Read Online Beckoners by Carrie Mac - Free Book Online

understand.”
    â€œDon’t give me that shit. I completely understand.” Simon grabbed her wrist. “Come with me.” He dragged her into the hallway. “Okay. I’m all ears. What the hell were you thinking?”
    â€œI didn’t get a chance to think.” Zoe pulled her sleeve gingerly back over the wound. “It just kind of happened.”
    â€œBullshit.” He folded his arms and frowned. “You want this?”
    Zoe shrugged. She’d just wanted to wipe that smile off of Heather’s face, which she’d accomplished beautifully. She opened her mouth to say that, but then she decided she didn’t want him to know that about her.
    â€œYou would’ve done the same thing if you were me, Simon.”
    He took an extra long drawn-out breath before answering. “Um, no, Zoe. I would not have done the same thing if I were you.”
    â€œWhat would you have done?”
    â€œTold them in no uncertain terms to get that cow brand away from my perfect, blemish-free skin, thank you very much.”
    â€œOh, sure. As if.” Zoe wanted to tell him that would not have worked. She wanted to tell him that he had to be there to understand why she went through with it. He had to have seen the way Heather gloated. Zoe wanted to tell him about how Heather thought she couldn’t do it. How she was just so bloodysure Zoe wouldn’t go through with it. She wanted to tell him it was no different than Teo’s Gemini tattoo at the base of his neck. She wanted to take his hands and make him stay there until he’d tell her he didn’t think less of her.
    The look on Simon’s face made perfectly clear just how much less he thought of her. He turned on his heel and went back into the lab, leaving her out in the hallway feeling as if she’d lost her virginity to some loser she’d thought was cool when they were alone together, but in the light of day turned out to be a freak nobody else wanted to be in the same room with.
    One thing didn’t change after the initiation; Heather still acted as if Zoe did not exist. Well, even that did change a little; before, Heather had looked right through Zoe. Now, she didn’t even bother doing that. If they were anywhere near each other, Heather ever so slightly turned her face away in a carefully executed gesture of dismissal. Lindsay, Janika and Jazz didn’t know how to act.
    â€œIt’s kind of weird,” Janika confided in her when they were alone together in gym. “We don’t really bring in new people. Or, we did once, but she didn’t really work out.”
    Zoe figured Lisa Patterson would put it a little more emphatically than that.
    â€œWell, I didn’t ask for it, did I?”
    â€œYou don’t want to be a Beckoner?”
    â€œI didn’t say that either.”
    â€œBut you’re acting like it.”
    â€œIt’s just Heather...” Zoe wasn’t sure how to end the statement. She kicked at a basketball that had escaped in their direction. “She doesn’t—she’s just so bitchy.”
    â€œBut there’s the rest of us,” Janika said. “It’s not all Heather. Heather’s just extra pissed off because of what happened at the park.”
    â€œIs she ever going to be finished being pissed off?”
    Janika shrugged as the gym teacher whistled for her to get into the game.
    â€œShe’s been pissed off as long as I’ve known her.”
    Then why be her friend at all? Zoe watched Janika snatch the ball from another girl and make a basket from halfway down the court.
    Simon started talking to Zoe again towards the end of the week.
    â€œI’ve been thinking,” he said as a greeting. “Come with me.” He hooked her arm with his and pulled her towards the ravine.
    Teo came along, until the three of them reached the trail that lead down into the ravine.
    â€œAren’t you coming?” Zoe called behind