Faye reached over and unhooked the Walkman from Doug's belt. "Now he's not," she said. "And I'm telling them to go eat somewhere else - outside, maybe. On my authority."
Sally was sputtering. Faye chuckled and led the Club out of the cafeteria.
"Thanks," Diana said, and for a moment she and Faye looked each other in the eye. Cassie thought of the candles burning in a circle on the road. A new stage of life - was Faye entering a new stage of life? Coming back to the coven?
But Faye's next words undeceived her. "You know, there's no reason that you can't eat in the back room," she said. "You can all become hall monitors. That's what he wants - "
"He wants to take us over," interrupted Deborah scornfully.
"He wants to join with us. He's one of us."
"No, he's not, Faye," Cassie said, thinking of the shadow under the rock. "He's nothing like us."
Faye gave her a strange glance, but all she said was, "There's a hall monitors' meeting in C-207 last period. Think about it. The sooner you join him, the easier things will be." She tossed Doug's Walkman back to him with a negligent gesture and walked away.
Lunch was uncomfortable; it was cold in the front yard of the school, and nobody but Suzan had much of an appetite. Sean showed up late, after all the excitement was over. They discussed plans to fight Black John, but as always they came back to the single issue of power. They needed power to fight him effectively. They needed the Master Tools.
Everyone had a different idea of where to search. Adam proposed the beach - especially around Devil's Cove, where Mr. Fogle, the former principal, had been killed by a rock slide. Deborah thought maybe the old burying ground. "It's been here since the 1600s," she said. "The original coven could easily have hidden things there." Melanie and Diana discussed the possibility of making a crystal pendulum designed to seek out traces of "white energy" the tools might be giving off.
Cassie sat quietly, close to Nick, not saying much. She had the stupid, desperate urge to forget all of this and bury her head in his shoulder. She didn't know New Salem as well as the others - how could she come up with a reasonable place to search? And she had such a feeling of dread, of evil things just waiting to happen.
We're going to lose, she thought, listening to the worried voices of the others. We're just kids, and he's got centuries of experience. We're going to lose.
The feeling of dread got worse as the day went on. She ran into Nick as she was walking to her last class and he stopped in the hall.
"You look awful," he said.
"Thanks." Cassie tried a wry smile for him.
"No, I mean you're so pale - you feeling okay? Do you want to go home?"
"Leaving school grounds without permission," Cassie quoted automatically, tiredly, and then she was in his arms.
Nick said, "They can take their permission and - "
Cassie just clung to him. Nick was so good to her; she wanted to love him. She would make herself love him, she decided. Maybe they should go back to Crowhaven Road; go someplace where they could be alone. Nick didn't like doing this kind of thing where people could see.
"Hold me," she said. He did. Then he kissed her.
Yes. Just go with it. Be part of Nick - that was safe. Nick would take care of her. She could stop thinking now.
"Well, well, well . . . looks like a Type-A violation to me," an officious voice said. "Public displays of affection, inappropriate to the serious and dignified purpose of formal education. What do you say, Portia?"
Nick and Cassie broke apart, Cassie flushing.
"I think it's just too revolting," Portia Bainbridge said.
Behind her was a gaggle of hall monitors, on their way to the meeting, apparently. There were maybe thirty of them. Cassie's heart was suddenly beating hard and fast.
"And it's her fault," Portia went on, looking down her aristocratic nose at Cassie. "I heard her initiate it. Let's take her in."
"That's right, the little flirt," Sally said. Cassie remembered Sally's voice in the bathroom; the anger in it, the viciousness. This one had every guy at Homecoming dance following her around with his tongue hanging out - including my boyfriend. She'd come to think of herself so differently since she'd overheard Sally talking about her that day.
Nick was looking at the group of monitors, his face cold - like the old Nick, the one Cassie had first met. Cold as ice. "Take her where? The penalty for a Type-A offense is supposed to be detention. Or don't you read your own rules?" he said.
"We decide what the penalties are - " Portia began, but Sally interrupted.
"She was refusing to cooperate with a hall monitor at lunchtime," she said. "That's what we're taking her in for. Mr. Brunswick gave us special instructions. "We're going to take her to the office - she can talk to him."