CHAPTER 5
When someone tells you somebody’s been murdered, laughing is probably not the best response. You know, for future reference.
But laughing is exactly what I did.
“Jenna? Jenna Talbot killed her? What did she do, smother her with pink glitter or something?”
“You think this is funny?” Anna asked with a slight scowl.
Chaston and Elodie were glaring at me, and I figured my temporary membership into their club was about to be revoked.
“Well, yeah, kind of. I mean,” I amended quickly, afraid smoke might actually start pouring out of Elodie’s ears, “not that someone died. That’s awful, ’cause . . . you know, death—”
“Yeah, we know. ‘Ew,’” Elodie said, rolling her eyes.
“But the idea that Jenna could kill anyone is just . . . funny,” I finished lamely.
Again with the three-way glance. Seriously, did they practice in front of a mirror?
“She’s a vampire,” Chaston insisted. “Can you think of any other way Holly ended up with two holes in her neck?”
All three of them had gathered around me now, like we were in a huddle. Outside, the late afternoon sun had finally disappeared behind heavy clouds, making the room feel even gloomier and more claustrophobic. Thunder had started rumbling, and I could smell that faint metallic scent that always comes before a storm.
“When Holly started two years ago, we formed a coven,” Anna began. “The four of us were the only dark witches here, and you need four people for a really strong coven, so it seemed natural that we would become friends. But then Jenna Talbot showed up at the beginning of last year, and she and Holly became roommates.”
“Next thing we know,” Chaston interjected, “Holly won’t hang out with us anymore. She starts spending all her time with Jenna, totally blowing us off. When we asked her why, all she would say was that Jenna was fun. Like, more fun than us.”
She gave me a look that clearly said anyone being more fun than the three of them was impossible.
“Wow,” I said faintly.
“Then one day in March, I find Holly in the library crying,” Elodie said. “All she would tell me was that it was about Jenna, but she wouldn’t tell me what.”
“Two days later, Holly was dead,” Chaston said, her voice dark and somber. I waited for another crack of thunder, thinking one surely had to follow a statement like that. But the only sound was the soft shushing of the rain.
“They found her in the upstairs bathroom.” Elodie’s voice was almost a whisper. “She was in a tub, with two holes in her neck, and almost no blood left in her body.”
By now my stomach was somewhere south of my knees, and I could actually feel my heart pounding in my ears. No wonder Jenna had freaked when I’d mentioned her roommate. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah. It was.” Chaston nodded.
“But—”
“But what?” Elodie’s eyes narrowed.
“If everyone’s so sure it was Jenna, why is she still here? Wouldn’t the Council have staked her or something?”
“They did send someone,” Chaston said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But the guy said Holly’s wounds couldn’t have been made by fangs. They were too . . . neat.”
I swallowed. “Neat?”
“Vampires are messy eaters,” Anna replied.
I tried really hard to keep my face blank as I said, “Well, if the Council said it wasn’t Jenna, then it wasn’t her. Pretty sure those guys wouldn’t let a rabid vampire go to school with Prodigium kids.”
Elodie was the only one of the three who would meet my eyes. “The Council was wrong,” she said flatly. “Holly was living with a vampire and she was killed by someone draining her blood through her neck. What else could have happened?”
Chaston and Anna still weren’t looking at me. Something was definitely off here. I wasn’t sure why these girl were so determined make me believe Jenna was a killer, but I wasn’t buying it. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do on my first day was get wrapped up in some sort of witch/vamp gang war.
“Look, I still have some unpacking to do—” I started to say, but Anna decided to change tactics.
“Forget about the vamp for just a second, Sophie. Hear us out.” Her voice slid into a whine. “We really need a fourth for our coven.”
“Yeah,” Chaston added. “And we could teach you so much about being a dark witch. No offense, but you seem like you could use the help.”
“I’ll, uh, think about it, okay?”
I turned to leave, but the door slammed shut inches from my face. Suddenly a wind seemed to blow through the room and the pictures on the walls rattled. When I turned back to the girls, all three of them were smiling at me, their hair rippling around their faces like they were underwater.
The one lamp in the room flickered and went out. I could just make out silvery traces of light passing under the girls’ skin, like mercury. Even their eyes were glowing. They began to levitate, the tips of their Hecate-issue loafers barely brushing the mossy carpet. Now they weren’t homecoming queens or supermodels—they were witches, and very dangerous ones at that.
Even as I fought the urge to fall to my knees and throw my hands over my head, I was wondering, was this what I was capable of? If I hadn’t been busy doing “weenie spells” like Felicia’s, would I have looked like this, my skin lit up with silver and my eyes on fire? The power I sensed surging up through them made me feel like I was in the room with a tornado, like I was about to be blown out of that wall of windows and into that scummy pond. As it was, the energy was enough to send the glass splintering out of three of the framed photographs. One thin sliver sliced my forearm, but I hardly felt it.
Then, as quickly as it had started, the wind died down and the pictures stilled. The three girls in front of me no longer looked like primeval goddesses. They were just normal, if stunning, teenagers again.
“See?” Anna said eagerly. “That’s what we can do with only three. Imagine what we could accomplish with four.”
I stared at them. Had that been their sales pitch? Look! We’re really scary! Come be scary too!
“Wow,” I finally said. “That was . . . yeah. Really something.”
“So are you in?” Chaston asked.
She and Anna were still smiling at me, but Elodie was looking off to the side, bored.
“Can I get back to you?” I asked.
Chaston’s and Anna’s smiles vanished. “Told you so,” Elodie said.
And then, like I suddenly ceased to exist, they walked out.
I collapsed into one of the wingback chairs, my knees drawn up under my chin, watching as the rain died down.
That’s where Jenna found me nearly an hour later, just after the dinner bell rang.
“Sophie?” she asked, poking her head in.
“Hey.” I attempted a smile.
Which must have been pretty pathetic, because Jenna immediately furrowed her brow. “What’s up?” But before I could explain about the Witches of Clinique, Jenna rushed on, her words coming so fast that I could practically see them tumbling out of her mouth. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. None of that was any of my business.”
“No, no,” I said, rising to my feet. “Jenna, it’s not you. Really. We’re cool.”
Relief washed over her face. Then she glanced down. It happened so quickly that I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw her eyes darken for a split second. I looked at my arm and saw the cut where the flying glass had hit me.
Right. I’d forgotten about that. It was deeper than I’d expected. Now, as I looked down, I could see splotches of my own blood staining the carpet.
I looked up at Jenna, who was obviously trying not to stare at my arm.
An uncomfortable prickling sensation crawled over the back of my neck.
“Oh, that,” I said, covering the wound. “Yeah, I was looking at the pictures and a couple of them fell. The glass broke and I cut myself. I’m really clumsy.”
But Jenna had already turned to the wall to see that none of the pictures had fallen; that just three of them had shattered. “Let me guess,” she said softly. “You had a run-in with the Trinity.”
“Who?” I said, lamely forcing a laugh. “I don’t even know—”
“Elodie, Anna, and Chaston. And the fact that you didn’t want to tell me about it means they must have told you about Holly.”
Great. Was my only chance at friendship here destined to be thwarted at every turn?
“Jenna,” I started, but now it was her turn to cut me off.
“Did they tell you I killed Holly?”
When I didn’t answer, she made this sound that I think was supposed to be a sarcastic laugh, but she was clearly holding back tears.
“Right, ’cause I’m a monster who can’t control herself and would eat her . . . her best friend.” The corners of her mouth had started to tremble a little. “They’re the ones who are into the really dark stuff, but I’m the monster,” she continued.
“What do you mean?”
She looked back at me for a second before turning away again. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Just some stuff Holly said. Some sort of spell they were trying to do to get more power or something.”
I thought of them hovering over the carpet, skin on fire. Whatever “stuff” they’d tried, it had clearly worked.
Jenna started sniffling. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that look I’d seen on her face before.
It was hunger.
I pushed the thought away and stepped closer to her. “Screw them.”
Except I didn’t say “screw.” There are certain times when only really bad words will work, and this was one of them. Jenna’s eyes got huge, and relief visibly flowed through her. “Damn straight.” She agreed with such a strong nod that we both burst into giggles.
As we made our way to the dining hall, I looked over at Jenna, who was now babbling about how awesome the pecan pie was. I thought about those three girls, how wrong they’d been; there was no way Jenna could hurt anyone.
But even as I laughed at her rapturous descriptions of pie, I felt a small shiver at the base of my spine, thinking about her eyes as she’d watched my blood drip to the carpet.