Free The Weapon Within: A Paranormal Dystopian Adventure (The Unexplainables Book 1) by Lizzie Rose Page B

seemed bizarre to me and the thought of having to come here on an almost daily basis did not fill me with joy. Someone sniggered from further down the table and I looked up at a girl with flame red hair.
    ‘ I know the feeling.’ She grinned at me then went back to her phone. Reminding myself to try and be more selective about the thoughts I wanted to share, I closed my eyes and waited for the day to end.
    *
    For a while I was sucked into a world where spots, boys and pop songs were the main topics of conversation. Fridays were my favourite because my friends and I would meet at the diner for tea after college and work. It made things bearable and for the most part I felt happy. There were only two things that caused me concern: Skye and Connor.
    The former was avoiding speaking to me at all costs and shot dirty looks at me whenever we were in close proximity , and the latter would not leave me alone. Every time I turned a corner at college he was there, sometimes with his little gang of friends, other times alone. Whenever he did manage to speak to me his eyes would rake me up and down, sending shivers of discomfort down my spine. I couldn’t understand why he was trying so hard to be nice to me after he’d been so aggressive towards me when we first met.
    ‘ I think he likes you,’ Beth told me matter-of-factly from the other side of our easel one afternoon, having listened patiently to my concerns.
    ‘ Likes me?’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘You know . . . fancies you.’
    I laughed. ‘Don’t be crazy. Anyway, he’s got a girlfriend, hasn’t he?’
    ‘ That depends on who you ask.’ She giggled. ‘Everyone knows that he’s cheated on Chantelle at least twice in the last year. He’s not exactly what you’d call loyal.’
    ‘ Not marriage material then.’
    ‘ Um, no. I’m sure you have better taste that that.’
    ‘ I certainly do.’
    She peered around the side of the easel, her paintbrush waving in mid-air.
    ‘Oh, really? Like who?’
    I dipped my head and concentrated hard on choosing a new colour. She wasn’t going to be distracted. ‘Come on, I promise not to tell.’
    I sighed . ‘Well, it won’t make any difference because he’s not available.’
    ‘ Who are we talking about?’
    ‘ Oscar,’ I whispered.
    ‘ Ohhhh.’ She grimaced. ‘Awkward.’
    ‘ Please don’t say anything to him. It’s bad enough as it is with Skye trying to make me spontaneously combust every time I see her. Seriously, it’s a good job she doesn’t have powers.’
    ‘ She’d die if she did. She hates Oscar being around the Nexes so much.’
    ‘ She gets on well with Kenzie though,’ I pointed out.
    ‘ That’s because they were close growing up so she couldn’t just walk away completely.’
    The tutor strolled over to our easel and looked carefully at my picture. I ’d deliberately made it look as though a child had painted it. She nodded and walked away. ‘This place is crazy,’ I muttered to Beth who sniggered and stretched round to add a blob of paint to my page.
    *
    Just over two months later, the weather changed significantly. Almost overnight it went from being mild and a bit rainy to freezing cold. Esther bought me a couple of thick woolly jumpers to keep me warm. The promise of a week off college was imminent and I’d made plans with Beth to go on a day trip to the shopping centre. I didn’t really need anything but figured it would be fun anyway and was really looking forward to it. Oscar drove us to the centre and dropped us off. I was super-excited and insisted that we go into every shop we could find just to see what was inside.
    By the time Oscar came to meet us, we were exhausted. As we set off out of the car park, we chatted about our day and moaned about our aching feet. Oscar put the radio on and after a while we sank into quietness, listening to the music. We reached a junction and came to a stop at the red light. A line of vehicles coming from the left began to move. My attention