They reached the classroom just in time for the bell to ring. Quinn pulled her out of the way to the side as the door swung open and dozens of kids trooped out. Natalie felt a bit overwhelmed already. She'd never seen that many kids her age in the same place in her life, except maybe the time she'd gone to Disneyland with her dad.

  The thought of her father, however brief, sent Natalie's chest into a tight knot. She had to force herself to breathe. In and out. In and out. Everything's fine. I am okay. I'm supposed to be here. I'm Jennifer Heshire. Heshire's a stupid name but it's all we could come up with at the time. At least my real name's still kinda there.

  "You good?" Quinn asked, noticing her tensing up.

  Natalie had to take a second before she could answer. "Totally. I'm just super new."

  "Not asthma or anything like that?"

  "Nope. I'm good." She lowered her voice slightly, though the rest of the kids were already gone. Only a few had even given her a passing glance standing off to the side of the door. "I was homeschooled until now. I don't like crowds."

  "Oh. Well that makes sense," Quinn said thoughtfully. "Especially in a school like this. We're one of the biggest in the state. You're really jumping into the deep end here."

  "Yay me."

  "Come on, we gotta get your stuff."

  Quinn lead her inside, where the teacher was prepping for her next period. Quinn handled everything smoothly, introducing her and explaining their absence, getting an overview of what she'd missed (a syllabus—she'd never even heard of such a thing), and promising to be on time the next go-round. Natalie only spoke once or twice, letting Quinn handle all the talking. She liked that he was helping her so much without making her feel stupid. She was still getting her bearings, and the teachers were pretty intimidating too.

  She wondered why she felt so scared of all these people, even the other kids. She'd been in fights with actual monsters and she'd gone up against the scariest man in the world. She hadn't been afraid for a moment around them, not really. Even now, thinking back to those encounters, Natalie didn't feel anything but a sense of pride and accomplishment. Okay, a little fear, yeah, but she'd done her part. She'd helped beat them and probably saved the world. Or something like that. At least, she'd definitely helped save Rachel and her friends.

  She wished Rachel would talk to her again. Lily informed Natalie that it wasn't just her—Rachel had vanished from the map entirely. No one had heard from her in months. But Natalie and Rachel had something special. Rachel should have at least kept in touch with her, if no one else.

  Where are you, Rachel?

  Natalie breezed through the next two periods with only a few pointers. Switching classrooms every hour was weird, but she liked the variety at least. She mostly sat toward the back and tried not to draw much attention to herself. Quinn seemed to be one of those kids everyone liked, but no one really hung out with. He had a few friends who said hi, but they gravitated away to the popular kids like wolves joining a pack. It gave him plenty of time to talk to Natalie, explaining every little detail about school.

  She felt so lucky her cover story hadn't changed from being homeschooled, because she really didn't know how a normal school worked. Quinn had to show her how lockers worked, when to speak up or be quiet in class, where the supplies and things were, how the cafeteria worked, everything. There was just so much to cover. Natalie had never quite understood just how small her hometown was until Quinn pointed out that their grade was about three hundred eighth graders.

  Three hundred! Just her grade! Natalie's home only had that many people when the college was in session!

  Quinn was gone again following third period, as she went to the standard gym class while he had a technology class instead. She'd been warned about the locker room, but she didn't see what the big deal was. She changed and went right out to the floor, and there she really started to have some fun. It had been incredibly difficult for her to sit still through her classes, but she'd managed it through a combination of practicing movement spells on tiny objects under her desk—and a lot of fidgeting. It didn't help that they weren't even learning anything yet, just talking about what they would be learning soon. It seemed like such a waste of time.

  In gym, even on the first day—or maybe especially on the first day, since they were dealing with a ton of kids right out of summer vacation—they were sent straight into games out on the field in the middle of the track. It was a full hour of tag, flag football, soccer, or whatever they wanted to do. Some of the girls turned up their noses at the idea and just took to walking around the track.

  Natalie found a tight squad of other girls just as eager though, and they faced off against a group of twice as many boys. The gym teacher was about to step in and call for more even teams, but Natalie caught her eye and shook her head emphatically. We can totally win this.

  The boys let them have the ball first as a handicap. Natalie grinned. This is gonna be easy.

  A much taller girl named Kelsey started them off as the quarterback. Natalie worked up a quick plan with her, volunteering herself as the secret weapon. No one would expect her to be the receiver, right? The short new girl no one knew? Fat chance.

  When Kelsey got the ball, Natalie went wide, as wide as she could without leaving the field. Her legs pumped as hard as she could manage, and only one of the boys even tried to cover her. Maybe they underestimated her, since she was new and still pretty short.

  She'd show them.

  Natalie called out to Kelsey. The girl scanned the field and saw how open she was. Kelsey wasn't stubborn enough to throw only to her friends—she knew an opportunity when she saw it.

  Kelsey gave it a full-bodied throw at the last second before a boy lunged for her flags. The ball was sent sailing toward her—but there was a problem. The ball wasn't flying fast enough.

  Natalie knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help it. She flung out her mind, reaching with an invisible magical grip, and nudged the ball upward. It kept flying, unnaturally straight, coming directly at her. The boy behind her didn't keep up, since he expected it to fall short, but Natalie ran to where she'd nudged it. She caught it easily with a loud whoop of success.

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  Her team cheered her into the endzone, laughing as they went while the boys stared in shock. It was perfect.

  They started to reset for the next play. It was the boy's turn. They didn't do a kick-off like Natalie expected, but she guessed they just couldn't really kick it far enough for it to work at their age. She felt a little guilty about the last round, since she'd basically cheated her way into a touchdown, and she resolved not to use her magic in the game again.

  The boy they selected as quarterback made his throw, and it was long. Way too long. In fact, it was coming right for Natalie again, while the boy he'd intended to catch it was more than a dozen yards off. Natalie quickly figured out where it was going and sprinted for it.

  She caught it, by the tips of her fingers—and without a single nudge of magic at all. Natalie shouted in triumph and began her run to the side, trying to find a way around the mass of boys suddenly charging at her.

  The mass of men suddenly charging at her. Twenty of them, maybe even twenty five. They were coming after her. They had torches and weapons, shouting terrible lies about her with her best friend's name on their lips. They wanted to hurt her and Rachel.

  They wanted to kill her.

  Natalie dropped the ball and fell to a crouch. The first of them, half a dozen paces in front of the rest, reached for her with hands outstretched and blazing hatred in his eyes. Natalie tensed and filled her arms with magic like Ryan Walker had taught her, strengthening herself.

  As the snarling man ran headlong into her, Natalie flung him up into the air and over her back. He tumbled head over heels behind her in a heap. She braced for the next one.

  The rest of the crowd froze, dumbstruck. Natalie didn't understand why they'd stopped. She looked down slowly. She saw the football next to her in the grass, heard the groaning boy behind her and a sharp blast of a whistle from the other end of the field.

  Reality snapped into place. Natalie turned around and saw the boy struggling back to his feet. He didn't look injured, just surprised and a bit frightened. She mouthed an apology. He didn't react, but Natalie's heart was thumping away in her chest and her ears were on fire.

  She sprinted away from the onlooking crowd. It was too much. There were too many of them. So many kids watching her. Natalie didn't know how to handle it.

  Tears started streaming down her cheeks, startling her. Natalie didn't cry very often. Even back home, with everything that had happened, she'd usually just felt too busy to cry. Or she'd been trying to keep herself together so that other people didn't cry. She'd been someone people relied on, so she felt that responsibility to hold on and show them how to be strong, just like Rachel did.

  Now Natalie was alone, with no one to rely on and surrounded by hundreds of new people, and she couldn't stop crying.

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  The gym teacher let her sit out the rest of the class inside, away from the rest of the students. They'd chalked it up to nerves or something. She didn't really hear the explanation. They told her she wasn't in trouble and that the boy was totally fine, so no harm no foul. Still, Natalie couldn't bring herself to face the whole crowd after that. She went into the locker room to sit alone for a while, then changed back into her school clothes.

  She had lunch next. She didn't feel like braving the cafeteria. Instead, she found her way to the nearest bathroom. She double checked every stall, then took the one at the end and closed the door. She sat down on the top of the seat and pulled her legs up so she couldn't be seen.

  At least I don't have to worry about anyone seeing my purse. She lifted her perfectly intact lunch out and began eating in silence. Lily had made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. As typical as you could get, but Natalie appreciated it. It comforted her more than Lily could know. Natalie finished eating without a single person coming in, and sat there for a while, replaying the incident on the field in her head over and over, mixed in with the memories of home. She shuddered.

  Stop it. This isn't helpful.

  She didn't know what else to do though. Was lunch over yet? She decided to just head to her next class and hope it almost was. Natalie tried to clean her face up before she set off, and when she glanced in the bathroom mirror she thought she'd done pretty well. She could tell she'd just been crying, but she doubted anyone else could. When the bell finally rang, she was already halfway there, just as the first few began to emerge from the cafeteria or outside.

  Of course, she was only one minute into the classroom when Quinn strolled right by her desk and stopped suddenly, looking at her face. His eyebrows creased up, and she knew he'd noticed. "I'm okay," she whispered.

  "Do you want to go take few minutes? I'm sure it'd be okay. I can explain it to the teacher."

  "No, please," Natalie said. Anything but that. I don't want to stand out more than I already do. "I'm good," she added, with the best fake smile she could muster.

  His brow stayed creased, but he nodded slowly. He pointed at the chair next to hers. "You cool if I take that seat, then? No assigned seats in this class."

  Natalie felt a real smile start to replace the fake one. "All yours."

  To her great relief, he didn't ask what had happened. She'd tell him later probably, but she didn't want to relive it right away. But then, maybe he'd hear about it from someone else first. He might be told how she freaked out and flipped a guy over in football. They still had time before the bell, and no one else was sitting very close.

  "Hey," she started.

  "Yeah?"

  "I kinda… nothing." She chickened out at the last second.

  He glanced over, wiggling his eyebrows. "I kinda nothing all the time. It's my specialty."

  She laughed. His expression was ridiculous. "Thanks."

  "For nothing? Anytime."

  A few other kids sat down near them, ending her chance at any more private conversation. She looked down at her notebook and smiled to herself. Quinn seemed like a pretty cool kid. He was nice, and funny, and actually kinda cute too. She was glad she'd met him so soon. Her school life was looking up already.

  "No way, you went there?"

  A conversation behind them was heating up. Quinn seemed to be preoccupied with something on his calculator. As she glanced over, she realized it was a game. He'd snuck a game in on his calculator to pass the time in math class. She'd have to ask him how. It'd be better fidgeting material than risking more magic or fiddling with things in her purse all day.

  "Totally did."

  "I thought was off limits still!"

  "They haven't found shit in four months now. No one really cares anymore. We just walked right in over the border, me and my big brother."

  Natalie tensed up again, realizing what they were talking about. Four months ago, closed off area. It could only be one place.

  "So is it really full of ghosts?"

  "Nah, just a bunch of burned down buildings. That big library is super spooky though."

  "Did you go inside it?"

  "No duh!"

  "Were there bodies everywhere?"

  "No, idiot, they cleaned those up in the first couple days."

  "Aww, that would have been so cool."

  Natalie's pencil snapped in half with an audible crack between her index and middle fingers. She froze in panic, not daring to move a muscle. The conversation behind her didn't pause for a second. They hadn't noticed her slip up. She breathed a silent sigh of relief, slowly glancing around again.

  Quinn was looking at her with those inquisitive eyes again, half-visible behind the reflected light in his glasses. His brow furrowed up. "Hey Jenny, you okay?" he murmured.

  "Why wouldn't I be?" Natalie asked in a low voice, but her tone didn't even convince herself.

  Quinn nodded slightly down at the snapped pencil on her desk. "You, uhh, broke your pencil there."

  "Oh."

  Natalie hadn't realized she'd still put some magic into her hands, flickering just underneath her skin like tiny embers. Was it leftover from the football field, or was it a reaction to the conversation about her home? Why didn't she get tired when she did spells like that for so long like everyone else did?

  What had Quinn noticed?

  The bell rang to start the class, saving her from having to answer him. Natalie stared determinedly at her notebook, while echoes of Kendra and Lily's voices bounced around her head. I have to be normal. I can't be noticed. Being noticed means people paying attention to me, and people paying attention to me means they might find out who we are.

  If anyone discovered who she was, Natalie Hendricks was in very big trouble.