Who Is She? | Jaz Anderson

• four •

Ayden wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't a school called BAG with a big, green courtyard and a good band playing the music for the night.

But she couldn't keep her eyes off Jaz. The girl was spinning around in circles with a boy who kept tripping over himself, staring at her, completely entranced. So was Ayden, so she couldn't get mad.

A bright smile overtook Ayden's face.

Sadie nudged her. "Carter needs to dance, don't you agree?"

Ayden turned around to face her siblings. It always made her snicker that she was taller than her older brother. "I... suppose."

Carter looked at them in horror. "What?"

Sadie called over one of her mortal friends, a girl named Lacy. She had cute blond pigtails, a mouthful of braces, and was possibly the only person at the dance more nervous than Carter and Ayden.

"Lacy — Carter and Ayden," Sadie introduced them.

"You look like your pictures!" Lacy grinned. The bands of her braces were alternating pink and white to match her dress.

Ayden raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

Carter said, "Uh..."

"He doesn't know how to dance," Sadie told Lacy. "I'd be ever so grateful if you'd teach him."

"Sure!" she squealed. She grabbed their brother's hand and swept him away.

"Pictures?" Ayden asked.

"Long story," Sadie evaded with a grin.

Then they turned and found themselves face-to-face with another mortal — Drew Tanaka, apparent head of the popular girl clique, with her supermodel goon squad in tow.

"Sadie!" Drew threw her arm around Ayden's little sister. Her perfume was a mixture of roses and tear gas. "So glad you're here, sweetie. If I'd known you were coming, you could've ridden in the limo with us!"

Her friends made sympathetic "Aww" sounds and grinned to show they were not at all sincere. They were dressed more or less the same, in the latest silky designer bits their parents had no doubt commissioned for them during the last Fashion Week. Drew was the tallest and most glamorous with awful pink eyeliner and frizzy black curls that were apparently her own personal crusade to bring back the 1980s perm — or an attempt to get an Afro that her hair couldn't manage. She wore a pendant — a glittering platinum and diamond D — possibly her initial, or her grade average.

Ayden tried very hard not to judge based off appearance, but it was proving exceedingly difficult. She plastered a smile on her face, glaring accusingly at the curls. She wished she hadn't braided her hair at that moment.

Sadie gave Drew a tight smile. "A limo, wow. Thanks for that. But between you, your friends, and your egos, I doubt there would've been extra room."

Drew pouted. "That's not nice, hon! Where is Walt? Is the poor baby still sick?"

Behind her, some of the girls coughed into their fists, mimicking Walt.

Ayden wanted to pull her staff from the Duat and turn them all into worms for the ducks for treating her little sister — despite their issues they were still family — like that. She doubted anyone would miss them, but she kept her temper.

"Walt's at home," Sadie said cooly. "I did tell him you'd be here. Funny, that didn't seem to motivate him much."

"What a shame," Drew sighed. "You know, maybe he's not really sick. He might just be allergic to you, hon. That does happen. I should go to his place with some chicken soup or something. Where does he live?"