Free T*Witches: The Witch Hunters by Randi Reisfeld, H.B. Gilmour Page A

experience in the boiler room closet, she could use all the magic she could muster.
    Sukari was on her way to the den door when Cam entered the room. The tawny girl had a piece of paper in her hand. She threw her arms around Cam and whimpered, totally un-Suke-like, “I don’t know what’s going on. Oh, Cam, I need help. I’m scared. I think I’m going off the deep end.”
    “It’s that kind of night,” Cam couldn’t help noting. A wave of comfort, of almost hyper-confidence, had washed away her trembling fear the minute she’d set foot inside the house. Being safely home, in the familiar surroundings of the den, knowing Dave was near and Emily somewhere upstairs, probably, was just what she needed. She hugged Sukari, then held the girl at arm’s length. “I never thought I’d hear you say, ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’ Not you, AP answer girl —”
    Sukari managed a shaky smile. “Yeah, you wouldn’t think so, would you? Did you get one of these?” she asked cautiously, showing Cam the paper. It was a copy of the e-mail from the Witch Hunter.
    “Of course,” Cam answered. “See?” She pointed out the long list of people it had been sent to at the top of the page. “Everyone got it. It’s someone’s idea of a joke.”
    “But it says the Witch Hunter, Cam. It’s from that nutcase at the premiere.”
    “Not. You’ve been hanging with Amanda too long, girlfriend.” Cam turned away so Suke wouldn’t see how sick it made her to flat out lie. “Where is gullible-girl, anyway?”
    “I… I tried to tell her … I tried to explain,” Sukari said miserably. “But she doesn’t get it —”
    “There’s something about you Amanda doesn’t get?” Cam laughed.
    “Lately. Yeah.” Sukari crushed the e-mail and threw it into her backpack. “I don’t know where to begin,” she said.
    But she managed. Nervously, in stops and starts, half-sentences, and trailing thoughts, Sukari explained. When school started this year, she’d felt fine. Regular. She was psyched about getting into Spenser’s Advanced Placement. She’d heard he was tough but supposedly a terrific teacher. And he had been, Sukari admitted. Totally terrific. Until…
    Here, Sukari put her head in her hands. Until, she continued, she’d begun to know the answers to his tests —
    “Well, duh, of course you would,” Cam interrupted. “It’s science. It’s your subject.”
    “No, that’s not it,” Sukari protested. “I knew the answers before I actually saw the tests. I don’t mean I knew-knew. I just sort of had a feeling about what he’d be asking. And I was right. Crazy right. It was as if I’d seen the tests in advance. I think that’s what Spenser thinks. But I didn’t. He kept asking me how I knew. And I kept saying it was just a feeling, you know? But even I knew it was more than that, Cam. It was like I was getting like you —”
    Cam stiffened. “Like me? What do you mean?” she demanded, surprised at how defensive she sounded. Almost angry. Only it wasn’t anger. It was the jumble of emotions — fear topping the list — that came whenever she realized, understood, or “got” something she didn’t want to know.
    And she’d just gotten who the Witch Hunter meant when he had said, “All three of you.”
    Sukari backed off. Literally. She took two steps back, then spun away from Cam. “Nothing. I don’t know. I mean,” she said, slowing down, trying to figure it out as she went along, “like your mojo, you know? You know, how you can feel things before they happen sometimes? Like in soccer, it’s as if you can read the other team’s mind; you guess exactly what play they’ll make.… It’slike that, Cam. I just have this feeling, this sense, about what’s coming next. And it’s freaking me to the max. But what’s worse is, it’s freaking Mr. Spenser, too. Last week, he called me a witch! In class. In front of everybody.”
    Cam, Alex, and Sukari made three.
    Only Suke wasn’t a witch.