The Darkness Within (11 page)

W
HERE
was the bell? Why was time dragging on like this? Something had to be wrong. I would’ve killed for class to begin, for kids to rush in. Hell, I would’ve loved to see Beth right now. Anything to get Ms. Matthews to take the saltshaker away.

My eyes flew to the clock over the door. That couldn’t be right. The clock had to be broken. No way could it still be the same time it was when I left Nurse Wentworth’s office. I shook my head. Maybe I really was sick.

“Something wrong?” Ms. Matthews asked.

“Um, I forgot I was supposed to meet Ethan. He’s probably wondering where I am. I should go. I don’t want him to be late to class because he’s looking for me.” I rushed out of the room, and the second I stepped into the hall, the bell rang. Kids flooded the hallways. I stood there, trying not to get trampled. I took out my phone and texted Ethan.

Already at sculpture
.

Twenty seconds later, I got a reply.
Everything ok?

Yeah
. I couldn’t tell him about Ms. Matthews in a text. He’d freak out. And I definitely wasn’t telling him about the plan Dylan, Shannon, and I had come up with. Although I was going to have to find a way to explain why I’d gotten sick first period and had to go see the nurse. Ethan was bound to find out about that, right? I thought about who was in that class. Tristan. Tristan would tell Beth.
Beth would question me, and with my luck, it would be in front of Ethan. Damn her!

My mind raced with excuses. Bad breakfast? No, I’d eaten cereal. Unless I said the cereal had tasted funny. It was our last box. We needed to go food shopping. I could say I hadn’t wanted to waste the food, and since I’d just brushed my teeth, I hadn’t really been sure if the funny taste was the cereal or the combination of cereal and toothpaste. God! I was back to lying to Ethan. This was supposed to have stopped after Nora’s spell ended. I wasn’t the monster anymore. So, why did I feel like one now?

“Man, I missed you.” Ethan’s arms wrapped around me from behind. I hadn’t even seen him sneak up on me.

I turned to face him, feeling guilty for even concocting an elaborate lie. No more lies. I’d still avoid telling him what I thought he’d be better not knowing, but I wouldn’t flat-out lie anymore, either.

“Where are you? Come back to me.” He lightly kissed my lips. My stomach fluttered in the way only Ethan could make it feel.

I reached for his face, caressing his cheeks with my thumbs. “I missed you, too.”

“Want to see if Ms. Matthews will let us try the pottery wheel again?” I must have looked horrified because he added, “I won’t do anything. I promise. It will just be us making art.” He leaned in, his lips tickling my ear. “No magic.”

Impossible. There was always magic between us.

“Aw, look at the lovebirds.” Beth was hugging her books to her chest and tilting her head at us. She really made it hard to like her. “The late bell is about to ring.” She walked past us and into class.

Ethan laced his fingers through mine, raising my hand to his lips. “I guess that’s our cue.” He kissed my fingertips before leading me into the room. It was one of the last places I wanted to be right now. Ms. Matthews had totally freaked me out, and on top of that Beth was waiting for us at our table. “I feel like I’m practically dragging you. Is everything okay?”

I pulled Ethan back before we reached our table. “I need to tell you something, but not here. Not around Beth.”

“Where? Bathroom?”

I glanced at Ms. Matthews. She wasn’t like the other teachers.
She didn’t have that clueless look to her. “No. She’d figure out we were sneaking off together.”

“Then, what? A bubble spell?” His voice was barely a whisper.

“No. It’s too risky. Beth sees things other people don’t notice. What if she figures out something is up?”

“Ethan and Sam, please take your seats,” Ms. Matthews said.

Ethan shrugged and led me to our table. Beth was all smiles. She reminded me of one of those scary clowns at the amusement park. I avoided her eyes, turning toward Ms. Matthews’s desk. The salt-shaker was gone. At least that was one less thing to worry about.

Normally, Beth wouldn’t shut up all period, so Ethan and I didn’t get a chance to be alone. He could already tell something was up with me and Ms. Matthews, though. Not that it was hard to tell. I jumped every time she came near our table.

Beth laughed when I dropped the ceramic swan I’d worked on for two weeks. “What’s gotten into you today? You almost busted up your project. Are you that worried about Ms. Matthews seeing it before it’s finished?”

“No.” What was I doing? She’d given me an excuse. “I mean, yes. I want it to be perfect. First impressions are important.”

Beth shrugged. “Hey, how are you feeling? Any better?”

Ethan’s head snapped in my direction. “Were you not feeling well?”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Beth pressed as she continued painting her ceramic pot. She didn’t make eye contact with me at all, which seemed to make her comments come out all that much more devious.

“Enlighten me.” I couldn’t help it. She was bringing out the bitch in me. That or I’d been hanging out with Shannon too much.

She glanced up, meeting my gaze. “Sorry. I just thought you’d be interested to know that practically the entire school is talking about you. I don’t have to tell you about it, though. Forget I mentioned it.” She lowered her head again.

Ethan narrowed his eyes at me and mouthed, “What’s up?”

I shook my head. Not here. It would have to wait for lunch.

Class dragged on. Beth wouldn’t talk to me, which was about the only good thing. Ms. Matthews kept glancing over at Ethan and me
like she was waiting for us to make something else explode. She’d said she was over yesterday’s incident, but clearly she wasn’t. The second the bell rang, I grabbed Ethan’s hand and tugged him from the room.

“Seriously, what’s going on?” He pulled me into an empty classroom and shut the door behind us. I cringed as his hand waved and the lock clicked into place. Why had he used magic to do that? He could’ve turned the lock by hand.

“You don’t have to use your magic for everything.”

He tensed, stiffening up. “I don’t. Why would you even say that? Have you been talking to Dylan or something?”

Yes. “This isn’t about Dylan. I’m worried about you.” I stepped toward him, running my hand down his arm and stopping when our fingers intertwined. “I don’t want to see your magic get out of control.”

“It’s not. See?” He nodded toward the door. “Nothing bad happened.”

I nodded. He was right. It wasn’t like the door exploded or flew off its hinges. I was overreacting.

“So, what’s got you so freaked? I hope all this isn’t over the little clay mishap yesterday, because that was only a fluke.”

I doubted that. “It’s not that. I went to sculpture early, after I left the nurse’s office.”

“And why exactly were you in the nurse’s office? Beth said she heard you were sick.”

“I kind of threw up.”

All the color drained from Ethan’s face. “You’re not… I mean, you couldn’t be…”

Oh God, he thought I was pregnant! “No!” I pressed my palm to his chest, trying to calm him. His heart pounded with fear.

“You’re sure?” His eyes darted back and forth between mine, and I could tell he was trying to calculate when I’d had my last period. This was too much. I had to tell him about Dylan.

“I threw up because I found out something really disturbing.”

“More disturbing than getting pregnant at seventeen?” His voice shook. He wasn’t getting over this.

“I promise I’m not pregnant. Please, relax and get that thought
out of your head.” I cupped his cheek, and he pressed his hand against mine.

“Okay. Go on. What did you find out?”

“Promise me you won’t freak out.”

His eyes widened. “Sam, I’m already freaked out. How much worse can it get?”

A lot. I took a deep breath. “Dylan told me something. Something bad.”

“When? He’s not in first period with you.” Ethan’s face twisted, anticipating news he wasn’t going to like.

“We met in the bathroom.”

“
Our
bathroom?” His voice was low and full of rage. He pulled away, making my hand drop from his face.

“I had to talk to him. It was important.”

“What was so important that you needed to sneak off to the place you and I meet up during class? The place you and I…”

I knew it was our place, as strange as it was to call a bathroom “our place.”

“Oh my God! You met him right after I left you. That’s where you were going!” He grabbed his hair in his fists.

“Ethan, calm down. You’re making more out of this than it really was.” He was totally losing it. This wasn’t like him at all. I reached for him, but he pushed me away. The shock on my face must have registered because he stepped toward me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. My face was pressed against his cheek. I could sense the magic in him. I felt it swirling beneath his skin. “You have to get control over this. Dylan warned me.”

Ethan pushed me back by my shoulders so we were looking each other in the eyes. “Dylan warned you about me?”

“Not like that. He’s been in the same situation you’re in now.”

“I’m not in a situation, Sam.”

“Yes, you are. Your magic is off. Did you notice the green energy swirling around the clay pot before the explosion?”

“Green energy?”

He hadn’t seen it. “Yes, the same green energy that attacked Dylan and tried to strangle Shannon. I think you’re creating it, Ethan.”

“No.” He let go of me and walked to the window, looking out over the quad. “I wouldn’t do something like that. I wouldn’t hurt Shannon or Dylan. Sometimes I’d like to punch Dylan in the face, but I wouldn’t use magic on him.”

“I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose.” I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “I don’t think you even know when you’re doing it.”

“So, Dylan warned you. Does he think I’d hurt you?” He turned to face me, his eyes filled with tears. “I’d never hurt you, Sam. You’re everything to me.”

My heart broke for him. “I know that.” I pressed my lips to his. He needed me right now. He needed to see that things weren’t changing between us just because his magic was acting strange. His kiss was hungry. His hands pulled me closer until our bodies were pressed as close as possible. I could barely breathe, but I didn’t care. If this was what Ethan needed to do so that he could come to terms with what was happening to him and so that I could help him, then I was glad to do it.

He finally pulled away, completely breathless. He leaned his forehead on mine. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. I promise we’ll figure this out. Dylan is fine now. He got help from another witch, someone named Mirabella. She swore she wanted nothing to do with Dylan or the coven ever again, but I’ll track her down and make her help you if I have to. I won’t lose you to this. I won’t let you end up like—” I’d said too much. My emotions were overwhelming me, and my mouth was running like a faucet.

“End up like what?” Ethan scrunched up his face. “You said Dylan is fine. He got help. What aren’t you telling me? What don’t you want me to end up like? What did Dylan say that made you throw up?”

My throat closed. How could I tell him this? I reached my hand up toward his face, but he grabbed it and lowered it to my side. I wasn’t going to be able to distract him with another make-out session.

“Sam, you have to tell me. I’m not letting you leave this room until you do.”

I opened my mouth, but only a sob escaped.

“My God, how bad is it?” Ethan rubbed my arms, both trying to calm me and steady me. I was shaking.

“Dylan said it’s dark magic doing this to you. That’s what it was for him, too. He was dating this girl, Ben’s girlfriend actually.”

“He dated his brother’s girlfriend?” Ethan scoffed. “Wow, what a douchebag.”

“Ethan.” The seriousness of my tone stopped him from insulting Dylan any further. “He fell in love with her, but she refused to leave Ben. She said Dylan was a fling but she loved Ben. Dylan got upset.
Really
upset. And the magic inside him turned really dark.”

I had Ethan’s full attention now. “What did he do?” His hands shook on my arm. He was already guessing the answer.

“He tried to do a spell on her, to make her love him, choose him.” I paused, gathering the strength to say the hardest part. “The dark magic took over. He stopped her heart.”

“He killed her.” Ethan’s face was deadly white. “He loved her and he killed her.” He let go of me and walked to the door.

“Where are you going?” I followed, but he put his hand up to stop me.

“Don’t. You need to stay away from me, Sam. Dylan’s right. If there’s dark magic inside me… I won’t let you end up like that girl. I won’t be responsible for…” He shook his head and walked out.

“Ethan!” I ran to the door and peered out into the hallway. No sign of him. He was gone, and something told me he wasn’t coming back.

12

I
DROPPED
to my knees, sobbing. The ache inside was overwhelming. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. It felt so much like when my body used to give out on me and I needed to feed. But this wasn’t the monster killing me. This was a broken heart.