Page 44 of Hateful
“No reason,” I’d said, a little too quickly.
Rafael had pursed his lips into a tight line, but his eyes had shone with amusement.
Now, just a week later, I circle around a bend in the trail, hearing Heath’s heavy footfalls behind me and the huffs and puffs as he tries to keep up, and smile. Rafael might not have had any real insight, but maybe I’ll discover something about Heath myself.
And the way he’s acting, I might discover it today.
Just the thought gives me a heady rush, and this time it isnotbecause of the run.
We wind our way through the trail just to discover that it loops back into the main trail just a bit further down from our break tree. We both pause beneath it again. Heath almost collapses to the ground while I lean against the tree, breathing hard, enjoying the ache in my calves.
“Look,” he says grimly after a few moments of silence. I look over. He points out some paw prints in the snow. “Wolves.”
“Could be anything,” I say dismissively, but my stomach does a little flutter at the sight of the massive prints.
Heath is still looking, too. “Maybe we should keep going.”
“Yeah right.” I glance over at him, looking at the way his chest heaves with each breath. “You need to catch your breath.”
“I also need to not be eaten by wolves.”
“I don’t think wolves attack people,” I reply, but there isn’t much certainty in my voice. I guess I’m not really sure. I don’t know much about wolves. “Not anymore, anyway,” I add, thought I don’t think it reassures either of us.
We head back down the trail sooner than either of us is really ready. I see more pawprints along the edges of it as we run, prints that weren’t there on our way up. Heath and I share a couple glances but we don’t say anything.
No need to spook ourselves. If we just keep moving, we should be fine.
We get to the first bend outside the woods and Heath jogs to a stop as usual.
“See you tomorrow if it doesn’t rain?” he asks hopefully.
“Sure thing.” I grin at him. Even if he doesn’t want to be seen with me, I’ve grown to appreciate the company.
* * *
Heath isn’tthe only one suddenly worried about grades now that the spring semester is in full swing.
“We’re getting our math tests back today,” Rafael says with a groan.
Beside him, I shrug and fiddle with the lapel of my jacket. “So? That test was easy.”
“Easy? I guessed half the answers!”
“Hope you guessed C, because most of the answers were C.”
Rafael sighs. “I guessed B most of the time.”
“Rookie mistake.”
He gently pushes his fist into my shoulder with mock annoyance. I grin up at him as we cross the threshold into our math classroom.
We have to pass by The Brotherhoods’ desks, of course. For a moment I let my eyes skip over Jasper, who’s trying to catch my gaze, and Beck, who stares at me with a manic grin, to land on Heath.
Heath’s eyes shoot up to mine and the corner of his mouth twitches upwards. He looks quickly back down at his notebook before surreptitiously sliding a folded piece of paper to the outside edge of his desk.
Once he sees me looking, he flicks the paper beneath his neighbor’s desk so it goes skidding across the floor. I’m out of The Brotherhood’s line of sight when I bend to retrieve it.
“The hell was that?” Rafael whispers in my year as we sit down.
