WARLOCK?!

Special Treatment

Chapter 7—Special Treatment

We arrived back at the house with several shopping bags. Echo took them all out of the trunk and shoved them into my arms.

"You can go up to your bedroom and do what you wish with these items. You can wash them first or just stick them in your closet, whatever," he told me.

"Echo," I said, standing in the doorway of the garage entrance.

"What is it?" he asked.

I smiled. "Thank you."

He simply nodded and waved me off. Okay, I was expecting a "Sure, Lennox" or "You're welcome, Lennox." But no, that's all I got as a reply.

I headed up to the bedroom and dropped my bags as I entered the room. Fallon had jumped out from behind the door and startled me.

"Whoa, you scared me," I said, picking up the bags again.

She crossed her arms. "It looks like you had a fun day."

"Um, yeah, I guess so. I've missed doing stuff like shopping."

She glared at me and said, "It must be nice to be getting special treatment. You know, I didn't think that you were the type to sell yourself like that."

I raised my eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You can tell me the truth, Lennox. I assume that you were embarrassed to explain yourself in front of Brant and Echo, but this can be our little secret."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, placing the shopping bags on my bed.

"Don't lie to me. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You levitated, Lennox."

"Are you still on that? Seriously, I don't know how I did it. All I know is that it happened, and it was...magical."

"It's impossible for you to have done that unless Echo transferred more power to you. You obviously haven't been here long enough to have developed your magical powers to that level. I want to know how you did it."

I threw my hands up in frustration. "Will you stop it already? I didn't do anything. I just...focused and that's it. And you know what, I'm not even sure if I could do it again."

"Stop lying."

"I'm telling the truth. Besides, why does my levitating matter? You're the one who almost poisoned our mentors at breakfast."

She scowled. "Like I said, the cinnamon was in the pantry."

"A likely story. You keep questioning me, but what about you. Do you have any secret motives that I need to know about?"

"I have nothing to hide," she claimed.

"Well, neither do I," I countered.

"Then explain why you're sneaking around with Echo behind closed doors. Explain why he's willing to take you on shopping trips. Explain why you two make-out and then act like it meant nothing. Are you sleeping with him in order to get out of your maid duties? Are you really that lazy? And you probably seduced him, so he'd allow you to levitate."

"Let's get this straight. I have no reason to be lazy. I'm absolutely lucky to be working here, so why would I jeopardize it by slacking off? And you need to understand that there is nothing going on between me and Echo. I didn't seduce him, and we didn't make-out or anything. If you're not happy with Brant as your mentor, then I'm sorry. But I'm not going to apologize for the way that Echo is treating me, and I'm not sorry that I learned how to levitate. If you're jealous, just get over it."