Chapter One
Natalia
I stand there for a moment, looking at the door of the cell phone store, the door that the Triad just walked through. My heart is racing, pushing the adrenaline through my veins. I haven’t had a panic attack in a long time, and I try not to fight it, to just let the panic pass over me before it can escalate. It seems to work, and after a few minutes, I feel my heart rate start to slow.
“Natalia,” my mom says, motioning me over to where she’s standing. “Come over here and look at this phone.”
I paste a smile on my face and walk over to the counter where she’s talking to a very animated saleswoman with big blonde bangs and a plethora of magenta lipstick.
“This is your daughter?” the saleswoman squeals. “You two could be sisters!”
“Thank you,” my mom says, and blushes. The saleswoman’s looking at me, waiting for me to say something, but I just keep that same fake smile on my face, not trusting myself to speak. Raine is back, Raine is back, Raine is back.
“I saw you looking at the iPhones,” the salesgirl says. Her nametag says “Janae.”
I nod but still don’t say anything. Janae presses on, undeterred. “Well,” she says. “The iPhone is a very good phone.”
“But doesn’t it have too many unnecessary features?” my mom asks. “She only needs it for texting and calling.”
“Well, it’s a smartphone,” Janae says, and my mom leans over the counter and hangs on her every word, like Janae is the new Steve Jobs or something. I nod and smile in all the right places, my heart pounding in time to the Raine is back refrain that’s echoing through my head. I go through the motions, ask a few questions, and in the end, my mom lets me get the iPhone.
While Janae rings up my new phone, I tell my mom I’m going to wait in the car.
But when I get outside, I just stand on the curb for a few seconds, taking deep breaths and trying to clear my head. People are bustling by, their hands filled with shopping bags.
They juggle their cell phones against their ears and hurry on their way, holding coffees, talking, laughing, not a care in the world. I miss Cam. I wish he were here with me right now, so I could talk to him, so he could protect me and tell me what to do.
Tears fill my eyes and threaten to spill down my cheeks. I reach up to wipe them away. And then somewhere deep inside me, I feel anger starting to form, twisting and turning until it’s a ball of fire threatening to explode. Why am I afraid? I’m just as powerful as Raine, maybe even more so.
This whole time I’ve been depending on other people to tell me what’s going on, to tell me what to do, to explain things to me, that I haven’t stopped to think about what it is that I already know. And what I already know is that I’m extremely powerful. I can control people’s thoughts. I’ve fought battles and come out scarred, but alive. And I’m sick of being afraid.
Raine is the one who has made my life a living hell since the day I started at Santa Anna. And I refuse to let her get away with it anymore. I’m not going to scuttle away like a little mouse every time I see her shadow.
Of course, I don’t have my butterfly necklace anymore, and Raine does have hers.
Which makes her more powerful than I am, at least for the time being. At some point, I’m going to have to get my necklace back but I have no idea how to do that. According to Cam, the people at the witches’ compound have it.
Without my necklace, I definitely don’t have the power to take Raine on. And then it hits me. What I need to level the playing field. All I have to do is get Raine’s necklace. And then I’ll be able to stop her once and for all.
***
My mom picked out a cute light blue case for my new phone as a surprise for me, and I pretend that I’m really excited about it. But the whole ride home, my mind is racing. Because now that I realized how badly I want Raine’s necklace, I’m determined to get it. The
Natalia
I stand there for a moment, looking at the door of the cell phone store, the door that the Triad just walked through. My heart is racing, pushing the adrenaline through my veins. I haven’t had a panic attack in a long time, and I try not to fight it, to just let the panic pass over me before it can escalate. It seems to work, and after a few minutes, I feel my heart rate start to slow.
“Natalia,” my mom says, motioning me over to where she’s standing. “Come over here and look at this phone.”
I paste a smile on my face and walk over to the counter where she’s talking to a very animated saleswoman with big blonde bangs and a plethora of magenta lipstick.
“This is your daughter?” the saleswoman squeals. “You two could be sisters!”
“Thank you,” my mom says, and blushes. The saleswoman’s looking at me, waiting for me to say something, but I just keep that same fake smile on my face, not trusting myself to speak. Raine is back, Raine is back, Raine is back.
“I saw you looking at the iPhones,” the salesgirl says. Her nametag says “Janae.”
I nod but still don’t say anything. Janae presses on, undeterred. “Well,” she says. “The iPhone is a very good phone.”
“But doesn’t it have too many unnecessary features?” my mom asks. “She only needs it for texting and calling.”
“Well, it’s a smartphone,” Janae says, and my mom leans over the counter and hangs on her every word, like Janae is the new Steve Jobs or something. I nod and smile in all the right places, my heart pounding in time to the Raine is back refrain that’s echoing through my head. I go through the motions, ask a few questions, and in the end, my mom lets me get the iPhone.
While Janae rings up my new phone, I tell my mom I’m going to wait in the car.
But when I get outside, I just stand on the curb for a few seconds, taking deep breaths and trying to clear my head. People are bustling by, their hands filled with shopping bags.
They juggle their cell phones against their ears and hurry on their way, holding coffees, talking, laughing, not a care in the world. I miss Cam. I wish he were here with me right now, so I could talk to him, so he could protect me and tell me what to do.
Tears fill my eyes and threaten to spill down my cheeks. I reach up to wipe them away. And then somewhere deep inside me, I feel anger starting to form, twisting and turning until it’s a ball of fire threatening to explode. Why am I afraid? I’m just as powerful as Raine, maybe even more so.
This whole time I’ve been depending on other people to tell me what’s going on, to tell me what to do, to explain things to me, that I haven’t stopped to think about what it is that I already know. And what I already know is that I’m extremely powerful. I can control people’s thoughts. I’ve fought battles and come out scarred, but alive. And I’m sick of being afraid.
Raine is the one who has made my life a living hell since the day I started at Santa Anna. And I refuse to let her get away with it anymore. I’m not going to scuttle away like a little mouse every time I see her shadow.
Of course, I don’t have my butterfly necklace anymore, and Raine does have hers.
Which makes her more powerful than I am, at least for the time being. At some point, I’m going to have to get my necklace back but I have no idea how to do that. According to Cam, the people at the witches’ compound have it.
Without my necklace, I definitely don’t have the power to take Raine on. And then it hits me. What I need to level the playing field. All I have to do is get Raine’s necklace. And then I’ll be able to stop her once and for all.
***
My mom picked out a cute light blue case for my new phone as a surprise for me, and I pretend that I’m really excited about it. But the whole ride home, my mind is racing. Because now that I realized how badly I want Raine’s necklace, I’m determined to get it. The
Similar Books
