Almost to Die For Read Free Page B

I’m out of here.”
    “Me too,” agreed Thing Two.
    And just like that, his friends melted into the crowded hallway. Poof! They were gone. Almost like magic.
    Well, okay, actually, exactly like magic. Bea’s spell had made Thompson instantly unpopular. It would wear off in a couple of days, and he might never even really know what happened and why no one would return his calls or texts or whatever.
    But Thompson did notice the absence of his wingmen. He tried to look cool as he said, “Yeah, well, I mean it. Don’t screw with me again, freaks.” I thought he might back his words up with another physical threat—a shove or something—but instead, he looked at each of us in turn, very meaningfully. “Any of you.”
    We watched him leave. My nerves jangled with unspent adrenaline. Taylor swore under her breath—at least I thought so, because it wasn’t in English. She scanned our faces. “What was that all about?”
    “Thompson thinks I hexed him at lunch,” I said. Of course, now Bea had hexed him for real. Not that I could tell Taylor that.
    “Yeah, well, that scared the crap out of me,” she snipped before stomping off.
    “I’m sorry!” I shouted after her, but she just waved her hand like she didn’t want to have anything to do with me or Bea ever again. Not that I could blame her. We were freaks. And Thompson had seemed ready to pound us into pulp. I didn’t know if he’d actually have done something, but I’d never felt that close to getting hit before. My knees trembled.
    Bea just flipped her pigtails. I could tell, though, by the way she chewed the black lipstick off her lip, she was upset too. “If they’d actually . . . ,” she started, but stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say what we were both thinking. We were used to taunts and teases, but this had seemed different. I could feel Bea’s energy humming again, ready to blow.
    “Power down,” I told her. “You’ve got no target right now.”
    Bea took a deep breath. I felt the phantom sensation of my ear popping, as Bea released her magic into the floor.
    “I’ll call Taylor later,” I said.
    “It’s not Taylor I’m worried about.”
    “Do you really think they’d have done something?”
    “People hate witches. They’re scared of us. They always have been. Two words, sister: Burning Times.”
    I was surprised to hear Bea use the term. It’d been totally co-opted by the Wiccan wannabes. But, granted, it was much more powerful an image than “the Inquisition,” which, thanks to Monty Python, had become the butt of a joke. The Inquisition, the Burning Times—whatever you chose to call it—was one big reason we weren’t supposed to do what Bea just did. No magic zapping on the regular folks. No talking about how it all really works. Secret keeping was the watchword of True Witches.
    Yet Bea just blew our cover in her attempt not to be “burned,” as it were. She was the one who’d used the real deal on Thompson. Now we were going to have to deal with the consequences of that.
    “I’m going to miss my bus,” I said.
    Look, didn’t I tell you I was shy? I know I should have called Bea on her hypocrisy, but, really, at the end of the day, it wasn’t going to matter which one of us used real magic and which one faked it. Thompson considered us the same. We were the spooky girls, the witches.
    “Come on,” Bea said with a weak smile. “I’ll give you a ride home. Besides, I’ve got a present for you in the car.”
     
     
    I KEPT GLANCING OVER MY shoulder, but I never caught sight of Thompson or any of his cronies. We made it to the school parking lot without further incident. Bea drove this rusty Buick that was as long as a bus and belched the foulest-smelling black smoke whenever she started it up.
    Still, she had a ride.
    I had neither a car nor a license. I’d gotten a learner’s permit last year, but my mom’s crazy work schedule made it impossible to get enough hours behind the wheel. The temporary