All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [67]
Amanda banged into her locker and winced.
Fiona took an involuntary step closer. Her first instinct was to rush over there and stop this.
But she halted. Part of her wanted to know why Amanda was here, too. She knew Amanda wouldn’t lie about the League sponsorship. Why had they sent her here?
Sarah pressed on, however, before Fiona could act. She grasped Amanda by her arm and shoved her into the showers.
The other girls watched, some laughed, but most just kept doing what they were doing.
“No,” Amanda whimpered. She didn’t even look up, her eyes firmly glued to her feet, unwilling—or maybe unable—to stand up for herself.
Amanda stumbled onto the tiled stalls. “Please don’t,” she whispered to Sarah.
“ ‘Please’?” Sarah said, mocking her. “Please help you get clean? Help you wash that rat’s nest hair? Why, certainly.”
Sarah twisted on a cold water spigot. A shower nozzle sputtered and shot forth streams of water.
It hit Amanda, and she yelped, then jumped out of the way.
Sarah tapped the pipe. All the cold water spigots turned by themselves. Icy water rained and filled the entire shower section of the locker room.
Amanda backed into the corner, but still got drenched.
“St-st-stop it,” Amanda sobbed. “Please.”
Fiona had watched enough. Someone had to stand up for Amanda. And someone had to take that horrid Sarah Covington down a few notches.
She marched over to them. “Turn it off,” Fiona told Sarah.
Sarah looked around the gym, pursed her lips, and appeared for a split second as uneasy with this cruel prank as Fiona . . . but then she shook her head.
Fiona reached for the water faucet—Sarah stepped in front of her.
Fiona wanted to punch Sarah right in her petite button nose, freckles and all.
But she checked the impulse as she remembered how she had fought Beelzebub. She’d hit and been hit with enough force to smash concrete. If she hit Sarah that hard, the girl might not survive.
And as tempting as that was, at this particular moment, Fiona knew violence was wrong.
So instead she reached for the main pipe, her fingers slipped over the beads of condensation on the metal, and she closed her hand—crushing the steel as if it were an empty aluminum can.
The water in the pipe squeaked and squealed and shuttered to a stop.
Louis had told her: “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable . . . and yet you somehow manage to rein in that power.”
. . . Maybe not entirely reined in at this moment.
Fiona released the mashed pipe and turned to Sarah. Her hand slowly clenched into a fist in front of Sarah’s face. “She’s on our team,” Fiona told her. “But if you don’t like it—you don’t have to be.”
Sarah glanced at the crushed pipe, seemingly unimpressed, then looked at Fiona’s fist. Her eyes narrowed a tad. She didn’t look frightened, but nonetheless she snorted and backed off a step, then returned to her locker.
“ ‘Just sussing out the pecking order,’ ” Fiona muttered after her.
Fiona might never be Sarah’s social equal at Paxington—but if she could help it, she wasn’t going to be bullied or let her bully anyone else.
Fiona went to Amanda.
The girl stood shivering in the corner, wet hair plastered over her face. She tried to control her sobs, but they still came out in little gasps.
Fiona was about to offer her hand to the girl . . . but then thought better of it. Probably not the smartest thing to do after she had just crushed the pipe in front of her.
For a moment she wondered if Sarah hadn’t been right in one sense: Amanda didn’t belong here. She was going to get hurt. Or worse.
Why had the League sent her here anyway?
“It’s going to be okay,” Fiona said, amazingly sounding like she meant this.
“Th-th-thanks.” The word shuddered out of Amanda’s body.
“Let’s get you toweled off,” Fiona suggested. “I have an extra set of gym clothes you can borrow.”
Amanda nodded and skittered out of the showers.
Fiona considered what she had done by saving Amanda: she’d have to watch out not only for herself and her brother—but now a third clueless person as well. That was going