Chapter 47

Julie

"Hey, you, computer nerd..."

I looked up from my laptop in confusion at Grace, who was waving her car key in front of my face.

"What did you say?" I asked, because I'd been focused on the codes on the screen in front of me until now. I had tried again and again via the university's database, but somehow the IT security team of Vanderwood University had managed to replace the old firewall with a better one. As a result, I only had limited access to the lecture overviews and none at all to the students' files.

I had been too slow.

"I'm going to Moenia again. Amara said she needed me for a healing ritual, and I also need a few ingredients for the bracelets."

If I hadn't been Julie, I would have rolled my eyes right now. Grace was so scared of the Copelands and the DeLoughreys that she wanted to make silver bracelets with wolfsbane extract for both of us.

"I'll be back in an hour."

I looked at her, nodding, as she grabbed her black denim jacket and disappeared through the door of our large shared room.

Grace had disappeared at just the right time because it was 9 pm and Larissa had dragged Bayla to Midnights to meet Mady there. She had been raving to Bayla about Ezra, Mady's brother, the whole time. And Emely wouldn't show up until midnight, anyway.

The door to the room opened and a condescending-looking Vivienna peeked through the crack, looking around before her disapproving gaze lingered on me.

"Where's Grace?"

Despite the urge to avoid her gaze, I studied her eyes.

Grace always said she was jealous that Vivienna was so lucky with her genes, but all I saw when I looked at her was that emptiness in her eyes that all Air Quatura our age shared.

Images flashed through my mind. Images of her sitting in Gloria's office chair, tipping the cloudy contents of the vial into her mouth, and swallowing them.

"Julie? Are you responsive or back in your little world again?" Vivienna sighed and I winced.

"Grace is in Moenia..."

Vivienna just snorted and finally disappeared from the room.

I looked down at my hands and froze when I noticed the small ice crystals on my fingertips.

Panicked, I wiped them off on the bedspread.

No... That hadn't just happened...

I looked at my fingertips again. But there was nothing there anymore.

Maybe it was the paranoia I'd had since the incident.

I hurriedly reached for my cell phone to distract myself.

Not only that, but Erik had texted me an hour ago, and I had been eagerly waiting to make good on my promise. It had been weeks since we had last texted through the night, and I was missing the exchange.

I opened the chat expectantly.

I had to smile.

He was online immediately.

Again, I had to smile.

I still felt bad about my absence on the weekend. In retrospect, I realized how that must have looked. Like I didn't care about him.

I bit my lower lip.

Erik had somehow become very important to me.

I sighed.

I texted thank you and that's what I was feeling right now. I was so grateful to him for all the understanding I couldn't expect from anyone else around me.

My chest started to hurt a little because that was all I wanted to do – to tell him everything, to describe everything down to the smallest detail. I wanted to cry, to open up to him. But the rules told me not to. Erik was a human being, and I couldn't forget that.

I hated always having to beat around the bush.

I thought about the best way to describe it to him. A little too long, apparently, because he texted again.

My heart tightened in despair.

I looked down at my hands digging desperately into the sheets... That's when I discovered my fingertips had turned blue.

Shock spread through my chest, traveled to my stomach and I couldn't help but stare at my hands in a daze.

I tried to look away, at the chat in front of me, but the tingling in my fingertips wouldn't go away.

Immediately, the tension inside me eased, and my heart jumped slightly.

I was important to him...

What if this friendship was real after all, even if we were separated by a screen? What if Erik was proof that I wasn't socially incompetent after all, as everyone in the Circle accused me of being?

I checked my fingertips again, but the bluish tinge had disappeared.

My heart was beating a little faster than usual. Normally, texting with Erik calmed me down and distracted me from my life, but right now, I was far too emotional.

I wondered what his social life was like, if he had friends and if I was just one of many internet acquaintances or if he struggled as much as I did... After all, he was a football player and...

I realized once again that I didn't know much about him, not even what he was studying.

I hoped that I wasn't banging the door down. But that's the kind of question you ask your friends, isn't it? That's what Grace did and that's what I'd seen Larissa do.

That was the last thing I wanted... Maybe I needed to be more specific.

Erik did nothing for a moment, but then he started typing.

It sounded exactly like my family, except that as a human he certainly didn't have such devastating problems as a Quatura.

He spoke from my soul. I was asked to integrate myself into the Circle, to help Grace fulfill the prophecy. I had to give everything , give myself up. After all, that's what it meant to be part of something bigger.

I had to ask this question. Something inside me wanted him to at least be able to put that burden down with me.

I smiled sadly, albeit with relief.

I wanted to ask more questions, wanted to know what exactly his family wanted from him. What if I could help him? If I could be useful to at least one person in my life. One person who saw that I only wanted the best for him .

My own thoughts were enough to remind me of the fragility of all our relationships. Of how I must have been important to my mother until I reminded her more and more of my father every day.

I had never met him, but that was normal for us. The fathers were there to impregnate the mothers and were not allowed to know about us any more than other people.

I looked at the display again.

I swallowed.

If he knew that nothing felt uncomfortable with him except the fact that I couldn't tell him everything...even having to lie to him.

My heart jumped without me asking it to.

I couldn't help but smile at his words.

"You seem to have fun."

Startled, I looked toward the door where Larissa was leaning in her black leather jacket with her arms crossed, grinning at me with amusement.

She seemed to have a talent for catching me texting with Erik.

"I've got you to myself now, by the way," she said, with a broad grin, as if she had planned an assassination attempt on me and came straight toward me, only to drop onto my bed.

"I'm allowed, right?"

Larissa was the epitome of graceful extraversion.

But maybe it was just me. I was too quiet for this noisy world.

I couldn't help but nod.

She grabbed me by the shoulders and I looked at her in surprise.

"Now tell me, who is this mysterious Erik?"

"Now I want to know who this Erik is, too" it came from the door.

Bayla Adams looked first at Larissa, then at me, a thousand question marks above her head, before looking back at Larissa with a smirk.

Thank you, Larissa. Really. Thank you.

"Julie has a secret boyfriend." She looked at me as if I had some information for her that everyone was dying to know. "Does Grace actually know about this?"

"No, and I want to keep it that way," I said, giving Larissa a serious look.

" Ooh , seems to be something very secret indeed."

She winked at me.

"Not anymore," I sighed.

I looked at Bay, who raised her hands with a grin. "Sorry."

" Wow , now that's what I call deep talk."

I looked at Larissa, who was grinning and holding my laptop in her arms.

Startled, I snatched it out of her hands and immediately felt my cheeks heat up.

"Does he go to university here, too?"

"Larissa, stop interfering in other people's lives. There are things you can't always stick your nose into."

Bayla made it sound as if Larissa's behavior was nothing out of the ordinary.

Just the way she'd talked to the DeLoughreys earlier had scared me. And I was worried that this guy was serious and might even turn up here and cause a bloodbath.

Even if the Ruisangors were playing by the rules of the treaty here in Blairville, they couldn't be trusted. They were gradually buying up parts of our territory, and that was slowly making them a bit too powerful.

" Larissa , leave her alone now!"

"It's all right, Bayla."

"No," Bay looked at me. "You have to tell her if something's bugging you. Larissa likes to overstep boundaries." Bayla paced around the room. "And you can call me Bay."

Exhausted, she dropped onto her bed. Somehow, she looked paler than usual.

"Don't talk like I'm not here." Larissa looked at me, rolling her eyes. "I just want to help Julie."

"I'm fine on my own," I refused with gratitude, but something told me I wasn't going to get out of this one just like that.

"So, how is it that you're never seen making out on campus?"

"Larissa!" Bay looked at her best friend with widened eyes.

"He's not my boyfriend!" I said with a little nervousness. "He's a friend."

Larissa raised one of her eyebrows as if she didn't believe me. "Why don't people see you two on campus anyway?"

I didn't know what to say. Actually, I was pretty much sitting on the serving platter.

"Larissa..." Bay reminded her again, but just shook her head in resignation when Larissa seemed to ignore her and continued talking instead.

"Simply because you two have never met."

My heart stopped treacherously.

I saw Bay's jaw drop in the background.

"How the heck would you know that?" she asked in amazement. "Stop making such predictions about relationships and study for your degree instead."

"She's right..." I sighed a little too softly, but loud enough for both of them to hear me.

"Ha!" Larissa looked triumphantly at Bayla. "That would be my twenty dollars."

"You told her without my permission and immediately made a bet on it?" I asked, dumbfounded, and pulled my laptop closer to me to close the open chat.

Now, Bayla was blushing. "We always bet on whether her relationship predictions about other couples are right, and in case she's right, she gets 20 dollars from me, if she's wrong, I get the money."

"You'll be poor soon, Bay." Larissa laughed, but then looked back at me. "And now for you." I just wanted to sink into the ground. "Why haven't you two met yet?"

It was none of her business, but how was I, of all people, supposed to talk my way out of this now?

"Because he doesn't know I'm studying here."

Larissa and Bayla looked at me, puzzled.

" Wait , that means you're both studying here, you're texting with him, and he doesn't know that he could theoretically meet you?"

I took a deep breath, then nodded.

"Oh my God, that's so romantic," Larissa exclaimed excitedly.

Could she please stop pretending that Erik was more than just a friend?

"But wait... you're not stalking him, are you?" Larissa pointed at my laptop; her eyes widened.

"No..." I said quickly. "I'm just trying to find out who he is and if that's really his name."

Larissa gave me another crooked grin. "That's a nice euphemism for stalking, sweetheart."

"Why don't you ask him out?" Bay interjected into our awkward dialog.

The thought of meeting him in person overwhelmed me inside.

"First of all, I'd like to know who he is," I lied, because what I knew about him was enough for me to want to meet him.

"It sounds like you need our help," Larissa said, standing up and pacing around the room in deep thought.

"I can really manage on my own."

"That's why you've already found out everything about him, I assume?"

Larissa was right. And yet. This conversation was too uncomfortable for me.

"So... this Erik isn't called Erik at all?" Larissa sat down cross-legged on her part of the long desk.

"I don't think so..."

"Mh... And all you have is his number and the information that he attends university here..." She continued to think aloud and adjusted something on her camera. Her long dark blonde hair, which she usually wore in a ponytail, now fell casually and fully over her shoulders. "Do you have any other clues?"

I thought for a moment.

"He does a lot of sport..."

Larissa looked down as if she needed to think.

Then I remembered something I hadn't even thought about.

"He's probably part of the football team"

"How long have you been texting?" Larissa asked.

Bay also looked at me with curiosity.

"About a year?"

I wasn't sure... Maybe even longer?

" A year and you both don't know who each other's real personalities are?" Larissa looked at me blankly. "I think it's about time you met him."

"I can't," I confessed nervously.

" I know , you want to know what he looks like beforehand, okay..."

It was nice not to have to lie when she finished my sentences for me.

It wasn't about his looks, but about the fact that I liked the way things were right now.

"We already know that he might play football here. We could go to a game."

It wasn't a bad idea, but who had mentioned we ?

"The season for that is coming to an end," Bay replied to her friend.

"A training session then."

"Too obvious," I said and Bay nodded in agreement.

"Mh..."

Larissa should stop worrying about my private life. But how could I make her understand?

"Honestly, if I wanted to find out if someone was taking a sport, I'd just look through the team list in the student records. Maybe then, you could determine by process of elimination who from the list could be Erik."

Bayla made it sound so easy.

"I can't get to the digital files..."

Larissa looked at me, and I shrugged my arms. Then she looked at Bay, and the latter raised her head.

Bay's smile disappeared.

"No," she said, shaking her head.

Larissa's grin widened again. "It was your idea."

"Over my dead body."

"You lost the bet."

"You'll get your twenty dollars!"

"But I don't want your mother's money."

"Then you're out of luck."

Larissa jumped up from the desk and knelt down in front of Bay's bed.

"Come on," she said, "we've done so little lately."

Guilt automatically spread across Bayla's face.

This was definitely not what I'd meant when I'd advised Larissa to talk to Bayla in our business English seminar.

"Please, please."

Larissa's puppy eyes were stage-ready.

Bayla seemed to be thinking.

"Okay... This one time," she finally said warningly.

"Oh my God, I knew you couldn't keep your nose out of such exciting things!"

Had they honestly just gone over my head and decided to look for Erik's sports record? I couldn't believe it.

"Where are the files stored at Vanderwood?" Larissa asked.

"In Professor Copeland's office..." I began, but realized in mid-sentence that I shouldn't have said that.

Bayla looked at me urgently when the name Copeland came up.

" Perfect! Then we'll look there."

Before I could warn Larissa, someone else appeared in the room.

" Where are you going to look for what ?"

Grace was standing in the doorway. When I saw what she was holding in her arms, I forgot all my problems for a moment.

"In a café..." I stuttered.

Grace walked over to my bed, sat down and placed the little tuft of golden fur on my white blanket. It had its eyes closed and was sleeping peacefully.

"Is that a puppy?" Bayla sounded confused.

Larissa laughed. "What do you think? That this is what a kitten looks like?"

"Possibly," Bayla said, annoyed, and Larissa rolled her eyes.

"Kittens are small, naked and ugly," Larissa whispered and came over to the bed. "Oh, how cute ."

I looked at the sleeping puppy, which was the size of a paperback book. He turned his head briefly and curled up even more so that the tip of his nose disappeared under his paws, and his long, floppy ears covered his eyes.

Then I looked at Grace, who was sparkling at me with her brown eyes.

"It's for the fish. I thought you might need some company when I'm not around." She winked at me, and I couldn't help but hug her with gratitude. "I thought he'd live a little longer."

Her words drove away the pleasant feeling inside me that the puppy had just triggered. Instead, a feeling of unease spread through me.

What if I had another outburst?

I stared at the bundle of fur.

I was dangerous. And this dog was absolutely not safe in my presence. Because sooner or later it would happen again, and I would destroy everything around me. It was only a matter of time before everything that had built up inside me would burst out again.