Hexed

“Finally! I was starting to think you ride the short bus to school.”

 

 

“You’re the stupid one if you think we have time to just sit around and practice. They took my mom. They had a knife to her throat. What are you not getting?”

 

“What you’re not getting, Indigo, is that if we go in there unprepared, you—if not both of us—will die.”

 

I groan and scrunch my hands into the roots of my hair. “Just tell me where they took her then. I’ll do this myself if you won’t help.”

 

“And why do you assume I know where they are?”

 

“Tell me, Bishop.” I slam a hand against his chest as hard as I can, and it’s as if I’ve just punched a cinder block.

 

He doesn’t even have the decency to pretend I’ve hurt him. “You’ll kill yourself.”

 

“Fine, then, I’ll kill myself.” I massage my aching wrist. “Where are they?”

 

“You’re serious?”

 

“Yes! I don’t know how to make myself more clear to you.”

 

He sighs. “Fine. Get your car keys.”

 

“Where are we going?” Paige suddenly stands between our houses, backlit in the circle of light cast from our front porches.

 

“Oh no.” Bishop shakes his head. “She’s not coming. It’s enough to have one liability, let alone two.”

 

Paige huffs. “I’m glad you think so highly of us.”

 

He skirts around Paige, heading toward the driveway. When he reaches the driver’s-side door, he bounces on his toes like a boxer, waiting for us normal-limbed people to catch up. But when I enter the light, his bouncing comes to a stop and his jaw twitches, his eyes passing down my legs. I become aware that I’m wearing a pair of cotton shorts that could double as underwear in a pinch, and a holey T-shirt.

 

“They’re pajamas, perv.” I say.

 

He nods in appreciation. “Car keys?”

 

“What for? We aren’t flying there?”

 

“No, we aren’t flying. Why do you think I took you to the Hollywood sign the other night? No one can know about us. And I said she’s not coming.” He flicks his hand toward Paige in a dismissive gesture.

 

“Yes I am.” Paige places a balled fist on her hip and locks eyes with Bishop, giving him a death stare that would put Bianca’s to shame. “If Indie’s in danger, I’m going to help.”

 

“Okay, sure. You’re coming. What do I care if you die? I don’t. There we go. Car keys, Ind?”

 

I give Paige a grateful smile before running inside to snag the keys from the hook by the door. When I return, Bishop is holding out his hands to catch the keys.

 

“Dream on, buddy.” I push past him and slip into the driver’s seat.

 

The engine turns over as Paige buckles her seat belt and Bishop wedges himself into the tiny passenger seat. “Where to?” I ask.

 

“The Chinese Theatre,” Bishop answers.

 

“The Chinese frickin’ Theatre?” Paige says. And that pretty much sums up how I feel about it too.

 

“Yes.” Bishop cranes his neck to look back at Paige, dark eyebrows pulled up underneath the brim of his hat. “Is that not a good enough place for you to die?”

 

Paige does an impression of him yapping.

 

“Why there?” I ask, reversing out of the driveway. “This isn’t like last time, is it? Traipsing around the city for no good reason at all, just to amuse you at the expense of everyone else? Because we don’t have time for that crap.”

 

“Listen to you.” Bishop adjusts his seat to accommodate his freakishly long legs. “You’d think I wasn’t doing you a favor or something.”

 

I shake my head. “God, I’m so glad to have you back, you know, because you are just so pleasant to be around.”

 

“Oh, come on. I was just joking.” Bishop pokes my shoulder.

 

I don’t respond. I’m so not in the mood for this.

 

“Hey, I have a great idea,” he says brightly. “Let’s paint each other’s nails, bust out some magazine quizzes, and make this a real girl party!” He takes a chunk of my hair and starts braiding it. I knock his hand away.

 

He rests back against his seat, muttering under his breath. I only the catch the last words: “be such a stick-in-the-mud all the time.”

 

“Yes, well, when someone kidnaps your mom and you have no clue if she’s dead or alive and being tortured in a cellar somewhere, then we’ll see what kind of mood you’re in.”

 

“My mother is dead,” he says, his tone flat and even.

 

I glance over and pray, pray, pray that I see humor in his face, but he stares straight ahead, his expression hard and inflexible.

 

“Oh God.” I rub my temple. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“No, it’s not fine. I shouldn’t have—”

 

“I said it’s fine. Now we’re even.” He gives me a half smile. But rather than comfort me, it leaves me with a grating sensation, like a mosquito buzzing around my head that I can’t swat away.

 

I squint at his face, studying everything from his intensely dark eyes to the caterpillar brows drawn over them to the tiny lines around his mouth that make him look so much older than a teenager, and finally, to the slick waves that frame his sculpted jaw.