Witness: See Series (Volume 1)(22)
Anna had spotted me and leaned into the girl next to her and whispered something. They both looked at me and giggled. My face flushed with anger. I had no idea how Madison dealt with them on a daily basis.
Aden came out of the shop and handed me and Monroe steaming cups of coffee. “Draven’s buddy is here,” I said shortly. Aden looked down the street at all of them approaching. He ignored Anna and nodded to the guys with her. When they got closer, the tallest one shouted, “Wait right there, man. I wanna show you something, but I’m gonna get coffee for them first.”
Aden nodded, then leaned up against his truck beside me. Anna, with her two friends flanking her, walked over to us, flipping her long, curly blonde hair over her shoulder. “Charlie, Charlie – now you’re out with the wrong brother...does that mean Draven’s on the market?”
I moved my head from side to side as I stared coldly at her. Between my fingers, I gripped Draven’s necklace. I was about to step into this stupid girl’s memories - and without a doubt, I wanted a way out.
Instantly, I saw her with that tall guy at her house. He was whispering into her ear, and she was giggling in the most annoying way. I wanted to figure out what he saw in her, so I focused on him in her memory; to my surprise, I saw him whispering the same thing into another girl’s ear just before he kissed her passionately. I was so amused at what I was seeing that I didn’t even have to try to bring myself out of the memory; I was back in an instant.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Anna said as she smiled smugly. “I have my own musician now. Todd and I are together.”
I leaned closer to Aden. “Is Todd the guy getting coffee?” he nodded as a look of dread washed over his face.
A wicked grin came over my face as my eyes moved back to Anna and the girl next to her – the girl that I saw with Todd. “So, how does this work? I mean, do you guys just take turns – have assigned nights?”
Anna’s eyes grew wide with confusion.
“Oh, I see; you have no idea that he’s talking to her, too - well, if you wanna call that talking,” I said, looking at the girl next to Anna.
Anna’s face flushed with anger as she looked at her side. The girl raised her hands defensively. “We just hang out.”
Anna reached up and slapped the girl, then turned briskly to find Todd in the coffee shop. The other girl took off, and so did the girl that was following them.
Aden looked down at me. “Use your powers for good, not evil.”
“What?! That girl is evil. Did you see what I saw?”
“Yeah,” he said shortly, looking in the coffee shop window as Anna screamed at that Todd guy.
“Well, you didn’t say anything – so I did.”
“You took pleasure in that. Besides, it wasn’t my place to say anything,” Aden said as he sighed.
“What is that, some kind of guy code? ‘Let your buddy cheat on as many girls as he wishes’?”
“Not my buddy; we play together. Besides, do you think I care what he does?”
“What if it was Draven cheating? Would you tell me?”
“Yeah, right - like he’d do that...like you wouldn’t be able to see it?”
I elbowed him in the side. “I’ll kill you if you ever keep something like that from me.”
“No doubt,” he mumbled as Anna charged out of the coffee shop. She threw an angry glance at me before she turned and all but ran down the sidewalk.
Todd and the other three guys walked out a few seconds later. Todd looked at Aden. “Girls,” he said, shaking his head. “Anyway, I heard you guys had a place to play now?”
“Working on it,” Aden said, clearly not inviting them to come along.
“That’s what this town needs, man. Come over here; we’ve been working on a new sound, and I wanna know what you think,” the Todd guy said, waving his arm toward his car a few spaces down.
“Stay out of trouble,” Aden said, looking down at me.
“Whoa – Aden, has Charlie switched sides? And who is this?” Todd asked as he looked over Monroe in an alluring way.
“A girl that’s too smart to play your games. Mind your own business,” I said shortly.
Todd laughed under his breath as he winked at me. “Don’t think I wouldn’t be knocking on your door if Draven wasn’t around.”
“He is – watch it,” Aden said coldly
“Right, right. Just messin’. Come on, man,” Todd said to Aden.
Aden looked down at me as if he were begging for an excuse not to go with them. “Have fun,” I said smugly.
As they walked away, I looked to my side at Monroe. “Let’s walk, see if I got this.”
She walked along my side as we passed through people. I glanced from one person to the next and allowed myself to go a little deeper each time. In a way, it felt like I was invading their privacy – like I was a stalker or something.
“Can you see?” I asked Monroe once we reached the end of the street and decided to pass to the other side and turn back. She didn’t answer me.
“Look, I know talking is overrated, but I wanna know about you. I know this sucks, that we’re different, but we need to stick together.”
As I said that, the door to the cell phone store opened. It was almost twenty feet away, but I could see clearly who was stepping onto the street: Britain. I gripped Monroe’s arm and pulled her back, then pushed her onto one of the side streets.