Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) by Christine O'Neil Read Free Book Online

time. It was hard to commit to do anything week after week, and most high school boys had the attention span of a gnat. Mac would get bored soon enough. I just had to hope it happened before I killed him.
    I stepped up to the second-floor art room and the tension pooled in my temples, making my whole cranium throb. It wasn’t that I was anti-art or anything. I was just anti-dickbag, and this was one of the two classes I shared with Mac. I briefly entertained the fantasy of skipping, but art was totally not my strong suit and this week we were working on decoupage, which even a monkey, trained or otherwise, could do. I wasn’t about to miss out on an easy A—which would hike my grade up to a solid D+, holla—for a guy who’d done more than enough to disrupt my life.
    I pulled in a breath and let it out nice and slow, trying to calm myself and all those pesky, needy cells wrangling around looking for an escape hatch. Funny, I’d thought it had been bad when the change first started, but lately, it was getting unbearable and Mac’s recent antics were making it even worse.
    “Hey, Maggie, you going to the game this weekend?” Summer Bochino brushed past me through the doorway.
    Um, yeah, about the game. I totally wish I could go. But I’m doing something less awful. Like scraping the carbuncles off my aunt Lucy’s feet.
    “I don’t think so.” What would someone normal, with a regular life and typical teenage worries, say here? “I have other plans. Mall and stuff. But…um, go Ducks!” I pumped my fist halfheartedly and smiled.
    She squinted at me and shook her head in confusion. “You mean Eagles?”
    I heard a low male snicker behind me, and my shoulders tensed in annoyance even as a tingle of awareness crept over me. Great. So much for my slim hope that, after our little confrontation in the hallway yesterday, Mac had decided that his A+ could withstand the hit of a skipped class to give us both a little time to cool off.
    “Yeah, them, too,” I muttered.
    Summer was nice enough; I just had nothing in common with her and to try to pretend I did would take an amount of energy that I didn’t have at my disposal at the moment.
    Still, she shrugged and gifted me with a dazzling smile before picking her way across the room to a long Formica art table.
    “Go Ducks?” Mac said in a tone drier than Hortense’s elbows.
    I tossed my backpack onto the nearest table, wheeled around, and glared at him, infuriated as much by my body’s reaction to him as I was by his words. “Back off, Finnegan. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve all this attention from you, but if you could let me know, I promise I’ll stop doing it immediately.”
    His gray gaze traveled from the top of my head down to my toes and back again, and the skin on my arms prickled. “Can’t help myself. You just look so fine in your t-shirts and sneakers, I can’t help myself.”
    The jab made my stomach burn, but I wasn’t about to let him get the best of me again. I held my arms up high like “look your fill” and smiled but the witty retort on my lips disappeared when his gaze shot to the strip of abdomen my move had bared and stayed there.
    On a dime, the teasing fled and the cocky smile that had tipped his lips disappeared. His gaze shot back up and he jammed an agitated hand through his hair. A secret thrill shivered through me, and I stamped it out, lowering my arms.
    Who cared what he said? I should be happy he didn’t like my clothes.
    So turn the other cheek, stupid and walk away , the rational part of me counseled wisely.
    And then, right on its heels, from the irrational part? Want.
    I pushed down hard to squash the energy that whipped at me, struggling to get out. A wisp of power escaped in spite of my best efforts, and the air in front of me crackled.
    He looked at me, I looked at him, and he tilted his head to the side questioningly.
    I froze, waiting to see if he called me on it. The crackle had been so slight, like the