The Initiation Page 0,28

of paper and scooped it out. She didn't go near her locker for the rest of the day.

She didn't go near the cafeteria, either. And she spent lunch in the farthest corner of the library.

It was there that she saw the girl again.

The girl with the shining hair, the girl she'd given up on ever meeting. It was hardly surprising that Cassie hadn't seen her at school before this moment. These days Cassie slunk around like a shadow, walking through the halls with her eyes on the ground, speaking to no one. She didn't know why she was at school at all, except that there was nowhere else to go. And if she had seen the girl, she'd probably have run the other way. The thought of being rejected by her as Cassie was rejected by everyone else at school was unbearable.

But now Cassie looked up from her table at the back of the library and saw a brightness like sunlight.

That hair. It was just as Cassie remembered, impossibly long, an impossible color. The girl was facing the circulation desk, smiling and talking to the librarian. Cassie could feel the radiance of her presence from across the room.

She had the wildest urge to leap up and run to the girl. And then... what? She didn't know. But the urge was almost beyond her control. Her throat ached, and tears filled her eyes. She realized she was on her feet. She would run to the girl, and then - and then... Images flooded Cassie's mind, of her mother hugging her when she was young, cleaning out a skinned knee, kissing it better. Comfort. Rescue. Love.

"Diana!"

Another girl was hurrying up to the circulation desk. "Diana, don't you know what time it is? Hurry up!"

She was pulling the girl with the shining hair away, laughing and waving at the librarian. They were at the door; they were gone.

Cassie was left standing alone. The girl had never even glanced her way.

On Friday morning Cassie stopped in front of her locker. She didn't want to open it. But it exerted a bizarre fascination over her. She couldn't stand feeling it there, wondering what was in it and not knowing.

She dialed the combination slowly, everything too bright.

The locker door opened.

This time she couldn't even scream. She felt her eyes opening, straining as wide as the stuffed owl's. Her mouth opened in a soundless gasp. Her stomach heaved. The smell...

Her locker was full of hamburger. Raw and red like flesh with the skin torn off, darkening to purple where it was going bad from lack of refrigeration. Pounds and pounds of it. It smelled like...

Like meat. Dead meat.

Cassie slammed the locker shut, but it bounced off some of the hamburger that was oozing out the bottom. She whirled and stumbled away, her vision hazing over.

A hand grabbed her. For an instant she thought it was an offer of support. Then she felt her backpack being pulled off her shoulder.

She turned and saw a pretty, sullen face. Malicious dark eyes. A motorcycle jacket. Deborah tossed the backpack past Cassie, and automatically Cassie whirled, following it.

On the other side she saw shoulder-length blond hair. Slanted, slightly mad blue-green eyes. A laughing mouth. It was one of the roller-blade guys - the Henderson brothers.

"Welcome to the jungle," he sang. He threw the backpack to Deborah, who caught it, singing another line.

Cassie couldn't help turning around and around between them, like a cat chasing a fur mouse on a string.

Tears flooded her eyes. The laughter and singing rang in her ears, louder and louder.

Suddenly a brown arm thrust into her field of vision. A hand caught the backpack in midair. The laughter died.

She turned to see through a blur of tears the cold, handsome face of the dark-haired guy who had stood with Faye that morning two days ago... could it really be only two days ago? He was wearing another T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves and the same worn-in black jeans.

"Aw, Nick," the Henderson brother complained. "You're wrecking our game."

"Get out of here," Nick said.

"You get out," Deborah snarled from behind Cassie. "Doug and me were just - "

"Yeah, we were only - "

"Shut up." Nick glanced at Cassie's locker, with globs of meat still seeping out of it. Then he thrust the backpack at her. "You get out," he said.

Cassie looked into his eyes. They were dark brown, the color of her grandmother's mahogany furniture. And like the furniture, they seemed to reflect the overhead lights back at her. They