Read Online Mind Games: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 6) by J.A. Cipriano - Free Book Online Page B

down at all the little people in their orderly little rows. Only they were a little too neat. “They were calling you Famine. Do you know why?”
    “No,” he replied. “But I’ve got a feeling it isn’t good.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his teeth. “Did you see the teacher vanish?”
    “No. I just turned around and he was gone,” I said as he followed my gaze down to all the kids lined up below.
    “And no one thought it was weird. They just raced downstairs to line up when the alarm sounded.” He shook his head. “Even drilled firefighters aren’t as efficient as those kids were. It was like watching ants under the control of a queen.”
    “So why are you different?” I asked, and he turned toward me.
    “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied, brushing his blond hair out of his face. “See, here’s the thing. I have friends I’ve known for years, and when I talk to them, it’s like talking to someone who isn’t my friend. Oh, they look like my friends and speak like them, but I can tell.”
    “I know the feeling. My dad let me drink a hard lemonade and didn’t even say a word about it,” I said, and Ian smiled at me, his lips cracking into the barest flash of teeth.
    He looked like he was about to reply but instead, pressed something into my hand and started walking away from me. I looked up to see Charlie coming toward us, a strange look of determination on his face. I waved to Charlie. He waved back somewhat disjointedly as Ian moved past him and our classroom without so much as another word. I guess he was ditching.
    Charlie didn’t even look at Ian as he came up to me, which struck me as a little odd, although I didn’t know why. Still, Ian had a point. Charlie was acting weird, and while I didn’t know him in this world as well as I did in the world of the Dioscuri, his actions seemed strange even held against the barometer of a normal teenaged boy.
    “I missed you in the line,” Charlie said, his voice full of semi-genuine concern. Behind him, I could see other students coming, filing into their classrooms like the dutiful automations they seemed to be. The sight of it made me shiver. Something was definitely off.
    “Yeah, I got distracted by all the stairs and wasn’t sure where to go. I asked that boy for help,” I pointed at Ian, “but he was just a jerk and blew me off.”
    Charlie seemed to relax at my words. He swept his arm around my waist and pulled me forward. “Well, I’ll keep you safe, don’t you worry your little head.”
    I put my forehead against his shoulder, using the movement to shield myself from his prying eyes. “What would I do without you?” I replied, stealing a glance into my hand. I was holding a piece of ice in the shape of a butterfly. The creature’s wings twitched in the palm of my hand as it got to its feet and fluttered away.
     

Chapter 9
    The rest of the day raced by in a blur of color and sound I couldn’t quite remember or keep track of effectively. Whether that was because time was disjointed or because I was crazy and distracted by the frozen butterfly remained to be seen. Hell, for all I knew, my mind had made up the butterfly and even the whole encounter. That was the problem with potentially being insane. This could be real and everything, no matter how crazy, could just be my brain processing things incorrectly. But still…
    Something was wrong. I knew it to be true, knew it with the core of my being, but as I tried to figure it out, I found myself unable to clear the fog from my brain. It was like having the answer on the tip of my tongue but being incapable of actually remembering what I wanted to say.
    I paced back and forth in front of my high school, waiting for my mom. She hadn’t arrived, but I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her. I had half a mind to try to run away, just to figure out what was going on, but it seemed like a poor idea. If this was all fake, and I was growing more and