Squeezing my eyes shut again, I let my fear take over. I can barely breathe. I feel her fingertips reaching for my neck. Then …
I hear a startled gasp.
My eyes flash open and I’m looking at the harpy’s winged back. I give a mental shout—don’t want to give away my new position—and, as she starts to turn around looking for me, I leap forward onto her back.
I know I have to act fast. One scratch of those talons or teeth and I’ll be in for a world of hurt, especially since, as Gretchen says, the antivenom supply at the safe house is limited.
Grabbing a fistful of feathers with each hand, I pull myself up the bird-woman’s back. She spins and backs into the wall. I hold on tight, even with the wind knocked out of me, and when she pulls away from the wall, I drag myself into position.
Hoping I remember the picture right, I stab my fangs into the wing joint. For a second I think I’ve got it wrong—with a mouthful of feathers to show for it—but then, a heartbeat later, the harpy evaporates.
I crash to the ground and my just-recovered breath gets knocked out again.
I’m lying there, facedown in the grass, struggling to get my breathing back to normal, when Milo appears around the corner.
“Grace!” He rushes forward, rolls me onto my back, and runs his gaze over my body. “Are you okay? We heard screaming.”
That would be the now-dispatched harpy.
“What?” he asks.
Please don’t let me have said that out loud. Especially not with half the soccer team standing there watching.
“I think that was me,” I say, hoping it sounds convincing.
Milo’s hands follow his gaze, checking all my limbs to make sure they’re not broken or missing or something.
“I’m fine,” I insist, although my voice is weak and breathy. “Really, I just …” I search around for some plausible—and not crazy monster-related—excuse for the screaming and my lost breath. The bleachers loom above me. “I fell,” I finally say. “Off the bleachers.”
“You fell?” He turns to look up at the bleachers; the nearest section is at least ten feet up. “What were you doing up there?”
“I—I didn’t fall from there.” I push myself to a sitting position. I wave generally at a lower section of the bleacher wall. “I rolled when I hit the ground.”
“You need to go to a hospital.” Milo’s pale green eyes are clouded with worry. “Someone call—”
“No!” I don’t need to go to the hospital. I can’t go.
I never want to use hypno powers on Milo or anyone I care about, but right now it’s my only choice.
I look him straight in the eyes and say, carefully and concisely, “I’m fine. Really.” I focus all my energy on conveying my message. “I’m not hurt.”
He looks at me, his expression serious, for a few more seconds. Then, finally, his expression blanks and he says, “You’re not hurt.”
I smile while I scream on the inside. I wish I didn’t have to do this. Then I turn and tell the rest of the team they should go back to practice.
As they wander back down the field, Milo helps me to my feet again. “I’d better get back to practice. I’ll call you Sunday.”
“Perfect,” I agree. “I’ll answer your call.”
He turns away to leave, but I reach out for his hand. When he turns back, his eyes full of questions—either because of the hypno trick or because I stopped him—I reach up on my tiptoes and press a soft kiss to his cheek.
“Thanks,” I say.
He smiles, confused.
“For”—I shrug—“caring.”
He grins, and then leans down to give me a matching kiss on the cheek.
As he turns and heads back to practice, I lift my hand to my cheek. Fight a harpy, get a kiss. A girl could get used to that deal.
CHAPTER 11
GREER
As the halls of Immaculate Heart empty of overachieving students heading home after their extracurricular activities, I make my way from the Student Council conference room to the gym. Athletics aren’t exactly top priority at my school. We have few sports teams, and most of them practice at the community college athletic center two blocks away. Our gym is nearly ancient. It’s barely suitable for basic physical fitness classes.
I push open the doors and hide my revulsion at the stench of decades of gym classes. Even the semiannual industrial cleaning can’t completely wipe out eau de sweat and dirty socks. I can only hope that the cleaners I’ve hired to prepare the space for the alumnae tea can work a miracle.
Still, if you appreciate classic architecture, the gym is a thing of beauty. The vintage wooden parquet floors date back to the fifties. A principal in the 1980s wanted to rip it up and replace it with state-of-the-art linoleum or something, but the alumnae stood strong and finally the principal backed down. By the end of the year she was looking for another job and the gorgeous floor had been refinished and declared a historic part of the school.
Even the bleachers are vintage. Aged wood, pine I suppose, that fold back against the wall when not in use.
Since the nearest assembly is weeks away, today the bleachers are pushed out of the way, forming twin walls of worn, warm-hued pine on either side of the room.
For a moment, I allow myself to picture what it will look like for the alumnae tea a week from Saturday.
Despite my regular arguments with my cochair, Veronica—whose taste in decor is no better than her taste in starving-artist boyfriends—I know the effect will be breathtaking. Dozens of round tables with white tablecloths hanging to the floor. Place settings and centerpieces in shades of white, gold, and purple—our school colors. Giant swags of fabric draping across the ceiling, shining with the glow of thousands of fairy lights behind them.