Chapter 6

“What were you thinking?!” Lina scolded me the second I finished retelling most of what happened. I didn’t tell her about the chaotic parts, though, so that must have been a good decision. “Don’t you know how much trouble you could have gotten into? How much lives you would have wasted if you died right there and then?! You shouldn’t have gone with Dylan!”

Okay, so I might have altered the scene a little bit. But it doesn’t make any difference, does it? I mean, improvising and omitting isn’t really lying…right? I mean, saving the Night family’s lives by telling Lina a few lies would justify my actions, right?

“I’m sorry,” I apologised again, trying to sound as sincere as I can. “I really, really tried to refuse the offer.”

She looked at me doubtedly. “I seriously don’t think you’d give in to ‘peer pressure’ as easily as that. I mean, come on. You’re the immovable Leah Smith, for God’s sakes! Everyone in Shadowfield knows your name.”

I didn’t really want to be flattered by this, but somehow, I am. At least I was famous somewhere, right?

“Oh. Okay,” I said as I began to walk off to my room. This probably wasn’t such a good thing to do, since I knew that Lina hated that so much, but hell, I wanted to do it. This was practically my house, since my parents were---

The door blasted open with a bang. I mean, really. I actually winced at this. I think the whole house shook with the force that the slamming presented. Instantly, I knew who it was. I was thankful that Lina was following me as I was directly in front of my bedroom’s double doors.

It wasn’t Eris, although she might be a possible candidate for such an entrance.

It wasn’t Megan, since I knew that she wasn’t such a fan of making big entrances and lowering her newly-renewed self-esteem.

No, it was a couple.

A couple that I have unbelievably respected all my life.

Oh, and a couple that would skin me if they found out I let in a “guest” without telling them.

These infamous and scary and intimidating couple were my parents.

Not thinking, I pushed Lina into my open room.

“Hide in the farthest corner in my closet, and wait until I tell you to come out,” I hissed into her ear. She opened her mouth in protest, but I pushed her farther inside and closed the door as daintily as I could. I could hear her murmuring under her breath, and my closet closing. Good. I was safe.

“LEAH!!!” my father boomed chirpily downstairs in his usual fashion. I guessed that they were from some exotic island in the tropics. “My dear daughter!!! We’re---!”

“Oh, shut up,” I said as I smoothed my hair---unsuccessfully, as always---and made my way downstairs. My parents heard it, of course, but I knew what would come next.

“Lillian!” my father whimpered as he cowered behind my beaming mother. I smiled back at her in the same way, but I glared at the man of late 30s behind her. As usual, my mom has her occasional golden tan, perfectly matching her blonde, blonde hair that ended in the same curls as mine did. Her eyes glinted a pure blue, and I envied her for looking so young in her late 30s. There wasn’t even a trace of Botox there. She wore khakis and a pink Lacoste shirt, her shades at the top of her head. My father, however, was a tall man, towering a few feet above my 5”2 height. He was 7”2. As tall and as muscular---yes, muscular, as in bulky---he was so endearing even if he was such a coward. This was only when he was in a good mood, although I don’t ever remembering him being in a bad mood: just a serious one. He had this crop of jet black hair and the same blue eyes as my mother, with a dimpled chin. He wore the same outfit as my mum, complete with the shades. Like her, he also wore these flip-flops.

God, please send someone good enough to teach my parents how to dress properly.

“Our daughter hates me!” he whined, trying to crouch behind her, although doing so only made them matches their heights.

“Shut up, old man,” I snapped at him, wishing that he would. I knew, though, that this wasn’t enough to shut him up. I just knew that I had to---

“Well, you have to fight for what you want,” he said determinedly. He would always get his point across with a fight. Even if I tried to refuse, he would bug me for the rest of eternity. I mean, he was rich enough to buy immortality. I mean, that was the only explanation I’ve got on why he’s always looked like a dude from his mid-20s. It’s the only explanation I can come up with since I was 5, for God’s sakes. “I take your silence as a yes,”

Apparently, he still doesn’t get how the words “silence” and “no” go together when I didn’t answer him.

“Well, mum, how did your vacay go? I bet it was great,” I said as I simply ignored my father’s rants and talked to my more sensible mother. “Where was it?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered as she made her way to the living room. Not wanting to be left alone with a tall giant like my dad, I followed her there. Of course, my dad had to sit beside her. He sulked, but stuck a tongue out at me. A promise: we’d continue this later. “The Philippines was absolutely superb. It was hot, yes, but the beaches were wonderful. The northern Philippines was great as well.”

“Please, mum, tell me all about it. I would love to hear about your trip,” I said.

As she ranted on and on about how great this new place was, I tried to suppress a sigh.

It was always like this when they came home. The routine never changed and, somehow, I was getting tired of it. It was tiresome how the same things happened every time. I wanted change, for once, and not the bad kind.

I tried to pay attention to what they were both saying---something about funny, three-wheeled vehicles and great products at cheap prices---but my mind was flying off…remembering more and more of my past.

My mind settled on that night…the party before everything turned chaotic.

I was in the middle of a sea of strangers. Strangers that I barely even know or strangers with new faces that I wanted to be familiar with. I wanted to commune with my fellow Drinkers, but I knew better than to do so. The Hunters unexpectedly turned up, and the humans that were at the entrance didn’t even try to stop the uninvited guests. I wanted to shout and scream at them for being so stupid, not checking the names and the invitations, but I knew better than to lose my temper in the midst of so much people.

I took a sip of my red wine, barely listening to the Count of Greenwich, hoping that the alcohol’s effects will soon act on me. I didn’t want to hear any more of his banter about politics and religion, but it would be so impolite to just walk away without excusing myself. I didn’t want to speak up, either. The Count and the Baron of North Hampshire were debating, and more than a dozen prominent people were listening in. Asking for permission to be excused from this debate would give me a bad image, and I didn’t want THAT.

“Excuse me, may I excuse Miss Elizabeth? We need to discuss important matters,” Jayce said, appearing out of the blue. Argh! He was going to get us both in trouble, the way he always asks for our private time out of the blue. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. It displeased me as he asked for me to be excused from a crowd of well-known Drinkers. Doesn’t he know the risks we are taking when he does this?

“Of course,” the Count said. None of them even noticed that he wasn’t a Drinker. He soon dragged me outside in the cool spring air, right near the fountain where no one could see us.

“Jayce, what are you doing?!” I hissed at him, unable to contain my anger any longer. “That was the Count of Greenwich and the Baron of North Hampshire. They would have had your head on a platter for me if they had paid more attention to what you were,”

“Oh, love,” he said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I blushed. He cupped my chin in his fingers and made me look up to him. The moon was almost directly behind him, giving him a halo that suited his personality. His silver-blue eyes glinted under the twinkling stars, and his perfect face framed by his dark hair. He smiled, and I was hooked. Truly, he was too good to ever be with me. Still, when I would try to point this out to him, he would reverse the situation…turn the tables. “You worry too much. Try relaxing, okay? Everything will be fine,”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I answered, doubt and anxiety and paranoia poisoning my thoughts. “There are so many Hunters and---,”

He put a finger to my lips. I felt the heat burn in my cheeks. “Don’t fret, luv. It’ll all be alright, I promise.”

I highly doubted that, no matter how much I wanted to believe in it.

“That’s great,” I said nonchalantly, snapping out of my thoughts before I remembered things I didn’t want to remember. I wasn’t even listening to them. “I have to go do my homework now,”

“Oh, go ahead, sweetie,” my mother said, waving me off. I hugged her before rushing upstairs, slamming the door behind me the second I got inside my room.

Just remembering that moment made my knees go weak, and my mind numb. I sank down, my back to the double doors, my knees sticking out underneath me at an odd angle. I held my face in my hands, wondering if it was possible for my face to melt with sadness.

“Whoever you are out there, I don’t give a rat’s ass,” I heard a muffled voice come out of nowhere, snapping me out of my morbid trance. The closet door opened and I, in my current broken state, was somehow shocked at this. A figure stumbled out, and I couldn’t make out who it was, since the lights were turned off. I could see that the figure was a girl, though, so that was at least a bit comforting. The figure faced me, and she scoffed.

“Tch. You could’ve at least spoken up, you know,” she snapped at me. I immediately recognised who it was: Lina. I sort-of forgot about her, but I didn’t want to say that out loud. “I was practically choking on the dust bunnies in there, not to mention those old forgotten shoes of yours that looked as if they could have been used in the previous century and stayed in your closet ever since,”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to get up and apologise properly, although I just couldn’t seem to. You know that feeling when your heart feels so heavy? Yeah, that was what I felt. “I…”

“What happened?” she asked, suddenly sitting beside me. “Is there anything you need to talk about?”

“No,” I answered, my voice shaking a little, but sounding better than before. Maybe that was enough to convince that everything was fine-just-fine. “I’m fine. I just need…to sit down for a bit. It’s really been a rough day,”

**************************************

It’ll all be alright.

Those were the last four comforting words that Jayce said to me before he died in Paris. I unknowingly took it to heart. I knew that, since then, it has been what I always heard in my mind when everything wasn’t as exactly as planned. I would just close my eyes and imagine him there, sitting in front of me, the moon behind his head acting like a halo.

Now, though, it didn’t seem to work anymore, and I worried that I was forgetting him. I didn’t want to forget him at all.

Damned Night twins.

I knew that they were the reason that I was forgetting about Jayce. It was such a horrible thing that they did to me that I cannot begin to comprehend my muddled thoughts when they were near. That was just the freakish twins. Dylan, however, was another matter.

I hated how he made me forget the things that were important to me, and how he made things look so easy when he was around. When he left, it’s like I was thrown back into the chaotic reality of the world. I hated that. He made me lose control of everything I had, and I would need to organise and take control of these things again.

“You could just stay away from them,” Eris pointed out one day as I voiced out my agitation after Jez deliberately bumped into my shoulder, never once looking back or muttering an apology.

“I would if I could but I can’t,” I said all in one breath. “The Twins are there for Maths, Woodworks, Latin, Dramatic Arts and Phys Ed. Dylan’s in Art and my partner in Cooking. Any other subject is a mess.”

“Well, we still sit beside each other in Maths, right?” Megan said, a tinge of hopefulness in her voice.

“Not after you got in trouble for not doing your project,” I pointed out. “Since you weren’t here yesterday, I was forced to sit beside Jez. Are you happy now?”

Neither of them spoke up. Duh. If they weren’t absent so much, then I would have had a better seat next to Nathan than that once-wonderful seat by the window next to Jez.

********************************

The bell rang to signal the start of Maths. I rushed past the crowd and went against the flow, just barely making it a second before my teacher. I mean, I would be dead if I arrived a second later. I hurried to my seat just in time. Jez, as usual, was at her seat, sitting as straight as possible, her right hand propping her head up, her elbow digging into her book.

“Took you long enough,” she said as our teacher walked in. She instantly put up her façade. Ugh, I hated her.

“Alright, today we’ll be starting statistics…” our teacher started.

The whole time, I couldn’t help but notice how Jez hunched over her work, taking it as seriously as she could, never noticing me. It was like I was just a lifeless doll compared to how vigorously she worked. From the back of the class, I could barely recognise her hunched form at the front row. Now that I sat beside her, I knew that I could copy at anytime I wanted. But that would be wrong. Here, in the classroom, I wasn’t taught to bring personal problems with me. School work is school work, and if I didn’t study hard enough, I would be burned like a witch by my parents.

Still, though, studying doesn’t seem like such a big deal compared to what I had just discovered about Jez and her family. I couldn’t believe that they were the deities. I mean, who would’ve known? I had been so blind as to not notice this. Still, though, it couldn’t be noticed, not by me or anyone else. It was just so well-hidden that even I---a Drinker who has finished with a master’s degree at Recon work---wouldn’t even half suspected it.

“You’d better start doing your work,” Jez murmured beside me as she put on the lid of her pen, sitting back as straight as ever. I almost forgot about her bitchiness, by the way she acted so seriously in the classroom. Unbelievably, I followed her advice. She stared on straight ahead, as if the white board was the only thing to look at. After a few minutes, the bell rang, and we were asked to pass our books. We did, and we were given homework in turn. Well, damn. At least this was the last subject of the day.

“Hey, Jez?” I said, catching up to her as she went outside. Surprisingly enough, Ryan wasn’t there to greet her. “About yesterday…why were you…?”

“Are you seriously going to ask that now?” she asked, no emotion in her voice, sounding as if she forgot all of it. As if she had no emotion at all. An unattainable feat for people like me.

“I’m asking now, am I?” I said through my teeth, losing my temper quickly.

“Sure sounds like it,” she said in the same nonchalant way.

“Stop answering me like that,”

“Then I won’t answer you at all,”

The silence wore on and on, and I couldn’t seem to break it. Instead, the void that the silence provided was filled with the unintelligible chattering of the students around us.

“Your silence is greatly disturbing,” she said as she opened her locker and took out her bag, stuffing her homework inside.

“As is your calmness,” I replied as I did the same. Oddly, we were walking to the parking lot together. Was she being…friendly…to me?

“I thought you hated me,” I said, unable to contain it any longer. I heard her chuckle slightly as we darted in and out of the crowd. As usual, she sat by the gate. I sat with her.

“Who told you?” she asked, sounding amused, as if she was a child whose motive has been found out.

“People,” I simply answered with a shrug.

“People listen to others, thus becoming just like the rest, not becoming any different,” she said, looking off into the distance. “Humans are like that: they’re too dependent on each other, never listening to anything or anyone else except themselves.”

“Deep,” I chuckled. She was right, though. “Who are we waiting for?”

“Paul,” she answered. “Luke isn’t allowed to go here.”

“Why?”

“Red eyes.”

“Oh.”

Our conversations, as it seems, are always like this. Cut short, with someone saying “oh” at the end, therefore signalling the end of the convo, only to start a new one.

“Hey babe,” Paul said, appearing in his uniform, bursting from the crowd together with Ryan and Dylan, flanking him. He immediately put an arm around her shoulders as she stood up. He noticed me without anyone pointing me out for him, at least. “Well, well. Getting friendly now, are we?”

“Don’t kid yourself, dude,” Ryan said as he began to walk away, barely noticing me, as if he didn’t talk with me yesterday. Dylan did the same; I felt so rejected that I wanted to either cry or disappear. Of course, I could do neither. “My sis is just in a good mood after I let her beat me yesterday.”

“Hey, that stag was fair game,” Jez protested, sticking her tongue out behind her, where Ryan was.

They left, arguing, not looking back even once. I sighed as I got up. Was this how I was willing to spend my days? I still had a group of friends I belong to, after all. The question was: would they take me back? Eris, for sure, but Megan and Rayne and the others, I was doubtful of.

Again, to the topic of friends and relationships.

I didn’t want to think about that anymore as I made myself walk towards my car. I felt like a zombie as I went into my Cadillac and started it up. Before I could start to do anything else (i.e., back up and drive home), my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took out my handy Blackberry and checked it:

Will be out until next year. Gone to Europe for business, then to Vatican to talk to the Pope. xoxo, Mum and Dad.

Well, I should’ve expected this sooner or later. As I said, they were always gone.

This was one of those things that came in handy but was also a con…another wrong in my life. As it seems, my life suddenly seems so full of mistakes. Unbelievably so, I found that I had the pros in my life, too…the good things that seems that couldn’t possibly get wrong.

“Oh well,” I said as I threw my phone on the passenger seat, along with the numerous CDs there. I winced as my phone fell with the CD stack, but drove on. I could tell this was going to be a long day. But, after all, I had Lina to look forward to at home.

****************************

“How come you took so long?” Lina complained as I found her sulking around in my bedroom, eating her oh-so-precious cereal. I just knew I complained about this once…or twice. Or more.

“Why do people always say that I’m slow?!” I complained back, trying to tip her bowl as she drank the last remnants of her milk. This time, she was eating Lucky Charms. Damn it, where did she get all this cereal?! “And for the umpteenth time, I still say that cereal is not to be eaten inside my room!”

“For the millionth time, I still say that cereal is important food! Do you not understand how cereal is a very important kind of food for all?!”

“Damn it, why do you keep on defending cereal?” I said, grabbing a random stuffed toy. Accidentally, I grabbed my cute, green-eyed black cat. “Momo, side with me here!”

She simply meowed and jumped from my hands, then went to Lina. She purred and lay down comfortably at her feet. She smiled smugly.

“Great, even my cat is a fan of cereal!” I said, collapsing on my bed, exhausted. “What the heck is so great about cereal, anyway?! It’s all grain with milk and sugar!”

“I don’t give a damn about what you think,” Lina said, letting Momo lick the insides of her bowl. “Momo and I rest our case. Say something bad about cereal again and I’ll seriously let Momo claw at you like hell,”

“She’s my cat,” I pointed out bluntly. “I personally picked her up from the street when she was a little kitty. Seriously,”

“Who cares where she came from?!”

“I do,”

“So?!”

I couldn’t reply. As much as I wanted to deny it, I had been owned. She sighed and took her bowl. She started going outside.

“I need to go get more cereal,” she said. I started to run after her, planning to take all that cereal away, but she slammed the door. In my face. I stood there for a second, trying to get over the fact that I just got owned. Again. I opened the door and aw Lina laughing madly as she closed her bedroom door.

“Argh!” I shouted, annoyed, opening her door. She was nowhere to be found. “Damn you, Lina! You are so gonna pay for what you did to me!”

“What, like embarrassing you in front of your cat?” I heard her say. Still, I couldn’t pinpoint where she was hiding. There were millions of places to hide. Damn these huge guest rooms.

“Eff you!” I said, walking around, seriously annoyed.

Sometime soon, she was going to pay for this.

*****************************************

“Damned e-mails,” I murmured, deleting all of them. Heck, not checking my e--mail for a long time is so not good for my mental health. I had 198,895 e-mails and 43,507 messages in my outbox. This would take an effin’ helluva time! What was I supposed to do, scan all 198, 895 of them?! Who in the right mind would do that?! Besides, it took me hours to file and re-print fake info about Ryan, Dylan and Jez. “Damn you. Delete, effin’ messages!!!”

Besides, not telling Lina that the Recon targets already knew about the mission itself…that was probably a good thing. She would have to literally kill me if she found out that they knew.

“Are you seriously cursing at your e-mail messages?” Lina asked nonchalantly, in my room again, a bowl of Frosties balanced on her lap. After wrestling her to the floor in a very gruesome way (i.e., breaking her arm, letting it heal, and doing it over and over and over again), she was still eating cereal. “Wow, my suspicions were correct after all. I should get the men in white jackets, don’t you think?”

“Oh, shut up you cereal eater,” I snapped at her, marking my messages one-by-one.

Suddenly, a certain message caught my eye. It was sent this morning. God, I thought, clicking it. It was, after all, without a particular subject.

Lina walked over to me and peered over my shoulder.

“’Leah,’” she read, reliving me the bother to read it for myself. I was kind-of thankful for that. I leaned back on the seat, closing my eyes and relaxing my whole body. “’I know it must be so sudden, but my brother is inviting you to an exclusive pool party tomorrow at 8 sharp. Dylan will come by and pick you up. Be absolutely sure you look presentable, not someone he’s going to be ashamed of. Bring Megan and Eri-someone---‘,”

“It’s Eris,” I said, frowning a little, but not wanting to open my eyes. “Are you sure it said that?”

“That’s what it said, and I read it as it is,” she said, shrugging, and then continuing to read. “…‘with you. IM me if they want to come. My cousin and my bro will be their dates. Signed, Jez’.”

“Hmm,” I just said, contemplating and debating on whether I should tell Megan and Eris…’’or not. Telling them would be a crucial part, because if they decided to go, I would be forced to come as well.

“Wait, there’s a P.S,” she said. “‘P.S. You REALLY need to come, or else my brothers and I are screwed’.”

“Well, screw them,” I said, stretching my cramped limbs. Damn, I needed a long, long sleep. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll tell them. I’d be dead, but so what? I really couldn’t care. They were hyper enough as it is, and I knew they had more than enough gowns and/or dresses in their closets. “I’m gunna go to sleep. Turn the comp off for me?”

“Sure, hun,” she said as she sat down while I got up. I walked to my bed, lazily taking off my uniform and stripping down to my camisole and shorts. “I’m sure you must be exhausted, so I’ll just turn this off for you, okay?”

I muttered an agreement as I lay down on my bed, letting my hair fan out from underneath my head, relishing the feel of the soft mattress underneath me.

I was too sleepy to notice the false tone in her voice; I closed my eyes too early to notice the typing sounds that were supposed to be loud enough to wake me.

***********************************

“Say that again and face me,” Eris said, her voice sounding as if she might explode at any second. I wanted to take the risk of hating this forever.

“Do. You. Want. To. Come. To. Ryan’s. Pool. Party?” I asked, saying each word slowly and deliberately, as if I was talking to a mere child. In a sense, I was.

“Why the heck did you ask me to come today?” she whined. For a minute, I thought she didn’t want to go, but I knew that I should know better than that. “I don’t have the time to----,”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to come,” I said quickly. “I mean, I could just call them that Megan can come and---,”

“Pick a dress,” she finished pointedly.

“Oh,”

“You would’ve understood if you let me finish!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“How dare you not let me finish?!”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Hmph,” she said, crossing her arms, looking very, very worried. “I mean, what should I wear? I feel as if I already wore everything there is to wear in my closet,”

“But you didn’t wear all of your dresses yet,”

“I said that it feels like it,” she said, sounding pissed. “You really should’ve told me this earlier!”

“But I read it last night!”

“Then you could’ve called me after you read it!”

“I was sleepy!”

“I don’t give a damn if you lose your damned sleep!”

“I said I was sorry!”

“I don’t care!” she shouted back. I laughed bitterly, noting the fact that we were arguing. It was fun, really.

Not.

I always, always got owned by anyone I argue with. One of my many weaknesses.

“Because of you, I have to cut classes! Do you know how long a good stylist takes just to get to our place? Or how long it would take to drive to Albert Park?!”

“No,” I answered. “And I don’t care anyway! If you won’t come, then I’ll have to take someone else with me! Megan’s already coming, and it’s not my fault that you arrived later than her, therefore prolonging this piece of news!”

“Okay, so you’ve got a point,” she said, briefly admitting her defeat. Oh goody. At least she would stop---

“But I still stand by the fact that you’re wrong!”

Oh, holy J.C! When will this stop?!