The Initiation Page 0,24

steadied her, sweeping up and straightening her spine, so that she lifted her chin and looked into those golden eyes without flinching.

"I was here first," she said defiantly.

"Very good," murmured Faye, and there was an odd look in her eyes. Then she turned her head. "Anything interesting in her backpack?"

Cassie saw, to her outrage, that Deborah was going through her backpack, throwing things out one by one. "Not much," the biker said, tossing it on the ground so the rest of its contents scattered down the hillside.

"All right." Faye was smiling again, a particularly unpleasant smile that made her red lips look cruel. "I think you were right the first time, Deborah. She's dead meat." She looked at Cassie. "You're new here, so you probably don't understand what kind of mistake you've made. And I don't have time to stand here and tell you. But you'll find out. You'll find out - Cassie."

She reached out and caught Cassie's chin with long, red-tipped fingers. Cassie wanted to pull away, but her muscles were locked. She felt the strength in those fingers and the hardness of the long, slightly curving nails. Like talons, she thought. The talons of a bird of prey.

For the first time she noticed that the red stone Fay wore at her throat had a star in it, like a star sapphire. It winked in the sunlight, and Cassie found she couldn't take her eyes off it.

Laughing suddenly, Faye released her.

"Come on," she said to the other two girls. The three of them turned and went up the steps.

The air exploded from Cassie's lungs as if she were a balloon that had just been pricked. She was shaking inside. That had been... That had been absolutely...

Get a grip on yourself!

She's only a teenage gang leader, she told herself. At least the mystery of the Club is solved. They're a gang. You've heard of gangs before, even if you never went to a school with one. As long as you leave them alone and don't cross them from now on, you'll be okay.

But the reassurance rang hollow in her mind. Faye's last words had sounded like a threat. But a threat of what?

When Cassie got back to the house that afternoon, her mother didn't seem to be downstairs. Finally, as she wandered from room to room calling, her grandmother appeared on the staircase. The look on her face made Cassie's stomach lurch.

"What's wrong? Where's Mom?"

"She's upstairs, in her room. She hasn't been feeling very well. Now, there's no need for you to get worried..."

Cassie hurried up the creaking old steps to the green room. Her mother was lying in a grand four-poster bed. Her eyes were shut, her face pale and lightly perspiring.

"Mom?"

The large black eyes opened. Her mother swallowed and smiled painfully. "Just a touch of the flu, I think," she said, and her voice was weak and distant, a voice to go with the pallor of her face. "I'll be fine in a day or two, sweetheart. How was school?"

Cassie's better nature battled with her desire to spread her own misery around as much as possible. Her mother took a little breath and shut her eyes as if the light hurt her.

Better nature won. Cassie dug her nails into her palms and spoke evenly. "Oh, fine," she said.

"Did you meet anyone interesting?"

"Oh, you could say that."

She didn't want to worry her grandmother, either. But during dinner, when her grand-mother asked why she was so quiet, the words just seemed to come out by themselves.

"There was this girl at school - her name's Faye, and she's awful. A female Attila the Hun. And on my very first day I ended up making her hate me..." She told the whole story. At the end of it, her grandmother looked into the fireplace as if preoccupied.

"It will get better, Cassie," she said.

But what if it doesn't? Cassie thought. "Oh, I'm sure it will," she said.

Then her grandmother did something surprising. She looked around as if somebody might be listening and then leaned forward. "No, I mean that, Cassie. I know. You see, you have - a special advantage. Something very special..." Her voice dropped to a whisper.

Cassie leaned forward in turn. "What?"

Her grandmother opened her mouth, then her eyes shifted away. There was a pop from the fire, and she got up to poke the wood there.

"Grandma, what?"

"You'll find out."

Cassie felt a shock. It was the second time today she'd heard those words. "Grandma - "

"You've got good sense, for one