Unknown by Christopher Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

flowers brightening this corner of the world was now actively liquefying into a gray puddle of rot at my feet.  
    I killed them and I had the answer I feared.   The amulet was powerful enough to cause death.
    I took another step back, where there was a large rock, and I sat on it.   I was scared.   I had no right to do that, but I had to see the amulet’s limits for myself.   And death was the absolute limit. If I got angry enough, I very well could kill someone.
    I was thinking that I couldn’t wear this thing any longer when there was a sound to my left.   Well down the path, I heard footsteps crunching on the fallen pine needles.   They were coming quickly, aggressively.   I turned in their direction and saw the last thing I wanted to see—the pissed-off face of Mike Hastings coming straight at me.

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
     
    The rock I was sitting on was tucked back in a small alcove.   Trees and plants offered something of a shield.   He hadn’t seen me yet.   He was about thirty feet away.   His eyes were lowered and focused on the path.   He looked bigger to me here.   He’d also taken off his jacket and now it was apparent just how hard he had worked on his body over the summer.   He was no Alex, but he was close.  
    He looked fearless and imposing.   He bulldozed up the path.  
    What was he doing here?   Had he followed me?   Was he looking for me?   I couldn’t be sure.   I wanted to recede, but I’d only make a noise.   Roberts said she was going to talk to him.   Did she send him home?   Did she expel him?   What had happened between them?
    He was ten feet away when he saw me, and when he did, the surprise on his face was unmistakable.   So was the delight that replaced it.   He stopped in the middle of the path and just stood there, looking at me.   He cocked his head to the right and smiled.   Then he did the last thing I wanted him to do—he looked down the path and around us.   He was checking to see if we were alone and we were.
    “What’s up, faggot?”
    My heart was pounding.   I glanced over at the dead flowers and knew the threat that stood between us.   You work it with your heart and with your head.   If that was true, how could I best handle this situation.   I didn’t want to harm anyone.   That’s not who I was.   Earlier, when I told creepy Jim that I’d like to see Jake Tyler fall and break his nose, I thought nothing of it.   How was I supposed to know that Jim could make that happen?
    “I asked you a question,” Hastings said.   “What’s up, faggot?   Roberts send you home, too?”
    I didn’t answer.   I tried to keep myself calm, but it was impossible.   He kept looking around us.   I knew he was going to try something.   It was payback time and he was going to make it happen and it was going to hurt.
    “Roberts told me that you think I’ve got a problem with you.   Now, why would she think that?”   He took a step toward me.   “Better yet, why did you tell her that?”
    “You need to get away from me,” I said.
    “I need to do what?”
    “You need to get away from me.   Trust me.   You need to step off.”
    “Or what?   You’ll run to Roberts?   You’ll tell her that we were...what?   Having a little conversation?”
    I could feel the amulet heating up against my chest.
    “That I was nice enough to stop by and address you by your God-given name:   Faggot?   Is that what you’ll tell her?”
    Again, he looked around him.   He knew we were alone.   I knew it.   He could do whatever he wanted to do to me and it would be his word against mine.   I’d lose because I wouldn’t have any proof.   Unfortunately, I didn’t have Jennifer’s iPhone, though even if I did, he’d probably smash it.
    Think.  
    I needed to do something that would scare him.   I needed to prove to him that he couldn’t touch me.   I needed to create a diversion or do something else.   It needed to freak him out.   It