Timespell by Diana Paz Read Free Book Online

lips against hers before pulling away. She lifted her lashes and he locked eyes with her. Uh-oh. Boyfriend. Meeting his family. Life stories. It was still way too soon to say ‘I love you.’ Wasn’t it? She cleared her throat. Some girls had their boyfriend’s name across their binders with ‘forever’ written underneath after a week. That wasn’t her style, but sometimes she got the feeling Brian was heading in that direction.
    Butterflies were one thing, but love?
    “I better go,” she said, moving out of his arms. “Coach Hamden will give me detention if I’m late again.”
    “Right,” he said, his mouth turning down. “Guess I’ll see you after school.”
    “Um, maybe,” she said, thinking about Angie and Kaitlyn andwhether they would need to go to Indira’s again. “I think Angie and I were going to hang out today.”
    His expression became guarded. Almost hurt.
    It made her heart ache to see him unhappy, but the Daughter of Fate stuff had to come first today. There was no way around it.
    J ulia maneuvered through the slow-moving mass of students. The older part of school was always dark and crowded, with its narrow hallways and high, yellowed windows. Freaking Honors students with their free period. They could do anything they wanted with it, and Angie spent it at the library. Every. day. Julia sighed. At least it would make Angie easy to find.
    As she reached the stairs, she became lodged behind two kids trying for slowest people on the planet. What was the point of all that running around if she was still going to miss the bell?
    She saw an opening and raced through, taking the stairs as fast as she could against the flow of students. Holy crap, so much running today. She shoved her hair back and forced herself to hurry up to the scuffed tile. The library was around here somewhere. She had seen it on freshman orientation day. If the emptiness at the end of the hall was any clue, it looked like she had found it.
    The bell rang just as she shoved through the double doors. The only sound was the creaking of rusty hinges as the doors shut behind her.
    A shrill voice broke the silence. “Do you have a study pass?”
    Julia scanned the musty room before glancing at the librarian. The lady sat hunched in her chair, clicking away on her mouse. Her eyes remained glued to her computer monitor.
    “Uh, no. I was just looking for someone.”
    “No one has checked in,” the librarian said, still clicking. Behind her a calendar had the last day of school circled in red.
    No one’s checked in? Angie was never late, and she always went to the library.
    “You’ll have to get a study pass or I can’t let you in.”
    “Are you sure no one’s—”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay ....” She backed out of the library. Maybe Angie wasn’t as predictable as she had thought. She racked her brain for other places she might have gone. The computer lab. Or the art room. Sometimes she and her cheerleader friends painted banners.
    She was running out of time. Tardy sweep happened fifteen minutes into class, and this would be her third strike. She was not doing a month of Saturday detention over this. Dang it to crap, without Angie she couldn’t even freeze time. She would have to go to PE.
    The girls’ locker room was at the far end of campus, past the quad and outdoor lunch tables. Coach Hamden’s merciless whistle screeched in the distance, reminding her of the forty-five minutes of hell that awaited her. So. Freaking. Tired.
    “I can’t do this,” she whispered, slowing to a stop before she got to the locker building. Running and jumping jacks and ... running , after tearing across the entire school? After staying up all night? She would never make it.
    Her gaze honed in on the chain link fence beyond the gym wall.
    Did it even count as ditching if it was just PE?
    After PE came lunch. Seniors could come and go for lunch. She was only a sophomore, but no one would question her coming back into school, right? She could