Gargoyle: A Reawakening (Briarcliff Series, #2) (23 page)

“
No,” she croaked. “Gotta
get back to class,” she said, breaking into a fast-paced walk
toward the door.

“
Ms. Harrington,” Margie
called out once more. This time she sounded more like a chirping
bird, a very singsongish tone to her voice. She didn’t know why but
it scared the hell out of her.

“
Yeah,
Principle Levinson,” she said turning around slowly about to have
a
crap fit
.

“
Aren’t you going to put
that projector away?”

Shit! “Right. On it.” She grabbed the cart,
and whizzed past Margie and the rest of the office gals who all
looked a bit too glassy eyes swarming around Coach Gibbs like they
were stalking prey and he was just that…their prey.

“
Evie,” Barnaby said,
walking up to her and stopping on the opposite side of the
desk.

Her mind came back to the
present at the sound of her name. “Yeah?” she said feigning
disinterest, remembering a bit too clearly his desertion earlier.
Nervously she flipped the pages of the “
World Almanac of Explorers”
back and
forth.

“
Ahem
,” he cleared his throat. “I ah,
wanted to come over and say sorry for leaving you high and dry and
all. I don’t know why I did that.”

“
Oh…whatever,” she said,
waving her hand dismissively. “It’s over and done with now so…” She
dropped her eyes back to the page but the words were blurring in
front of her eyes.

Barnaby rubbed his face with his hands and
then sighed. “Evie…” he began.

“
Hmm,” was all she could
manage to say. She felt like she was going to cry. Stupid dumb
tears, they always pulled that shit when she least expected them to
show up, which sucked cuz somehow she never managed to cry when she
actually should be crying. Apparently her tear ducks were
broken…like the rest of her.

“
I want you to know I won’t
do that again…okay?” He dipped his head down to get a look at her
face.

She quickly turned her
head and swiped her eyes with her sleeve. “
Sure, sure
—whatever,” she
said.

“
Are you
crying?”

She laughed, it sounded
fake. “What?” She shook her head vehemently. “P
uhlease
how stupid would I
be
…right.
It’s
these stinky books.” She made a face. “They really mess with my
allergies.”

“
I am
serious though, I
promise
. I won’t leave you
again.”

She gave him a doubtful look. “Well let’s
hope we won’t have to find out.” She tried to smile but it was
forced.

“
Hey Barnaby,” Colton
called.

Barnaby tensed. “What?”

“
C’mere,
I got to show you
something.”

Barnaby rolled his eyes. “We good?” he asked
leaning forward.

“
Yeah sure,” she
said.

“
Barnnaaaaaahby
,” Colton
singsonged.

He leaned down and looked pointedly at Evie.
“You sure we’re okay?”

“
Yep.
Positive.”
No, we’re
not.

“
I better go see what he
wants.”

“
Yeah, okay.”

He gave her a small smile and muttered
something under his breath as he walked away.

Her chest tightened a little.

ODDITIES AND ABSURDITIES

SATURDAY * 11:29 PM

The back of the room smelled like wet dog.
Barnaby wrinkled his nose and walked behind the wrought iron
staircase to the back of the room. It was pretty dark since the
balcony to the second level protruded out about ten or so feet
above. Colton stood there in the back with his arms crossed.

Barnaby walked closer and
the smell of wet dog that rolled in something foul became even more
prevalent. “Gross dude, what is that smell?”

Colton turned and
shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.”

“
Did you step in
something?”

Colton lifted his shoes
and checked the soles. “Nah, they’re clean…see.” He lifted his leg
in the air showing off the bottom of his shoe.

Barnaby lifted his own
feet and looked at the bottoms of his shoes. Nothing was there. He
looked back at Colton who had turned back around once again. “Come
on man, what do you want? I can’t take this smell.”

Colton stepped away and pointed his finger
toward the darkened corner. “What the hell is that?”

Barnaby jumped a little. A
life-sized statue was in the shadows. The face distorted and the
body exaggerated like a monster.

“
Well…” Colton
prodded.

“
How the hell should I
know?”

“
Cuz your mom is like an
expert on all this weird shit…isn’t she?”

“
It doesn’t mean I pay
attention to her.”

“
Well you should?” said
Colton.

“
Why?”

“
So you could tell me what
this thing is man. I could seriously mess with some people.” Colton
walked around the side of the statue.

“
Well whatever it is, it’s
really old so…”

“
Yeah right,” Colton
snickered.

Barnaby glared at him.
“What’s so funny?”

“
And here I thought you
were the smart one,” Colton taunted.

“
What the hell are you
talking about?”

“
Take another look at ugly
here. If it is so old then why is it holding a can of
soda?”

Barnaby stepped forward,
looked, and sure enough clenched in the right hand was a Diet Dr.
Pepper can. “Obviously someone put it there, Colton,” he explained.
The can was just that, a can, the statue however was made from
marble or stone.

Colton reached over and
tried to remove the can from the hand. “Yeah right man, that shit
is made like this. See.” He hung his body weight on the hand,
lifting his feet. He dropped back down again. “See, there is no way
someone could have put that there. The fingers don’t
move.”

“
What’s he hanging on that
statue for?” Chance asked, walking up beside Barnaby.

“
He’s trying to get the can
of soda out of its hand.”

“
Huh.” Chance crossed his
arms and stroked his chin. “It’s weird they would put a grotesque
in here. I thought they were mostly used for gardens and on
buildings.

Barnaby gaped at Chance. “How’d you know
that?”

Colton overheard Chance and let a big
whooping laugh. “Ha, Barnaby and here you thought you were so
smart, looks like you got some competition.”

Chance looked over at
Colton. “Hey, I only know cuz my mom gets this Toscana Magazine in
the mail and leaves it in the bathroom. I look at the stuff inside
for something to do while I’m dropping the kids off at the
pool.”

Barnaby and Colton both laughed.

***

Dragging her feet, Evie
walked to the other side of the desk and sat down on the edge. One
of the books slid off the stack, making a loud thump as it hit the
ground. She bent over to pick it up, ready to kick it across the
room and then something strange happened. All the angst she had
been feeling evaporated immediately. The very air became charged,
like electric currents were pulsing. She looked for the source and
then a lone silhouette coasted inside the room.

“
Ladies,
ladies, ladies
…no need to fear, Simon is
here.” He swaggered into the room like he owned the
place.

“
Hey, there are guys in
here too,” Colton complained, his eyes narrowing.

Simon paused in mid-stride
and angled his head towards Colton. “Ha,” he laughed. “That’s
funny. I thought only girls yelled like that.” He shrugged, lifting
his brow. “Of course, had I known there were big strong guys
like
you
in here,
I would not have hurried inside to help…you know… to save the day.”
He smiled. Briana and Addison swarmed to his side, like the glomers
they were.

Colton shook his head and turned away,
mumbling something under his breath.

Evie was sure, whatever it
was, was rude and nasty. It was just like Colton. She glanced over
to see how Moriah was taking the appearance of
da- da- dah
“Simon,” but she kept
her gaze trained out the window. Evie was dying to know what
happened between her and Kingston—since obviously something was up.
She glanced over at the guy Simon. He did have black and white
hair…so maybe he was the guy Barnaby was talking about. Evie
watched him animatedly chitchat with Addison and Briana, and had to
admit he was pretty cute. He was shorter than she thought he would
be, since Kingston was at least six feet tall. Simon looked small
in comparison. But there was something about him that held her
attention. Whatever
it
was…
it was
distracting
. She had to force herself not
to gawk at him, even though she was finding that act pretty
hard—not to do. There was a weird feeling in the air, like magnetic
currents. Except he was the Uber magnet and she was the
insubstantial piece of metal. On top of that, she noticed there was
something else about him…something she couldn’t place her finger
on…
yet.

What she really wanted to
know was where Adriane was? She wondered if the guy Simon knew who
he was. She didn’t know why she thought that, but for some reason
she thought he might know him. Maybe it was because of the
insubstantial metal/ Uber magnet thing. She had felt the same
freaky pull to Adriane… except it had been a million times
worse.
What if Adriane was already
gone?

***

“
Aren’t you even going to
talk to me?” Kingston asked and shoved his hands through his hair,
pushing it away from his face.

Moriah stiffened. “What?”
she asked, secretly hoping he would say everything was okay, but he
didn’t’. He merely stared off into the room, like he had a million
other things to look at besides her. When his gaze finally settled,
she followed it and he was looking right at Heather.
Asshole
. The thing that
surprised her most was that Heather was not looking back at him,
like she usually did. Instead, she was looking out the doors into
the foyer like she was looking for someone else. She lifted her
hand and smacked him in his arm.

That got his attention.

He turned holding his arm. “What?” he asked,
sounding wounded with a blank look on his face like he had no idea
what he did wrong.

Ohmigod!
She wanted to kick him in his shin. “How bout
this…when you actually want to talk to
me
,
try
looking at me.
” And with that, she stormed
off across the room.

Kingston stared after her. He didn’t know
what his problem was. He had no idea why he was acting like such an
ass towards Moriah. His stomach twisted in knots. She was the love
of his life and she was pissed at him. Heather usually fell all
over herself to talk to him and now she didn’t even act like she
cared anymore. They both were wreaking havoc with his emotions. Now
that dick Simon was here and neither of the girls that were
supposed to be into him were giving him the time of day. He
couldn’t take it. He walked away to see what Barnaby was doing on
the second level.

“
What’s up with that?” Evie
asked nodding her head towards Kingston as Moriah walked up beside
her.

“
Nothing,” she said, being
tightlipped once again.

“
Puhlease
, you forget who you are
talking to.”

Moriah smiled sadly. “I know… it’s just not
worth relaying right now.” She sighed and reached down flipping the
pages of a book absently.

“
Well it looks like we’re
going be here for a while,” Evie said. “If you care to
explain…’’

Moriah flipped more pages back and forth,
not really seeing what was in front of her. She watched Kingston
climb up to the second level. Barnaby was there and started to talk
animatedly with him about something, capturing his attention
completely. It seemed like a safe time to sneak a quick peek at
Simon. Once she did, she wished she didn’t. She sucked in a sharp
breath feeling the familiar tingling sensation begin to spread over
her body. He was looking directly at her. She shifted on her feet
as his dark gray eyes sparkled enigmatically at her from across the
room.