Divided Souls by Gabriella Poole

Cassie turned slightly to peer over her shoulder. Again, nobody was there.
    But no. She was sure she’d been right the first time. The force of the stare was almost tangible. There was no way, with her heightened Few senses, she could be mistaken. She could even tell where it was coming from. Behind and to the right.
    She raised her head to search the shuttered windows, but the sun was in her eyes and he was downwind, whoever he was. Her entire body went still.
    Somebody’s watching us …
    We’re imagining things, Cassie insisted unconvincingly to herself and to Estelle, shaking her head fiercely. She couldn’t see anyone.
    And hard on the heels of that thought, she wondered why she kept trying to talk herself out of her own instincts.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    G uilt, my old friend, Cassie thought. There you are again. It was partly Isabella’s sulkiness, she told herself. If the girl hadn’t started getting so moody about her doing what she had to do, Cassie might not even have hung out so much with the Few. As it was, she found she was enjoying their company more and more over the past few days, despite it making her feel doubly bad about Isabella.
    Gathering her strength as the students sprang up when the lunch bell sounded, Cassie decided to make an effort to hang out with her roommate after their art class.
    ‘Isabella,’ Cassie said, turning to her friend. ‘Wanna grab some lunch?’
    Isabella gave a quick, distracted smile. ‘Yeah, just a sec.’ She turned as Alice tapped her on the shoulder, and they began a quick chat.
    ‘Cassie!’ Cormac called. ‘Coming to the common room?’
    ‘Actually,’ Ayeesha interjected, ‘I think we should head to the cafeteria today. The chef from that great restaurant, Rami, is guesting today, and his hünkar begendi is my favourite!’
    ‘Oh, definitely!’ Cormac said, smacking his lips as he took his girlfriend’s hand.
    ‘Cassie?’ Ayeesha said expectantly.
    ‘Uh, hang on. I should wait for Isabella.’ Cassie looked back towards the classroom, where Isabella was still chatting to Alice.
    ‘Oh, yeah. Fair enough.’
    Cassie watched as the pair joined with some more Few students and made their way down the corridor. She sighed. Most days now after classes – with which she was making a much bigger effort, since it (nearly) stopped her thinking about anything else – Cassie found herself hanging out with the Few, and she almost felt regretful that she’d said she’d wait behind. The common room, for example, had begun to feel more and more like a haven: enclosed, secret, safe. The little luxuries it offered didn’t do any harm either. Of course, there were still people there who loathed her, but it was surprising how easy it was to ignore them. They didn’t even bother her any more; she found she could ignore their glares and exist in a bubble of superiority that drove them half demented. She knew she and, most importantly, her spirit were the equal of any of them, and better than most. She didn’t have to care. And of course, there were plenty of them she liked.
    When Isabella finally wrapped up her conversation with Alice and returned her attention to Cassie, there was a slightly awkward silence as they made their way over to the cafeteria. Cassie frowned at the thought that she wouldn’t be able to speak easily with her friend. She cleared her throat.
    ‘So, what was Alice saying?’
    ‘Oh, more boy trouble,’ Isabella said, smiling a kind of private smile that made Cassie feel oddly excluded.
    ‘Right. As usual.’ She couldn’t resist a dismissive tone. It seemed as though Isabella was more interested in what Alice got up to at the moment than what was going on with her supposed best friend. Luckily, Cassie’s rather stormy mood brightened when they reached the cafeteria and she saw the table of Few gesticulating for her to join them.
    ‘Look, there are the guys,’ she said with a wave, and began to make her way over automatically.
    ‘Um …’