Samhain Publishing Ltd, Ebooks and Books in Print

Rhee was halfway through the store when a leather-studded belt fell at her feet.

“Oops! Dropped that, could you get it for me?”

Rhiannon inhaled through her nose to keep her cool. She’d be willing to bet a silver dollar that Miss Mouth and her friends were the same age as she was. And to think these were the people her mom wanted her to make friends with.

Should she pick the belt up and get out?

Or should she keep on walking? Using her telepathy wasn’t really an option.

“Helllooo,” the girl practically sang. “I was talking to you. Are you deaf?”

The Rede. Remember the Rede. Rhiannon stepped over the belt and walked toward the door and peace.

The girl made the mistake of grabbing her by the arm. Rhiannon turned on one pointed high heel, expelling a rush of air. She’d be polite, but she wouldn’t be pushed. “Let go of me.”

The girl dropped her hand, then smirked. “I just asked you a question.”

Rhee gulped past the tension building from her toes up. She had to get out of the store before she did something that she would probably regret. “No, I won’t pick up the belt you dropped in front of me. Excuse me.” Rhiannon brushed past, two steps closer to freedom.

They converged like a pack of wolves in front of her. The leader of the pack growled, “Where are you from? Are you on vacation?”

Rhee lifted her brow as she’d seen her father do a trillion times, “Vacation? Here? I don’t think so.” She twitched her lips and stuck her nose a little higher in the air to let them know what she thought of their little suburb. “We just moved from Vegas.”

The girls nodded, as if that explained everything.

Rhiannon could feel her temper bubbling, which was never a good sign. The rack of post cards near the front door turned as if pushed by an invisible finger. She tightened her grip on her bag, pinching the thin skin next to her thumb.

Her parents would never forgive her if she dumped the entire stock of rhinestone clothes down on these girls’ heads. What goes around, come around—three-fold. Remember Maddie Johnson.

She sighed, then softened her tone. I don’t need any new enemies. “Sorry, that was sarcastic. I’m Rhiannon Godfrey. I’ll be going to high school here.”

The back-up girls giggled and the tallest blonde narrowed her sharp green eyes. “Interesting.” She turned to her friends. “I think we ought to give Brianna a real, old-fashioned kind of Crystal Lake welcome.”

Rhiannon didn’t care for the look on the girl’s face and quickly inhaled before she ended up pulling out the chick’s hair by the roots. She doubled her efforts to control her irritation.

“My name is Rhiannon, not Brianna. I have to get going. My parents are waiting for me.” Why had she said that? It made her sound like a five-year old. It was no wonder she wasn’t cool.

“We’ll look for you at school—give you a tour, make you feel right at home, won’t we?” The blonde grinned and her friends kept nodding like brainless bobble-heads.

Then the girl pivoted on her cowboy boot heel, sending a cloud of perfume toward Rhiannon as all three of them pushed by her to get out the door.

Rhee refused to move an eyelash until they were gone. Even then, she waited a few minutes until she felt calm enough to stay in control. Looking down, she saw that she’d been gripping her bag so tight she’d made bloody half-moons in her palms with her fingernails.

Then her shoulders slumped and she felt like a deflated helium balloon. If this was normal high school behavior, she wouldn’t survive freshman year. Rhee pushed on the door, stumbled over the metal strip on the ground and bumped into her parents on the sidewalk.

“Oof! Sorry, I—”

“Rhee! How’d you do?”

She got her balance, yanked her bangs out of her face and lifted the bag. “I found jewelry, can’t go wrong there. Mom, I don’t want to go to—”

Starla said, “Honey, look who we met up with again…”

Rhiannon wished she could disappear. How’d she miss her mom’s hostess voice? She looked up, squinting against the sun, and sure enough, there was Jared.

“Hey, Rhiannon. What’s up?”

Had he seen her stumble out of the store? Great. “Jared. I’m good. Shopping.” Tongue-tied again. She could blame her blush on the sun.

Starla said, “He’s here with his sister and some of her friends. Have you seen a pretty blonde?”

Rhiannon had to bite the inside of her cheek to avoid asking if the blonde had the forked tongue of a poisonous rattlesnake. She should have recognized the grass green eyes. How could Jared, who was cool and awesome as well as cute, have a sister who was such a…a…a Barbie?

Her mom was saying, “We just got here. Rhee?”

“Uh. There were some girls inside the shop. You must have missed them.”

No such luck. The girl’s voice carried down the sidewalk like an evil wind. Rhiannon made sure to keep her back to her.

“Jared! I’ve been looking all over for you—you were supposed to be waiting by the truck. Mom said Dad was ready to leave a half hour ago. Where were you?”

“Bookstore.”

And to think, Rhiannon gave herself a swift mental kick, that I just walked right by that place in order to look at clothes. She really needed to examine her instincts a little closer.

Rhiannon turned around to face Jared’s sister, who came to a screeching halt on the cement next to where they all were standing.

Rhee smiled sweetly and held up her shopping bag, even though she felt like puking. She hated confrontations. Hated feeling awkward.

“Uh.” The girl stared at Starla’s brightly layered beads then glanced at Miles and his dark clothes before she finally settled her gaze back on Jared.

It was amazing, Rhee thought. The girl obviously had a brain hidden behind the streaked blonde hair. She brightened her smile and oozed charm like a squished Twinkie.

Rhiannon was reluctantly impressed as she gushed, “You must be the Godfreys! Jared said he met you last week, when he returned your cow. He didn’t mention…well, he just said that you all were very nice.”

Starla smiled with good will. “And you are?”

The girl stuck out her hand and shot a glance at Rhiannon. “I’m Janet, Mrs. Godfrey, and I am so pleased to meet you.”

Rhiannon stepped forward, her fingers itching. She would not put up with anyone mocking her mother!

Jared got there before her.

“C’mon, Janet. Oh, wait. Did you all get a chance to meet Rhiannon? She’ll be going to Crystal Lake High too.”

Janet smiled, showing off a dimple in her left cheek. “Yeah, we met already. Inside the store.”

Rhiannon flattened her lips, recognizing the false friendliness Jared’s twin exuded. “That’s right. I think you mentioned a welcoming party?”

Janet’s friends, still un-introduced, gave fake waves with just the tip of their fingers.

Jared looked from Rhiannon to his sister, sensing something wrong, no doubt. Well, she wasn’t going to explain.

“Time to go,” Rhiannon said, turning her back on the others to face her parents. They stared at her as if she’d grown an extra nose.

“That was rude, Rhiannon,” her mother whispered.

She waited until she could tell they were gone before saying angrily, “I hate this place. I will never belong here, and I am so not going to school with that prima donna.”

“But, honey…” Her mother was at a loss for words.

Rhiannon grabbed her dad’s forearm and pleaded, “Please? Can you at least think about it some more before you register me? I know that you feel I need social interaction. I’ll, like, volunteer at the nursing home or whatever, work at the hospital, anything but have to face that horrible, nasty bi—”

Her mom’s crystal necklace glowed off and on as if it had a faulty wire, and her dad’s bolo tie bobbed up and down against his chest.

“Stop it!” Miles sighed as he slapped his hand over the tie. “Calm down, Rhee. We’ll talk about it when we get home. We are already a spectacle without having a family argument in the middle of the parking lot.”

Her heart leapt toward the reprieve. “Thank you, Dad.”

Her mom muttered, “I need my herbal tea. My crystals. My divination candle. We can’t have made a mistake about this, Miles. We were so sure.”

They were all quiet as they drove home. Rhiannon didn’t care about the ghost, she didn’t care about the farmhouse or Betsy the cow. There was only one place where she really and truly was safe from the world. The institute.