The Curse of Betrayal Read Online Free Page A

where the hell I’m going today.” I roll my eyes in his direction. My eyes fall back to the piece of paper in front of me before coming back to meet his green ones—our eyes match today. The thought sends scorching heat into the pit of my belly, but I try to ignore the burn long enough to focus on the words coming out of Ari’s mouth.
    I only catch the butt end, “—have me?”  
    “Have you?” I ask back, puzzled as hell as to what he just said.  
    “Like as a teacher…” He goes on to explain, wrinkling his perfect nose up at me. It’s not unattractive; in fact, it has the opposite effect—a stream of lust swims through my bones, igniting me more.
    “Oh, um, yeah. I have you first hour and seventh hour,” I mutter, remembering that I get at least two long hours with Ari every single day. I was so happy to have time with Ari earlier, but now a sense of dread overwhelms me.  
    “Hmm,” he pauses pensively. “Well, I’d better be going. See you soon,” he mutters, glancing around the room sneakily before exiting through the courtyard he brought me to yesterday. I frown in his direction as he fades into the shadows like a sketchy spy.
    As I watch him leave, a flash illuminates to my left. Startled, I look that way and see a kid is sitting and creating fire two tables down from me. My mouth falls open in awe as I watch him light things and then destroy them.
    He’ arranged wooden Popsicle sticks arranged into a house-like structure atop the lunch table. With the snap of his fingers, a small fire erupts Then with another snap, it’s gone. He does this over and over again until there’s just a heap of charred wood in front of him.
    “Good job, Martin,” a teacher praises him. The teacher approaches him from behind and pats him on the back for his fire starting. Odd, I’d figure a teacher would be upset for starting a fire inside. “Try making it taller.”
    “I don’t know if I can,” the student answers, frowning at the pile on his table. He looks hard at the wood and then snaps, creating a three foot tall flame on top of it.
    The teacher claps. “Wonderful, Martin. Simply wonderful!” The teacher is giddy with enthusiasm for the kid. Finally, he snaps again and the large fire is gone. “Keep practicing and you’ll be a star!” the teacher exclaims in leaving.
    Martin looks my way, probably feeling my eyes on him, so I quickly look down at my food and pretend to be interested in it. I’ve lost my appetite, so I toss the rest of my cereal. After dumping my food in the trash, I grab my bag and schedule.
    I have to walk past Martin to get to class, so with my head down, I practically jog out of the room. “That was cool,” I tell him shyly.
    “Thanks.” He nods at me. I hurry out of the building, clutching my backpack to my chest. The wind chill is insane and almost instantly, my face burns with the cold, my eyes watering. I hike up my sweater so it covers my chin and sprint the rest of the way to the hall. Only sprinting is worse because my face feels like it has suffered from windburn. But I got here faster, so I shouldn’t complain.
    My classroom is on the bottom floor, so it’s not difficult to find the magic numbers on the door. I end up making it to class with ten minutes to spare, thanks to my super speedy adventure across campus.  
    I don’t know why I’m feeling so paranoid or this overwhelming need to get to class and be a perfect pupil, but I do. Ari teaches this class, so I make it a point to sit towards the front of the room and off to the side, virtually right where the teacher’s desk is so my eyes can admire him all class long.
    Statistics falls under the math category, so I’m a tad nervous. I hate math, but I’m fairly good at it—although high school math was a bit of a joke. I’ve never taken this level of math before, so to pass, I’m going to need to focus, and with Ari being the teacher, I highly doubt that’s going to happen.  
    The room begins to fill