I couldn’t hear anything, though. Not a sound. Not a peep. My hands shook as I peeked through a sliver of space between two of the shelves. They were gone. Great. Now I had no clue whether they’d discovered I’d been listening or not. Although I was pretty sure they had, which seemed like a very, very bad thing.
This sucked.
One good thing that came out of the situation, though, was that I learned a valuable lesson. If you’re going to eavesdrop, don’t get caught, especially when the people you were eavesdropping on just might be a little off of the rocker.
The stuff they were saying…it was so weird. Like straight out of a science fiction novel weird.
I shook my head and sighed. Something was going on and I needed to find out what. I didn’t know how, though. All I knew was that it was extremely important that I did.
I could feel it in my bones.
Chapter 5
Like always, when I went to bed that night, I got sucked into my reoccurring nightmare—the one where I was being chased by the glowing-eyed, cloaked creatures in the middle of the forest. But surprisingly, the ending took a turn in a different direction.
After the monsters had captured me, and the man with the scar stepped underneath the light of the moon, he transformed into someone else. That someone else was Alex. His green eyes glimmered hauntingly in the shadows of the night as he grabbed a hold of me. Instead of freezing to death like I usually did, I burst into flames. I woke up frantic and dripping in sweat. And for a split second, I was convinced I really was on fire. So convinced that I had to check my body for burn marks before I could calm down.
Everything was becoming too stressful, to the point where I actually considered breaking down and telling Marco and Sophia everything. About Alex and Aislin. About the electricity. Even about the prickle and my feelings. But when I’d gone downstairs to tell them, Sophia had pierced me with a glare before I could even get the words out, and I was quickly yanked back to reality; the reality that I had no one. No one to talk to. No one to tell. No one to help me.
Over the weekend, I tried not to worry about stuff, but it was a worthless effort. All I did was worry. So I decided to search the internet for…well, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, but I hoped I’d know when I found it. Most of my research centered on Alex and Ailsin. But when I typed their names into the search engine, I got nothing. Nothing that could be directly linked to them, anyway. They didn’t even have a Facebook page. Then again, neither did I. But really, who was I going to add to my friend list?
After awhile, I gave up and moved on to the electricity. Again, my searches brought up nothing that I could match it up to. It was just like when I’d tried to find out about the prickle. There was a bunch of scientific stuff, but nothing remotely similar to what was happening between Alex and me.
So after hours of research, I had nothing. I had no clue what was going on with me. Or what was going on with Alex and Aislin. Or even who they were. It was almost like they’d appeared out of thin air.
These unsolved mysteries left me with a massive sense of dread. I wasn’t excited, by any means, to go to astronomy on Monday. I even went to the extent of trying to fake sick so I could skip out on going to school. But that plan went to crap because Sophia hadn’t bought my lame acting attempt at having the flu. She told me if I stayed home, she wasn’t excusing my absence. An unexcused absence meant after school detention, and more time hanging around at school, which you all know is not my favorite thing.
Thus, here I was, entering the astronomy classroom, my chest feeling like it was going to cave in on me at any moment. And, just my luck, Alex and Aislin were already at our table. They were engaged in what looked like a very heavy conversation. I could tell by the seriousness in their expressions, and the way they were leaning in like they were trying to create a barrier between themselves and everyone else around them. I could only guess what they were talking about.
I gave myself a quick mental pep talk. You can do this. You can do this. You aren’t the one who should be nervous. I straightened up my shoulders and started the climb up the stairs. I swear my shoes felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. With every step, my breathing shortened.
For a moment, I thought I just might faint.
Luckily, I didn’t.
Alex and Aislin didn’t notice me until I sat down. Then they stopped talking. I avoided eye contact with them as I unzipped my bag and took out my book. But I could feel their eyes on me, watching me like hawks.
After I’d dragged out the process of taking my stuff out of my bag for as long as I could, I snuck a glance at Alex. He had on a black hooded jacket, and the color of his bright green eyes seemed to look a little darker today. Although it could have been from the death stare he was giving me
I amazed myself when I actually glowered back at him. I think I might have shocked him, too, because his death stare slipped into a look of puzzlement. I’m not going to lie, confusing him made me feel good.
Aislin acted the absolute opposite of Alex. Her smile shined almost as much as the diamond necklace she had on. “Hi, Gemma.”
By her overly cheerful tone, I could tell she was feigning being nice to me. I decided to play her little game and politely smiled back at her. However, I think it came off more twitchy and nervous than I wanted. Evidently, I sucked at being fake cheerful.
Aislin, however, was a pro, her smile never faltering. “How was your weekend?”
“Great,” I lied, sounding grumpy.
“Alright, everyone,” Mr. Sterling said, clapping his hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s get started.”
And that’s the last thing I heard. I tuned everything out as the electricity ignited and preoccupied almost every inch of my concentration. To make things even more distracting, Alex started staring at me, and continued to do so until the end of class. It sucked big time and made me squirm around uncomfortably in my seat.
At last, the bell finally did ring and class was dismissed. I quickly collected my things and hastily shoved them into my messenger bag, feeling thankful that Mr. Sterling had been in one of his discussion modes and had left no time for group time.