Crave (Harlequin Teen)

seconds to make sure they hadn’t moved again.
    “Well, at least they’re keeping their distance, right?” He helped me set up the sound system. “Just try to stay calm, and when I get ice in a while, I’ll stop by the practice gym and ask Emily for advice.”
    “No, don’t. Your sister will think I’m a nutcase.”
    “No, she won’t. I promise. And if the Clann did send spies or someone to try to scare you, she can ask around without looking as suspicious as I would.” He smiled. “Trust me, the girl is a mastermind. She can dig information out of anyone.”
    “Do you think I’m nuts?”
    “I hope you are. About me, at least.”
    I managed a half smile. “Uh-huh. But seriously. Am I nuts?”
    “Because of the watchers?” Crouching down beside me, he lifted his head, closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to the ground. After a moment, the smile left his face. “No. Something doesn’t feel right. And it’s probably them.”

CHAPTER 15
    Tristan
    It was a long hour and a half before practice neared an end and I could go for ice. I stopped by the practice gym first, interrupting the varsity cheer squad as I waved their captain over.
    “This better be good,” Emily said as she walked up to me.
    “It is.” I gave her a rundown of the problem and possible theories.
    “Well, they can’t be like us,” she said when I finished. “We’d both feel it if they were using power.”
    “Then who are they?”
    “You mean what.”
    A hundred childhood stories full of warnings against all kinds of scary things rushed through the back of my mind. “What are you thinking?”
    “Shape-shifters. Vampires. Ghosts. Demons. Any of those would be able to move fast like that. Though shape-shifters can’t make themselves invisible at all, so cross them off the list. And most descendants would be able to sense ghosts and demons almost like a use of power.”
    Which left vampires. Vampires here at JHS. Unbelievable. “What do they want?”
    “Why don’t you ask your girlfriend? Because I can guarantee the Clann would never have sent them. You know we don’t mess around with vamps. They’re magic leeches. Just because the Clann has a peace treaty with them doesn’t make them any less dangerous to every descendant alive.”
    Our eyes widened in unison.
    “Sav. She’s a…” I started to say. Fear on a level I’d never felt before exploded inside me. “Emily, she’s completely untrained. She wouldn’t know how to protect herself at all.”
    “Be careful,” she yelled as I sprinted out of the gym and back to the practice field. And felt my frozen mind kick into gear again when I spotted Savannah calmly sitting at the side of the field with a dancer.
    “Hey. Where’s the ice?” Savannah secured the dancer’s bandage with a metal butterfly clip.
    I leaned over and whispered against her ear, “Don’t go anywhere or let them leave you here alone. I’ll be right back with the ice. Promise me.”
    She nodded, her dark blue eyes wide even as she tried to fake a smile at the dancer she was helping.
    I shot a warning glare toward the end of the field where I assumed the vampires were still lurking around. They’d better not even think about getting near Savannah while I was gone, or so help me, I’d stake every last one of them, and to hell with the peace treaty between our worlds.
    Then I ran across campus to the field house. These would be the fastest bags of ice I’d ever thrown together.
    I was on the last bag when Dylan strolled over to the locker-room doorway.
    “Missing football so much you had to start hanging out in the field house?” he said.
    Just what I needed right now. Normally I came here before football practice ended so I could avoid my old teammates. Talking with Emily and then running back to warn Savannah had thrown me behind tonight.
    “Just helping out the Charmers,” I said, shoveling ice into the clear plastic bag faster. Through the field house’s open front door, I could see the campus getting darker as the sun set behind the trees and houses in the nearby neighborhood, throwing long shadows over the practice field.
    “Rumor has it you’re here every day now. That Colbert girl must be a pretty good—”
    There was no thought. One minute I was shoveling ice, the next I’d dropped the metal scoop in the ice machine and had a softball-size fireball fully formed and rolling around inside my hand just waiting to be thrown.
    A matching orb of energy slowly grew in