The Legend of the Eight: The Gifted

11: The Blank Book

ELEVEN: THE BLANK BOOK

JANUARY 23KATE DIAMOND

CAM WAS WEARING THAT STUPID Geology Rocks! sweatshirt when Kate met him in the courtyard. It was Saturday and the afternoon was unseasonably warm so Kate suggested they spend lunch outside. Cam had been back for a while but they'd hardly seen each other. She hoped a picnic together might change that.

"I can't believe it's so nice out today," she said when she sat down with him. With them, they had sandwiches and Witch's Brew which Cam picked at but didn't eat. He said he wasn't hungry. Kate knew he was lying.

"Forecast says it's going to rain tonight," Cam said, pulling the crust off a turkey sandwich. "It'll only be like this for a little longer." He looked at Kate and made a face. "What?"

She shrugged to say it was nothing but they both knew it was something. She hadn't stopped fidgeting since sitting down.

"I just feel like you've been distant. I wish you'd talk to me."

"Distant?" Cam asked with a lighthearted chuckle. "I'm sitting right next to you."

"You're here but you're not. And I have a lot I have to tell you but I feel like you don't care."

"You don't have to make it a big thing. If you have something to say, just say it."

His sudden anger was startling, only reassuring her that he wasn't the guy she used to know. He was impatient, unempathetic and cold. She didn't know what happened over the holidays but it had transformed the kind, caring Cam Miller into this.

"Who are you?" she asked, her ocean blue eyes wide.

Cam grunted out of frustration and dropped his sandwich onto the napkin in his lap. "Damn it, Kate. I didn't come here to fight. I don't want to do this right now."

"Do what?" she fired back as the argument escalated. "Have this argument or have this relationship? Because you're dangerously close to losing both." When he didn't say anything, she shook her head in disbelief. "Wow. Not even five minutes into the date and we're already fighting. That's got to be a new record."

And then, because she was angry and frustrated and heartbroken all at once, she stomped across the courtyard lawn, leaving him behind.

STRUCK WITH THE REALIZATION THAT her relationship may have been on the outs, Kate decided to channel her frustration into something productive. So she made a trip to the Main Hall and from there, to the Headmaster's Wing.

The plan was to talk to her mom and tell her about the blood knot on her foot and ask her if she knew anything about it. She was the Headmistress, after all. Surely she would know something. Right?

At least, that was the plan.

She arrived outside the Wing and once she was sure there was no one around to watch her, she pressed the tip of her finger against the door. She traced an intricate design along the grain of the wood—a pattern she and only a select few knew about.

When she was finished with the pattern, she took a step back and waited. The frame around the door illuminated with a golden glow and the lock on the door clicked. The door hissed open like a vault and Kate hurried inside.

She was greeted by a lobby that was wrapped in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and smelled like a combination of vanilla and mahogany. There was a pair of upholstered arm chairs by a fireplace in the corner and a fully-stocked bar cart beside it. The crystal top of the scotch decanter was off to the side which meant only one thing—her father must have been there too.