Psychic

VIII

Bella had been parading on my arm the entire school day, so I had no time to talk to Magnus in the halls. At lunch he sat on his own, per usual, and even though Bella and Bryce's lovey dovey banter was making me want to choke a rainbow, I stayed near my best friend. Every time there was an awkward silence between them, she was able to turn to me for an interesting subject topic.

And don't get me started on Chemistry class. Mr. Peterson was still as much of a pedophile as usual, and poor little Mandy Dawson was still the subject of his imagination.

At one point I lost all interest in the lesson because I was thinking about Magnus, and I accidently let one of my walls fall down. Mr. Peterson's striking visual tuned into my head like HD television on IMAX and I freaked out. I must've yelped, because as soon as I got the wall back up the whole class was staring at me.

"Are you okay, Liv?" Mr. Peterson asked innocently, like he hadn't just been thinking about hardcore porn with an underage student.

I nodded and went back to working on my assignment, not before glancing back at Magnus, who had a quite amused expression on his face.

And now it was after school and I was standing at the entrance to the woods. I was a little sweaty from the walk over with a backpack that felt like it was full of rocks, but I was mostly okay. In other words, my body was mostly okay. My mind, however, was going wild.

What would he tell me?

Would this finally answer all of my questions?

And, finally . . . did I really want to know what he had to say?

I had been totally fine (Okay, well, not totally fine) going through life assuming I was just some sort of mind reader or something. But ever since Magnus came along, it seemed like I might be more than that, and that scared me. If I wasn't just a mind reader, then what was I?

When I finally built up the courage to enter the woods and hike to the empty field where Magnus wanted us to meet, a sudden idea came to me: Why were we meeting here?

I mean, in all honesty, it was a really inconvenient place to get to, considering I got lost twice on my way there and I found it on accident the first time. Also, if we were meeting in the middle of nowhere, did that mean he didn't want to be seen with me? Was there someone he didn't want to see us together?

I shook my head as I made it to the field. As far as I knew, there were no people at the school who really knew Magnus or about what I could do. Who would be there to see?

Magnus was sitting in the center of the field when I finally got there. I took a bold move and assumed that there was no bubble protecting him like the last time and took a seat right next to him, proving my inquiry.

"Hey, Magnus."

He hadn't seemed to notice my intrusion on his privacy and jumped when I broke the silence.

"Liv, you made it." He smiled.

I grinned. He was in a good mood, which meant he would most likely talk to me without a fight.

"Of course I did." I said in a tone that implied, 'obviously'. "So, to start this off, I need to know if you know about . . . you know . . . what I can do."

He sighed. "I didn't at first. They didn't want to give me the full spectrum of what I would be dealing with when I got here. They only told me that whoever I was locating had the kind of magic that my amulet warned me of, the red stone I wear around my neck."

I nodded. I had figured out this much on my own. The amulet thingies could also warn the wearer of certain threats, like when it flashed when I almost touched it.