Another chapter, yay! Sorry this took a little longer than I expected. I really wish I could have had it finished for you guys around Christmas. Thank you sooooo much to everyone who reviewed for the last chapter. And thanks to DreamWings for remembering how Marina doesn't know why Tommy was in the prison—I plan on addressing that in the next chapter. Anyway thanks again for the awesome reviews and I hope everyone has a very happy new year. Here's to 2014!

The next morning I couldn't find Tommy anywhere. I knew he was in school because I had spotted his blue Civic in the parking lot when I pulled in, but the longer I looked for him the more I began to doubt that the car had actually been his. I mean, there are a lot of people who own Civics. But then I specifically remembered seeing the Stanford sticker on his back windshield—it's the only school he's ever wanted to go to for college—and knew it had been his.

For a long time I was convinced that Tommy was only a good student because he knew he had to be to get into Stanford. Of course, then I got to really know him and discovered he just liked being a walking library.

Thinking about Tommy and Stanford made me realize that I hadn't done anything about college. I hadn't even thought about it, and I was in the second semester of my junior year. Nearly everyone else had already taken the SAT's and was forming a list of the schools they wanted to apply to in the fall. I didn't think I could even name five colleges in my life depended on it. What surprised me was that my mom hadn't mentioned college to me at all. She's always been a stickler for good grades but she hadn't brought up college or the SAT's to me since last summer.

Not that I wasn't grateful she'd held her tongue. What with the immersion of the tribe in the fall, the prophecy, being kidnapped, and whatever was going on with the hunters and sorcerers, I had plenty on my plate. I didn't think I could handle the added pressure of trying to get good SAT scores for colleges.

Rounding the corner of the last shelf in the library, I stopped and sighed—officially out of ideas as to where Tommy could be. I pulled out my phone and texted him: Need to talk ASAP. But by the time the bell rang Tommy still hadn't responded to my text and I wondered if something had happened to his phone. Of course, in reality, only about five minutes had passed. I suppose I was a bit impatient.

I ran down the hall towards my AP Language class, knowing Mrs. Becker would chew me out for being late. I passed by Tommy's locker and skidded to a halt, my black boots squeaking on the linoleum floor. Taking a few steps backward, I stared at the metal door to his locker. There were three thin slits at the top, just like everyone else's. Last year Tommy had left me a note in my locker, asking me to meet him in the library. That, of course, had been before I'd found out he was a sorcerer. Actually, if I remembered correctly, that had been the exact day he admitted to not being human.

Glancing at the time on my phone—I was already late, what would another minute or two matter? I quickly pulled a piece of paper out of my bag and wrote down a note for Tommy to meet me in the library after school, even adding that it was urgent. I folded the paper and stuck in through the middle slit on his locker door. Hopefully he got the message.

I ran the rest of the way to my AP Lang class, not caring how much sound my boots made with each thudding step. I slowed to a stop outside of the classroom, catching my breath for a second, before opening the door and stepping inside. Looking over to Mrs. Becker, I easily recognized her "not pleased" face.

"You're late, Marina," she said coldly.

I tried not to flinch or lower my gaze. I held my head high, trying to show my guilt instead of my embarrassment at being called out in front of the entire class. The last time that had happened had been the very first day of junior year—when Brad had gotten me in trouble by talking to me.

"I'm sorry," I told her seriously, "I'll be on time tomorrow."

"I hope not," Mrs. Becker said immediately.

I startled. What—?

"Tomorrow is Saturday, Marina," my teacher explained.

The rest of my classmates stifled their giggles.

Tomorrow. Saturday. Coast Con. "Oh, right," I said lamely, blood rushing my cheeks. So much for not showing my embarrassment. My eyes find Brad but he's smiling too. He raises his eyebrows as if to say, "well, what did you expect with a comment like that?"

I shifted my gaze to my empty seat, trying not to hear the rest of the smiles that haven't left the room, and turned to make my way down the aisle.

"Oh, but hold on, Marina," Mrs. Becker said behind me.

What now? I turned around, desperately hoping she wasn't going to try and embarrass me further. "Yes?"

But she doesn't. She picks up a small slip of paper from her desk and hands it to me. "Principal Price would like to see you in his office."

Glancing down at the piece of paper, I murmured thanks and rushed back out the door. Of course the principal wanted to see me. He still needed to know if Cole's band could open the concert Saturday—I mean, tomorrow. Where had the week gone? If today was Friday Jet and I were supposed to go on a date tonight. Somehow I didn't think that was happening. What with finding out Jet and Brad were half-brothers and then everything that happened yesterday. Jet hadn't even mentioned it since he first brought up the idea on Tuesday before the funeral. Yup, no date for me.

Part of me deflated at the thought. I had been looking forward to a normal night with Jet. But, just as he said, we weren't normal. And after everything that happened this week, I felt like the universe was trying to remind us of that. We weren't normal. Our lives certainly weren't normal. So how could we possibly do normal things like go on a date?

I knocked twice on the principal's door and opened it only after I heard a cheery "enter" sound from the other side of the wood and glass. Stepping inside, I saw that Principal Price was seated behind his desk, seemingly pouring over a stack of permission slips. I closed the door behind me.

He looked up was the door clicked back in place. "Ah, Marina," he said just as he did the day before. He motioned for me to sit down again. I did as he instructed, rubbing my arms a bit as chills raced around my body.

"Sorry to pull you out of class but I hoped you had an answer from your brother for me."

I nodded. "It's okay," I told him, squeezing my legs together to keep more heat in my body. Why was it so cold in here? Did he have the air conditioning turned on high? "Cole says he and his band can play tomorrow."

"That's great," he said, standing up and walking around to the other side of his desk.

When I realized he'd come to stand in front of me, I stood up too.

"I really think this concert tomorrow is going to be memorable. I'm trying to get the whole town to come out." He smiled at me, but something about the way his lips were turned up gave me the creeps. I still didn't know what, but my instincts kept telling me something was off about this guy.

It didn't occur to me until it was too late that I should have smiled back at him.

"Thank you so much for coming through like this last minute," he said, then added, "And thank your brother for me too."

"I will."

He holds out his hand for me to shake and I took it. I jumped a bit at his touch. Despite the cold air, I didn't expect his hand to be so cold. How was he not shivering? I swore I could even see my breath fogging up the space between us.

"You better get back to class. Don't want you to miss out on an excellent education," he said, winking at me.

This time, I forced myself to smile back, before practically running out of the office. I made a sharp right once outside and ran straight into a wall. Well, it wasn't a wall, it was a person—a person taller than me.

"Oh, sorry," I said, embarrassment flaring when I realized the person I had bumped into was a man—and probably a good-looking one given the hardness of his abs. "Excuse me." I step aside and then look up at him. All the color that had risen to my cheeks slid away as I stared up into his face.

"It's okay," he said, smiling at me.

I couldn't say anything. I just stared, eyes wide. Standing in front of me was the same guy who had broken into Brad's house yesterday—the one who was human.

When I didn't respond, he shuffled away into the principal's office. The principal's office. He went into the principal's office. This knowledge bounced around in my head for a second before I realized what it could mean. I darted to the door, trying to sneak a peek back in the room before the door completely shut, but I wasn't fast enough. Instead, I attempted to listen at the door before a teacher turned down the hall and reprimanded me for being out of class. I grudgingly made my way back to AP Lang, but slowed my pace as soon as I was out of eyeshot of the teacher in the hall.

How did Principal Price and the younger man who broke into Brad's house know each other? Was the principal working with the hunters? Or was he working for the sorcerers? Or what if he was a sorcerer? I wasn't sure of anything at the moment, but I did know that it was too much of a coincidence for me to see the same man sneaking into Brad's house and then visiting our new principal.

Somehow I had to find out more, and I had to start by getting a chance to check the principal for an aura. But how was I going to do that? I have never seen the principal walking the halls. All week long he's been locked up in his office, apparently making phone calls to parents and the superintendent—and, most likely, people helping with Coast Con—only making time in his schedule for you if he makes an appointment.

Again, I turned a corner and ran into someone. Man, I really needed to start watching where I was going—or maybe just get a few things off my mind. "Uh, sorry."

"Woah there," a familiar voice said, grabbing hold of me by one arm, "you okay?"

I looked up to see that it was Fallon I had bumped into. "What are you doing out of class?" I asked her.

She raised one eyebrow at me. "I could ask you the same thing," she countered, "But seriously, are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost."

I opened my mouth to tell her about the guy I ran into outside the principal's office but she cut me off.

"Wait, you didn't actually see a ghost, did you?" she asked, paling a bit. "Do we know if ghosts are even real?" She cocked her head to the side, considering the possibility.

I shrugged. "I didn't see a ghost so I don't know if they're real or not. Never really thought about it before."

"Neither have I…until now."

"Something else to ask Tommy," I told her while she nodded her head in agreement.

"Is he meeting us this afternoon?" she asked.

By living with Fallon for the past week, I learned that keeping secrets from her are basically impossible. It's not that she's nosy, she just has a way of finding things out on her own. And it's not like I mind her knowing things—she is my friend after all—it's just strange sometimes to go to tell her something and have her already know. When it happened last night, she reminded me of Eloise. Of course I didn't tell her that though—she probably would have knocked me out.

"Don't know yet. I haven't heard from him. You haven't seen him, have you?"

She shook her head. "I don't usually see him until lunch time."

I then told her about my meeting with the principal and how the guy who went in after me was the same one from yesterday. This information caught her attention right away. She agreed that it could mean the principal is connected to the whole sorcerer-hunter thing, but she wasn't quick to label Principal Price as a sorcerer himself.

"If he's really a sorcerer then why is he working as a high school principal?" she wanted to know.

"How should I know? Are there even sorcerer specific jobs out there? Until I get the chance to check him for an aura though it's still a possibility," I insisted, "It's just a matter of getting him out of his office."

Fallon smiled slyly at me, her eyes lighting up with amusement.

"What?" I asked.

She continued to smile. "In my experience," she started slowly, "nothing gets the attention of an authority figure more than a little rule-breaking."

*/*/*/*

Fallon and I had class together right before lunch, and, after fifteen minutes of passing notes, we had a good amount of troublemaking planned in order to get me in to see the principal again. Of course, it had been Fallon who'd come up with most of the plans—me having never gotten a single detention in my life while she was practically one step away from becoming a delinquent.

We both watched our physics teacher pace the front of the room, lecturing us on inertia—something we had learned about in a previous class. Really, she should have just reviewed the term, but no, she didn't trust us to remember it so she was spending a whole ten minutes re-teaching us about resisting states of motion.

A few minutes more and she released us to complete a lab. Fallon and I rushed to a table closest to the teacher—we wanted to be caught after all—and immediately grabbed all the rubber bands out of the bin and stuffed them in our pockets.

"Umm, Ms. Greco?" Fallon asked, creasing her forward in a look of almost-honest confusion, "We didn't get any rubber bands in our bin."

Our teacher looked up from her desk. "You didn't?" She seemed just as puzzled as Fallon did—only her expression was real. "I'm sure I put some in there before class."

"You must have missed a bin, because there aren't any in here," I said, cringing on the inside. Ms. Greco was going to forever hate us after what we were going to do to her.

Still frowning, she reached inside a drawer in her desk and pulled out four more rubber bands, handing them to me. "Here you go," she said, sitting back down, "that should get you through the lab." Little did she know that they wouldn't.

We waited until she was fully immersed in her own work, building the car we were supposed to for the lab, before Fallon and I exchanged looks.

"Now?" Fallon whispered to me.

I nodded. "Now."

Fallon pulled out one of the original rubber bands from her pocket, and, taking aim at our teacher's head, she shot it. But it went wide—around the back of her head even so Ms. Greco didn't. Fallon reached for another while I also grabbed one. Letting go of mine, I watched it soar through the air and plop down on Ms. Greco's desk. She definitely saw that one.

"Wha—?" she started to say and looked up only to get hit square in the nose by Fallon's rubber band.

Pursing my lips, I watched her face go from confused to angry. Yes! We were in trouble.

She pushed her chair out from under her desk and marched over to the two of us. "Can you tell me why you decided to sling rubber bands at me?" she asked, "Suppose one had gone in my eye. That was extremely immature of you, Fallon."

Wait, what? Fallon?

"Umm, she didn't do it, Ms. Greco, I did," I said, quickly speaking up.

She smiled sweetly at me. "That's nice of you to try to defend your cousin, Marina, but I clearly saw Fallon shoot the rubber band."

Crap. This plan didn't work if Fallon got sent to the principal and not me. Fallon may have been born in a shapeshifter tribe, but she was human which not only meant that she didn't have an aura but that she couldn't see the auras of others.

"No really," I said, recognizing that my tone of voice hinged on desperate, "it was me."

She ignored me this time and stared right at Fallon. "I think you should go and talk to the principal for a bit. Come on, I'll write you a note explaining what happened."

Fallon widened her eyes at me as she began to follow Ms. Greco towards the hall. Her expression seemed to beg, now what?

I shrugged back. Now what indeed.

I watched as the two left the room, Ms. Greco returning to the class a minute later. With Fallon, I hate to admit, but my resolve to misbehave lessened. I was supposed to be the good student after all, not the one who the principal expected to find in his office every day. But I had to see the principal again. I had to know if he was a sorcerer. And getting in trouble was the only way I could think to do that.

So when Ms. Greco had returned to her work at her desk, I lifted a hand, rubber band poised to strike once more. Letting go, I watched as it soared across the room and hit her right in the chest. This time, when she looked up and met my eyes she looked really surprised.

"Marina," she said in clipped tones, "come here please."

I got up and walked over to her desk, hoping that my last shot had been enough to send her over the edge with me too. "Yes?"

"Why did you shoot this rubber band at me?" she asked, picking it up off her desk.

"Because I could," I answered as defiantly as I could manage.

She sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead. "I don't know what's come over you today, Marina. This isn't like you at all."

I know, I thought, now send me to the principal too.

She lifted her hand from her face and pointed to an empty chair beside her desk. "Sit here for the remainder of the period. There's only ten minutes left anyway," she said, "Both you and your cousin will receive zeroes on the lab."

"What?" I asked incredulously, "You're not sending me to the principal's office?"

"No," she said, "This isn't something you'd normally do. You're a good student, Marina. I'm not going to punish you so severely for one wrongdoing."

"Bu-but—"

She pointed again. "Sit."

And the good girl in me sat. I couldn't think of anything else to do. Clearly, no matter what I did, Ms. Greco wasn't going to send me to the principal's office. I had to find another way.

Ten minutes later, when the bell rang signaling the end of the period and the beginning of lunch, I followed my peers out of the classroom to the dining hall. I found our usual table and sat down, barely acknowledging Annie, Grace, and Kayleigh who were already there. I stared around the room, trying to think of another way to get in to see Principal Price.

About a minute passed before Tommy approached the table, collapsing into a seat beside Annie. I could tell he'd already had a long day. Looking over to me, he smiled and nodded. I gave him a nod back, knowing he'd found my note and would meet me (and everyone else) in the library after school.

Jet slid into the seat beside me, slinging an arm over my shoulder. "How was physics?" he asked.

"Terrible," I muttered, not even turning to look him in the eye.

"Why's that?" He rubbed his hand over my shoulder. "What happened?"

"I didn't get in trouble," I said, then corrected myself, "Well, I did, but not enough?"

Even though I wasn't looking at him, I knew Jet was frowning at me.

"You didn't get in enough trouble?" he asked, clearly wondering if he'd heard me right.

I jerked my head down in a single nod. I had to find a way to get in trouble—real trouble—now during lunch. We couldn't wait until tomorrow to see if the principal was a sorcerer. The sooner we knew the sooner we could find out what was really going on and prepare ourselves for what's to come.

Jet leaned in closer to me and lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "Why are you trying to get in trouble? Does this have anything to do with yesterday?"

I gave him a half-smile. Jet always caught on to more when it came to me.

When I didn't respond, he didn't push the matter. I'd fill him in after I read Principal Price for an aura. Instead, he squeezed my arm and asked, "Anything I can do to help?"

Remembering what'd happened when Fallon tried to help—she still hadn't shown up to lunch—I shook my head. I didn't want Jet getting in trouble too.

"Okay." He took his arm back and started into the lunch in front of him.

I stared down at the tray. What was something I could do that would get me in enough trouble to be sent to the principal's?

The baked potato on Jet's tray looked good and my stomach growled at the thought. I should probably get some food for myself. That's when it hit me.

"Can I have this?" I asked Jet, pointing to the potato.

"Uhh, sure." He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess."

Grabbing the sliced potato, I pulled my knees up to my chest and stood up on my chair, yanking the entire room's attention to me. I braced myself for the hazardous gossip that was sure to follow my actions.

"Food fight!" I yelled at the top of my lungs and the launched the potato at the nearest lunch aide, smacking her in the back of the head and causing chunks of potato to get caught in her hair.

Everyone froze. No one moved, everyone's eyes shifting around the room. It was nothing like what happens in movies.

The aide whirled around and narrowed my eyes at me. She marched over faster than I expected her tiny body to carry her. Her hand latched onto my arm and yanked me down off the chair. The grip she held on me was viselike and she didn't loosen it until we were standing outside the principal's office.

The door opened and Fallon walked out, not looking particularly happy, but when she saw me standing there with the lunch aide her face broke into a huge smile. "Go get 'em," she said with a wink.

"Got another one here for you, Mr. Price," the lunch aide said as she practically shoved me through the door. Once again I shivered against the cool air in the office.

If the principal was surprised to see me he didn't show it.

While the lunch aide explained what happened and showed the principal the remnants of the potato in her hair, I did as Tommy had taught me last year. I focused in on Principal Price and then slowly widened my gaze on him, remembering everything I'd learned about him. I stared, waiting for the flowing, red light to appear. But nothing happened.

The principal didn't have an aura.

"So, Marina," he said, "I think we need to talk about the consequences of your actions."

I slumped down in the seat across from him, thinking how I couldn't have said it better myself.