The Power Page 0,29

to be careful. He wants to get us and we're not ready to confront him yet . . . Nick!" She had a terrible feeling about this. Nick hated authority, took any rules as a challenge. Right now she didn't see any sign of him changing, by his expression. "Nick!"

"Punishment for Type-C offenses is getting sent to the office," Adam said. "He is trying to get us, Nick. He's playing his own little game."

"Nick, I want you to promise me you'll try not to get in trouble," Cassie said. "Please, Nick. You have to promise."

Nick looked down at her slowly. Cassie tightened her grip on his hand, returning the intensity of his gaze. Please, she was thinking. For me, please.

Nick's brow furrowed and he turned away.

"Okay," he said, nodding slightly, eyes on the ceiling. "Okay, I'll try - not to get caught."

Cassie's muscles relaxed. "Thank you," she whispered, just as Diana, Melanie, and Laurel came up, faces bleak.

"Did you get that stuff in the beginning, about the previous administration allowing certain activities to go on?" Melanie asked. "That was us he was talking about. The Club and its special privileges. He said all that was going to change now."

Cassie spoke softly. "He was telling them we're not in power anymore. He was as good as giving them permission to ..."

Her voice died away. She and the other members of the Club looked at one another silently.

"Everybody get your guns. Sounds like it's open season for witches," Nick said finally. He put his arm around Cassie again.

"Let's get out of here," Suzan said.

"We can't," said Laurel. "Leaving school grounds without permission is an offense."

"Everything is an offense," Suzan said.

"Where are Chris and Doug?" Cassie asked sharply. "And Deborah?"

Everyone looked around. Aside from Nick, the Henderson brothers and the biker were the ones most likely to get into trouble.

"They have history first period, but I think their class went back without them," Sean volunteered. "I think they're still in the auditorium."

"Come on," said Adam briefly.

Chris and Doug were just outside the auditorium. They were in the center of a group of outsider students and they were getting ready to fight.

" - not gonna get away with it anymore," one of the outsider boys was caroling triumphantly.

"Oh, yeah?" Chris yelled back.

"Yeah! Your days are over, man! You're gonna get sent to the office."

"Didn't take them long to catch on," Nick murmured in Cassie's ear.

"You're all going to get sent to the office," Adam said, pushing between the outsiders to get to Chris and Doug. He faced them, holding up the handout like a magic talisman. "Fighting's a Type-B offense. You'll all go down for it."

There was a moment of uncertainty, then the outsiders drew back, eyeing each other.

"We'll see you later," they decided finally, and turned down the hall. Doug tried to go after them.

"Any time, any place," he yelled as Nick caught him and held him still. "Leggo of me!" he snarled at Nick.

"We can't afford a confrontation yet," Diana told him. "Good job," she added to Adam.

"It worked - this time," Adam said. "If I'm right about what he's doing, they'll eventually figure out that the rules are mainly against us. They may not get in trouble for fighting, but we will."

To Cassie's vast relief Deborah came around the corner at that moment. "Deb, where have you been?"

"Watching the hall monitors get their orders. They're giving them badges like SS men."

"It is like the Nazis," Cassie said.

"He's organizing a witch hunt," said Adam.

"I wonder if he's done it before," Suzan said.

Cassie started to say, "What do you mean?" but stopped in the middle of it and stared at her. Suzan, who looked so - fluffy, so brainless, who even now was groping in her purse for a compact, had done it again.

"And Faye is working for him - " Diana was saying. Cassie interrupted.

"No, wait, listen. Did you hear what Suzan just said? Don't you get it? I wonder if he's done it before. You know, I'll bet he has."

"In 1692," Adam said slowly. "In Salem. How could we be so stupid?"

"Huh?" said Chris.

"I think they're saying that Black John could have organized the Salem witch hunt," Diana said. "But - "

"Not organized, maybe, but contributed, helped it along," Cassie said. "Made sure it didn't just die out, fed the hysteria. Like he was feeding it today."

"But why?" asked Laurel.

There was a silence, then Adam lifted his head, his frown clearing. His voice was grim. "To get the coven to leave.