Fall into Fire (Shamans of the Divide, Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-one

The claws came out the next morning, faster than I'd expected.

I woke up a little later than normal, but in all fairness, I'd been up until almost 2 a.m. listening to Camille's happy news about the honors program. Stumbling free of my blanket, I pulled on a pair of shorts and a plain gray t-shirt. My flip-flops were near the front door and as I bent down to pull them on, I heard her coming down the hall. She was in my face as soon as I stood.

"You happy now?"

Asha tossed the rhetorical question at me and bumped into me with her chest as she invaded my space. She was taller than me, so I had to hop on one flip-flopped foot to regain my balance. I hated confrontation and I actually felt pretty bad for Asha for the mess Renn managed to drag us both into.

But I didn't feel that bad.

"Amazingly so," I said, forcing a sarcastic smile on my face and tamping down my urge to scratch her eyeballs out like some maniac bobcat. "Thanks for asking."

Smug isn't a look I wear well, and I honestly didn't have anything to be smug about, but if she wanted to be nasty, I had no problem being nasty, too.

"You're a joke to us," she said. Her voice was quiet but her words were loud and aggressive. "And Renn's only being nice to you because he feels bad for you. He laughs at you behind your back."

I took a deep breath and hoped, no prayed, that I wouldn't deal with extreme bouts of emotion like I normally did—with tears. Tears were humiliating. Especially when I was more mad than sad and the last thing I wanted was for Asha to think she made me cry.

"Well, joke's on you now by the looks of it," I said with a shrug. I didn't know where this sass was coming from and the truth of the matter was the joke wasn't on Asha. It'd been on me pretty much since they arrived. But she must have believed that there was something officially back on between Renn and me. So, fine.

Asha's eyes narrowed and I braced for impact. I'd been here before when Renn's idiot ex-girlfriend slapped me in a rage of hormones at a party earlier this summer, shortly before she was as a cheater and a psychopath. At least I wouldn't be caught by surprise and there was hope that she might stumble and fall on something and let me get the upper hand.

I knew my chances were slim.

"You're not one of us and just being here, you're putting us all in danger," she said as she took another step towards me.

"That's weird," I said, squaring my shoulders. "I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's gotten any real answers about Red-Woman. All you've managed to contribute is hiding behind Renn and scowling. What is it, exactly, that you offer the group, Asha? A blank, pretty face?"

"I've got the heritage. Traditions. Training," she said. "All you've got is this morbid fascination with Native American legends. You're a danger to all of us and if Renn's too blind to do anything about it, I'm not. And neither is Coyote."

My hands clenched into fists.

"Add that to Coyote's growing list of empty threats," I replied. "You don't scare me, Asha."

She rolled her eyes at me and moved around toward the door. It wasn't quite what I expected. I'd been prepped for battle and really, all I got was a look of disdain—making me feel like an annoying bug more than a formidable foe.

"I'm not the one you should be scared of, moron," she said over her shoulder. "Whatever's out there is real and it's going to hurt someone. You're making it worse."

With that, Asha slammed the door in my face. Which was really unfair, because technically, I was the one originally leaving and now I had to walk through the ceremonially slammed door.