Cold Fire [SAMPLE]

[19]

CHAPTER NINETEEN

School is quiet today. Not quiet as in no one speaks, but quiet as in nothing is happening.

For me at least.

My first too classes take their time to end, and I find myself actually doing my work for the first time in a while just to make the time pass faster. I'm not too sure why I want the day to end, though. It's not like I have places I'd rather be or things I'd prefer to be doing. In fact, at the moment, school is a welcome break from everything else in my life. At school, I can slip back into normalcy as easily as falling asleep, and since I don't tend to see much of Caden, there's no one here to wake me up.

Of course, Caden isn't the only person, or thing, that can pull me out of my state of normalcy.

At lunch, I'm under my tree on the lawn, wondering why my disease – or the effects of being swapped – creates clouds and rain. Sure, I make the temperature cold, but cold and clouds, while often come at the same time, do not actually have anything to do with each other. It gets cloudy because of water vapour and it gets cold because of lack of light and seasons.

Why, if I take the heat out of the air, does it get cloudy and rain all the time? Where does all the rain come from anyway if there's no sun to evaporate the water and form clouds? It's just another thing in my life that doesn't make any sense.

It's then that I'm woken up – pulled from the normal – and for the first time, I see the ghost before I feel the cold it brings with it.

He stands barely a meter to my right, appearing in a spot that just seconds before was only filled with air. At first, as the cold creeps over my skin, I'm afraid. He's never come this close to me before, and while he isn't looking at me, it's enough to make my heart pound so hard against my rib cage that it feels as though it's trying to beat its way out of my chest.

But then, as I realise he's paying me no mind, I see what he's looking at.

Caden sits quietly with his group of friends at the edge of the lawn. He soon starts shivering and looks up, his eyes locking onto mine before skipping over to the ghost to my right. It's barely been a second when he looks back at me, eyes filled with worry.

I just shake my head and hope he understands. No, he shouldn't be worried about me; he should be worried about himself.

I turn my own head now to look at the ghost, feeling less afraid then before, and I try something Rand taught me the day I found out the truth.

Leave, I think. Leave Caden alone and don't come back.

The ghost snaps his head to the right, his eyes meeting with mine, and I see emotion fall over his face like a veil. The only problem is I can't tell what kind of emotion. It looks like a mixture of worry, surprise, anger, defeat and realisation.

And then he's gone.

I did it! I think, and start smiling like a child on Christmas morning. I look over at Caden and when he sees my expression, he cocks his head slightly to one side, frowning. This just causes me to smile more, until slowly, a small grin spread across his face and he shakes his head before looking away and returning to his group's conversation.

After lunch, I have science, and I take a seat in my usual spot, right next to the window I smashed. Of course, they've boarded it up with wood to keep out the cold until it gets fixed, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a constant reminder that my life is not, and never will be, normal.

Science passes without any smashed windows or strange trips to the nurse. My peers are awfully quiet too. No one whispers or stares at me or makes any indication that they've noticed my presence. Everyone focuses on the board or at their books with the odd few staring at the wall, their minds far away.