Betrayed

her short curls and called across the room to Damien, who was thoroughly engrossed in a conversation with Jack. (From what I had overheard they were both into the same kind of books and were debating which of the Harry Potters was really the best. Clearly, they were dorkishly alike.) "Damien, we're gonna go eat. Are you and Jack hungry?”
    Jack and Damien exchanged a look, and then Damien called back, "Yeah, we're coming.”
    "Okeydokey," Stevie Rae said, still grinning at Drew. "I guess we're all hungry.”
    Shaunee sighed, and started for the door. "Just please. The young love hormones in this room are enough to give me a headache.”
    "I feel like I'm stuck in a Lifetime movie. Wait for me, Twin," Erin said.
    "Why are the Twins so cynical about love?" I asked Damien as he and Jack crossed the room to join us.
    "They're not. They're just mad that the last few guys they've gone out with have bored them," Damien said.
    As a group, we went outside into the magic of a snowy November evening. The flakes had changed and were smaller, but they were still coming down steadily, making the House of Night look even more mysterious and castlelike than usual.
    "Yeah, the Twins are hard on guys. It's like they double-time them," Stevie Rae said. I noticed she was walking really close to Drew and that occasionally their arms brushed together.
    I heard a bunch of muttered agreement noises from the guys who had been helping us drag furniture around the rec room. And I imagined it would be intimidating for any guy (vamp or human) to try to date one of the Twins.
    "Do you remember when Thor asked Erin out?" said one of Drew's friends, whose name I think was Keith.
    "Yeah, she called him a lemur. You know, like the moronic lemurs in that Disney movie,” Stevie Rae said, laughing.
    "And Walter went out with Shaunee a total of two and a half dates. Then, right in the middle of Starbucks, she called him a Pentium 3 processor," Damien said.
    I gave him a totally clueless look.
    "Z, we're up to Pentium 5 processors now.”
    "Oh.”
    "Erin still calls him Slowest McSlowenstein whenever she sees him," Stevie Rae said.
    "Clearly it's going to take a couple of really special guys to date the Twins," I said.
    "I think there's someone for everyone," Jack said suddenly. We all turned to him and he blushed. Before any of the kids could snicker at him I spoke up, "I agree with Jack." But figuring out which someone is the one for you is the hard part, I added silently to myself.
    "Totally!" Stevie Rae said with her usual perky optimism. "Absolutely," Damien said, winking at me. I grinned back at him.
    "Hey!" Shaunee stepped out from behind a tree. "What are you guys talking about?”
    "Your nonexistent love life!" Damien called cheerfully.
    "Really?" she said.
    "Really," Damien said.
    "How about you talk about how cold and wet you are instead?" Shaunee said.
    Damien frowned. "Huh? I'm not.”
    Erin popped out from around the other side of the tree, snowball in hand. "You will be!" she yelled, throwing it and hitting Damien smack in the middle of his chest.
    Of course the snowball war was on. Kids squealed and ran for cover while they scooped up handfuls of new snow and took aim at Shaunee and Erin. I started to back away.
    "I told you snow was great!" Stevie Rae said.
    "Well, let's just hope for a blizzard then," Damien yelled, taking aim at Erin. "Lots of wind and snow. Totally the best for snowball fights!" He let fly, but Erin was too quick and jumped for cover just in time to miss being plastered right in the head.
    "Where are you going, Z?" Stevie Rae called from behind an ornamental shrub. I noticed Drew was right beside her, firing cover shots at Shaunee.
    "To the media center—have to work on the words for the ritual tomorrow, so I'll grab something to eat back at the dorm when I get done." I kept backing away more and more quickly. "Hate to miss all the fun, but …" and I retreated inside the closest door, slamming it behind me just in time for it to catch the plop plop plop of three snowballs against its ancient wood.

    I hadn't just been making an excuse to get out of the snowball war. I actually had been planning to ditch dinner and spend a few hours in the media center. Tomorrow I'd have to cast a circle and lead a ritual that might be as ancient as the moon itself.
    I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
    Okay, sure. I'd cast one circle with my friends a month ago as a little experiment to see if I really had an affinity for the