Dead Spell Read Online Free

almost closed her eyes. “Here.” He put her notebook in his lap and marked up the problem. “You have to move your variables all to one side.” He added and subtracted and wrote a clean second line.
    “I can’t believe I didn’t see that.” She solved the rest in no time. “I was making it harder than it needed to be.”
    “Isn’t that just like you?”
    “Yeah, I guess it is. What’re you doing here?”
    “I thought you might want to go up to Jupiter’s for a cone or something. They’re getting ready to close for the season.”
    Jupiter’s was Reston’s one and only hangout.
    “I’m still pretty full from dinner.” Brea grimaced for effect.
    “It’s not because half of the senior class will be there though, right?”
    “No.” She avoided eye contact and swept a long piece of bang behind her ear.
    He bent over so that he was looking straight into her eyes. “Are we going to talk about why we’re in hiding?”
    She shrugged and picked at the side of her thumb nail, not wanting to say their relationship felt too good to be true. That she didn’t believe he could stay interested in her and that she was afraid if word got out, his friends might influence him to stay away from her. It was easier to blame something else and she said, “I haven’t told Harmony about you, yet.”
    “Why?”
    She couldn’t tell him it was because she didn’t trust it would last and made up a believable excuse. “If she knew I was seeing you, she’d think I was some kind of social climber or sell-out. She’d take it personally, like I wanted to be with your group of friends instead of her. Since you’re not her type, me dating you just opens the door to a lot of unnecessary aggravation. It’s easier to not say anything. It’d be like you telling Rachael Warren or Pete Mackey about me . ”
    Jaxon scrunched up his face. “You don’t think Rachael knows?”
    “Ok, I’ll give you that one. Rachael was a bad example.”
    “You want me to say something?” He raised his eyebrows. “I will. Tomorrow, meet me at your locker. Harmony’s is only a few down. It’ll kill two birds with one stone. You game?”
    “I, uh…”
    “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’”. He put the homework-covered tray on the floor and pulled her so that her head rested on his chest. “See how easy that was? Now if I could only get an answer about prom.”
    Prom. S he still didn’t know how to tell him she was using it as a cover for her and Harmony to hit the Bloody Mayhem show in Mason.
    Her mother forbade her to see Harmony and prom was one of the only easy end-arounds.
    “So, prom?” he asked. “Leaning one way or the other?
    She shrugged. “I’m still thinking about it.”

 
     
    7 .
     
    The morning air was cold enough for Harmony to see her breath. She suppressed her claustrophobia to join the crowd of walkers huddled in the Reston High vestibule. She was elbow to elbow with far too many people, borderline hyperventilating, and sick of getting knocked around by unknowing persons’ backpacks.
    She took a few deep breaths and looked at the clock. The bell should have already rung.
    Something was wrong.
    A police cruiser parked out front and an officer pushed his way inside. She tried to make sense of the growing student buzz, but her ears were ringing like at the onset of a panic attack.
    “Excuse me.” She struggled to gain ground on the others. “Come on, move it! I’m going to be sick.”
    As she got to the front of the pack, the bell rang and she booked it.
    All eyes were on her, or at least it felt that way. She opened her cell and dialed.
    “Come on, Brea, answer”
    The phone just kept ringing.
    She turned into the senior hall and hit a student wall.
    Two disciplinarians, the principal, the assistant principal, three cops and a narcotics dog were waiting for the Head Janitor to open her locker.
    She slipped inside the unlocked cleaning supply cabinet and watched through a small crack as the bustle