4
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Selene got out of her car and adjusted her sunglasses. After dropping of Jenna and Everett at the babysitters’ early this morning; Selene had taken her time to get ready. It was another hot day and she was glad she wore a dress. It was the one she had bought in Paris with Aunt Isobel. It was almost like a jacket since it had a zipper from one end of the dress to the other and she’d paired it with her gladiators. She slung her brown leather messenger bag across her body and headed towards the school library. Her mind drifted to Gabriel but she kept those thoughts at bay and got to work on her computer.

When the second bell rang, she sat down at her desk in math. She was too busy thinking about Grandpa William and hating to admit it - Gabriel, that she didn’t see him slide next to her.
“Elli! What a coincidence!”
Surprised as she was, she didn’t let it show. Of course he’d come here. Selene narrowed her eyes and promptly ignored him for the rest of the period, knowing that he probably sweet talked Mrs. Lake to enrol in the same classes as her. When the bell rang she rushed out of the portable and headed to biology in the main building.

Her relief was cut short when she discovered that her lab partner was Gabriel Leange. Sighing she sat down and focused on what the teacher was saying. Today they were dissecting a frog. Everyone in the room looked positively grim with the exception of Selene and Gabriel. She was too busy ignoring Gabriel, and he looked unimpressed as he stared at the dead frog Mr. Pierce was motioning at.
While others giggled and squirmed, Selene cut open the stomach of the frog and started drawing and labelling it one a piece of paper. Gabriel was watching when Lucy and Eric stopped by their table.
“Ugh, smells kinda funky.” Lucy said as she pulled a chair to sit down.
Selene immediately apologized for leaving Lucy hanging yesterday but Lucy shook it off with a wave.
“It’s cool.”
Gabriel looked amused.
“What are you talking about?” Eric looked confused, but Lucy ignored him.
“So you guys coming to the bonfire tonight at Levine Beach.” Lucy asked the question while poking the frog’s intestine with the scalpel.
Immediately Selene started to decline; she needed to check out Grandfather William’s bank accounts they got their hands on it.
Unfortunately, Gabriel answered for her.
“Sure, we’ll see you there.”
Lucy smiled broadly and left with Eric in tow. She narrowed her eyes at Gabriel, but he just shrugged it off. She’d wanted to decline, but seeing Lucy’s face had made her stop. But she did not want to hang out with Gabriel… Did she? A small part of her excitedly said yes, but she buried that voice and continued to label the diagram. She peeked at him through her hair and found him staring back at her. Looking away, she sighed. Two years and she was still hung up on the same guy.
For the rest of the day, she avoided Gabriel but as she approached her car, she found him sitting on the hood of it, oblivious to the heat. He looked cool and Selene wanted to smack him as he smiled at her.
“I’m not going to the party with you,” she said coldly, as she got her keys from her bag.
“Come on, Elli, it’s on the beach. I know you want to go.”
It was so tempting to just relax on the beach again, even if only for a few hours. She would not have avoided him so much if Gabriel had just stayed with her instead of running off to play hero.
“Fine, when we get there you can explain why you went MIA.”
She smiled coldly as she patted herself on the shoulder mentally. He hadn’t talked to her about it and she was 98% sure he never would. Tell her, that is.
Selene was great at guessing. The Punnet squares she had to do in Biology were a cakewalk and she’d gotten a 99% on her last probability test. She’d placed major bets on horses (all of which she won), played poker with Vegas’ finest (not those fools at the high rollers table) and had even won one against her Grandfather. She was pretty sure his response would be a shrug of the shoulders and the words, never mind. So she was very surprised when he nodded in agreement and walked away.
**

Selene willed her heart to stop beating so ridiculously fast. She didn’t want to be excited about going with Gabriel but she couldn’t just stop feeling; not now. Pulling on a pair of shorts and a grey tank, she quickly brushed her hair and headed towards the door. As her hands grasped the knob, the doorbell rang and she opened the door to reveal Gabriel leaning casually to the side.
“I have a car you know; I can get there myself.” She looked pointedly at the car parked on the driveway.
“How are Jenna and Everett?”
Way to stay on topic.
“They’re with Carmen,” she said tersely.
Looking disinterested, she glanced towards the road, which was when she happened to notice the lone figure on the other side of the road. On any other day, she would have dismissed it as some “dude”, but something in the figure held her attention. It wasn’t his clothes; he was plain and ordinary from afar. But the tense shoulders, stance and shifty eyes made her uncomfortable. A message had come from Firefly warning her about them, and the possibility that they might send an owl over to watch. She was about to blame it on coincidence that she spotted the figure less than 12 hours after the message had arrived, but then the man turned a bit to the side making it possible to see the bulge of something under his shirt.
Quickly she smiled at Gabriel and led him to her car. She appeared calm as she started the car. Gabriel seemed confused but Selene was too busy looking suspiciously at the figure on her rear view mirror.