The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(11)

“The usual place.”

My dad could be a smart ass, too. Family trait.

He pointed a fork at me. “There are a lot of wild animals running loose out in those woods. If something ever comes at you, spray it right in the eyes.”

I could so handle that. My healing arm tensed a bit. “Does this mean I get to head into the woods and—”

“No.” Immediate.

Figured. The man didn’t know how to bend. “It means if you’re walking home or to a friend’s house—”

He had such an obsession with me making friends.

“Then you make sure you’re covered, Anna, got it?”

“Well, if you’d get me a car,” when I saw an opening, I knew how to take it, “then I wouldn’t have to walk any place.” And thus the mace-in-the-woods wouldn’t be necessary.

The fork dropped onto his plate. My dad offered me a half-smile. “I’m working on it.”

My jaw dropped just like that fork. “Seriously?” And a real, honest-to-God squeal burst from me. I jumped up, flew around the table, and hugged him as hard as I could.

And, yeah, this was what happiness felt like.

A car—finally. Oh, sweet. The man knew just how to make me happy.

I felt so good that I could almost forget the nightmares that had haunted me all night long.

Almost.

***

“So…what’s her deal?” I asked Jenny at lunch as I nodded toward Cassidy. Pounding rainfall had forced everyone inside the cafeteria today, and I saw Cassidy sitting at a table with her cousin, Fresh Meat.

Um, James. James Colter. I sucked almost as much as Troy right then.

“Who?” Jenny was staring at Brent’s table with a bit of a longing expression on her face. I waved my hand before her eyes. She blinked like an owl.

“The girl over there,” I explained, pretty needlessly, I thought. “Cassidy.”

“Oh.” I expected her to say her usual, “OhmyGod!” But she didn’t. Instead, she did her forward lean, which I now knew was her I’m-sharing-gossip move, and told me, face totally serious, “She’s a witch.”

Now, really, people shouldn’t joke about things like that. They never knew when a witch was around—one who’d get pissed off at being talked about.

But I smiled and called, “Bullshit.”

The lunch monitor, our history teacher Mrs. Cavanaugh, jerked her head toward the table. She frowned at me.

I kept smiling.

“No, she is.” Jenny leaned ever closer. “Have you seen the shop her grandmother runs? You can buy anything there. Even…a love potion.”

Someone save me. “I’m guessing you bought one.”

Her gaze darted back to the VIP table. Not to Brent, but to Troy. Seriously? Oh, that was such a bad plan.

And she wasn’t answering me. My joke suddenly wasn’t as funny. I put down my soda. “Tell me you didn’t.”

She shrugged and wouldn’t look at me. “Lots of people buy things from Granny Helen.”

Granny Helen. Okay. That would be the not-so-sweet lady who had tried to yank off my arm. “And Cassidy says she’s a witch? She actually tells people that?”

“Well, no, but…”

My eyes wanted to cross.

“But she works at the store, so she has to be one, right?”

Wrong. “She could just be a girl who works at her grand-mom’s shop.” A creepy girl. And every time I looked at her, I kept thinking…I can so relate.

So she’d been weird yesterday. I knew weird. Today, I noticed the way the other kids looked at her. The slightly taunting smiles on their lips. The amused stares. I’d caught too many of those looks once upon a time.

Cassidy glanced up and met my stare then. She nodded slightly in acknowledgement of me.

“How do you know her?” Jenny wanted to know. A few other girls were at the table with us, all Jenny’s friends, but they were chatting about the upcoming Friday night football game and totally ignoring us.

“I was in her shop yesterday.” How to be polite? “It was an…interesting place.”

Her eyes widened. “You bought a love spell?”

Now all the girls were looking at me because Jenny had just done her whisper shriek—with emphasis on the shriek.

“No, no, I—”

“Who are you going to use it on?” Her gaze darted to team VIP. Well, that’s how I was thinking of Brent and Troy’s table, anyway. “Wait,” she said, “let me guess…”

I grabbed her hand. “I didn’t buy a spell!” By this point, I should know better than to mess with that crap.

I should have known.

Her eyes bulged, and I realized I might be holding too tightly to her wrist. I eased my grip. “I was curious about the place. I just went inside so I could see what the shop was like.”

“Did Granny Helen tell you about your future?” One of the girls at the table wanted to know. Suzy. Suzy with the long French braid that she seemed to play with all the time.

I frowned at her words. My future?

The darkness is closing in.

“She told me I’d be getting the music scholarship I need.” Suzy’s shoulders straightened. “And I am so getting it.”