Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 3: Talk and Stalk

When I flipped open my laptop the next morning, the draft message automatically refreshed and I found a reply waiting for me. Once again, it was in all caps, but this time it packed a not-so-subtle recrimination within its fourteen letters.

YOUR LIFE IS A LIE, it shouted at me.

My hands recoiled from the computer, as if its keyboard had become scalding to the touch. The accusation reverberated in my skull. Nothing in those words was inherently cruel or untrue even, but they felt cold, deliberate and menacing, as if they were meant to rattle me. And they did. More than ever, I was sure someone else was in on my secret, someone with their own ulterior motives.

What the hell do you want from me? I typed back angrily a moment later, fingers pounding on the keys, expecting the uncontrollable rage to explode inside of me at any second. I was surprised when it didn't. It didn't seem possible that it could suddenly be gone when it had been such an excruciating, constant companion. Not that I wanted it to happen here, at home, where Bruce might see the telltale glow of my eyes and rush off to inform Ephraim. Still, its disappearance didn't seem like a good sign. Was the bond morphing again? I sure hoped not. I couldn't keep up.

This was the point where I should have turned off my computer and walked away, maybe even deleted the whole draft thread, but right then, at that moment, I'd had enough – of the bond, of pointless mysteries, of my supposed predetermined fate. Wanna spar, dickhead? Let's spar, I thought at my mysterious online... what? " Friend" didn't feel like the right word anymore, if it ever had been. "Frenemy" seemed a lot more apt.

I left the page open while I showered, threw on my usual uniform of jeans and an oversized hoodie, and wandered into the kitchen to ferret out some milk and cereal. Bruce, ever the night owl – which made sense for someone who typically protected Ephraim's residence from vamps, weres and whatever other unsavoury supes were foolish enough to come calling – was still sound asleep. I rarely saw him before I left for class and that was fine by me. I cherished my quiet mornings, that hour or so of peace and calm before I had to give myself over to the churning din of high school. Crowds never used to be a problem; now, they made me anxious, tweaking my nerves as if they were strings on a guitar, sharp and out of tune. The bullying didn't help: the slaps, shoves and errant elbows only solidified my discomfort and thrust me into a constant state of hypervigilance.

When my message remained unanswered by the time I had to leave the apartment, I clicked over to my main wall, out of curiosity. Strange. While my mysterious hacker had been hurling insinuations at me, he or she had also gone and tidied up all over again.

That didn't make sense at all. Not even after twenty minutes of rolling it in around in my brain during my walk to school. I'd almost strolled headlong into traffic more than once because I was so caught up in the riddle of it. Infuriating was what it was. No matter how many times I scrolled through the usual list of suspects, none of them fit. Usually when supes came at me, they came directly, and there was nothing direct about the taunt-and-bait approach, that seemed more human than anything else, but that didn't add up either. By the time I shoved open the glass-paned double doors and entered the school, I was downright cranky.

Lucia was waiting for me at my locker, as she did most mornings. Since having a fortune teller for a mom had gotten her deemed a weirdo long before I came along, she wasn't particularly concerned with further staining of her reputation. If anything, she strutted beside me with an "I just dare you" attitude. She was awesome that way. And here she thought I was the strong one.

"Feeling bitey this morning?" she quipped, as I slunk up next to her. She was wearing a baggy, long-sleeved blue striped dress and orange tights that clashed with the rest of the ensemble something fierce. Typical Lucia.