Enchanter by Kristy Centeno Read Free Book Online Page A

when she uttered those words
because Brandon looked right at me, his eyes intent on assessing my face.
    “Vanessa!” I said, but she walked away, laughing and joining
another group of friends who normally accompanied her to her first set classes.
    “Interesting topic?” Brandon’s voice was so close to my ear it
caused me to jump.
    The conversation with Mr. Lynne now over, he decided to
follow me down the hallway.
    “Not interesting, just crazy,” I snapped as I started
walking away, hoping in the process that he would not follow me.
    “You should relate to that quite well then.”
    I stopped and turned to glare at him.
    “Did you just call me crazy? Because if that’s the case, you
can’t really talk, now can you?”
    He was deliberately pushing my buttons, but instead of
walking away I fell right into his trap.
    “Now I’m crazy, too?” Despite his frown, his voice sounded
anything but offended. “I’m ill-mannered already and now you’re adding another
item to my growing list of defects?”
    “You are—” The scene from the day before came back to mind
and I stopped myself before actually spitting out a few hostile words. “Such a
nice little kitty.”
    “Kitty? Me? Now you’re being offensive.”
    The stupidity of our conversation made me want to laugh.
    “I could’ve said something else, but I just remembered that
we’re have a meeting on Saturday and I want to come out of it alive.”
    With that, I walked away, smiling as I heard him scoff
behind me.

Chapter Six
     
     
    Friday morning arrived too soon for my piece of mind. For
the next two days after what I renamed the second-worst birthday of my life, I
took it upon myself to ignore Brandon completely. More so than I normally did.
    Since the incident where I stupidly fell after interacting
with my dark companion, people started to spread the rumor that Brandon had
pushed me down the stairs. Despite the fact that I now disliked him more
than before, I did not want those who already hated him thinking that he had done
something so awful, so I clarified that rumor at once.
    However, to my friends, it was obvious that something had changed
between him and me. Instead of fleeing as soon as I caught sight of him, I now
raised my chin and glared right back. It became a battle of wills between us
and I began to wonder how on earth we were going to work together if we could
not even be in the same room for more than five minutes without causing the
tension in the air to increase to the size of an F5 tornado.
    Sonya was not very fond of my sudden boost of bravado
because despite the fact that she usually made fun of him, she was actually terrified
of Brandon. And I came to the understanding that most people were too.
Nevertheless, I did not want him to think that I was in any way intimidated by
him, so whenever he shot me a hateful frown I did the same.
    As I sat next to Sonya during our first class, Brandon, who
was usually one of the first students to come through the door, walked in a few
minutes late. Even though Mr. Lynne noticed his tardiness, he said nothing and
Brandon strolled on back to his seat. As he caught sight of me, I glared and he
snickered before continuing on.
    “What is the deal with you two?” Sonya whispered next to me.
    “What do you mean?” Of course, I pretended not to know what
she was talking about.
    “For the past few days everyone in the classroom has been
waiting for the bomb to go off.”
    “What bomb?”
    “One of you is going to explode and everyone is waiting to
see who it’s going to be.”
    I laughed softly as I imagined Brandon’s head popping like a
balloon.
    “Well, how awful that so many people are that caught up in
my life that they actually notice Brandon and I are sending silent but deadly
messages to one another,” I teased.
    Unfortunately, I was not far from the truth. Brandon might
not think I was that important, but apparently every other person in the room
disagreed because they were paying