I gave Jess a look. Poor, lost little Jess. She was like the scarecrow of the trio. Straw for brains. No spine. She couldn’t think for herself if her life depended on it. I thought when her twin sister had gone dark, that broke her, but I was wrong. Spencer broke her even before he’d revealed himself as a leecher. “You call me a dilute, which I am. It’s a stupid word to use to insult an elemental’s lineage, when, clearly, being a pure doesn’t make you more powerful. You three are pures and are all singles. I’m a dilute and a quint. Need I say more? If you three want to offend me, try harder. Now, get out of my way.”
It pleasantly surprised me when the twins parted, leaving me a pathway to the coffee station. I pumped the glorious liquid into a paper cup as three glares burned into the back of my neck. Once I had the perfect combo of creamer, sugar, and coffee to transform my glorious liquid into a cup of nirvana, I capped it and turned.
Just in time for one of the twins to use air to lift the cup, pop the top, and dump the scalding-hot liquid down my front. Ouch. If I didn’t already have the power to control fire inside me, that would have burned the crap out of my skin. The potential burn didn’t piss me off nearly as much as the loss of my cup of nirvana.
I tossed the cup aside and squared off against the trio of mean girls. The last time I went up against these three, I’d just come into my powers and had no idea how to control them. This time, however, I did.
The twins earned themselves a bath. I called the nasty water from the salad bar, melted ice that had sat out all day and collected rogue pieces of wilted lettuce, plops of cottage cheese, and whatever the hell that bean concoction was, liquefied Jell-O, waterlogged cheese, and every slimy drop of spilled dressing, and hovered it in a pool of murky sludge over the perky blonde heads of the Barbie bitches.
“Say you’re sorry.”
They crossed their arms and jutted out identical hips. In unison. They had to have been practicing that move, it was executed so perfectly.
“You wouldn’t dare.” Jess regarded the goopy liquid above them.
“Say you’re sorry,” I repeated more slowly. Maybe they’d pick up how much I would dare if I spoke at a pace that wouldn’t lose them.
Jules shook her head. “For what? It’s not our fault you’re so clumsy.”
That did it.
“You’re right. I guess I’m just a klutz.” I let the watery mess fall. It splashed on contact, immediately drenching them and leaving behind remnants of salad, sides, toppings, and slimy dressing in their no-longer-perky hair, on their no-longer-yellow uniforms, and stuck to their no-longer-white socks. Even their cute little buckle shoes were no longer black thanks to whatever white dressing chunks now covered them.
They, of course, both screamed and turned into wannabe ninjas like they’d just walked into a spiderweb, karate chopping the air to fight off the liquid assailant. I cringed and plugged an ear, wiggling my finger to get it to stop ringing. Jebus jones, man. They hit pitches only dogs could hear.
Vanessa hadn’t come to their rescue, which surprised me. I’d purposely used her primary in the hopes she’d try, so I couldn’t have her join the twins in their lovely bath. Instead, she stood off to the side, observing but not engaging.
“Well, new girl. Looks like you made a mess.”
I glanced at the Barbies before nodding at the linoleum. “I didn’t mean to get the floor.”
Was that the hint of a smile she attempted to cover with a huff?
“Hey! What’s going on out there?” someone from the back yelled.
Busted.
The twins both took huge breaths to no doubt tattle on me, but Vanessa stepped in, her hands up to stop them. “Come on, girls. Let’s let the new girl deal with this.” She glanced back at me over her shoulder as she ushered them out and offered a slight shrug.
What the hell was that? Was the ice queen of the academy apologizing?
They all walked out, passing Bryan as he rushed in, his gaze scanning the room before riveting to me.
“If it isn’t the new girl’s pet,” Vanessa jeered. “Following her around like a lost little puppy.”
“I’d rather be a lost little puppy than a bitch in heat,” he fired back.
Her jaw dropped, and she stormed off, the Barbie twins in tow.
I clapped, impressed at the insult. “Wow. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
He shrugged those massive shoulders. “Sometimes I can’t stop myself. Look, did something just happen, something that burned the front of you?”
Did the giant coffee stain all down the front of me not give that away? I nodded. “The Barbie twins dumped coffee down my front. Why?”
He opened his dress shirt to reveal burns on his chest, the skin red and angry. Oh no. The ward. I glanced at my palm, at the shimmering M on my hand. What injuries happened to me happened to my guys. Because Bryan couldn’t call fire and absorb the heat from the coffee, it’d burned him.
“Oh, shit.” I gently brushed my fingers over his wound. He winced, so I pulled back. “This is not good, Bryan. Not good at all. We have to get Renee to reverse the spell and remove the wards.”
“It’s just a slight burn. It’ll be okay.” He buttoned his shirt.
“No, it won’t. Whenever we go up against a dark elemental, they don’t fight fair. They use forbidden calls. They use dark magic. If Clay gets covered in ice, which happens to him a lot, it’s going to affect you too. If one of us gets hit by a forbidden call, we all get hit. This is so not
