Psychic

“So, do you guys want to ask what the specials are?” Bella asked hopefully.

I grunted in response as Magnus stayed as silent as ever.

“Okay . . .”

It was now Saturday evening. Magnus and I hadn’t spoken since that afternoon on the sidewalk, which, quite frankly, confused and infuriated Bella. She was doing everything she could to make us speak to each other.

She didn’t know about the kind of person Magnus really was. But I bet by now she would’ve figured out what creature he is. She knew enough to know that I couldn’t read him, and seeing as his necklace with his potentia Source wasn’t exactly hidden, if she had any basic knowledge of that Hunter book, then she’d know he’s a Warlock. And she probably already figured out why he was here, to capture me. So even with just that basic information she should’ve understood why we weren’t talking and why she shouldn’t have forced us to dine together on the day before I was supposed to end Hawthorne’s regime and possible be killed before I could do so.

But Bella’s mother being a hunter still never came up in our conversations at school. Somehow she forgot to mention that her family was full of rednecks who like to hunt imaginary creatures like me.

Somehow she forgot to mention that they were after me. Maybe she thought I didn’t know about hunters, or that I wouldn’t believe her, but I still had a right to know.

Which was why I would rather prefer to be at home, or maybe even running away to escape to Canada or something. I wanted to do anything to escape my destiny and run away from the fact that I had no one left to trust, not even my best friend. The one person I thought I could trust with my secret.

But, no. Bella just had to force us all to come eat dinner for my pre-birthday party. The only one who seemed to not notice the tension was Bryce, who was happily making conversation with Bella and ignoring the two of us completely.

My silent agreement not to talk to Magnus would stay true until he agreed to be open minded about the whole situation. But, since I figured he was about as stubborn as I was, we were both silent.

“Guys!” Bella whined, “Why can’t you be happy? It’s a birthday celebration after all!”

Yes, a celebration for a birthday were I might die before I could complete some stupid prophecy. I wasn’t feeling considerably joyful about the celebration.

“So, I think I’ll have the salmon, what about you all?” Bryce continued ignorantly, staring at Magnus.

I actually looked at the menu for the first time since arriving and picked the first thing I saw. “I’ll have the salmon too.” I said quickly and shortly, but this seemed to appease Bella for the moment.

Great, five words is an improvement over none.

I almost laughed out loud at that, but I stayed quiet. My silent plea included no visible acts of enjoyment in the presence of backstabbing traitors like Magnus Moore.

Bryce smiled. “That’s great. I’ve heard it’s amazing. What about you Magnus?” He inclined his head to Magnus, who was looking at everything in the restaurant except for me.

“I’ll have the steak.”

Yay, we’re talking now!

I didn’t put much enthusiasm in Bella’s thoughts.

When the waiter came we all put in our orders. There was another couple of minutes of silence before Bryce flashed a smile and looked at us all individually. “So, anything interesting going on in your lives recently?”

Oh, yeah. Totally.

“Nothing much,” I shrugged, “I just have a lot of stress going on. You know, turning sixteen can be hard.”

I noticed Magnus roll his eyes out of the corner of mine, but I ignored it. Magnus could be upset at me all he wanted, but I wasn’t going to listen to him. He was the one who wouldn’t listen to me when I needed him the most.

“What about you, Bella?” I questioned with a bit too happy-go-lucky attitude.

She crossed her arms, “You know, just a bit of friendly parental pressure is all. You know how they can be.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

Bella’s eyes got big in a moment. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-“

I nodded, “Yeah, I know. But, hey, at least I don’t have to deal with anyone forcing me to go into any family businesses or anything, right Bella?”

Bella still hadn’t told me about her mother, or about what she wanted her to do. I already knew, but she didn’t know that. In fact, her thoughts had been so guarded lately that I would’ve had to forcibly dig into her mind to know at all.

She looked like cornered prey, which was fine by me. I was still extremely upset over the whole not telling me about her mother ordeal.

Does she know? Her fearful thoughts screamed out.

I gave her a forced smile. “Don’t worry about it, Bella. I’m sure your father doesn’t want you to be a doctor, cheer up.” I didn’t mention her mother for a reason, which she seemed to notice for all of her ignorance.

I’m so sorry, Liv. She thought. I could tell she meant it, but I turned away from her then. I couldn’t stand to see her upset, but she obviously could stand the thought of her mother’s side of the family hunting after me with shotguns and not tell me, so I guess the generosity was one-sided.

“So, what about you, Magnus?” Bryce asked cheerfully, still seemingly blatantly unaware of the tension at the table. “Any parental problems?”

“Not really. It just seems I have a problem with my boss and his right hand man. You know, I’m thinking of quitting. It seems I can’t complete the job he hired me for.”

I was surprised at his inquisition. He would give up being the warlock he always wanted to be because of me? Was this his way of trying to apologize for not believing me about Victoria? Was he having second thoughts about turning me in after all?

Bryce tilted his head, “And where exactly is it that you work?”

“I’m a waiter at the new restaurant in the town square. It turns out I might not be as good as I thought I was at balancing plates in my hands.” Magnus replied smoothly.

Bryce smiled forcefully, “Well, maybe I’ll see you there one day.”

Magnus nodded. I could tell that there was some other kind of tension between them, considering this was the first time tonight Bryce didn’t seem to ignore the weirdness in the air.

“Why would you want to quit?” I questioned Magnus. “You were just telling me the other day how much you loved it there. How you would rather show up to work than do the right thing.”

He grinded his teeth. I could tell he hated this double-meaning conversation more than the silence.

“Well, it depends on what your perception of the right thing is, Olivia.”

“The right thing is never hard to do, Magnus. It’s just the part where you ignore your orders and what you’ve been taught when it gets hard.”

He snorted. “Villains believe that they’re in the right when they hurt the hero.”

“And sometimes the villain of the story is really the hero in disguise.” I countered, my voice raising in volume.

“Alright, I don’t think we’re talking about his job anymore, are we?” Bella asked looking between us in confusion.

“Oh, we still are.” I assured her, “And while we talk about it, we might as well talk about you. I mean – you would rather blindly follow your mother than your best friend, even when you know you’re in the wrong.”

Bella gasped. “It’s not like I agreed! I never told her-“

“You told her enough!” I yelled back, letting out all my frustration that had built up the entire week.

“Liv, calm down.” Magnus said levelly, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I pushed him away, “No! You have no right to tell me what to do when you won’t even believe me either!”

I pushed my chair away from the table and stormed out, ignoring Bella’s calls to come back. I walked a good distance from the diner, trying to avoid any weird looks from people exiting the establishment. I made quite a commotion when I started yelling, and since my words were double-sided, they probably thought I was crazy.

I walked until I found a park bench to sit on. I stretched my legs out and crossed my arms, letting my head fall. I had just successfully pushed away everyone I cared about, not to mention how confused I must’ve made Bryce.

I was a complete mess.

I probably would’ve started crying if a strangled thought didn’t enter my mind.

There she is! Let’s get her before the creature spots us!

What? Were there some LARP club players in the park or something?

I turned to check, but I seemed to be alone. I turned back, but a big black van blocked my sight of the street. Suddenly I felt a black hood cover my head. I immediately thought of some crazy kidnapper or serial killer that you see in TV shows, so I panicked and screamed out with my thoughts. I heard two guys yell and fall to the floor, probably holding their heads in pain like what happened when I was five and I was freaking out about my mother’s death.

Okay, so they were most likely kidnappers. Usually serial killers worked by themselves and were more prepared than this.

I reached up to tug the cloth off of my face, but a sudden fire on my skull caused me to fall to the ground. Someone had hit me with something hard, and I could already feel my body blacking out to deal with the pain. There was a third person here that either recovered quickly from my outburst or was far enough away at the time to not be affected.

I reached out with my thoughts to any surrounding people, mostly trying to reach the one who hit me, but I only came up with one harsh thought full of malice before my vision totally darkened and my mind went blank:

Let’s get this thing to Mendes . . .