Phoenix: The Rising Read Free Page A

He turned his attention to the two offenders and looked like he was about to say something, then hesitated as he stared at them. He looked back down to his newspaper. “Just sit down.” His words were barely audible.
    The twin with the ponytail turned his attention to Julie. His eyes met hers and a close-lipped smile flashed on his face, disappearing as quickly as it had come. Julie turned as the brothers moved in her direction. She grabbed her book bag and pulled out the first thing she touched—a spiral containing her notes for AP Biology. She opened it, focusing her unseeing eyes on the page as the brother with the shorter hair took the seat behind her and the ponytailed one sat in front of her. Julie’s heart began to pound, certain she was about to be crushed between the two massive brothers like a Mini-Cooper caught between two Mack trucks on the Santa Monica Freeway.
    She felt movement in the seat behind her and shuddered as a cold breath assaulted the back of her neck. Julie inched forward. The brother in front of her turned slowly, placing his muscle-bound arm on her desk. Sticking out of the bottom of the sleeve of his t-shirt was what looked like the tattoo of an angel—a warrior angel.
    He looked down at her notebook, then up to her face. “Do you always read upside down?”
    Julie felt an uneasy rush of blood up her neck. She blinked twice and flipped the spiral right side up. “No,” she replied, trying to keep the tremble she felt inside from coming out in her voice. She took a breath. “I’m just not a morning person.” She looked up, meeting the young man’s gaze and then glanced over to Moseman.
    Mr. Moseman peered over the top of his paper at the two of them. Julie hoped he would tell them to shut up. The twin turned and shot Moseman a quick glare before the man retreated back into his newspaper.
    He squinted and smiled. “Hmmm. I’ve never seen you around. You new?”
    Julie tried not to avert her eyes from his, willing herself to face him head on. “Yeah. We moved here a month ago. You?”
    “Lived here my whole life. One more year and I’m outta this hellhole. I’m Kas. Penemue.” He motioned back to his brother. “That’s Remy.”
    Julie swallowed and looked down for a brief second. “Julie.” She felt Remy’s fingers touch her hair, and she jerked her head sideways.
    “Hands off, asshole,” Kas hissed through clenched teeth.
    Remy pulled his hand away from Julie’s hair, mumbled something in Paiute and slumped back into his seat. “Whatever.”
    Julie exhaled. The cold stare Kas had given his brother softened too quickly as he turned his attention back to her.
    “Julie what?” Kas probed.
    Resolving herself to the fact that Kas would eventually find out her last name, she cut it short and gave it to him. “Mason. Julie Mason.” She shifted in her seat, her mind working frantically to figure out a way to end this conversation. “I really need to study.”
    Kas smirked and nodded. “Sure ... sure you do.” He turned around, crossed his arms and relaxed into his chair, putting his feet up on the seat of the desk in front of him. Julie exhaled. She looked down at her notes, flipping through them for the next half hour, but not registering a thing. At least they were right side up.
    ****
    As Julie rounded the corner of corridor C, she saw Charsey twirl the combination on their locker, pull up on the handle with no results, slap the locker, and start twirling again. Only 174 days to go Julie thought as she shifted her book bag from her right shoulder to her left. She stopped next to the locker, put her hand over Charsey’s to halt the insane twirling, and then removed the girl’s useless fingers from the dial.
    “Scooch.”
    Charsey stepped away from the locker, and Julie took her place. In a matter of seconds, the locker door swung open. Julie stepped out of Charsey’s way.
    “I just don’t understand how you can do that the first time,” Charsey said as she hung her