The next day passed incredibly slowly for Mia. In each of her classes, she found herself wishing to be anywhere else. She kept scanning the faces of everyone she saw, but no one seemed particularly suspicious. Except, of course, those two girls in her history class. Mia watched them closely as they walked into the room. She was hoping to see some signs of guilt or even nervousness, but there was no sign of either. They just stared at her coolly for a minute before taking their seats, the way they always did.
When she'd first gotten that note, Mia's thoughts had immediately turned to those two girls. They were the only ones in school who stared at her like she'd done something wrong, and she would have been sure that they were the ones who'd given her that little paper. But their reactions today were exactly like they had been since she'd first seen them. Mia was pretty sure that if they were the ones responsible they'd at least try to avoid looking at her. Mia remembered dropping her own note off last year, and how she'd never wanted to see Fredrick or Jacqueline less than on the days leading up to their attack. If these two were responsible, Mia was sure they wouldn't be able to look so calm, even if they were on the other side of the room.
As soon as the bell rang, Mia hurried off to her next class – P.E. Surprisingly, it had become one of Mia's favorite subjects. She didn't like P.E. because she was fond of sports or anything like that. Although, now that she was a vampire, P.E. had definitely improved; it'd gone from being a place where Mia was constantly tripping over her own feet to a place where she could easily outrun even her fastest classmates. It was true that she was so much better at sports than she used to be, but she still didn't particularly care about any of them. No, the reason she was so happy to go to P.E. was twofold. Partly, she liked it because it meant that history was over, and she wouldn't have to think about those two girls again for the rest of the day. But the main reason she liked it was because of a boy in her class – that friend of Luke's.
She'd been right on the first day of school when she thought she'd spotted him across the room in math. But she barely counted that since he was so far away. What good was it to be in the same class if she couldn't even talk to him? But in P.E. there was enough moving around, doing sports, that she usually had a few minutes to at least say hi. It still wasn't as much time as she would have liked, but at least it was something. It was funny how every time she talked to him, her heart would skip a beat. Somehow, he was able to make all her worries melt away.
But this was too big a problem; not even talking to Zev could make her forget that her life was probably at stake. Still, she tried to act normal around him. Even if she was facing an attack and the possibility of being run out of town, there was always that slight chance that she would win. And if she did, she couldn't afford to let him know that anything unusual was going on.
"Hey," Zev said when she walked into the gym.
She'd tried to dress slowly, figuring that the less time she spent with Zev, the less opportunity he'd have to figure out something was wrong. But a quick glance at the clock let her know she still had a few minutes to spare before their baseball game. Mia had never wished so hard for something interesting to do in P.E.; there was no way she could ever be busy enough during baseball to keep her mind off of all this!
"Hi." she said back, forcing herself to smile.
"Everything all right?" Zev asked, studying her face.
"Yeah. I just have a lot of homework I have to do, and I really don't want to." Mia said, thinking fast. Apparently she hadn't looked as calm as she'd been hoping.
"I know what you mean. I've had a ton of English homework lately, and chemistry's starting to pile up. Looks like this year's going to be a lot harder than last year, doesn't it?"
Mia nodded absently, thinking that Zev was more right than he realized. She tried to think of something else to say, but she just wasn't in the mood. Fortunately, he didn't seem to notice, and after a few minutes Miss Danby walked purposefully through the gym doors, ready to start class.
They divided up into the same teams they were on yesterday, and Mia headed glumly to the bench to wait her turn at bat. Yesterday, she'd been disappointed that Zev wasn't on her team, but today she was actually kind of glad. As much as she liked being around him, she really didn't want to have to pretend everything was all right when all she could think about was what would happen on Friday night.
As soon as the bell rang, Mia hurried off the field and into the locker room. She managed to be the first one there, and by the time most of the other students were heading through the doors, Mia was already on her way to lunch.
She always tried to be fast out of P.E., but today was especially important. Her P.E. class always seemed to run late, and she was consistently one of the last people to get to lunch, no matter how hard she tried. And she knew she'd need as much time with her friends today as she could get. She walked into the courtyard, scanning the faces as she went. She had almost decided that Anna and Carmine must have found a table inside the cafeteria when she spotted Carmine's red hair on the far side of the courtyard. She and Anna were seated on the grass under a large oak tree. Mia headed straight over, trying her best not to actually run. Instead, she settled on a fast walk.
Anna smiled up at Mia as she approached, and Mia tried to return the gesture. But she could tell she hadn't succeeded, and Anna stopped smiling as soon as she saw the look of worry plastered all over Mia's face.
"What's wrong?" Anna asked as her own face started to cloud over.
Mia set her backpack down on the ground, joining her friends. She didn't really know what to say. It was true that she'd been thinking of nothing else since she went home yesterday, but she'd never actually thought about how she would tell her friends. So, she decided to just take the note out of the small pocket in her backpack and hand it to Anna. Anna's eyes widened, and Mia knew that all the thoughts she'd had when she first saw the note were now going through Anna's head. Knowing it could only be bad news, Anna hesitantly took the note. Slowly, she unfolded it.
"What is it?" Carmine asked curiously.
She'd been digging around in her backpack for something she hadn't found and had missed the look that passed between Mia and Anna. When neither of her friends responded, Carmine scooted closer to Anna and peered over her shoulder. Their reactions were about what Mia had expected. Anna's eyes got real wide, and she looked even paler than usual. Carmine let out a long, low "Oh..." and started twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
"It was in my locker last night." Mia said when neither of her friends spoke.
"I guess you don't know who put it there?" Anna asked hopefully. Mia shook her head, and Anna nodded. "I thought not."
"So what are we going to do?" Carmine asked.
"I think we have to meet them." Mia said slowly. "Whoever it is already knows we did something to Fredrick and Jacqueline. We have to at least see what they know and try to find out what they want from us."
"What if we don't go?" Anna asked slowly. "What if we just ignore it – pretend we don't know what they're talking about?"
Mia had to admit, she saw the appeal in this. About three o'clock last night, the idea had come into her own head. But she knew it would never work. She was about to explain all this to Anna when Carmine cut in.
"We can't do that." She said it quietly, but there was an air of finality in her voice. "If we don't go, there's a good chance they'll come after us. Whoever wrote this already knows what we did. If they also know how we found out about Fredrick and Jacqueline in the first place, they could make things really difficult."
Carmine said exactly what Mia had been thinking; the only reason the three of them even knew about what Fredrick and Jacqueline were was because Anna had known them three hundred years ago. If anybody else knew that, it wouldn't be too hard for them to figure out about Anna – and in turn, Mia.
Mia was glad that Carmine saw the problem with ignoring the note, but she couldn't help but be a little disappointed. It had taken Mia over half the night to realize what Carmine saw in about two minutes. Part of Mia had been hoping that she was just being too careful, but when Carmine spoke up, those hopes had been dashed.
Anna looked wearily from Carmine to Mia. Seeing that both of her friends already had their minds made up, Anna finally nodded.
"So what do we do?" Anna asked.
"We show up at the park tomorrow at eleven." Mia said simply.
"Yeah, but we can't just walk in there and hope everything'll be alright." Carmine pointed out. "When we went there in the first place, it was to set a trap. We should assume whoever's behind this is trying the same thing."
"So, what do we bring?" Mia asked.
Carmine didn't answer for a minute. When she did, it certainly wasn't what Mia was hoping to hear.
"I don't know." she confessed, splaying her hands out in front of her. "I don't actually know what we're up against. But I'll try to figure it out tonight. For now, let's just plan on meeting at Anna's around six?" she glanced questioningly at Anna, who nodded absently.
"You both can spend the night." Anna told them, sounding lost in thought. Mia and Carmine both nodded.
"Thanks." Carmine said. "That'll make it a lot easier. In the meantime, try to think of anyone either of you knows who might know what we did. I'll do the same."
Mia and Anna both nodded, but neither said anything. Mia wasn't sure what she could say. She knew it wasn't her fault, but with the note appearing in her locker, it sure felt like it was. And she'd already gone through the list of everyone she knew. No one seemed suspicious – or at least, not any more suspicious than they had been all year. Still, she was going to have come up with someone; she didn't think she'd be able to wait around until Friday to find out who was behind that note.
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