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Dedication

In memory of my parents,

Robert and Jeanne Thompson.

And with gratitude and thanks to my family,

Clint, Devyn, Haley, Catie, David, Greg,

Robyn, Chris, Sean and Kaden.

All of whom taught me how to be…

fearless

Acknowledgements

One person can create a story, but it takes a team effort to birth a book.
I would like to thank Mandie O'Steen Stevens for more help than I can ever properly acknowledge, Christine Powell Gomez for creating beautiful covers for me, and her really stupendous formatting skills. My awesome author photo was taken by Marilyn Bellinger. My wonderful writer friends at A Writer's Block, particularly Marcie Bridges, Deana Barnhart and Andrea Chapman, have offered invaluable encouragement and suggestions. Closer to home, my husband, Clint, exhibited superhuman patience in helping me with web design and a myriad of other details, and my very particular daughter, Catie, displayed tremendous editing and photography prowess! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Chapter One

New girl. She doesn’t belong here. Doesn’t fit in here. Not one of us.

I jerked my head toward the sound of the voice before I realized that no one was speaking aloud. None of the students in the Chemistry classroom were paying any attention to me, the new girl, standing up front at the teacher’s desk waiting for a textbook and a seat assignment.

I bit my lip and kept my eyes glued to the floor. This wasn’t the first time I’d mistaken someone’s thoughts for spoken words. Sometimes the voice was so clear in my head that I could swear I actually heard it, just another benefit to my particular talent.

I wondered which of my new classmates was already thinking about me in such glowing terms. I’d had more than my share of first days at new schools. I was used to the gamut of reactions, from warm welcome to a sort of benign neglect, but I hadn’t had anyone hate me right from the beginning. Until today.

Before I could begin to brood in earnest, the teacher handed over a thick hard cover book and looked at me appraisingly.

“Tasmyn...” She pronounced my name very exotically, and with more of a
z
sound than the softer
s
that I used. I detected a slight accent in her words. “Very different. And quite lovely.” She gazed at me with frank curiosity. “May I ask what your science background is?”

What was this, an interview? Did I have to qualify for this class?

“I took Physical Science when I was a freshman, and Biology last year,” I answered. “And actually, it’s Tasmyn. Rhymes with... has-been,” I added with a self-conscious laugh, shifting from one foot to another and wishing I was anywhere but here.

Ms. Lacusta stood, and I saw that she was shorter than me by several inches. She couldn’t have been much more than thirty-five or so; her jet black hair was long and curling, offsetting nearly translucent skin and flashing dark eyes. She wore a white lab coat over black cotton pants and a flowing turquoise shirt.

She examined me in silence for a moment and then nodded. “Fine,
Tasmyn
. You probably won’t have any difficulty with this class, then.” Her eyes scanned the classroom briefly, and I knew she was looking for a place to seat me. “Why don’t you join Liza at her table? She’s in need of a lab partner. Right there, behind Nell and Casey.” She gestured to an empty seat on the left side of the room.

Liza was a cool blonde, with lightly tanned skin and blue eyes. As I approached the table, she looked at me with cursory interest before turning back to the conversation she was having with the girls in front of us. Perfectly manicured fingernails tapped absently on her open notebook as she listened to the other two girls.

They were both turned slightly in their seats, facing our desk. Casey had light auburn hair, cropped short around her small face. She was very animated, and as she spoke in a low voice, her hands never stopped moving.

In contrast, her lab partner—I thought her name was Nell
—
sat quite still. She was about my own height, with hair nearly as dark as our teacher’s. It was long and waved about her shoulders. Her complexion was olive-toned, and her eyes were a very pale blue. The striking differences in her hair, skin and eye color were startling enough to be attractive. She appeared to be listening to the other girls, but I noticed that her eyes slid to me speculatively for a moment.

I sat down next to Liza and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Glancing around the room, I noticed with a little bit of surprise that most of the students were girls. There were only two boys, sitting in the back. This was an upper level Chemistry course; I would’ve expected it to be a little more testosterone heavy.

First day jitters made it harder for me to maintain my mental block. I struggled to keep out the floating thoughts in the room by focusing on the front of my new textbook; filling my mind with anything else, concentrating hard, sometimes helped me mute the voices. It wasn’t working at the moment.

Hope she doesn’t call on me… didn’t get that homework… look at Casey’s shoes, wish I could buy stuff like that… don’t care what anyone says, she’s weird… who wants to be in that stupid chemistry club anyway… meeting at the clearing tonight, what will she teach us?

A blood sacrifice. It has to be a blood sacrifice.

A chill ran down my back, and I scanned the room in alarm. A
blood
sacrifice? Someone had actually been thinking that? It was impossible for me to tell whose thought it was since I didn’t know anyone yet. Sometimes I could zero in if I were concentrating on a particular person or familiar enough with a mind—like my parents. It was easy to recognize their thinking after seventeen years of hearing it—or trying not to hear it. But here it could have been anyone.

My palms were damp, and I forced my hands open, rubbing them against my jeans. There had been malice in that thought, a palpable cruelty. I usually picked up on emotions and feelings even more easily than I did on thoughts, and the evil I perceived now was chilling.

At the front of the room, Ms. Lacusta began her lecture. The girls in front of me turned around, and next to me, Liza busied herself with finding a pencil. I tried to steady my own hand as I got ready to take notes, and the minds in the room receded to a steady hum.

It had to be a mistake. Or a misunderstanding. There must be a perfectly good reason why one of my new classmates was considering a blood sacrifice.

Chapter Two

I was still pretty shaky when I left Chemistry forty minutes later. As I walked toward the door, someone bumped me from behind, hard enough to make me stumble.

“Sorry!” The voice was low and intense and sounded everything but apologetic.
Watch where you’re going
was what I heard, and the thought was accompanied by a nasty tone as the girl who sat in front of me stared me down.

“I was—I mean, no problem.” I concentrated on answering only what Nell said aloud and tried to get out of her way.

Unfortunately, she followed me through the door and into the open-air walkway. I was more used to a traditional school building with hallways linking classrooms, but apparently in Florida, the classroom doors opened directly to the outside. Covered sidewalks took the place of the tiled hallways, and lockers were against the stucco building between the brightly colored doors.

I fumbled with my bag, trying to find the paper that told me where I was supposed to go next and hating first days at new schools with a renewed passion. I knew Nell was still standing behind me—I could hear the low rumble of her mind—but I pretended that she wasn’t there.

“Where did you come from?” Her question was clipped and abrupt. I decided to pretend that she was asking it in friendly interest.

“Uh—well, the last place I lived was Wisconsin. We just moved down here. I really like Florida—”

“Why are you taking Chemistry?” Nell demanded. There was another flare of animosity in her thoughts.

“Because the guidance counselor said so?” I didn’t mean it to sound like a question, but it did.

“I think you’d be happier in another class,” Nell announced. She glanced around us, as though she didn’t want anyone to overhear what she was saying. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want anyone to hear me being a bitch, either.

“Um-Nell? That’s your name, right? Did I do something to offend you just now? Did I kick your chair or breathe too heavily? Because I can’t think of any other reason for you to say that.”

She raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow and pinned me with a stare that I assume brought other people to their knees. I could hear the fury churning in her mind; it kept me from making out any particular thought.

“We’re very selective about who joins this class. Ms. Lacusta isn’t a typical teacher, and it’s—it’s a very demanding course. I think if you go to the office and tell them you want to transfer to botany or astronomy or whatever, they’ll take care of it.”

“What if I don’t want to transfer?” I countered. I wasn’t usually able to stand up for myself like this, but something about this girl just got under my skin.

“I think you’ll live to regret it.” Nell all but hissed this last line. She sounded like the villain in a bad melodrama, and I stifled a completely inappropriate giggle.

“Hey—what’s going on?” Nell and I tore our eyes away from each other to glare at the boy who had interrupted our conversation. Nell looked away again quickly, but I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t look away at all.

He was taller than me by a good half a foot, and he had light brown hair that hung just a little long over his ears and forehead. But the eyes that held mine were what made breathing tough. They were huge, deep green and framed by the most improbable lashes I’d ever seen on a boy. And they were fastened on me, filled with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

Impulsively I pulled the focus of my mind away from Nell’s and aimed it toward the boy. I only picked up a few stray phrases over the buzz of the people pushing around us.

…the girl… beautiful… wonder what… her name… Nell up to her…

“Michael, this has nothing to do with you,” Nell said smoothly. “Leave us alone.” She gave him the same stare she’d given me a few moments before. He only rolled his eyes.

“It sounds like you’re giving her a hard time.” Michael jerked his head in my direction. “Wouldn’t it be nice to let the new girl settle in before you begin the torture?”

The temperature around us seemed to suddenly drop several degrees. Nell took a step closer to Michael. “It’s
none
of your business. Leave us alone.”

“Not going to happen.” Michael stood relaxed in front of Nell, but I sensed the subtle alertness lying just beneath the surface. Nell might have realized it, too, because she gave a slight shrug.

“Whatever.” She flicked her eyes across my face. “We’ll talk again later. You might want to give some thought to my advice.” She walked away from us without looking back.

I watched her go, still more than a little mystified by the hostility. A sudden tingle jolted my attention back to Michael; he was touching my shoulder, looking down at me with concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Don’t worry about Nell. She’s that way to pretty much everyone. It’s not just you.”

“I guess that’s a relief,” I said. “She’s a little intense, isn’t she?”

Michael laughed, and my heart flipped over about ten times. “Just a little. What happened to set her off?”

I liked that he didn’t assume it was something I did. “I don’t know. She wants me to drop Chemistry class. She said it was—exclusive or something. No, she said the teacher was
selective
. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Typical Nell.” He waited a beat, as though to let that subject drop completely. “By the way, I’m Michael Sawyer. This is your first day here, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Tasmyn Vaughn. I just moved here. Thanks for stepping in with Nell. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. Try to stay out of her way, and she probably won’t bother you again. She’s kind of a bully.” He hesitated again. “You’re a junior, right? You have lunch sixth period?”

“I
am
a junior. I have no idea about lunch—I’m just taking it class by class.” I waved the paper schedule that was my lifeline for the day.

“Well, all the juniors and seniors have sixth period lunch. If you want someone to eat with, look for my friends and me. There’s room at our table.” He glanced over his shoulder, and I realized that the walkway was almost empty. I was going to be late for my next class, and I didn’t even know where it was.

“Thanks. Um, I have a class called speech and debate next.” I scanned my schedule quickly. “Room 32? Can you point me in the right direction?”

Michael grinned. “Sure. Go to the corner of this building and make a left. Should be just a little way down.” His eyes lingered on me just a moment longer. “I hope I’ll see you at lunch.” He turned and jogged away from me.

I hoped so to
o
.

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