Incarnadine

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Armand had a giant smirk on his face I wished to wipe off when I entered Chemistry late.

“How’s life, lover girl?” he drawled. I was lucky not a lot of people had come yet, or else I would be vegetable.

“A lot better now that I remember some,” I shot back, “no thanks to you.”

The redhead jerk laughed. “You’re just too amusing to watch. And cheesy.” He half-snorted, half-sighed. “The whole soul mates thing.”

“What about soul mates?”

Armand blinked slowly. “But I thought you remembered.” He lowered his voice. “Duane did let you touch the sessho-seki, didn’t he?”

“He did. But I only remembered part of it all.”

Armand’s brows creased. “And he didn’t explain to you the rest of it?”

“Nope. Nada.” I leaned forward, trying not to look too eager. “Perhaps you can tell me instead? Like, for example, if I’m a kitsune—”

“Hush!”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “If I’m a kitsune, then why can’t I shift into a fox, like Duane shifts into a wolf anytime he likes?”
”That’s because you’re not mature yet. You’re still a baby.”

I hissed in exasperation. “I’m being serious!”

“And so am I. He should have explained this to you.” Armand sighed heavily. “You’re not a full-blood kitsune. You’re only a half. That’s why—”

He was cut off when Mr. Zimmerman entered the classroom.

“Later!” I hissed at him.

The lesson went on by without me paying attention. My mind was reeling. Every ticking of the clock was going to draw me closer to a mental hospital. I stared at the clock the whole time. My eyeballs were so dry I was afraid they were going to fall out.

And then the bell rang.

Armand walked with me in the hallway, taking the route we knew Jamie and Nick wouldn’t pass so that no one would interrupt us.

“Elena?”

I almost flinched in shock, I was so skittish. “Ah, Ingrid. Hi.”

Her eyes shifted from me to Armand, then back to me. “Have you seen Jamie?”

“She’s, uh—you can find her in the lunch hall.”

“Thanks!” She glanced at Armand one last time before sending a wink at me and went away.

My face burned in humiliation. She must have thought I had a secret affair with Armand or something. I looked up at Armand, who just shrugged as if whatever Ingrid thought didn’t matter. But it mattered to me. She would tell Jamie, and Jamie would pester me on…

I looked at Armand—I still couldn’t believe he was what Duane had said. A Keeper, older than Duane, who was supposed to be old. With Duane, I’d seen the hard edges on him, the look in his eyes that let me know how much he had been through, how much he had seen. But Armand? He looked young—not young-and-foolish kind of young—I guessed he could pass for any ages between overgrown sixteen-year-old-boy and youngish nineteen-year-old guy, but I really couldn’t imagine him as someone older than Duane.

But I’d seen him more these past few weeks, and I knew there were things I couldn’t see because I wasn’t willing to see them. Armand might carry himself like a carefree—to the point of almost bored—popular nice guy, but sometimes when he didn’t think I was looking, I would catch that lurking intelligence in his eyes, as if he was the mastermind of a game we all played in, just waiting and seeing what would happen next.