Unbound (Unbound, Book 1) ~Formerly Casting Power~

Chapter 45

"So, you were called into the office again?"

Maible and I were sitting in front of the school at lunch. She talked as I feigned interest and pretended to eat. I was tired, preoccupied with the thoughts that had plagued me all morning about the injustices that I'd been subjected to.

"Yep." Everybody knew it. I'd walked the halls hearing the rumors that I'd become the center of as everyone stared.

"Was Devland there again?" Maible bit into her apple and watched me.

"Yep."

"Are you okay?"

I looked up and considered the question. Was I okay with getting detention? No. Was I okay that Devland couldn't be bothered to stick up for his daughter? Again, no, I wasn't okay. I wanted my mother. The fact that she would never be here again was not okay.

"I'll be fine," I lied, and she narrowed her eyes.

"It's okay if you're not."

I sighed and set my fork down in my untouched salad. "I'll be fine once I'm done with detention."

"You got detention?" Her eyes rounded.

"A week of before and after school."

"But you didn't pull the pranks!"

"No, but I blasted Mr. Corbin for suggesting that I did." I shrugged. It was the one part of the day that had felt good. Yelling at him, not getting stuck with detention. "Screaming at the principal constitutes detention, I guess, even though I was right, and he was wrong."

"You shouted at Mr. Corbin?" She leaned forward. "Didn't you tell them you were home all night? Devland had to have backed that up."

"Gave them a play-by-play, including when I went to the bathroom." I smiled, remembering. "It didn't help."

"I bet." She started packing away our lunch for the trash. "So, detention?"

"Yep." I stood and wiped the grass from my pants. The day was still murky, threatening to rain. A part of me wished it would. A good downpour would be fitting, perhaps even lift my mood.

"Noreena?"

I looked up from the ground to meet the pair of silver eyes staring at me with concern. Why was he always trying to talk with me? To be nice? Didn't he understand that his snot-nosed girlfriend was the source of all my problems?

"Are you alright?"

"Go away, Calin," I said without emotion. Even if he was trying to be friends, that meant he was a crap boyfriend—Duvessa wouldn't be pleased. I needed the fallout from that about as much as I needed a hole in the head.

"I just wanted to make sure—"

"Well, don't." I looked up, angry. "Just go run back to Duvessa and congratulate her on a job well done, okay? Leave me alone."

"Nora—" Maible cut in, looking at Calin as though apologizing.

I stared at her with disbelief for a moment and then collected my books. "I'll see you later, Maible," I mumbled and stormed away. If I stayed, words my head hadn't yet thought about would fly out of my mouth.

I looked back as I reached the door, confused to see Maible talking to Calin, nodding at something he said. She had said that they were friends, but I didn't think she wouldn't tell him anything. She was a good friend. I shouldn't worry, though I hoped Maible was telling him that his girlfriend sucked.

*****

After school, I stopped by the affected doors. In theory, now that I wasn't bound, I would be able to feel the presence of magic like I had sensed Maible's. I placed my hand over the new deadbolts, but nothing called out to me. Either magic wasn't used, or I was too inept to determine if it had been. It wasn't necessary for me to know who had framed me, though I didn't know how to prove it to anyone else without it short of catching that person in the act.