Chapter five

I had thought the bathroom would be safe.

It was between second and third period and I had slipped out of class early with a bathroom excuse because I needed two minutes alone to collect myself. 

The bond had been vibrating in my chest all morning like a live, naked wire and I needed to breathe without feeling it.

I stood at the sink and ran cold water over my wrists the way my mother had taught me when I was anxious as a little girl. 

The cool water helped. My heartbeat slowed and then I looked at myself in the mirror.

I stared at my grey eyes. My brown hair was already coming loose from the bun. There was a small healing scratch on my cheek from a branch in the wolvesbane bush.

I looked tired. Oh, I was so tired.

The bathroom door swung open behind me. I looked up at the mirror and felt my stomach drop.

Lydia.

She walked in alone. There was no Eva, no Mia and no entourage. 

It was just her in a fitted blazer with her big blonde hair falling in perfect waves over her shoulders. Her blue eyes found mine in the mirror immediately, like she had known exactly where I would be.

Maybe she had followed me?

I turned off the tap and reached for a paper towel, keeping my movements slow and unbothered even though every instinct I had was screaming at me to run for my life.

"Charlotte." She said my name like it tasted bitter.

"Lydia." I said stiffly, refusing to break our eye contact in the mirror and dried my hands and turned to face her. 

I had learned from years of dealing with Mia that looking at the floor only made it worse. 

You had to look them in the eye. Even when your knees were shaking.

And my knees were shaking right now.

She walked toward me slowly. There was no rush in her steps. She had all the time in the world and she knew it. 

She stopped close enough that I could smell her perfume. It smelt so expensive and floral.

"I'm going to say this once," she said softly which meant she was dead serious. "Stay away from my boyfriend."

"I have been," I said.

"Have you?" 

Her head tilted. 

"Because this morning he looked at you the second you walked in. He didn't even know I was talking." 

An emotion flickered in her eyes. Pain, maybe? 

But her eyes and voice hardened fast. "That tells me you've done something."

"I haven't done anything."

"You're lying."

"I'm not...."

"Shut up. I don't like liars, Charlotte." She stepped even closer. I pressed back against the sink. The cold porcelain dug into my lower back. "And I especially don't like girls who chase boys that don't belong to them."

"I'm not chasing him."

"Then why does he keep looking at you?"

I didn't have an answer for that. At least, I did not have one I could give her.

She studied my face for a long moment. Looking for something. I kept my expression as still as I could.

"You're nobody," she finally said. 

Her voice was quiet and cold. 

"You don't have a wolf. You don't have money. You don't have a family name that means anything." She paused. "What could you possibly think you have to offer him?"

Nothing. I knew that. I had always known that. But knowing it and hearing it said out loud in a cold bathroom by a cold girl with perfect hair and a perfect life were two very different things.

My throat tightened.

I would not cry.... Not here.... Not in front of this wicked witch!

"I'm not trying to offer him anything," I said. My voice came out steady. I was proud of that. "I just want to get through school in one piece. That's all I want."

She looked at me for another long second.

Then she turned and walked to the mirror, pulled out a lip gloss from her pocket, and began to reapply it like I wasn't already there in the first place.

"Good," she said to her reflection. "Then we understand each other."

I picked up my bag from the floor and walked out fast.

In the corridor, I leaned against the wall and let out a long, shaking breath.

My hands were trembling. I pressed them flat against the side of my thighs and stared at the ceiling until the feeling passed.

"Stay away from Isaac."

I was already trying but I just wasn't sure the bond was going to let me.

I hurried off.

****

Mia also noticed on Thursday.

I didn't realize she had been watching until I caught her staring at me during third period with an expression I hadn't seen on her face before. 

It wasn't the usual smirk she wore when she was about to do something cruel. It was something more calculating than that.

She was thinking....

And that was more dangerous.

I quickly looked back at my notes and pretended to write something. From the corner of my eye I saw her lean over to Eva and whisper something. 

Eva glanced at me, then back at Mia, then gave a small nod.

My stomach turned.

At lunch, I took my tray to my usual corner and sat with my back to the wall so I could see the room. 

It was a habit I had developed in fifth grade. 

"Always know where Mia is. Always see her before she sees you."

She was sitting at the center table with Eva and Lola, picking at her food and scanning the room every few seconds. 

She was looking for something.... or someone.

Isaac came in late. He always did. 

The room's atmosphere changed slightly when he walked in the way rooms always did for him.

Conversations dropped half a volume and heads turned without people realizing they were turning.

Lydia was already at the table, waving him over.

He sat down beside her and she immediately leaned into him. He said something to her and she laughed. 

He didn't laugh.

I looked away. But not before Mia caught me looking.

Her eyes narrowed. She looked from me to Isaac and back to me. A slow smile spread across her face. The kind that never meant anything good.

I focused on my spaghetti.

Twenty minutes later, I was at my locker when I heard Mia's voice drifting from around the corner. I froze, my hand on my locker door, listening.

"She's the one he keeps looking at," Mia said. "I've been watching for three days. Every time she walks in the room, something changes in him."

"You think he likes her?" Lola's voice sounded, disbelieving.

"I think it's more than that." Mia paused. "I don't know what it is yet. But I'm going to find out."

"What are you going to do?" Eva asked.

"For now?" There was another pause. "I'm going to make a friend."

I heard footsteps and quickly opened my locker and buried my face in it.

The footsteps passed without stopping.

I waited until I couldn't hear them anymore before I straightened up.

A friend.... A friend?

Mia was going to make a friend.

I already knew who she meant. There was only one person in this school who hated me as much as Mia did right now and who had just as much reason to want to know what was happening between me and Isaac.

Lydia.

Mia was going to go to Lydia.

I shut my locker quietly and pressed my forehead against the cool metal.

Two of them. Now there would be two of them coming for me and they would be doing it together.

I thought about what my life had looked like before Isaac had pulled me out of that wolvesbane bush. It had been miserable. But it had been a manageable kind of miserable. It had been redictable. I had known the rules.

Now everything had changed and I hadn't asked for any of it.

I picked up my bag and walked to my next class, atomach churning with fear.

I didn't look at his table when I passed the lunchroom door.

I was getting better at looking away now.

I didn't want any trouble.