Huntress Claimed

by M K Masterson

  "Who was that?" I questioned her, my voice sounding more annoyed than asking a general question.

  "He was hot, whoever he was," Meredith responded.

  "Ew." I felt slightly repulsed.

  Sera groaned, rubbing a hand down her face before looking back at us. "That was Mr. Myles. He's an English teacher here. This is his first-year teaching."

  "That's nice," I replied dismissively. "What did he want?"

  "He asked me on a date on Saturday," Sera replied, looking into my eyes to gauge my reaction. Her moss green eyes were earnest, and her thin olive-toned face was tense. Besides our olive-toned skin, Sera and I looked nothing really alike. And even being olive toned, her skin was slightly darker. Just like our hair. We both had long, dark hair, but hers was almost black in color and very straight without any wave to it. I would have to straighten mine daily to match her natural straight locks.

  She was model perfect with her flawless skin and tall, slender frame. And she did deserve someone as beautiful as she was inside and out, but I didn't feel like Mr. Myles was that person. I was about to put the kibosh on her possible date, which would be easy for me. She hadn't accepted, and the way she was looking at me made it more of a question of permission than a demand. But then I saw the stress lines around her eyes and realized that she had given up so much for me. I was fortunate enough to experience a standard adolescent setting at Erie, and it wouldn't have happened without her. She was due some normalcy in her own life.

  "Does that mean I get to throw a party while you're gone?" I teased.

  The tension relaxed from her face.

  "You have to have some sort of social life for that to happen first," Sera baited me, lifting a perfectly manicured eyebrow in a cocky expression.

  I stuck my tongue out at her before looking collected. "Well, for your information, I actually have some news on that front."

  "Oh?" A slightly surprised look on her face lightened the room.

  There wasn't a reason for me to feel annoyed considering my known experiences at the other schools, but I kind of did for a second.

  "I have been invited to hang out with some friends after school."

  It was that moment that Sera looked at Meredith, considering her.

  "You're part of the friends?" Sera questioned.

  "I am. I'm Meredith Weber," Meredith waved.

  "And how many of you are there?"

  I shrugged my shoulders, trying to appear aloof. "Just a small group. Three other people besides Meredith."

  "They are really nice guys," Meredith mentioned, thinking she was helping.

  This managed just to raise both of Sera's eyebrows. "Guys?"

  I rolled my eyes, really trying to lay it on thick that it was no big deal, but inside I desperately wanted to hang out with my new friends.

  "Sera, they seem like the geeky sort of guys. Very non-threatening."

  She pursed her full rose-colored lips before asking more questions. I could see the edge of the smirk she was trying to conceal. "And where will you be?"

  "At Nate's house," I replied.

  "Nate who?"

  "Nathan Spencer, Miss Walker. He's a really good, nice guy. He lives off the side walking trail from the school. You take a left onto Crabtree. He's all the way down, close to the small plaza with the Drug Mart. It's a fifteen-minute walk at the most," Meredith supplied.

  "What's the address?"

  At this point, Meredith unzipped her book bag and took out a pen and a post-it note, and began to write it down.

  "Sera!" I exclaimed.

  Sera shrugged her shoulders, innocently. "I have a right to know where you're going to be."

  "It's okay, Caden. It's awesome that your sister cares so much." Meredith handed over the post-it note with the address.

  "I'll just remember this Saturday night," I muttered, to which Sera shrugged her shoulders again.

  She looked down at the post-it.

  "What about a phone number where my sister can be reached?" Sera asked.

  Meredith was taken back a little. "Oh, you guys don't have cell phones?"

  Sera glared at her.

  "It's no big deal," Meredith continued. "It's just…it's rare. Here. Let me have that back."

  Sera handed back the post-it and Meredith scribbled down a number before handing it back to Sera.

  "That's my cell phone in case you need to reach Caden at Nate's house."

  Sera was silent for a moment. I had noticed that she hadn't entirely given me permission to go and she was hanging onto the moment for effect.

  "Well?" I questioned her.

  She quirked her eyebrows again. "What about homework?"

  I rolled my eyes again. "Sera, it's the first day of school. No one gives their students homework the first day of school." I paused a moment and remembered all the forms that needed to be filled out. I gave a smirk of my own before digging through my bookbag and pulled out a folder full of forms.

  "But it looks like you have homework," I said, handing over the folder to her. "Those are all my emergency forms, permission forms, and syllabus agreement forms for you to fill out."

  "How could I forget about those?" She gave a cringe-worthy look and smiled warmly at me. "Go, have fun. Be careful. And I want you home for dinner."

  "Yes, ma'am." With excitement in my heart, I jumped up and zipped my bookbag up again. Grabbing it, I threw it over my shoulder and headed out with Meredith.

  Chapter Nine

  “Your sister seems really awesome,” Meredith said as we had exited out of the library and headed to the side exit of the school.

  I laughed. “Are you saying that because she let me hang out with you guys?”

  I saw a slow smile start to spread across Meredith’s face.

  “Partially. But really, it’s easy to see how close you two are. I don’t have any siblings, so it’s neat to see a tight sibling bond.”

  “The guys don’t have any siblings?” I questioned, raising my eyebrows.

  “Nate doesn’t. I don’t think Jesse or Ajax do.”

  “How can you be so close to those guys and not really know anything about them?” I inquired, astonished.

  Meredith laughed. “Honestly, I have no idea. It’s kinda like Jesse and Ajax just popped into our lives. Nate and I have never been to their houses. We’ve never met their parents. They have just kinda stuck to us like glue.”

  “And you have never questioned them about any of this?”

  She scowled at me. “Not really.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps my perception is skewed. It’s just been Sera and me for so long, and I know everything about Sera. Eh, I probably have some issues in the friend department.”

  Meredith chewed on her bottom lip. “Eh, you’re not exactly wrong. Now thinking about it, Nate and I really don’t know much about them. But they have always stuck by us and have always supported us, so I guess we never questioned it.”

  Speaking of them, Jesse and Ajax, sunglasses on and bookbags on their backs, were waiting for us outside the side entrance to the school along the bike trail that led into the wooded area before the t-section of Crabtree and Chestnut. The sidewalk was more like the width of a road towards the school to allow for bikes and pedestrian traffic, but as it led into the woods, it tapered down to standard sidewalk width.

  “Nate?” Meredith inquired.

  Ajax smirked, but it wasn’t exactly filled with humor. It seemed like he was irritated.

  “Korina stormed off again, and he went after her this time. I told him that we would head toward his house. I am starting to get sick of this.”

  “You and me both,” Meredith sighed, to which Jesse just nodded. “I mean, I know they fight all the time, but if she is going to dictate who he can and can’t hang out with… this may be cause for an intervention.”

  “Let’s hope he comes to his senses soon,” Jesse replied, and Ajax grunted in agreement.

  "Let's just go. Hopefully, we won't be waiting for Nate too long," Aja
x growled and headed up the sidewalk with Jesse falling in step next to him.

  “Hopefully Korina won’t be with him,” Meredith muttered before following Ajax. I walked next to her.

  The walk toward Crabtree and Chestnut wasn’t far and really from the school to the woods, it was only a five-minute walk. Going through the woods wasn’t a far walk either. The wooded area was just rather dense and made it seem like we were isolated from everything else. We came out of the woods to see Sera and my cozy brick Ranch style house that we were renting.

  “That’s us,” I said, pointing to the house with about 20 feet of lawn in front of it. Trimmed and groomed, easy for us to handle.

  “Wow. That really is close to the school,” Meredith responded.

  “Yep. We lucked out finding this place extremely last minute.”

  We paused in our trek for a second in front of our house.

  “Well, if you turn right onto Crabtree, I’m down that way. Closer into the woods.” Meredith tilted her head to the right. “But we are going to the left.”

  The group picked up their walking again.

  “So, where do you guys live?” I questioned Ajax and Jesse. I saw them both look at each other and the pause was lengthy.

  “We are on the other side of town,” Ajax responded.

  "Like 'other side' of the school side of the town or 'other side' of this side of town?" I interrogated.

  “Like the other side of town,” Ajax replied with a smirk, not bothering to clear up my question.

  “That’s a rather lengthy walk for you guys,” I pried.

  Jesse shrugged his shoulders, not bothering to say anything, but I could see Ajax’ shoulders tensing.

  “I guess that’s why we are so thin,” Ajax said briskly.

  I knew if I bothered him more, he wouldn’t open up any and his responses were already becoming short. So I let it drop for the moment. It wasn't that I didn't trust Ajax and Jesse, but it was rather I didn't know them. And they hadn't been exactly forthcoming in letting me get to know them. It made it feel like they were hiding something, but they had been nothing but nice to me, so I let it drop as much as I could without the nagging in the back of my head wanting to pry some more.

  It was another ten minutes until we approached a nice sized split level house with grey stone siding and walked up the driveway, only to loiter outside the off-white garage doors. It wasn't much of a theory that this was Nate's house. And it wasn't much of a guess that his parents were working with how closed up and dark everything was.

  “So none of you guys have a code for the garage?” I questioned looking at the numbered panel box next to the garage door.

  “No, we do,” Meredith started. “But one time we opened it, thinking we were waiting for Nate, and…”

  “And?”

  Meredith’s face looked sickened, contorted with disgust.

  “And, we caught Nate and Korina doing…stuff,” she finished, somehow managing to pale and yet, still blush in red splotches.

  “Oh,…and ew.”

  Ajax let out a hearty laugh, while I heard Jesse snicker off to the side.

  “So now we just wait,” she replied taking a seat against the garage.

  I remained standing with the guys, waiting for Nate to arrive. It would be another five before he made his way home. Fortunately, he was alone.

  “You couldn’t convince her not to be mad with you, huh?” Ajax asked as Nate walked up his driveway.

  “I tried, but I didn’t want to leave you guys hanging. She’ll either get over it or mess around with Blaine. And then come crawling back to me in a few days after she gets bored with him.”

  “Those are some relationship goals,” I whispered to Jesse, who was next to me.

  He looked indifferent, but I could see a slight curve of his lips.

  “It’s nothing new,” he whispered back.

  “Then why?”

  Jesse shrugged, moving away from the doors so Nate could put in the code for the garage door lock.

  “It’s not my story to tell,” he whispered to me.

  The garage opened up to reveal a mess of band equipment on the left side. Three microphones were in front of the mess with two bass guitars on stands next to two of the microphones and a regular guitar next to a third. A very nice set of professional-looking drums were set in the back with the name "Greasy Monkeys" labeled on the center drum. I wasn't musically inclined enough to know the exact type of the instruments that were presented before me, but I knew that they looked professional and expensive.

  The staging area was slightly angled. It was more pointed toward the other side of the garage, where a few black bean bag chairs rested as seating for the audience, but also slightly toward the outside so the sound wouldn’t ricochet back. Speakers and other electrical equipment were organized around the staging area, giving the garage more like a presentational atmosphere than just a band in a garage look.

  “Wow. This is quite the set-up you guys have,” I commented in genuine awe.

  When I saw their faces, they all looked quite pleased that they had impressed me, like kids showing off their shiny new toys, as they walked around their particular instruments. There was extra excitement in their movements as they prepared to play.

  "Do you guys play for many people?" I asked, interested in what made them a little peppier.

  Nate shrugged. “We play locally. Usually as an opening act, where the crowd hasn’t come in yet. And they’re not usually there to see us. It’s neat to play for someone who is genuinely interested in hearing us.”

  “I aim to please,” I replied, taking a seat in a bean bag while they tuned their instruments. Tuning took a few minutes, and then they took another few minutes to decide what to play first.

  “This is called ‘Where evil lurks,'" Ajax announced into his microphone and hit some chords on his bass before the rest of the group joined in.

  Their sound was unusual but consistent with a 90s-alternative rock band. Not so much the "punk rock" that they had led me to believe. It's was like Spacehog, a glam rock with a darker influence of Soundgarden. Ajax’ voice, which could only be described as a huskier Scott Weiland, made their music hypnotic.

  It was easy to see the charisma between them as they played. The group was completely in sync with each other, and relaxed as they played. They were very talented and completely immersed in their playing. It wasn't hard to feel enraptured when they played. And it wasn't very hard for me to feel more drawn to Nate; the way his hands moved over the strings on his guitar, the intensity he radiated when he looked out toward me while singing backup. I felt flushed and warm all over.

  They continued to play for another forty-five minutes on songs that were a little dark for a band called, "The Greasy Monkeys" before they took a break. Songs about hidden evils and trying to locate hope, but it was missing. I would have found their songs depressing, but with their music flowing through the lyrics, it was hard to feel anything, but enchanted.

  “So, what did you think?” Meredith asked, coming over toward me with a water bottle in her hand.

  “You guys are a very unique band,” I replied.

  “You have no idea,” Ajax responded, and then turned his back on me to talk to Jesse.

  “I would never have guessed that your lyrics would be so dark,” I continued, earning a shrug from Meredith and Nate.

  No one bothered to comment, but Nate handed me a water bottle from a mini fridge in the audience area.

  Meredith took a seat next to me, pulling out her cell phone from her pocket, staring at the screen.

  “Oh, hey, guys. My mom has off tonight. You know what that means,” she said, receiving a shit-eating grin from Ajax.

  “That means homemade food for dinner!”

  Jesse whooped by his drums, as I heard Nate murmur, “thank god,” next to me. I was quiet, feeling awkward again; unsure of how to navigate what seemed like another group activity. Meredith typed something on her phone and instantly receiv
ed a message back.

  “That means, you too, Caden,” she said looking at me. “My mom thought you and your sister might like someone else cooking for you guys tonight, being it’s your first days in Erie.”

  “Oh,” I responded, pleasantly surprised. “Can I borrow your phone to call Sera.”

  Meredith handed over her phone easily, but I got weird looks from the guys.

  “I don’t have a cell phone,” I murmured, shyly.

  Jesse let out a soft laugh. “And here, I thought Ajax and I were the only ones that didn’t own a cell phone.”

  I gave Ajax a shocked look. “You mean, Mr. Mighty Mouth doesn’t have a cell phone,” I teased.

  “Hardy harr harr,” Ajax scowled narrowing his eyes before turning on the charm. “It would keep me from having a life. Too many women would be calling me all the time.”

  Jesse and Meredith rolled their eyes, while Nate just shook his head. I just snickered as I dialed our home number. Sera picked up on the third ring.

  "Hey, it's me," I responded after her "hello."

  “What’s up?”

  “We have been invited to dinner.”

  There was a very heavy pause before Sera said anything back. “By whom?”

  I rolled my eyes. As much as both Sera and I were loners, it didn’t take much for me to notice that Sera was acting suspicious of people ever since we arrived in Erie, or at least my friends.

  “Meredith’s mom.”

  There was another pregnant pause, but it didn't seem as tension-filled when she responded back. "Okay, but where do they live and what time?"

  I looked over at Meredith and repeated Sera’s question.

  "We'll practice for another hour, and then dinner should be ready. Nate can show you the way." There was a mischievous glint in her eyes as she volunteered him.

  "I don't mind," he replied and finished the rest of his water.

  "About an hour," I said into the phone. "And we have an escort to the Weber's house."

  “I’ll be ready,” she responded before we said our goodbyes and hung up.