Chapter Seventeen
When I woke up the next morning and reached over to my cell phone to see what time it was, I nearly fell out of bed in shock. I’d slept for about fifteen hours but hadn’t dreamed, and I didn’t remember falling asleep. My initial plans to begin training today appeared to be out of the question now that the day was practically over.
I got up and stretched, feeling every single muscle as it screamed in pain. As athletic as I was, cheerleading had in no way prepared me for the damage of magical warfare. My tailbone throbbed with every step. I went over to the mirror that was hanging on the back of my door and surveyed the damage. I might as well have been rolling around in the dirt, because that’s how torn up I looked.
Somebody was badly in need of a shower.
Making it my first order of business, I headed over to my closet and swung the doors open to survey my choices.
Hello, clothes! Oh, how I’ve missed you!
I ran my hand across the rainbow of materials, feeling the familiar twinge I got over fabulous fashion. Given all that had happened in the last week, this particular passion had taken a major backseat to everything else. But it wasn’t until I stood there in front of designs by Carolina Herrera and Vivienne Westwood (both fellow witches, I might add) that I realized just how much I’d been ignoring that part of me.
That wasn’t the only thing I’d suppressed, though. As I touched the stretchy polyester fabric of my cheerleading uniform, I felt the pang of sadness grow even heavier. And then my heart sank into my stomach as I had a horrific thought.
If the Parrishables were going after everyone I was close to, then could that include my best friends? Sofia, Trish, and Bethany weren’t witches, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were free from danger. In fact, it was possible that if the Parrishables couldn’t get at me while I was with the rest of the Cleri, they might go after my friends to lure me out. I’d learned from the mall incident that they weren’t worried about the nonmagical world knowing they existed. The Parrishables could attack at any time, knowing that I would come running to save my friends. And I would, because although they were able to flip their way across a field, my cheer-mates didn’t stand a chance against the Parrishables.
I had to make sure they were okay.
Looking back at my uniform, I realized that my teammates would be lining up to cheer on our football team in less than half an hour. If I rushed to get ready, I could probably make it to the game before halftime.
Ahhh, halftime.
If I was being honest with myself, checking on the others wasn’t the only reason I wanted to go to the game. The truth was, I missed cheer, desperately. It had been the biggest part of my life for such a long time that not having it now felt like going through another loss. It was the one thing that always made me feel like myself again.
And if there was a possibility that I wasn’t going to win this fight with the Parrishables, then this would be my last chance to be a regular sixteen-year-old doing what she loved. Even if I wouldn’t be able to cheer along with the squad, I’d still be able to cheer them on, to feel the excitement of the crowd and dance to the music. I’d have to stay out of sight, but it would be like my final performance before retiring my pom-pons.
I hadn’t realized I’d needed this, but I did. And I deserved it.
As soon as I’d made the decision to go, I got moving. I looked at myself in the mirror again and made a face at what I saw. It was not pretty. Even though I had no intention of being seen, I couldn’t take the risk of going out looking the way I did. Just like celebrities when they go out of their house without makeup on and then are bombarded by the paparazzi, you never know when you might need to impress.
The problem was that I didn’t have enough time to take a shower or primp. But I did have time for a spell.
“Renewbus freshimo perfecto,” I said, waving my hand in front of my face. The dirt began to fall off me like my skin was repellent. I gave my body a little shake to get rid of the last remnants of my awful day. Next, color began to appear on my face like it was being applied by an invisible makeup artist. A subtle green shade swept across my eyelids followed by a thick black liner around the rims. My eyelashes thickened and grew darker, curling up slightly at the ends. I began to flush pink and my lips grew glossy, the light in my room catching their perfectly reflective surface.
My hair went from messy to loose curls within minutes, and once the ends had stopped winding this way and that, I gathered the shiny locks up into a high ponytail and secured them with a rubber band. Then I put on a pair of jeans and a black hoodie, so I wouldn’t draw any attention to myself while at the game. Satisfied with my overall look, I snuck out the back door and across two blocks to where I’d parked my car the night before. Getting inside, I took a second to look up and down the block in case anyone had followed me. When it appeared I was in the clear, I turned on the engine and began to drive.
I could hear the buzz of the crowd before I even pulled up to the stadium. That and the fact that I was stuck in game traffic for about a mile before I was even able to park my car made me feel like I was back in my element. My body was humming and I couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if I’d tried. Not that I’d want to—a smile was a cheerleader’s best accessory.
The row of parking spaces usually reserved for student athletes—which allowed for the cheerleaders to leave as soon as the game was over—had already been taken by the rest of the squad, since they’d gotten to the field about two hours prior to kickoff. So I had to settle for parking with the fans, which meant I was much farther away from the entrance. This was actually okay, since I wouldn’t be going in the front entrance with everyone else. I needed to go in the back way if I was going to avoid being seen.
Locking up my car, I then headed in the opposite direction from the crowd, weaving in and out of cars until I reached the fence that closed in the stadium. Taking a hard left, I moved around the perimeter until I approached the area directly behind the bleachers. People weren’t supposed to hang out back there, so I figured it would be the safest place for me to be. Looking around to be sure that no one could see me, I did a quick spell to separate the chains in the fence long enough for me to slip through and out of sight.
I snuck forward until one of the spaces between the bleachers was eye level. The roar of the fans was muffled from my current position, but I had a perfect view of the field. And best of all, the cheerleaders.
They were finishing up a chant and I watched with admiration as they held their final poses: three Scorpions in the back. Sofia had finally become flexible enough to pull her leg up behind her until her shoe was hovering in the air right above her head. She’d been trying to pull off a Scorp all year, but hadn’t really mastered it until now. The fact that she’d managed to do it while I was gone was just a dip in the moment.
I began to clap for her accomplishment before realizing that no one could hear me, and let my hands fall back to my sides.
You’re not here to cheer, Hadley. You’re here to check on your friends. And say good-bye.
A quick sweep of the girls on the sidelines showed me they were all there. Bethany and Sofia were now splitting middle in the front row and Trish called the cheers from the far right back. My usual spot. It was hard not to feel jealous that Trish was currently living the life I wished I could get back. In fact, now that I saw they were all safe, the reality of what I was missing truly hit me.
My life would never be the same again.
I would never just be a cheerleader with normal teenage problems. A girl who spent her nights at games and her days running her school. My parents were most likely both dead, so they wouldn’t be around to see me graduate from high school and help me with my college applications or give me advice on what career I should have. If I wasn’t able to beat the Parrishables, I could forget about ever having a boyfriend or getting married one day. My life as I once knew it was over.
“Sixty seconds!” Coach yelled out over the noise of the crowd.
I watched as the others lined up for the beginning of the second quarter, chatting to each other excitedly and waving to their friends in the crowd. When the players took their places on the field, Trish called out a touchdown chant and the others got ready to perform.
Just one last time.
I took a step back and got into position right along with my teammates. Then, from under the bleachers, I clapped my hands together and cheered my heart out. I matched every motion, dance, and jump they did and jumped up and down when the team made a touchdown. Focusing on the task right in front of me allowed me to leave my worries and stress behind. It was the first time in forever that I really felt like myself.
And I wished it didn’t have to end.
But it did. And I decided I’d rather leave on a good note and not press my luck by hanging around. So I began to back up, silently saying my good-byes to my old life as I went. Except, all of a sudden, I saw a set of familiar eyes looking in my direction through the slats in the bleachers. No, not in my direction, directly at me.
Asher.
I quickly crouched low to the ground, terrified that he’d actually seen me. Was it even possible? Asher would’ve had to look through a space the size of a bread box into a section of the stadium that no one should’ve been in and that was hidden under darkness. Maybe he hadn’t spotted me at all and it was like those portraits where the eyes followed you no matter where you went in the room.
It was just an illusion.
I slowly stood back up, expecting to see his eyes still on me, but when I took a peek, the only people I saw were fans and students walking by as they chatted excitedly. There wasn’t a dark-haired faux-hawk in sight.
Asher was gone.
Or maybe he’d never been there in the first place.
Either way, I was surprised by the sadness I felt when I discovered that he wasn’t there. Logically I knew we were both better off. I’d come back home because I thought that the people I cared about would be safer without me around. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Asher yet—we’d only ever talked once—but I certainly didn’t want to get him killed.
Still, it would’ve been nice to have the chance to see what was there.
With a sigh, I turned around and walked away from the noise of the fans. Climbing through the magical hole I’d made to get in, I sealed it up behind me and then headed for the car. Trudging back like I was doing the walk of shame, I pulled my hoodie up over my long, dark hair and tried to shield my face from anyone who might recognize me.
At least I knew that my friends were okay. Maybe the Parrishables wouldn’t go after them, like I’d thought. There was even the slightest possibility that I could convince the Parrishables to give up this witch hunt and I could go back to being me.
With a final look at the game going on behind me, I began to drive away.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
It was harder coming home this time. There were no expectations of anyone being there to greet me. And instead of feeling better after seeing Bethany, Trish, and Sofia, I just felt worse. I couldn’t explain it. Maybe I was having an identity crisis, because I no longer fit into a world I used to own. And I resented it.
I tossed my keys onto the kitchen counter and said the spell that would set the alarm behind me. The silence in the house was deafening and I looked for something to fill the void. Turning on the television in the living room, I sat down to think about what I was going to do next.
It felt like I’d slowly been losing myself since the fire in the warehouse and that it was time to get back to the heart of Hadley. Something had to bring her back to life or at least give her something to live for again.
And then there was a knock at the door.
I shot to the ground, even though I knew the spell was still on the house that made it impossible for outsiders to see or hear what was going on inside. The rapping came again, this time a little louder, and I carefully picked myself up and crept over to the locked front door. A peek through the hole revealed there was no one there.
The third knock had me clutching the wood while straining to see outside. I was cautiously curious, but there was no way I was going to yell through the door and let the faceless person—or people—on the other side know I was home.
“Hadley!” a guy’s voice called, just loudly enough for me to hear in my entryway.
“Asher?” I asked, finally feeling safe enough to talk.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
I briefly wondered if it was wise to do what he asked. Then he’d be able to come back anytime he wanted.
Or was that just vampires?
I shook my head as I struggled to make a decision.
“I need to talk to you about yesterday,” he said when I didn’t comply right away. Then he paused. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I answered through the door. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to say what I knew I had to. “You should go home, Asher.”
Please stay.
He didn’t even consider my request. “That’s not going to happen,” he said firmly. “If you don’t let me in, I’m just going to stand out here until you do. I need to see for myself that you’re okay.”
I was annoyed by how stubborn he was being, but also touched by how sweet the gesture was. But he was creating a problem for me now. Either I could let him in and put him or myself at risk or I could let him stay outside and possibly draw even more attention to the house. At least inside with me, he’d be a little safer than he would be alone.
And he might just be the thing I needed to jump-start the new phase in my life.
I disarmed the alarm spell and unlocked the door before letting him inside.
“You have got to stop stalking me,” I said, ushering him in, and locked the door up tight behind us.
He chuckled. “There you go again, assuming everything’s about you.”
It was almost exactly what Fallon had accused me of back at the cabin, but when Asher said it, it sounded sweet. So I went with it.
“Well, isn’t it?” I asked coyly.
“I guess that’s the question of the day,” he answered, glancing around our living room. It looked like it always did. Mom had kept our house beyond clean and everything was meticulously organized. “I’ve always wondered what the inside of this house looked like.”
“Well, mystery solved, I guess,” I said, walking around the couch and sitting down. He did the same. “Is it everything you expected?”
He flashed me a smile that showed off his adorable dimples. There was a sparkle in his eyes. “Nothing about you is what I expected.”
A wave of dizziness swept over me as I realized that I actually wanted him there. With me. Alone. And that’s when it hit me: I liked him. This had never happened before, at least not to me.
Oh, for witch’s sake.
He leaned forward and looked into my eyes like he was trying to guess what I was thinking. “What? No comeback?”
The TV provided us with noise to fill the silence. As I tried to think of something cool to say, I discreetly wiped my hands on the seat cushions next to my legs. They were so sweaty all of a sudden. But I wasn’t the only one who seemed nervous. A glance down at Asher’s leg showed that it was bouncing about a mile a minute, which actually made me feel calmer about the whole situation. It was so bizarre, but when other people got stressed out, that always seemed to be when I became most focused. Maybe it was because someone had to take charge and I always felt better when that someone was me. It made me feel more in control.
So I did the only thing I could think of that would help me regain control over this situation.
I was honest with Asher.
“You’re not what I expected either,” I said.
And then I leaned over and kissed him.