(ON HOLD) Spellbound (BxB)

Chapter 17 | disassociation

Asher could take no more. No more of hearing his history professor's crackling voice, grating on and on about earthly wars and conquests. No European roots, no more talk of kings on a continent he never belonged to. There was a war going on inside himself, and neither side was winning.

He had spent most of the hour with his jacket on over his uniform, his hood over his head, and his head on his desk. And somewhere below his hair—already grown out in wild curls since the night of the dance—Bette Davis Eyes whispered through his headphones. Headphones, not earbuds. The only kind they sold in Willowbrook. He couldn't stop listening to it.

When he shut his eyes, he saw Jackal, standing before the smoking pile with his phone against his ear. When he opened his eyes, it was to the dust on his desk.

No one had died. One boy had suffered a broken clavicle, the other a busted ankle and a slight concussion. But Asher knew deep inside that Jackal had been responsible...somehow. Somehow, he'd twisted fate and forced retribution in a way that knotted Asher up inside. He'd done something terrible. And Asher was terrified.

In the empty desk beside him, Mimi sat, her head rested in her arms, watching him as if she was any other student. It had been two weeks since he last saw Jackal, and for every day Asher spent away from him, the protection of his bracelet waned. Ghosts followed him through Kingsly's halls, crawling and floating and scuttling long the ceilings.

Worst were the ghosts in his phone. Texts from Aspen and Ryan, and a missed call from Courtney, who probably wondered why he'd stopped visiting her at the diner. He was good at avoiding them all. He took the fire exits up staircases despite his crutches and cut the courtyard to get to class, rather than taking the clustered hall. Ryan was easy to spot coming because he was tall. Aspen was easy to avoid because she was short.

Jackal was the easiest of all, because he didn't try. He didn't text, he didn't call. He'd stopped being Jack and went back to being Jackal Riley.

Occasionally, Asher watched him from the skyway windows as he stood to bat at the baseball diamond. Occasionally they met eyes from across the hall, breaking gaze the moment they'd captured it. Occasionally, Asher disappeared into the storage closet where they'd hid away from Josephine, and he took to the habit of hiding, too. Occasionally, Mimi would join him.

She'd been around lately, and though Asher had questions on backlog, he was too tired to invest his willpower into the functionality of the dead. And too lonely to scare Mimi away. So often he just watched her watch him—her eyes black and sheening, her hair razor-cut at her chin. She wore no scars, no wounds, no bruises, and this surprised him. Typically the dead self-displayed their ultimate demise. The drowned would drip, the stabbed would bleed, the burned would flake. Mimi looked normal.

"And we're just about out of time," the professor announced—the first thing he'd said in an hour to pull Asher from the sound of Kim Carnes. "There's only about three weeks of class left, so make sure you're studying for the final exam. Remember, it covers all ten chapters in your textbook."

A fresh layer of dread stacked upon the rest already compiled and hefty in Asher's chest. The only class he was worse at than History was Latin, and without Jackal, he was a lost cause.

But worse of all was the bind around his heart that contracted now and again with a tender feeling of loss. Asher missed him.

"Mr. Greenly," the professor called as Asher struggled onto his crutches. "The dean's requested you in his office."

Strangely enough, Asher found relief in the presence of Sebastian Riley, who was almost always staring into a pocket watch when Asher arrived in his office.