“Starren? What are you doing here? Did you find something?”

She walked forward and nudged me out of the way and looked through the glass. “No. Wade asked me to check up on you.”

“Wade? What does he want?”

“You first. Which one of the girls are you watching?”

How much did I want to know why Wade had asked her to spy on me? Quite a bit. “Number eighteen. Something weird happened at lunch. None of your business, just high school stuff.”

“Until we find Jaden, everything that happens in your life is my business. Is it something I need to know about?”

“No. I answered your question, now you answer mine. Why did Wade ask you to come out here?”

“I wasn’t supposed to let you see me, but I’m tired of all this nonsense. He still cares about you. Either forgive him or kick him in the teeth, either way I don’t care, just get it handled. We don’t need all this crap going on; it’s distracting both of you. Someone will get hurt.”

I snorted. “Oh yeah, he shows his feelings really well. Here honey, let’s see if this pistol works.”

Starren glared. I tapped my toes in my shoe, trying desperately to not let her see that she was intimidating me. “I don’t care how much either of your feelings get hurt, but no one is getting physically hurt while on my team. We need to get this worked out.”

“Like it’s that easy. He betrayed me.”

A kid walked by me toward a row of lockers. He was staring at me like I was crazy.

“What?” I asked him, my voice echoing a little in the hallway as I let out a little steam.

“Nothing,” he mumbled as he scooted past us.

“What’s his problem?” I asked Starren. “I’d think he’d be staring at you, not me. You’re the one that would be new to school, plus the fact there’s something about you that’s… not human.” I noticed the glint to her skin. The glint I’d learned to see when I was working with Cumat. “Wait. I’m talking to myself again, aren’t I. Oh great. Now the whole school is going to think I’m crazy as well as just plain strange.”

Starren’s face hardened. “Why do you care so much about what these humans think? Why do you even come to this horrible place? You can’t be learning anything useful here.”

I waited until another kid walked by. “What’s so different about us that we shouldn’t care about them?” I was arguing just to argue now. I didn’t even know the names of ninety percent of the kids I went to school with. The only humans I specifically cared for were Dan and Nina, and my children’s home family. Sure, I didn’t hear from any of them very often, but they were still family.

“If I hadn’t seen what you can do, I wouldn’t believe you are fae. Be back to the Hall by seven a.m. tomorrow.” She turned and started to leave, then paused. “He went to Faerie, you know. Waited two days at the holding cells. He started getting upset about an hour into it and was devastated by that second day. Thought he’d killed you for real.”

“That’s his own fault,” I muttered. “He never should have hurt me in the first place.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You might find he had his reasons, if you took the time to talk with him.”

“Do you really think I’m going to just forgive him?”

“No. I just want this resolved. I can’t have two members of my team that aren’t willing to look out for each other.” She turned and left, dodging students who didn’t even know she was there.

What she’d told me didn’t make a difference. There wasn’t a good enough reason to make Wade shoot me and hope for the best. None. The waves of kids going by intensified. Starren and I must have been talking longer than I’d thought. I started slowly up the hallway toward my next class, lost in thought. Wade had been sick waiting for me? He’d gone to Faerie to be there when I arrived, to walk me through things? That wasn’t how I’d been picturing the whole murder thing since I’d woken up. I went through the rest of my classes in a daze, probably no better than my doppelganger.

Finally the last bell rang. I practically ran to my locker, threw my books in and headed for the front door, not sure whether to hope Amy and Rissa were waiting for me or not. Sure, I could just not show up, but what if they confronted the other me about it tomorrow while I was gone? That could be not good in so many different ways.

The sun was shining as I pushed through the main entrance/exit. It took my eyes a second to adjust. There they were, standing out by the road, waiting.

“Ready?” Amy asked me when I got within hearing distance.

“Sure?” I said, not liking the question on the end.

“Are you going to play in that?”

Play? Play what? “Yes?”

“Okay then, let’s head out. Did you drive or do you want a ride?”

I pointed at the bike rack. “I rode.”

“Nice,” Rissa smiled. “I didn’t know you were green.”

Not green, just didn’t have my license yet. I’d missed my appointment to try for my driving permit - that was supposed to happen last Friday. Instead I’d spent the day lying in the woods getting rained on. What a great trade. Not that I was going to tell her that.

“You can ride with us. My dad set up a great court, he’s hoping I get a basketball scholarship.” Amy said. “Have you played much?”

Basketball? I’d agreed to backyard basketball? “Nope, I can honestly say almost never.” Much to Dan’s disappointment. He’d set us up a hoop before I’d even arrived. We had literally never used it.

I was terrible at sports. Not that I’d tried much. Most sports required a team of some kind, and I wasn’t a team player. How had this happened? I needed to learn to pay better attention when people were talking to me.

Yep, and here Amy was talking again. “I can get someone to take care of your bike for you,” before I could stop her she yelled, “Hey, Kevin, you bring your truck today?”

A big guy in a football jacket turned our way. “Yeah. Need it for something?”

Amy nodded toward me. “Can you haul Trish’s bike to my house? I’ll figure out how to get it home from there later.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I interrupted. “I can catch a bus back here and pick it up later.”

“No way.” Amy led me toward the bike rack. “Which one is yours?”

“The one on the end.” At least it was a pretty nice bike.

Dan had gotten it for me soon after I moved in, to go on rides with him and Nina. That didn’t really work out since I avoided them at all costs for a while, and then they just gave up. But I used it a ton on my own.

The big guy jogged off and was back in a minute, pulling up in a huge pickup, definitely not green, and pretty impractical for the city life. Guys. I unlocked my bike and wheeled it over. He jumped out of the cab, took the bike from me and hoisted it into the bed of the truck in one smooth move.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome.” He grinned at me, then stuck his hand out. “Kevin. You new?”

“Not exactly.”

“New to us,” Amy saved me.

“Cool. See you in a few.” He hopped in his truck and revved the engine, nearly deafening me, then peeled out and headed up the road in a cloud of smoke. Hopefully my bike would survive. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Dan about my phone and sure didn’t want to add my bike to the casualty list.

“Let’s go. Addison is going to beat us there,” Rissa said.

Amy and Rissa walked ahead of me, talking about Kevin and his driving, then moving on to the girl’s basketball team. I walked along behind them, feeling out of place, but glad to be here at the same time. To think I’d been trying to find a way to skip out. This was the type of thing people were supposed to do together, not trying to stay alive while taking swings at monsters.

The girls walked up to a blue two-door Mitsubishi convertible and opened the doors in tandem. I slid into the back seat on Rissa’s side. I so didn’t belong here. What did they want with me?