Obscure

thirty two

SOPHIE BOLTED BACKWARDS as shock thundered through her veins like a hurricane. Her heart pounded behind her ears, relentless. Margret staggered backward, her expression twisted with pain. Blood swelled around her wrist, turning it into a nasty bulbous shape.

"What's wrong with you?" Margret screamed. She clutched at her wrist and whipped around, starting toward the door. Her eyes blazed with hatred. "You can bet your ass the Headmaster will hear of this. I won't stop until you get expelled!" she snarled.

"Good luck with that," Sophie whispered. Her words fell on deaf ears.

Margret shouted curses and rants as she disappeared from sight. Sophie shuffled backward, her back slamming against the wall. She felt dangerously faint. Her knees buckled and she sunk down, hugging her knees to her chest.

She gulped.

Her reflection refused to leave her mind's eye. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut, the image remained. It was as if it had been tattooed to the back of her eyelids in neon green. It terrified her.

Sophie pressed her hands to her temples and massaged circles. She struggled to rid her mind of the image. It suddenly became hard to remember that she was nothing like Aubrey. Aubrey was a vampire, and Sophie was not. It had just been some weird trick with the lights.

She lifted her head and shivered. The hairs on her arm stood straight, and her skin prickled with goosebumps. "Stop," she told herself. She was not Aubrey.

"Sophie?"

"Oh, no," she groaned. She rubbed at her eyes and looked up. Eli stood in front of her, his expression twisted with concern. "Hi."

He frowned at her. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said.

Eli squatted down in front of her. He gently grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Sophie grimaced. "It's nothing."

He made a face. "It doesn't look like nothing," he said. He plopped down onto his rear and looked around. "If it is just nothing, then why aren't you at dinner with the others? I was looking for you earlier."

"Dinner has already started?" Sophie bolted to her feet. "Have I missed the scores yet?"

Eli stared up at her, an eyebrow arched. "What's this? Are you actually excited about the games?"

She put her hands on her hips. "Just answer the question."

He cracked a grin and climbed to his own feet. He wiped his hands and then shoved them into his pockets. "Yes ma'am, you did."

"How did I do?" Sophie's eyes narrowed. Eli seemed just a bit too proud and happy about this. Her hands shifted, arms crossing over her chest. She couldn't have done well; she completely Christmas-tree'd the answer sheet. But a small part of her knew that he'd be at least a bit upset when he found out she'd failed it.

Eli's smile grew wider. "You passed."

"Huh?" Sophie was dumbfounded.

"You passed, Sophie."

"What do you mean I passed?" Sophie frowned. "I couldn't have possibly passed."

Now Eli looked dumbfounded. His eyebrows crinkled and he folded his arms across his chest. "What do you mean?"

Sophie started to pace. She threw her hands into the air and started to ramble. "Eli, I couldn't have possibly passed. I chose the most stupid answers to purposefully fail. There's no way that I passed."

Eli looked away. He shifted around on his feet and then looked back at Sophie, his lips pressed into a wrinkled line. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," she insisted. Her hands returned to her temples. Now there was no way that she could fail out of the games. She had already passed two out of three. She shook her head and groaned. "This isn't possible."

Eli frowned at her. His hands reached for her wrists again. "Sophie, getting the highest score isn't a bad thing. It just means that you are the smartest of the bunch," he said. It was a piss-poor attempt to soothe her.

"Eli, that's wrong," she said. "There's no way that I could have gotten a perfect score."

"But you did."

"No, I didn't. I know for a fact that I at least had to get one of those questions wrong. I mean, the answers that I chose were ridiculous!" She shook her head. "Something is wrong. Why didn't I fail?"

Eli let out a strangled huff. "Can't you just be happy that you're now the smartest girl on campus?" His lips twisted with a pout. Something strange swam within his mismatched eyes.

Sophie's internal alarms blared.

"No I can't be happy!" she cried. "I was trying to get dropped from the games!"

A mixture of blatant hurt and anticipation crossed his features. He stepped backward and ducked his head. "Does the idea of ending up with mated to me really disgust you that much?"

She froze.

Ice seared through her veins. "No, Eli, that's not what I meant." She reached out and touched his arm. He jerked back, away from her. Her stomach sank. "It doesn't have anything to do with you. It's just fishy!"

Eli stared at her. "Fishy?"

"You don't think so?"

He shook his head. His hands dropped back into his pockets, and his shoulders slumped. His expression reminded her of a wounded puppy.

She ran her hand through her hair. "Ever since I first got here, this whole thing has been fishy," she struggled to explain. All of her pent up thoughts seemed to suddenly flow free from her mouth. "I mean, I haven't even been here for that long and I miraculously got nominated for the games. Nobody knew to vote for me; hardly anybody knew me, except as the girl who you were interested in. It didn't make sense at all! Then I actually got picked, and this whole mess started. And I swear, I did not ace that stupid test. I knew the right answers, Eli, and I purposefully did not choose them."

"What do you mean?" Eli squinted at her. His expression became guarded. "How did you know the answers?"

Sophie glared at him. "Because of my mother. She had the questions written out in her old notebooks. I used to read them all the time." Then Sophie threw her hands into the air. "And that doesn't even make sense, either! How in the world did my mom and whoever designed the test happen to know those exact questions? It doesn't make sense!"

Eli's eyes widened. He reached out and grabbed her hands, pulling them toward his chest. His fingers squeezed hers. "Hey, relax. It was probably just a coincidence."

"Even if it was, I knew the right answers," she snapped. "So there's no way that I could have passed."

A flash of guilt swam through his eyes. He laughed a little and looked away, avoiding her gaze. "Maybe you just had a weird stroke of luck?"

"No," she said, instantly suspicious. Then her gaze hardened. "Eli, what did you do?"

He stiffened. His mismatched gaze flickered back toward her, and their gazes locked. "What are you talking about?" he asked. He sounded perfectly normal.

Sophie knew better. "What did you do, Eli?" she enunciated each word as its own sentence. Her gaze narrowed.

Eli's mismatched eyes grew somber. He grimaced and said, "Only what I was ordered to do."