Chapter Thirty-Nine
The school was deceptively peaceful from the outside. Teacher’s cars were parked in the front, a few parents waited to pick up students for this or that at the curb, and administrators had parked at the building’s side. There was no sound coming from the building; the students were in class.
“You sure this is the one?” asked Roman D’Angelo.
“I’d bet my life on it,” she said steadfastly. Her gaze was locked on the school’s crest, which was painted in blue and yellow above the building’s main doors.
Roman, several other vampires she didn’t know, someone by the name of Kristopher, another gorgeous man by the name of Thane, a warlock by the name of Jason Alberich, and Nicholas, Andros, and Minnaea stood around Adelaide like a protective sphere. Kristopher, Jason, and Damon were apparently other kings at what Nicholas had explained was the Table of the Thirteen – though he supposed it would soon hopefully just be called “the Table,” because “Table of the Twenty-Six” was a mouthful.
Thane’s queen went by the name Siobhan. Addie’d had to ask for the spelling on that one. Kristopher’s queen was Poppy. At least that one was easy. Addie had already met them both, and at the moment the women were on the other side of the building, casting some kind of joint-power spell. Both women were warlocks, workers of what some called “dark” magic.
Addie really liked them. She’d never been one to care for labels, and had no idea what dark magic even was. As far as she was concerned, dark was better than light anyway. It was a hell of a lot less hot.
But normally when meeting women Addie sensed competition, jealousy, or outright meanness. That was just life. Women were made to compete with one another over men who didn’t even try to be worth it. However, with Poppy and Siobhan, she sensed confidence and power, and in that confidence and power, they had no reason to be jealous or petty toward anyone. She sensed happiness, deep and true. And she could tell that when they gathered their things and got ready to help her, they meant it. Balls in. They were going to come to her aid in any way they could.
So as she stood there staring up at the school and the lot of them prepared to go in, for the first time in Adelaide’s life, she felt… peace. Despite the horrors of what might go down at any minute, despite the things she’d witnessed in the vision, there was nevertheless an overriding sense of completion forming within Adelaide. There was a feeling of fitting in – of belonging.
She wondered about that. She’d only just met these people – even Nicholas. Yes, she’d had one hell of a roll in the sack with him. But they were strangers, really. Weren’t they?
She smiled, and almost shook her head at the thought. No. We’re not. Not at all.
And neither were these people around her. They were not strangers at all. That much, she knew in her heart.
“It’s done,” said Jason, breaking through her thoughts. She looked over at him, like everyone else did. His gaze was on the school, and it appeared as if he were seeing something they couldn’t. Maybe he was. Magic, possibly. Like the spell Siobhan and Poppy had cast.
“We’ll only have a few minutes,” he said, turning to Adelaide. “Can you find her in time?”
She nodded. She wasn’t going to leave the school today without Rachel. With Poppy and Siobhan’s spell forcing all of the teachers into a temporary but mildly sedated state, she would be able to run from classroom to classroom, searching for the girl in record time. No one was going to jump out of their teacher’s desks to confront her or sound any alarms. According to Alberich, they should cooperate with her fully.
She only hoped she wasn’t too late.
She was fairly sure that she wasn’t. The visions had always taken place during a passing period, if the crowded halls had been any indication, and they had yet to hear any bells go off.
She left her place beside the first of the parked cars in the front lot and headed to the main doors of the school building. They were locked, probably as a safety precaution. But without breaking stride, D’Angelo waved a hand, and the locks clicked open. She threw the doors open, and the others caught it behind her. As one, they moved into the school.
They made quick work of square footage, striding with purpose. But as she drew closer to the origin of her visions, Adelaide felt stranger and stranger. The reality of the world around her and the surreal environment of her visions were meshing, colliding in her mind in a kind of dizzy awareness.
By the time they had passed through the main gathering area, and turned left to enter the first of two parallel passing halls, she almost felt as if she were dreaming.
There were no teachers or administrators in the halls. Everyone was in classrooms or in their respective administrative offices. It was quiet but for the muffled voices lecturing about Cabeza de Vaca or Juan Ponce de Leon. Outside one door, Adelaide heard a woman talking about the area of a triangle. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
There were approximately twenty-five to thirty students in the room, and they all looked up at her as she entered. “I’m looking for Rachel,” she said, wishing she knew the girl’s last name. “Brown hair, brown eyes,” she continued.
But Rachel wasn’t there, and the students were either too stunned or just too teenager to be helpful in any way whatsoever. Instead, they just stared quietly at her, and then at each other. She left the room and hurried to the next. Over and over again, she did this, opening the door and asking for Rachel, and all without any success – until Alberich came up beside her and looked grim.
“We’re running out of time. Some of the teachers are coming out of it, and a few are talking about you.” He shook his head. “The principal has called the authorities.”
“Crap,” she hissed. Shit, she thought. No, no, no! The girl had to be here somewhere. She was depressed to the point of no return and she was planning on revenge, and she was packing heat… so where the hell was she?
The bell to signal the end of class buzzed loud and cacophonous through the school. A general milling sounded right after that from behind the closed doors, but it lasted only a split second before antsy students were crashing through them to pour out into the hallway.
Addie looked at the students’ faces as they passed by her, but they were strangers. None were the shooter from her visions; none were “Rachel.” They paid her and her companions no heed, thanks to yet another spell provided by Jason.
Panic struck her. Doom was looming.
And then it hit an all-time high when she suddenly sensed the cold, hard wrongness behind her. She turned, and the world slipped into slow motion. Faces and bodies blurred around her, time crawled, and her vision re-focused. The men behind her parted, like two sides of the Red Sea. Beyond them was a gradually filling hall with a women’s restroom sign on one end.
From the open space beneath the sign stepped a young woman with layered light brown hair. Athletic build. Familiar somewhat baggy clothing. Simple but expensive earrings that hinted they were heirlooms. Gun in her right hand.
Her boots made a hollow, echoing sound in Addie’s mind as they hit the tiles – one, two – and the girl was turning toward the more crowded end of the hall. She slowly, so very slowly, raised the gun, wrapping her other hand firmly over the first. She’d had practice. She knew what he was doing.
Addie couldn’t move. But she could speak. “Rachel!” she yelled, placing all of her breath behind the name. It sounded low and hollow in her ears, like a record that was dragging, forced to go slower than it was meant to. Everything was still moving in slow motion.
She noticed this – the decelerated raise of Roman D’Angelo’s arm, wristwatch gleaming in the overhead fluorescent lights, the light green glow to the tips of Jason Alberich’s firing-up fingers, the angle of Nick’s body as his black leather jacket-clad form drove forward to move in front of her.
But Adelaide seemed to be moving just a touch faster than everyone else. The second or two it took her to regain control of her body was half that in her companions’ time, and it was nothing in the real world. She was unaccountably grateful for this strange slip in time as she lunged forward. One booted foot in front of the other – and the students around her began to notice the girl with the gun.
Like individual grains of sand through an hourglass, they dropped their books, dove for cover suspended in mid-air, or turned to run. Papers scattered, backpacks hit the ground with silent thuds, and the air filled with the charged electricity of fear.
Rachel leveled the gun and took careful aim. Her eyes were cold, dead, and determined. She lowered her head slightly, her gaze narrowed, and Addie saw her finger gently squeeze the trigger.