The teacher scowled now. “You have no idea, or you can’t be bothered to answer the question?”
“Yeah, that one.”
The class snickered and the teacher threw them a blistering look that quickly shut them up. With a disapproving click of her tongue she flicked Ari away dismissively with a wave of her hand. “Pretty girls need to be educated too, Marissa, no matter what those glossy magazines tel you.”
Ouch.
The real her wanted to blush like crazy because she’d never had a set-down from a teacher before. The Marissa her, was just going to persevere with the
disapproval because frankly she didn’t have time to do homework assignments, so why set the precedent that she would?
***
“So?” Falon asked her as soon as they met in the halway after second period.
Ari shook her head, lowering her voice as they headed slowly down the halway in amongst a throng of students who were peering curiously at the new girls. “The new kid in my class is just that: a kid.” Ari snorted. “I also played the part of slacker girl. It’s kind of fun when your whole future isn’t dependent upon good grades.”
To Ari’s surprise, Falon didn’t laugh. “Be careful,” she replied softly, her expression stern. “We want to blend in as much as possible. Now I know those eyes of yours make that kind of hard—speaking of which, we should have gotten you contacts— but we can’t draw attention to ourselves by being the funny, hot, slacker girl.
You have to be bland, you have to blend. We don’t want this Jinn getting suspicious of us.”
“He or she is going to feel us anyway.”
“Yes, but perhaps conclude that we’re just ordinary, human-living lesser Jinn. So less slacker girl, more Ari, okay?”
“I’m surprised.” Ari sighed. “I thought you would have liked doing the slacker thing.”
Laughing, Falon nodded. “I would love to do the slacker thing. But I love doing an assignment well, more.”
“Gotcha.” Ari nodded in agreement. “No more Slacker Marissa. She was fun though… for al of two seconds.”
“Next class?” Falon peered at her schedule. “Ugh, you have Calculus.”
“Yay me. You?”
“Computer Lab.”
“I can’t wait for lun-” Ari cut off mid-grump, her whole body tensing as a wave of familiar energy hit her.
Jinn.
She spun around, her eyes searching through the throng of students as they miled between classes. Nope, not him, not her, not him, not her, not-
Ari’s gaze colided with an older man. A teacher? He narrowed his eyes on her, as if he knew her but couldn’t quite place her. With a slight widening of those eyes of his, he backed up and turned on his heel, heading down the halway in the opposite direction.
Heart pounding, not quite believing they’d found the son-of-a-bitch already, Ari folowed the Jinn, pushing past students without care.
“Ari?” Falon hissed, grabbing at her arm. “What the…?”
“Didn’t you feel him?” Ari asked, stil moving quickly, not even taking time to look back at Falon.
“No.”
“It’s him. Come on.”
They turned the corner and Falon walked into her as Ari stumbled to an abrupt halt. This halway was almost empty. He was gone. Adrenaline pumping fast now,
Ari gestured towards the classrooms dotted al the way up the long hal. “Let’s start looking.”