Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) Read Free Page B

look before telling me there were better ways to get attention, and gone back to the pool house to write their books without a backward glance, leaving me alone with my chips of char and gobs of black, smoke-smelling mucus. 
    So, yeah.  It didn't escape my notice that something was very wrong with Jack.  Or me, around Jack.  Or just me.  I didn’t know which, but it scared the crap outta me.  I did my best to avoid him like the plague, but ever since that kiss, he'd made every effort to find me whenever he could, introducing me to a whole new level of Hell.
    My fingers started to shake as I fiddled with my lock.  When I got the second number wrong and had to start over, I started praying he would get bored and wander off to stalk somebody else for a change.  But he just stayed right there, hogging up all my personal space and making me feel like something creepy with tiny little legs was crawling all over me.
    Wanting to scream in frustration, I kept my eyes fixed on the lock.  The first tinges of smoke at the edge of my awareness left me fighting the urge to drop my books and bolt, but I was also still warring with the perpetual desire to be polite.  If there was anything my grandmother—and, okay, my sucky parents—had taught me, it was how to be a Proper Young Lady.   
    "I was late, Jack.  I didn’t have time to get coffee this morning," I said, chancing a quick glance at him despite my weird instinct to run, run, run .  He gazed down at me with an odd look, almost as if he didn't understand the words coming out of my mouth, and I wondered if I was going to have to pull out the crayons for him. “You know?  As in not here on time?” I clarified, rolling my eyes.  “Oh, and just so you know, stalking is illegal in all fifty states.  Why are you staking out the Bean every morning?  Dude, it’s creepy!  Don’t you have something better to do?”
    I wasn't sure what was wrong with Jack, but as the smell of smoke began to assault me in force, I instinctively knew it wasn't something I wanted to spend a few weeks ‘working him through’, as my parents liked to call their trips down psychobabble lane.  As a matter of fact, it was all I could do just to stand there, trembling from his sheer proximity.  I forced myself to hold it together, though.  Showing fear in front of someone like Jack was the equivalent of dangling a bloody rabbit in front of a starving wolf.  I wasn’t quite ready to be the rabbit just yet.
    “Aw, is somebody in a bad mood today?” 
    He took another step closer to me and I arched an eyebrow in warning.  When he moved even closer, I glared at him and held my hand up in a clear “Stay Back” gesture, but he just kept coming. 
    “Do you ever get tired of rejection, Jack?” I grumbled, shoving against his chest as his arms snaked around me.  And there it was again, that feeling like I was being burnt where he touched me.  I squirmed out of his hold and put a couple of paces between us, trying to breathe normally so I wouldn’t hyperventilate, and speared him with a look that should have killed him on the spot.  “Seriously, why are you wasting your time on someone who has made it very clear she’s not interested?  Move on, man!  Find someone new to annoy!”  
    “I don’t want someone new, I want you.”  A shadow of anger crossed his features when I rolled my eyes at him again, but then it was gone and he was back to grinning at me like the big ape he was.
    I looked around for someone to rescue me only to find Matt Evans, the freshman whose locker Jack was blocking, looking about two seconds away from a panic attack.  I could almost see his choices flashing across his acne-riddled face.  He could, A:  Ask Jack to move and hope he wasn’t in the mood to beat him up for asking, B:  Stand there and hope Jack moved without being asked—taking the chance of missing his ride in the process, or C:  He could just walk away without his books and hope for