***
It took hours that night to polish the whole floor, which I thought was pretty shiny to begin with. We probably could have pretended to polish it and leave it as it was and no one would notice, except we were supervised by Mr. Wilcox. He sat on a chair on the stage and read a book while we worked and barely even bothered to look up. We were even more exhausted by the time we finished.
"I feel like I could sleep for days," Melissa complained. "This has been the longest day of my life."
"I know what you mean," Heather said, yawning.
I was tired too, but I was in a pretty good mood anyway, so I didn't complain. I hadn't told my friends about my date at lunch. When they asked me where I was I told them I had taken a nap, which would actually have been a good idea, so it was believable. Neither of them liked Adrian very much, and I was pretty sure Heather was a little afraid of him. She seemed to be afraid of most werewolves, though she got along great with Jack. She even had a bit of a crush on him, which I encouraged whenever I could. I thought they would be great together.
I felt a little better rested the next day, though I was still tired. We ended up working individually in Skills Development, so I decided to work on my drawing, which I was still getting better at. I don't mean that the drawings themselves were of better quality, I mean I was getting better at controlling what I drew. When I had first started drawing I drew whatever came to me, but I could now be more specific, though not as much as I wanted to be. I could choose a general subject or time, but I didn't always draw what I planned.
That day I was having trouble controlling it, which was probably because of my fatigue. I tried to draw what Mr. Ramirez would be doing in ten minutes, and I ended up drawing Jack playing basketball outside. I then decided to draw Adrian without even specifying the time, just to make things easier. The picture that I ended up with disturbed me.
The drawing wasn't of Adrian at all. Instead, it was of Michael, who I hadn't seen much since before winter break. He appeared to be in the cafeteria, and I could see a few people in the background. What bothered me was his expression, which was one of fear. It looked like he was cowering away from something, and I had never seen Michael look like that before. Unfortunately, I had no idea when it was going to happen or what he was afraid of. I thought of showing the drawing to Mr. Ramirez, but I decided to show it to Michael instead. At least he would be warned.
I looked for Michael at lunch time, but I couldn't find him in the cafeteria. After asking around, I was told he was practicing with his band in the music room, so I went to find him there.
I could hear the music from a little ways down the hall. It seemed they had finally gotten a new keyboard player, though they weren't very good. The band was trying to play a Nightwish song, but they had a lot of work to do. They stopped playing when they saw me standing in the doorway.
"Hey, Juliet!" Leon shouted. He waved as well. Patrick just nodded at me and flipped through some music.
Michael came up to me. "What's up?" he asked. I motioned for him to join me in the hallway. When we got there I pulled out my drawing and handed it to him. He studied it for a moment.
"What is this?" he asked. He looked at me like I was crazy, and I remembered that he didn't know about my ability.
"It's a drawing of the future," I told him. "I just thought I should warn you. These drawings have a habit of becoming true."
"Did you draw it yourself?"
"Yes, I drew it this morning. I don't know when it will happen though."
"I didn't know that you could draw the future. I knew you could see auras, so I thought that was your ability, but now people are saying something to do with fire too. There's a rumour going around school that you and some other people got in trouble for making a fire in the woods at night, though I had a hard time believing that. I guess it's not true anyway."
"Well, actually, it is true," I admitted. "We were just testing our abilities, but we ended up getting caught."
"How many abilities do you have?" Michael asked, sounded surprised. "I thought heroes only had one."
"Three, I think, but it doesn't matter. I just wanted to show you that drawing. I'll let you get back to your band." I took the paper back.
"So, you don't know what this could mean at all?"
"Nope. I don't usually know anything except what's in the drawing and sometimes what I'm trying to draw, like time, person, or place. This time I was trying to draw someone else, but it ended up being you."
"That sounds complicated," Michael commented.
I shrugged. "I'm still learning. Anyway, I should go."
"You can stay and listen if you want," Michael said. "Can't hurt to have an extra set of ears around, especially those belonging to someone with so much talent."
"I think you guys have a bit of work to do before you should have an audience," I commented, and then I blushed. I hadn't meant to be rude. Luckily Michael wasn't offended. We said goodbye and I headed to the cafeteria to eat.
I got about halfway to the cafeteria before I realised something. I could try to do another drawing of the same event to get more information. I headed to the south wing instead of the cafeteria so I could draw and grab some food from the kitchen.
My fatigue continued to get in the way. The first drawing I made was of Leon trying to play the drums, which I didn't think had anything to do with the other drawing since they weren't even in the same place. I managed to finish one more drawing before I had to go to class, and it wasn't in the cafeteria either. It was of Melissa standing next to a broken pot on the floor in the greenhouse.
I spent the next week trying to draw something else about the other drawing, but I didn't have much luck. Whenever I was in the cafeteria I worried that something would happen, especially if I could see Michael. I talked to him a few times and told him what I was trying to do, but he didn't seem concerned at all. I only managed to create one drawing that was at all promising, since it was the only one that was in the cafeteria, and it had a similar theme. It was of Ms. Coleman, and she was running toward something, and she also looked afraid, though not as much as Michael did. It was a small bit of information, but it was information nonetheless.
It didn't happen until the next week. It was supper time on a Friday, and the cafeteria was almost full of happy students, eager to get on with the weekend. I was sitting with Jack, and we were discussing what Ms. Coleman had told us about in History that morning, since it was an interesting topic. I could see Ms. Coleman on the other side of the room, where she was talking to one of her students. Jack ended up leaving early to get in a game of basketball with one of his friends from his classes, which left me all alone until Michael came and sat with me.
"Did you hear?" he asked. "The band is finally going to get to play a show for the school. We booked the ballroom for a day in the middle of April. It's going to be great."
"I did hear, actually. I think Melissa mentioned it this morning, though I don't know how she knew," I said.
"Oh, I told her yesterday. Do you think you'll come?"
"Yeah, I don't see why not," I said. I secretly hoped that they were playing better than they had the last time I'd heard them, but I didn't say anything. Michael seemed confident enough, and I thought he had good enough taste.
"Great! Want to get together afterward? Leon and a few others booked a TV and managed to get their hands on a movie. It'd be great if you could join us." It sounded like he was asking me on a date, which I wasn't too comfortable with, especially since I was with Adrian.
"I probably shouldn't," I said. "I'll probably still be on probation after the whole fire incident." That was a lie, but I didn't think he'd know that. I got up to go, since I wanted to go for a swim, and Michael got up as well.
"Well, maybe some other time, then," he said, and he gave me a quick hug before turning to go.
It was then when I realized that something was wrong.
I didn't really know how, but I felt it coming, like a gut feeling. When I looked around I saw the people in the drawings I had done, and in the same place. Ms. Coleman was still in the room, and so was Michael. Then there was Adrian.
I hadn't seen him until that moment, right when Michael started to walk toward the table where Patrick was sitting, but I think he had been there for a few minutes, and it was the first time I had ever seen him in the cafeteria. He had an expression on his face that I had never seen before. I was going to say hi, but I realized that he wasn't paying attention to me. All of his attention was focused on Michael, who was walking near him. The colors of his aura gave me all the warning I needed, but I was almost too late. In what seemed like a fraction of a second, there was a large gray wolf flying through the air toward Michael.