I didn’t really have time to dwell on it, though, since Jase took some sort offense to my affections. His fist snapped back. I was trying to decide if it would be better to take the punch or block it, but before I could come to a conclusion, Scout moved. She moved fast - faster than a human had any right to be - and ended up between Jase and me. I just barely had time to move her before his fist slammed into her face. As it was, the jab hit her on the shoulder, knocking her off balance. She was down on the ground before I had time to catch her.
I am not my brother. Liam is so dominant his wolf constantly resides close to the surface. It takes effort for him to react like a normal human. Not me. I’m more human than wolf, and even when the wildness wakes, I can usually override it without much thought. But when I saw Scout on the ground and knew it was Jase who put her there, I couldn’t hold back my reaction anymore than you could stop the wind from blowing. My fist swung around with full force and hit its target - Jase’s nose - with absolute precision.
Two guys grabbed my arms and pinned them behind my back, and because I had already done what I needed to, I let them.
Jase’s voice was filled with venom as he told me to stay away from Scout, but I only listened long enough to realize he cared more about controlling her life than her. Who the hell punched their sister and then left them on the ground?
“Scout, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” But she wasn’t. I could smell her blood, and it was driving me crazy. I didn’t like the idea of her hurt, even if it was just a sore shoulder and some scratches.
“Don’t talk to her!” Jase the Idiot bellowed, and I had to fight my instinct, which was to throw off his friends and break a few more bones in his face. The asshole didn’t even help her up.
“Go home, Alex,” she said, pulling herself off the ground.
“Scout--”
“Please, just go home,” she said, cutting me off. “You’ve done enough already.”
She was wrong. I hadn’t done nearly enough, but I would. Scout was my destiny, and no one, not even her brother, would come between us.
Talley
“Stupid, clumsy cow.”
I quickly righted myself and let go of Ashley Johnson’s arm. “Sorry,” I muttered, my face flaming from both the insult and the guilt over accidentally hearing her thoughts. “There was a backpack--”
“No problem.” A fake smile twisted her lips. “Hey,” she said, “are you and Scout taking that Shakespeare class?”
“Yeah, I’m heading there now.”
Ashley showed all of her cosmetically bleached teeth. “Great! Me too! I’ve just got to run to my locker first. Save me a seat?”
“Sure.” And the sad thing was, I would, even knowing it was just an attempt to make me look stupid. It became one of her favorite “tricks” right after she and Scout became mortal enemies. She would go on and on about how she wanted the two of us to still be friends and ask me to meet her after school or save her a seat at lunch. Then, when the time came, she would ignore me, laughing with her new popular friends about what a pathetic loser I was.
Maybe she was right. Maybe I am a pathetic loser, but I still had faith in Ashley. So okay, she turned into a classic mean girl character last summer, even going so far as seducing Scout’s boyfriend while at a party at Scout’s house, but I understood why she was that way. If my mom had a string of affairs and was known throughout the county as the Gold Digger and my dad had married my babysitter, I would probably go a little crazy too. No matter how she acted now, she was still the Ashley who stayed at my house for a week in middle school because both of her parents had gone out of town, each thinking the other was taking her along for the trip. Every time she sneered in my direction all I saw were her tear-stained eyes when she asked me why her parents didn’t love her like they were supposed to.
So, I walked into the theater knowing I would save her a seat. I wouldn’t be obvious about it, and I certainly wouldn’t wave her over the moment she came through the door, but if she wanted to sit by me, there would be an empty spot waiting.
I went all the way up to the front row, knowing no one else would venture up so close. My positioning served a dual purpose. For one, I would be sure to have a seat open next to me in case Ashley needed it. Secondly, and more importantly, with no one else sitting nearby, I wouldn’t accidentally bump into them and hear what was going on in their head. We weren’t even halfway through the day, and I already felt like my brain was going to melt inside my skull from all the new and unwanted information I had bouncing around in there. Unlike most Seers, my Sight hadn’t come on slowly as a tweenager, growing in strength throughout my teen years. No, I was completely latent and considered a failure by my parents until this summer. And when my Sight came, it didn’t creep upon me, giving me time to adjust. Instead, I got slammed over the head with the ability to pull thoughts and emotions off of anyone with the smallest of touches.
For the first week, I wouldn’t venture out of my bedroom. My brain was on overload. I actually thought I would have to become one of those hermit people who never leave their houses for fear of the outside world. I had already talked my mom into homeschooling when Jase intervened. He showed up at my house one afternoon, demanding I see him like he was the Pack Leader or something.
“You’re coming to school,” he said the moment he walked into my living room. No “hi”. No “how are you doing, Tal?”. Just a command he had no right to make.
“I can’t,” I said. “You know I started Seeing while you were at basketball camp.”
“Yeah? So?”
“I’m a Soul Seer, Jase. And it’s strong.” So strong I thought I might break under the weight of it. “I can’t brush up against someone without pulling things out of their head. Things I shouldn’t know. Things I don’t want to know. It’s too much. I can’t do it.”
He stood there studying me for a long minute. I hadn’t seen him since the beginning of the summer, and he had grown an inch or two taller and put on more muscle. My mom had gone on for ages about how I magically transformed from a little girl to a young woman overnight, but I never paid much attention to her. I still looked the same as I had in second grade, just bigger. But with Jase, I saw it. He left at the beginning of the summer the same boy I made mud pies with in the back yard and returned someone else. Someone bigger, stronger, and more mature.