"You came all the way from New Hampshire to tell me that?" Blaise said. She rolled her eyes.
Randy let out a sobbing breath.
This seemed to make Kevin braver. "Look, man, I don't know who you are-but you'd better keep away from her," he said. "Why don't you go home and sober up?"
It was a mistake. The wild eyes above the bloodstained cheeks focused on him.
"Who are you?" Randy said thickly, advancing a step. "Who... are... you?"
"Kevin, move!" Thea said urgently.
It was too late. The hand with the razor flashed out, lightning quick. Blood spurted from Kevin's face.
Chapter 6
Kevin howled, clapping a hand to his cheek. "He cut me! This guy cut me!" Blood ran between his fingers.
Randy lifted the razor again.
Thea reached out with her mind. Not reached. She leaped. It was completely instinctive; she was scared to death, and all she could think of was that he was going to kill Kevin, and maybe Blaise, too.
She caught-something. Pain and grief and fury that seemed to be bouncing around like a baboon in a cage. She could hold it for only an instant, but in that instant Eric threw two cups of punch in Randy's face. Randy yelled and turned away from Kevin, toward Eric.
Thea felt a surge of pure terror. Randy slashed with the razor, but Eric was fast; he jumped back out of the way, circling to get behind Randy. Randy wheeled and slashed again. They were doing a macabre dance, going round and round.
Thea felt as if the fear was winding tighter inside her with each turn. But Eric kept out of the way of the flashing razor until a rush of movement on the dance floor caught her eye. It was Mr. Adkins and two other teachers. They converged on Randy and there was a lot of confusion. When it was over, Randy was on the ground.
Sirens wailed outside, coming closer. Eric stepped away from the pile on the floor.
Breathing hard, he looked at Thea. She nodded that she was all right, then shut her eyes.
She felt limp and wrung out and awful. They were going to take Randy away now, and she didn't think there was much help for him. He definitely seemed too far gone.
At that moment she was ashamed of being a witch.
"All right, people," Mr. Adkins was saying. "Let's move out of here. Let's get this place cleared." He looked at Blaise, who was bending over a seated Kevin, holding a napkin to his cheek. "You two can stay." Then he put a hand on Blaise's shoulder. "Are you okay here?"
Blaise looked up with wide, tragic gray eyes. "I think so," she said bravely.
Mr. Adkins swallowed. His hand on Blaise's shoulder squeezed. Thea heard him mutter something like, "Poor kid."
Oh, give me a break, Thea thought. But a small, selfish part of her was relieved. Blaise wasn't going to get in trouble over this one; neither of them was going to get expelled. Grandma wasn't going to be disgraced in front of the Inner Circle.
And Blaise did seem worried about Kevin. She was bending over him again solicitously. As if she really cared.
Thea slipped past a teacher's outstretched arm. "Are you okay?" she whispered to Blaise.
Blaise looked up enigmatically. That was when Thea saw that she had a tiny vial concealed in the napkin. It was full of blood.
"You..." Thea couldn't find the words.
Blaise made a slight grimace that meant: I know. But it was just too good a chance to miss.
Thea backed up and ran into Eric. He put a steadying arm around her.
"Is she all right?"
"She's fine. I have to get out of here."
Eric looked into her face. He was rumpled: his hair mussed, his eyes dark. All he said was, "Let's go."
They passed Vivienne and Selene on the way out. Thea had to give them credit; they both looked shocked and unhappy. The question was, would it last?
Dani was in the parking lot with John Finkelstein. "I'm going home," she said significantly to Thea, and tossed something into a clump of bitterbrush.
It was an empty vial.
Thea felt a tiny uncoiling of relief. She touched Dani's arm lightly. "Thanks."
Dani looked back at the cafeteria. "I wonder what it was he wanted to know?" she murmured.
And just then a howl came from the lighted doorway, as if answering her question. It didn't sound like a person; it sounded like an animal in anguish.
"Whyyyyyy?"
Thea turned blindly and almost ran for Eric's jeep.
When they were driving on darkened streets, Eric said quietly, "I'm presuming he was an old boyfriend?"
"Last month's."
Eric glanced at her. "He was pretty messed up, poor guy."
And that, Thea thought, summed it up nicely. He was pretty messed up forever. Poor guy.
"It's Blaise," she said. She hadn't meant to talk to him about this, but the words were so crowded in her throat that she thought she'd burst if she didn't let them out. "She does this and does this, and I can't stop her. She picks guys up everywhere, and they fall in love with her, and then she dumps them."
"Love? Hm," Eric said.
Thea looked at him, astonished. He was looking straight ahead, his long, supple fingers steady on the wheel.
Well. And I thought you were so naive. Maybe you see more than I realized.
"It's a kind of love," she said. "It's like-do you know, in ancient Greece they worshiped the goddess Aphrodite. She was the goddess of love-and the thing about her was that she was absolutely merciless." Thea shook her head. "I saw this play once about a queen named Phaedra. And Aphrodite made her fall in love with her own stepson, and by the end of the play just about everybody was dead on the stage. But Aphrodite just kept smiling. Because she was just doing what a goddess does-the same way that a tornado rips houses apart or a fire burns down a forest."