Five: Out of the Dark by Holli Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

‘The suicides of seven of our students is beyond tragic. We are all completely devastated. The school is taking this very seriously and the district has dispatched every available counselor to Edwards to speak with each student individually about the suicides and to assess each student for possible suicidal thoughts. We can find no connections between these seven students; they are of varying ages and our investigation has turned up nothing to link them to each other. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims.’”
    The rest of the article contained statistics on teen suicide, signs to watch for, and the numbers for local suicide prevention hotlines. We sat in stunned silence for a few minutes.
    “There is definitely something going on there,” Johnathan stated, breaking up our shared silence. “I think we should go take a look around that school.”
    “What are we going to look for?” I asked.
    “I’m not sure. I just think we need to go there and check things out, see if we get any unusual feelings from the place. I think we should go now, but not all of us need to go.”
    “I’ll go with you,” I volunteered, then added, “why don’t the rest of you stay here and get some sleep? We’ll buzz you if we need help.” I know the others were probably thinking I volunteered only so I could be alone with Johnathan, and they were partly right. Okay, mostly right. But, I also cared about whether or not they got enough sleep, and we had walked a long way on patrol that evening. It was close to three a.m.
    Alec smirked knowingly, but before he could open his big mouth, Johnathan said, “That’s a good idea. Halli’s already asleep …”
    “No ’m not,” she mumbled from her curled-up position on top of her sleeping bag.
    “Okay, sorry. Halli is
almost
asleep, and you two look like you’re exhausted. Paige and I can handle this one. We won’t be long. Like I said, I just want to get a feel for the place.”
    Alec just couldn’t pass up this opportunity. “I know what you really want to get a
feel
for …” he said, a little under his breath. Then, he looked at me, smiled and winked.
    I started to reach for my channeling rod. I thought,
toad
. A big, ugly, green toad with warts all over its body. I had no idea whether or not it was possible to change someone into a toad, but I was willing to test it out on Alec. Johnathan stepped between us, however, and gave Alec a light smack to the side of his head.
    “Go to sleep, Alice. Put up the wards behind us. We’ll take them down when we get back.”
    My heart fluttered when he turned to me with a cute smile, dimple creased cheeks and full lips pulled across his snow white, slightly crooked teeth.
    Johnathan shook his head. “Let’s go, Paige.”
    My heart nearly beat out of my chest when he put his hand on the small of my back as we turned to go out the broken-down doorway of the condemned shop we were staying in that night. His hand felt so warm … and so
right
. I leaned in a little, so our sides touched. I’d never dared act upon my feelings for him. I was never sure how he felt about me. He was always nice and gentle, but had never really made any advances toward me. Unless you counted his confession of love after the changeling bit him. I didn’t think that counted, though. I still wasn’t sure if the hand to my back was just him being nice, or if it meant he really had feelings for me. I was just happy to be alone with him.
    We headed out toward Edwards High School, which was clear across the city from where we were. The walk would be very long, which made me smile. I almost cried when he moved his hand from my back to conjure up a
star-bright
so we could see our way to the nearest exit from the Underground.
    Johnathan extinguished the light just before we sneaked through the abandoned building at street level. For the first time since we’d met, he reached to hold my hand. My pulse quickened and my palms broke out