Page 106 of Stone Cold Touch

Mr. Tucker dropped the slides as he rushed forward. “Everyone stand back. There’s glass every—”

Keith bumped into the empty chair beside him, shaking his head. Tiny pieces of glass fell from his hair. I turned to move around Stacey when Roth shot to his feet as a dark blur came from the corner of the classroom, moving too fast for any human eye to track.

Goose bumps broke out across my skin.

A wraith—there was a wraith in the classroom—and I was willing to bet a year’s supply of sugar cookies it was Dean.

The shadowy form, no more than three feet tall, barreled into Keith’s legs, knocking him over the chair. To everyone in the class it probably looked as if he just lost his balance, but I knew better.

Keith hit the floor hard, letting out a grunt. His legs kicked into the chair and the shadow blurred as it moved again. The chair flipped up and backward, slamming into Keith’s face.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Mr. Tucker, and God, any other time I would’ve laughed, but nothing about this was funny.

The shadow skittered to the far corner of the classroom, lingering near the door as Mr. Tucker bent down, helping up a bloodied and shaken Keith.

Stacey turned to me, her face pale and eyes wide. “I’m beginning to think it’s time to transfer schools.”

“That might be a good idea,” remarked Roth as he moved toward the center aisle.

I tracked the shadow as it darted toward the door. It collapsed into itself, becoming a murky puddle before it slipped under the door. The Warden in me demanded I give chase.

“What are you doing?” Stacey reached for me again, but I was already too far away.

“I’ll be right back,” I called over my shoulder.

Mr. Tucker and half of the class were too wrapped up in tending to Keith, who was rambling incoherently, to pay attention to what I was doing.

I slipped out the door and turned to my right, spying the wraith immediately. It glided down the hall, nothing more than a misty cloud of creepiness. Tapping into energy I didn’t realize I had, I kicked off the floor and started running.

The wraith stilled for a second and then a low chuckle echoed down the hall a second before the locker doors flew open. As though an invisible spring had been released, books and jackets flew out of the lockers, joined by notebooks and loose paper.

I yelped as a particularly heavy history textbook slammed into my thigh, then pushed forward, losing sight of the wraith in the storm of books.

Out of the mess of swirling school supplies, my eyes widened as pens and pencils turned into mini instruments of doom. They zoomed through the air, plunking off the walls.

The cloud of books and pens beat at my arms. I knocked a few down only to be fighting against more.

Suddenly Roth was there, smacking a book to the floor before it knocked me upside the head. “Chasing after a wraith probably isn’t the smartest idea.”

“What do you suggest we do, then?” I ducked a large makeup bag. “Let it hurt someone else?”

Roth opened his mouth to respond, but the chaos stopped. Books and paper hung suspended in midair before smashing into the floor.

The hall looked like a back-to-school sale gone terribly wrong.

Staff poured into the hallway, taking one look at the mess before turning to where Roth and I stood. Looks of disbelief crossed their faces, quickly followed by suspicion.

“Crap,” I muttered.

I stared at the butter-yellow slip of paper in my hand as I stood out in front of the school. My face felt frozen in a frown.

One of the doors opened behind me, but I didn’t need to look to know who it was. The sweet scent gave him away. “You got suspended, too?” he asked.

Sighing, I folded up the paper and placed it in my jeans pocket as Roth came to stand beside me. “Yeah. Their ‘no tolerance’ policy.”

Roth chuckled as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “At least it’s just for the next couple of days. Thanksgiving break is next week. We’re unsuspended after that.”

The principal and administrative staff had taken one look at the hall and had blamed Roth and me for the mess, citing before-break high jinks or some crap like that. And what could we have said in our defense? That a wraith had done it?

---