Calling Carter.

The next day at school was really weird. Kala found a note in her bag that read, ‘You will be mine.’ She shrugged it off, thinking – hoping – it was just a joke. Kala was a little subdued after that, but I told her that she was mine and I was a nice stalker, and she laughed and forgot about it. At least, I hoped she did. Carter was not at school again.

For some reason, it annoyed me when he wagged. It wasn’t that I missed him all that much; I just didn’t think it was a good idea. Then again, when I was away from school I usually had nothing to do and got really bored. Sometimes I think I actually preferred school.

Nah.

At lunchtime, I was sitting with Kala at our usual tree – everyone else was at some teacher vs student sports game – when Caidan came and sat right next to Kala. He didn’t say anything, just sat by us. We couldn’t really object, but the smile he gave us made me wish we weren’t alone. I felt vaguely threatened by him, but it wasn’t something I could pin down and identify, so I ignored it.

Until he made a comment about Carter. Apparently, he shared Gemma’s opinion of him. I stared at him for a second, shocked by Caidan’s sudden rudeness.

He had just called Carter a suicidal, stupid, emo freak, with no skill at drawing or painting and nothing to live for.

“EXCUSE me?!” Kala exclaimed. “If you’re gonna be rude, go do it somewhere else. We aren’t interested in you bitching about other people. Especially my brother.” She snapped.

Caidan blinked. “He’s your brother?” He asked, shock clear in his voice.

“Yeah,” I said angrily, “And you’re being an asshole.”

He stood, then, and stared down at us. I didn’t know if he was appraising our defensiveness, or wondering how Kala could be related to him. I didn’t care. “I guess you can’t choose your family, right?” Caidan said with a smirk at Kala. He left then, sauntering off as if he had just won some macho fight. That may be true, but he set himself up to lose the war, I told myself.

Kala paled. “Oh my god.”

“What?” I asked, concerned. She looked really worried.

“He knows.” She looked at me, suddenly terrified.

“He knows what?” I asked quietly. I knew Kala would tell me if I needed to know, but I didn’t like to see her so distressed.

“He knows that… Oh, I can’t tell you here. And Carter needs to be here anyway.” She said cryptically. Her shoulders hunched, and she looked suddenly miserable. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

“Hey,” I said quietly, hugging her. “You don’t have to tell me. We’ll tell Carter that Caidan is harassing you. He’ll help me to take care of it.” I said. The fierce protection in my voice was clear, even to me.

Whatever Caidan “knew” about Kala that was freaking her out, I decided, it was more important than school.

“Hmmm…” I said thoughtfully. “Kala, do you reckon your mum will take us both out of school if one of us is sick or something?”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. I can text her and tell her people have somehow found out. It’s okay. She knows.”

“Okay. Let’s do that. And when can we get a hold of Carter? I need to talk to him.”

Layny arrived fairly quickly, looking calm. Every now and again she would glance at me quickly, and then look away when I noticed. I couldn’t wait to get away from school so I could find out what was going on, and what I could do to help. But I was also wondering where Carter was, and why Layny didn’t get him out of class, or at least try.

I would have thought it was unlikely that she would allow him to skip school. But hey. Layny was a really awesome mum.

I wanted to know what was going on. It was really weird.

I sighed. Secrets.