if you just so happen to catch a wink or two, it’ll be our little secret.”
In my estimation, she graduated to sainthood with that sentence. I sat up. “Thank you, Mrs. Handy.”
She nodded and reclaimed her seat behind the tall desk. Pausing, she rose once more, “If he’s bothering you, you’re welcome to say so.”
Manuel huffed.
I fought a grin, more sincere and energetic this time. “He’s fine. No bother at all.” Happy to pop the smug expression that’d stolen over his face, I added, “But you’ll be the first to know if that changes.”
“Hey now,” Manuel interjected.
Mrs. Handy winked at me. “Oh, I like you. You just do you, and I’ll be over here playing solitaire, pretending to file Mr. Watkins’s complaint.”
She did exactly that.
“So,” Manuel began after thirty seconds of silence, “you got detention today too?”
“Too?”
He reclined. “Yeah, got in trouble in English for mocking Shakespeare in my analysis paper. Apparently, that’s taboo.”
Goosebumps stole over me, and a warning beeped.
I frowned. My temperature had dropped three degrees in a minute, but I hadn’t noticed. How was that possible? I always noticed before the sensors.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Oh, wait. That’s—”
“A watch. Tells time.”
“Ha-ha. It tells your temperature too, right? It also beeped yesterday.” Manuel was too smart. He paused, biting back something else he wanted to say, and settled for, “Why is it yelling at you?”
Manuel reached over to pull my wrist closer.
Oh no, my snacks. My snacks were in my backpack, and my backpack was—right there?
Mrs. Handy glanced up and smiled at the newcomer. “Oh, hi there, Mr. Montrose, what can I do for you, hun?”
“Watkins sent me. I have Willa’s backpack,” Dale rumbled.
“Aren’t you a doll? She’s over in the corner, dear.”
Dale spotted us and walked over.
Manuel released my wrist.
Dale exchanged a silent nod with Manuel, an unspoken gesture many guys at school did when they were on the same sports team.
Then, for some reason, he held my stuff out to Manuel.
Manuel didn’t bat an eye. He accepted my bag, placed it in the chair next to me, and leaned across to do so.
His arm brushed mine, and it felt purposeful.
Why did he hand my backpack to Manuel?
“Thank you,” I murmured when my thoughts regathered and noted Dale lingering.
Manuel frowned. “What’s up, man?”
Dale shook his head. “I didn’t even know computers could do that.”
Oh, he must have witnessed the sparks flying. To be fair, I didn’t know laptops did that outside of movies either.
“Dude, you okay?” Manuel assessed him. Dale did possess a sort of spooked horse expression.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe? I don’t know.” He glanced at me. “Your computer screen turned back on when Mr. Watkins took you out in the hall.”
“Oh!” I pulled my backpack over, fishing the device free. “Really? I thought for sure the thing was toast.”
“Nah, it’s good, but it made it more difficult to explain what happened.” Dale scratched the nape of his neck. “Watkins has it out for you. Seriously.”
Manuel chuckled. “Dale, be real. Are you okay? You didn’t look this shaken up before our big match against South Knox last year.”
Dale hesitated, nodding at my laptop. “Just when her computer began working again, right before the desktop booted, I thought I saw…” He trailed off and forced a nervous laugh, running his hand through his hair.
“I thought I saw something. Pretty wild.” I wanted, nay—needed, him to elaborate, but he just shook his head.
“Probably the scary movies I’ve been watching.
Mom said they’d get to me, but she’s also overprotective.
Anyway, I should return to class before Watkins pins a bullseye on me too. ”
“You said that before. I thought you were kidding.” Manuel frowned. “So what? He’s got it out for Willa?”
“Yeah, sure seems like it. You should know that Kole tried his best to get detention too.” Dale snorted at my face’s impression of a tomato.
“But I think Watkins realized it too, because he refused to give him one. Watkins has Kole back in class, writing lines on paper like this is the nineteen hundreds. Well, later.”
“Later, man,” Manuel replied.
Dale left, casting one last lingering glance at the computer in my lap with a look befitting of stumbling across a gigantic tarantula before he rushed away.
Manuel’s and my gazes dropped to it as well.
I bit my lip, suddenly handling the device like a live bomb primed to go off.
“I’ve never seen that guy so shaken up. Nothing bothers him,” Manuel remarked. “What the hell did he see on your computer?”
“That’s a good question.”
The lid offered no answers. Taking a deep breath, I opened it, pulling my hands up off the keys after inputting my password. One could never be too careful. Handwriting, even with all the practice this week, proved painful enough without adding burned fingertips into the mix.
Manuel leaned forward. “Seriously, you too? What did this computer do?”
“Yeah, it… was acting weird earlier.”
The screen loaded with no problem, and the battery icon in the corner showed a merrily green ninety-five percent charge.
A cursory check of three apps worked just fine, so I assumed whatever had happened, it hadn’t bothered the internals.
“Did Dale put you up to this? Are you both trying to prank me?”
I wish. “No, we haven’t really talked before, and why would we prank you like this, invoking Watkins’s wrath?”
“Just saying.”
Then, I remembered I was in the beginning of an attack and had been looking for my snacks when Dale’s arrival distracted me.
Except… I felt fine.
I double-checked my watch, verifying that my temperature had returned to normal.
No floating white orbs, no white noise that grew to indecipherable whispers… nothing. This was groundbreaking. My neurons lit up with years of experiences, where nothing we’d done had ever helped, and yet, here I was, the second time in as many days.
What was the common denominator?
I’d assumed the snacks had done the trick, but not today.
The only thing both here and there was that… I’d been around Manuel.
My thoughts halted.
“What?” Manuel asked. “Why are you staring at me like I’m a puzzle you need to solve? I didn’t touch your computer.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t think you—well, ah, I wasn’t thinking about this.” I stuffed my laptop into my backpack, still not trusting it not to send out another jump scare from hell.
“Hmm. So… I was going to ask you about Ben Pierce, but now I feel like I should be asking you about Kole Keiser.”
The zipper jammed. “What?”
“Children,” Mrs. Handy chided. “Keep it down. This is still an office.”
“Sorry, Mrs. H,” Manuel apologized.
I released a slow breath, trying to calm my racing heart. “What do you mean? Why—”
“Don’t play dumb.”
The front pocket on my backpack vibrated.
I sighed, fixing the jam, and slipped my phone free to check it. Yeah, it was hard to play dumb when I had over twenty unread messages and about six phone calls. Even as I watched, the display lit up with another incoming text.
Manuel leaned over and whistled low. “He’s persistent.”
“They are not all from him,” I defended automatically, even though the ones rolling in at the moment all flashed Kolton’s name across the notification bar.
“Sure,” Manuel replied, dosing his words with a heavy hint of doubt. “I thought he was still in Watkins’s class. How is he texting you?”
“Maybe he’s still trying to get detention.” I sent him a quick response that I was okay and to stop whatever he was doing to get in trouble with me.
Manuel waited for me to finish. “So, you and Kole?”
“No, it’s… it’s complicated. We’re not… We’re friends.”
“Ah, so the rumors about you and Ben are true then.”