Covet (Clann)

after me or anything. It seemed kind of nice, actually.”
    “Were you deer hunting at the time?”
    “Yeah, why?”
    “If you used that deer pee hunters around here like to use, you probably stunk too bad to eat.”
    Ron threw his head back and laughed. “How do you know about deer pee? You go hunting, too?” His eyebrows rose in obvious doubt as his gaze slid down to check out the heels Dad had finally talked me into wearing today.
    “No. Anne mentioned it. She goes hunting with her Uncle Danny every year….”
    He winced, and I could have bitten off my tongue.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled.
    He looked down at the table. “We should get to work. Lunch break’s almost over.”
    “Right.” Clearing my throat, I reached for my bag.
    Someone walked over to our table. It was the librarian. Crap.
    Ron reacted first. “Oh hey, Mom.”
    The librarian was Ron’s mother? No wonder he could get away with being in here every day without a teacher’s pass.
    “Hi, son. Getting your homework done?” Her eyebrows rose, and I could see the family resemblance between them. Ron had her eyes and hair color.
    “Yeah,” he replied, cheeks turning red. “Oh, sorry, this is—”
    “Savannah Colbert. Yes, I know,” Mrs. Abernathy finished for him. Her tone was solemn.
    I searched her face, still surprised she knew who I was. But I couldn’t pick up her thoughts for some reason. All I could hear was her humming an unrecognizable tune in her head.
    Had the Clann been talking about me around town or something? Maybe she’d heard the rumors about me and Tristan that were still spreading throughout the school like trash blowing on the wind?
    “It’s nice to finally meet you,” she said. “You’re welcome to come here on your lunch breaks any time you need to.” Smiling, she reached out to ruffle Ron’s hair before walking away.
    After she was out of hearing range, I leaned forward and whispered, “How does she know who I am?”
    “Mom’s the head of the local genealogical society. She knows who all the descendants are.”
    Heart racing, I froze in my seat, the wooden edge digging into the back of my thighs. Descendants . He’d said that word before, back in the hall by my locker today. At the time, I’d been too freaked out over the blood to pay attention.
    “How do you know they’re called descendants? Is your family in the Clann?” Only descendants knew to call themselves that. If Ron was a descendant, the Clann could consider my being alone with him as possibly breaking the rules.
    “No. But my family’s heard a lot about them.”
    Why hasn’t her family told her about the Keepers? he thought.
    I yearned to ask him what the Keepers were. But then that would reveal that I could read his mind sometimes. And I couldn’t think of any other way to bring them up casually.
    “We’d better get to work,” he muttered, pulling his chemistry book over and opening it to today’s lesson. When I didn’t move, he glanced up at me. “Do you want help with this stuff or not?”
    He didn’t seem angry, and his thoughts were entirely focused on the homework now. But he was definitely acting different.
    Sighing, I gave in for the moment and reached for my chemistry book.
    The next day, I thought I might find a way to somehow bring up the Keepers during study time. But while on my way to second period English lit, I ran into Michelle in the main hall as she was leaving the office.
    “Hey, we missed you at lunch yesterday,” she said. “You’ll be there today, right?”
    “Um, sure. Of course.” Maybe I should try to eat in the cafeteria again, face my growing fear of crowded places and see if I could learn how to control the ESP. I sure hadn’t mastered it in any of my classes yet. If it weren’t for the occasional lecture notes displayed on the overhead projector in each class plus textbooks and Ron’s help in chemistry class, I would be in serious trouble already. Hearing the teachers’ oral lectures was going to remain impossible until I found a way to turn down the noise of everyone’s thoughts in the room with me.
    “Good! We’ll see you then.” Grinning, Michelle waved before turning down a side hall toward her second period class.
    With a sigh, I went to English class.
    It was hard not to fidget and sneak peeks at Tristan while the teacher’s lecture droned on and on. Tristan stayed slouched down in his desk, legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, his arms crossed over his broad