UnEnchanted (21 page)

“Not until I speak to Jared.”

“It’s not worth it.”

“You and your safety are definitely worth
it. I’m not leaving until I’ve spoken my mind.”

He didn't have to wait long before Jared
turned the corner, stopping in his tracks when he saw them. “That's
my bike you’re leaning on,” Jared said carefully. “You scratch it,
you buy it.”

“Maybe I should, and then you couldn't stalk
Mina anymore.”

“Get real, I'm not stalking her. I'll leave
that to you, lover boy.”

“Uh-uh. I've seen you.
After school, before school, following her on
this
bike.”

“Guys, can we please drop this,” Mina tried,
but neither boy even looked at her.

“
I haven't been following
you anywhere,” Jared said. “Are you sure it was this
bike?”

Brody blinked in thought, “I could have
sworn it was you. Black bike and helmet?”

“No, I swear to you. Not
me. Must be some crazy
fan
of yours,” Jared answered lightly, but to Mina he
looked distinctly worried, and she felt an awful pit begin to form
in the hollow of her stomach. Who had been following
her?

“And what about at school?” Brody continued.
Mina’s cheeks turned red as she realized a crowd had begun to form.
“You can't deny that you’re always watching her. I've seen you, and
you’re making her uncomfortable.”

Mina held her breath as Jared’s eyes
flickered between them, the longest pause in the history of long
pauses.

“
I was trying to find an
opportunity to ask her to the dance. That's all.” He winked at
Mina, likely a nod to his clever excuse, but one that Brody would
almost certainly take the wrong way.

“Too late. She's going with me. So find
someone else to torment.”

Mina didn’t have time to react or yell a
warning before Brody’s fist connected with Jared’s jaw, knocking
him backward over the bike. Mina cringed as the bike and Jared
crashed to the cement in a pile of metal and bones.

Brody stood over the fallen Jared, rubbing
his fist. “That's for creeping Mina out. I don't care what you say.
I still think it was you following her!” Brody pulled out a wad of
cash and threw it on Jared's chest. “And that's for scratching your
bike.” He stormed across the parking lot toward his car.

With tears in her eyes, Mina reached down to
help Jared up, but he waved her off. He picked up his bike in one
fluid motion, ignoring the cash that was blowing away in the wind
as he inspected the damage. Some of the students began to run after
the bills as they tumbled away.

“I’m so sorry. Jared, I had no idea that he
was going to—”

“No,” Jared interrupted. “Don’t apologize
for him. He’s a big boy. And truthfully, I think I like him better
now.” Making sure no one was looking, Jared rubbed his hands over
the dents, and with a glow of power they began to fill themselves
back out. The scratches glowed and began to spiral out, erasing
themselves and leaving no trace of damage. “But, Mina, you know
that wasn’t me following you, right? I wasn’t lying about
that.”

A roar of a motorcycle engine coming to life
made Jared’s and Mina’s heads snap up in the direction of the
street. A man dressed in all black was sitting on a motorcycle,
watching them.

Mina felt a trickle of cold sweat slide down
her back.

“I recognize the scent,” Jared said quietly.
“Grey Tail.” They watched as the black reflective helmet nodded at
Jared before tearing off down the road, leaving a trail of burned
rubber behind him.

“What’s going on, Jared?” Mina asked in as
brave a voice as she could muster.

“Time is running short. The pack is
gathering.”

***

Two weeks before the dance, Mina noticed
that Jared had made himself scarce. He didn’t attend classes the
rest of the week. She knew he, too, could feel what was coming.
When Mina did see him, he always seemed to be walking a fine line
between barely controlling his anger and being completely aloof. He
avoided Brody entirely.

Surprisingly, he appeared Thursday during
lunch. He walked directly toward her and slid onto the bench next
to Mina, ignoring her presence as he asked her best friend, Nan
Taylor, to the dance.

Mina waited for him to look at her, to
glance her way, acknowledge her with a self-satisfied smirk or even
a frown. She needed confirmation from Jared that she wasn't in this
alone, that he had her back or was there to help her out. She
waited for Jared to bait her with a snide comment or joke. He
didn't.

When Nan accepted his offer, Jared squeezed
her hand and told her he would call her. He exited the table as
silently as he had appeared, without a backward glance at Mina.

Mina was crushed. Without Jared's help, Mina
knew she couldn't finish the tale. Only Brody's weight on the bench
snapped Mina out of her depression.

“
What's going on?” he
asked Nan.

Nan positively glowed with excitement when
she told Brody about her date. Brody's smile turned into a frown as
Nan spent the rest of her lunch hour talking about costumes.

Chapter 20

When Mina told her mother about the dance
theme, Sara wisely didn’t say anything, but gave her daughter a
wary look. She even helped pick out Mina’s costume. The costume
shop was dimly lit, and smelled like a cross between shoe polish
and a school locker room.

“
It smells like old
people,” Mina whispered to her mom, wrinkling her nose in
distaste.

Sara tried not to laugh. “It’s the moth
balls, honey. There are a lot of old clothes here. They are
vintage, after all.”

Mina did her best to put on a smile. To
Sara, “vintage” meant cheaper than the mall and one step up from a
thrift store. Mina tried to look enthusiastic when the sales lady
greeted them. She only hoped the dresses didn’t smell like the
store.

Just for fun, Mina tried on various
renaissance gowns and princess costumes, probably castoffs from
some long-ago school plays. But every costume had the same problem:
It didn’t fit with what the Story wanted. It seemed as if the Story
was controlling even Mina's dance attire. Every dress had a fault
or wouldn't fit.

“
This would be a great
Cinderella gown.” Sara grunted as she pulled and fumbled with the
zipper. “It must be caught on something.” Sara tried and tried but
could not get the zipper to cooperate. Even when Mina explained
that the Story wouldn’t let her go as any other character, Sara
seemed determined to try to change the Story’s mind.

“
Try this one instead.”
Sara held up a sapphire-blue dress with long, delicate sleeves.
“You could be Sleeping Beauty. That tale doesn’t have any wolves.”
She smiled hopefully, but Mina detected the stress that was ticking
under her mother’s left eye. When that dress, too, refused to zip,
Sara was awash in tears of frustration. A store seamstress, Molly,
came over and tried to help, but neither one could get the zipper
to work.

“
That is so strange,” the
seamstress commented wryly. She fumbled with the zipper and could
find no cloth or string hindering the teeth. She tried a different
dress and tested the zipper before asking Mina to step into it.
“Let’s try a larger dress.”

Mina rolled her eyes and stepped into the
next size up, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. She was exhausted
from trying on dresses. Yes, she would have absolutely loved the
blue Cinderella gown, but she knew better than to get her hopes
up.

“
It’s stuck!” Molly gasped
out. She tugged and tugged on the zipper, which had worked
perfectly only minutes ago. “I don’t know what to tell you. I was
sure it would work.” She was flustered and didn’t know how to
appease Sara, who was by now moved to tears of
frustration.

“
Oh, my poor girl!” Sara
cried and blew her nose on a tissue from her purse. She knew what
the signs meant as well as Mina.

Mina usually enjoyed dress shopping, the few
times they had the money to do so, but this was getting ridiculous.
Mina scanned the rack of dresses, and her eye stopped on a deep red
one.

“
That one.” Mina pointed
to the rack, and Molly jumped up and pushed the dresses to the
side. She pulled out a beautiful red dress that flowed out in
billows from the petite corseted waist. Most of the fabric was
gathered and pleated down the back in a late Victorian style. The
corset was a deep red, made from many different fabrics that
sparkled and twinkled with the lights.

The dress was gorgeous—at least the Story
had good taste. This was the one she would have chosen, if it
hadn’t been red.

“
I don’t think I’ve ever
seen this one,” the seamstress exclaimed, gushing over the dress,
then taking one looked at Mina’s petite figure and announcing, “I’m
afraid it might be too small.”

“
It will fit.” Mina knew
deep down it would. This was the dress she was supposed to
wear.

Sara helped Mina into the dress, her hands
shaking as she went to try the zipper. “I can’t.” Sara backed away
from the dress to sit on a small pink padded stool by the mirror.
She held her hand to her mouth fearfully.

Molly stepped forward and pulled the zipper
up with ease, carefully hooking the top eyelet.

“
Well, I’ll be. I would
have thought it was two sizes too small, but it fits like it was
made for you.”

Mina’s eyes went wide when she saw her
reflection. Molly began cinching the back of the corset and tugging
the ribbons and arraying them. Mina had to actually pinch herself
to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

She looked different: older, more mature,
and beautiful. She couldn’t remember ever looking this stunning in
her whole life. Her dark brown hair flowed down her back and was
lost among the ribbons of the corset. Her eyes looked huge, and her
lips red and full. Her nose, the one she always feared was too
small for her face, looked straight and perfect. She gave a sleeve
a cursory sniff and sighed in relief when it smelled of cinnamon
and honey instead of mothballs.

Molly stood back to admire Mina. “Wow. You
look like something out of a fairy tale.”

Sara cried harder.

Mina spun around and looked at the dress
from every angle in the multiple mirrors. It was better than any
princess dress she had tried on so far. Mina’s only worry was that
the dress had layers and layers of material in the back. It would
make it very difficult to run in, if it came down to it.

“
We’ll take it,” Mina told
the girl, not even bothering to ask the price was. If the Story
wanted her to wear the dress, then the Story had better
provide.

Unsurprising to Mina, Molly had to check the
price on the tag twice, confirming the price. “I can’t believe it.
I didn’t even know we had dresses for this price, but I’ve checked
with the manager, and she thinks it’s fine. It seems you have
yourself a dress.” She clapped and pressed her hands together in
excitement.

Mina was about to get down off the platform
when Molly held up something hidden by the folds of Mina’s dress.
“Oh, look, it comes with a cape and hood.”

Of course it
would
, Mina thought dryly.

Chapter 21

Mina couldn’t stop pacing in the small
carpeted living room, waiting for Brody to pick her up. Even
Charlie sat in the window seat, nose pressed firmly to the glass,
fogging it up with every breath he took. Mina wondered who was more
excited.

Sara had been unusually quiet and had become
more withdrawn as the time of the dance drew near. She did her
motherly duty and helped her daughter do her hair. She made all the
appropriate comments and oohed and aahed at all the right times.
But nothing could get her excited about this evening, knowing the
tale was heading toward its climax.

This was one of the tales that had secretly
haunted Sara as a child. When her grandmother read her the story as
a child, she’d wake up with nightmares about a wolf attacking her
in her bed. And now here she was, sixteen years later on the day of
her daughter’s birthday, her greatest fear finally coming to
life.

The morning had started out peacefully
enough. Sara had made Mina a two-tiered white frosted birthday cake
with light pink flowers and strawberry cream cheese filling. She
invited Nan Taylor and the Wongs, who had decorated a section of
their restaurant with bright pink and blue streamers that Mina
suspected might have been left over from a baby shower.

The Wongs sang "Happy Birthday" off key,
while Nan and Charlie made faces during the whole song. Nan went so
far as to even add "you look like a monkey and smell like one,
too," just so Charlie would giggle.

The Wongs gave Mina her birthday gift in a
Chinese takeout box, which included a gift card to the mall. Nan’s
gift was a new pair of cute black flats, which she promptly asked
to borrow next week, after Mina had worn them. Charlie gave her a
new stationery set and journal, which was a very thoughtful gift
for a boy.

Mina was surprised when the restaurant door
opened and Brody walked in. She’d thought he would wait to give her
his present later that evening, and was totally unprepared for his
arrival. Mina’s hand went to her sloppy ponytail in distress, then
remembered she was still wearing her pajama bottoms and an ugly,
over-large red sweatshirt.

But one look at her, and Brody was all
smiles. He, naturally, looked as handsome as ever in a white
button-up shirt, dark distressed jeans—probably his family’s own
label—and black shoes. His blond hair touched the collar of his
shirt in the back, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few
days. But the whole look was very pleasing to the eye. Mina
immediately stepped behind Nan to hide her pajama shorts.