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.A little life to balance the scales a bit.” I had to admit, I liked this guy.He understood dirt therapy.The bell for sixth period came too early for me.Wanda looked like she was having more fun getting her hands dirty than I would have thought.We put our seedlings on the shelf with our table’s number on it and headed for the door.I stopped when a gentle touch fell on my shoulder.I knew who it was before I turned around.I found myself staring into a pair of searching, green eyes: eyes that drew me in and tried to see into my soul.There was a jarring moment as my mental barriers kicked in, as if she was trying to get inside my mind with her gaze, but then I blinked, and she was just a girl staring into my eyes.“Can I talk to you?” Alexis asked.She asked it like she was asking for more than a minute of my time.I just didn’t have a clue what it was.So, I did what any fifteen-year-old warlock would do when the girl who was dating his magickally augmented rival came up and asked if she could bare her soul to him.“Yeah.Sure.I’ll catch up to you after school, Wanda.”“Suuuure you will,” Wanda drawled over her shoulder.Alexis took me by the arm and pulled me behind a wall of ferns.I could feel her touch tingling on my skin, and the scent of cinnamon hit my nose like a velvet sledgehammer.When we got behind the ferns, she looked around for a second, then turned to me with her head down.“Did you mean what you said this morning? About what gives Brad his…strength?” She looked up at me through her bangs, her green eyes soft with an expression I couldn’t fight.I’d give her any answer, just so I could keep seeing that look.“What do you mean?” I managed.“Can you really take it away?” Her voice was almost timid, hopeful, like the battered girls who used make deals with Dulka to get rid of abusive boyfriends or parents.She kept her arms crossed in front of her.Her scent was driving me crazy with her so close.She tilted her head and intensified the look, and I felt my resolve weaken a little more.“Yeah, but, why do you want to know?” Instead of answering me, she smiled and ducked her head as she hurried past me.Before I could catch up to her, she was lost in the swirl of students in the hallway, and I was running late to French.Through sixth and seventh period, only one thing was on my mind.Alexis knew.She knew where Brad’s strength came from, and she thought I could do something about it.She believed that I could do something about it.She was subject to that strength, and that gave me more than a moment’s pause.It seemed that we had more than a little in common, if the way she was acting was any clue.I sure as hell had to find out if I was right about that.By the time the bell rang for the end of seventh period, my head was pounding, and I was ready to go home.After I grabbed my homework books from my locker, I headed to the front doors, and came up on Wanda and Lucas already deep in conversation.“I’m just saying it’s weird, that’s all,” Lucas was saying as he shook his head.“I mean, it hasn’t even been two days since Mr.Chomsky was killed, and they already have someone in for the rest of the semester.That’s a little too quick, if you ask me.”“Sarah told me this guy flew in from Houston yesterday, said he went to the same college as Mr.Chomsky or something.He's got like six degrees!” Wanda’s voice dropped into the singsong rhythm I was starting to recognize as her gossip voice.It made her sound about half as smart as she did the rest of the time.“So, he’s more than a little qualified?” I asked from behind them.Lucas jumped.“Gods, man,” he exclaimed in a bad British accent, “I hate it when you do that!”“Sorry,” I lied.“Yeah, right.Dude, we were just waiting for you.We’re heading over to Dante’s.You want to come and hang out for a while?”“My mom’s expecting me home.I’d have to call her or something,” I said, feeling like I was seven again [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]