Rise of Xavia

by Tara Chau

“Yeah, you too,” I shoot back. “What are you doing next?”

  “Going back to the Sanctuary….” Gabe is cut off by a skinny blond girl that runs up to him.

  “Hey,” she says, beaming a sweet smile. She is undeniably gorgeous. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out for coffee sometime,” she says to my horror, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear as her lips begin pouting.

  Gabe gives her a look between pity and a smoulder. “Sorry, I’m not really in the market right now. I’m taken,” he says, flashing an amazing smile. I feel sorry for the girl as I watch her pretty face fall, but most of all, I am really confused. He’s taken, by who? Her face turns sour as she surveys me.

  “In that case, have you heard from Lucien? I haven’t been able to get into contact with him for three weeks.”

  “No, sorry again,” Gabe calls as she storms off.

  Gabe turns to me as I lift my eyebrows.

  “Taken?”

  He chuckles at my expression. I guess I need to learn how to keep my emotions from my face. Walking off down the steps, he leaves me behind. I catch up within a few strides, matching his speed.

  “I just said that to get her off my case. I’m not going to even humour the idea of dating someone like her,” Gabe explains.

  “What’s a girl like her?”

  “Boy hopper. Didn’t you notice as soon as I shot her down, she went straight back to Lucien?” he replies, looking down at me as we walk out of the school gates.

  “Yeah, I was actually wondering where he’s been. I haven’t seen him miss school before.” I say, chewing my bottom lip.

  Gabe frowns at me, stopping. “Fine.” He huffs, slightly annoyed. “We can check it out.”

  I smile thankfully at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and giving him a tight hug.

  “You’re the best,” I say, letting go.

  “Yeah, I’ve been told,” he says slyly.

  I punch his chest, ow. “Fudge! What do you put under there, body armour?” I say to my own horror. I stare at him, my face going hot pink. “Pretend you didn’t hear that,” I blurt out.

  He laughs nervously and brings me in back for another hug. I relax, laughing along with him. Breaking apart, we look out to the road.

  “I’ve got a fair bit of homework to catch up on. I should get going,” Gabe says reluctantly. I nod because I also need to go.

  “Yeah, my dad said he was going to take me out to dinner tonight since we haven’t spoken in a week or something,” I say, recalling the conversation I had with him this morning.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Reeds. You should practice your offence. It could use some extra work,” he says, winking, before turning to walk the other direction.

  I bound after him, freezing time. I push him to the ground carefully then I walk a few steps away before unfreezing again, loving my new ability.

  “And you should work on watching where you step. You’re tripping an awful lot today,” I tease.

  He glowers at me and gets up, shaking his head.

  “See you tomorrow,” I call.

  “Yep,” he calls, walking backwards to finish his sentence. “By the way, you might want to stay away from Anne for a while.”

  “Why?” I ask cautiously.

  “Because I might have set up a date for you two. Which, by the way, started twelve minutes ago at the…mall? Just my way of saying thank you for my three new bruises that you gave me via time freeze. You should know by now. She hates tardiness!”

  Shit.

  Gabe and I walk twenty minutes towards Lucien’s house on Friday after school, chatting about fighting styles and the holidays coming up. We arrive at the front doorsteps of a huge house. A mansion? Both Gabe and I look at each other hesitantly.

  “Ladies first,” he says with a smile, motioning for me to ring the bell.

  I glare at him, mentally sending daggers his way. He winks and steps behind me.

  “You don’t want me clawing his eyes out if he answers the door, do you?”

  I roll my eyes and step forwards, ringing the bell. A loud shout comes from inside the house. I look back at Gabe, and he shrugs. A young woman answers the door. She looks like a girl version of Lucien. Beautiful, but not someone you would mess with.

  “Can I help you?” she inquires impatiently.

  “Yeah, I was wondering if we could speak with Lucien?” I request.

  “You’re…Dianna?” she asks.

  “Yes, that’s me. Can you send Lucien down?” I beg.

  “Sorry, he’s not here. He’s with his grandma,” she says, eyeing me.

  “Oh, could you give us her address?” I ask.

  “Alright,” she nods hesitantly.

  I’m pretty sure that her name is Valery. She and Lucien weren’t too close when they were younger. Valery reads out their grandma’s address as Gabe records it into his phone. Once she is done, she looks behind me to Gabe.

  “What’s your name?” she asks interestingly.

  “Max,” he lies.

  “I haven’t heard Lucien talk about you before,” she says in a sing-song voice.

  “We don’t usually talk,” Gabe replies.

  She nods, turning back to me and smiling softly. “It was good to see you again, Dianna,” she says before closing the door.

  We walk back down the driveway, coming back onto the main road.

  “Max?” I say, eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah, I heard you tell Tee-Ly-Ren that my name was Max. I like the name. It’s good for masking myself,” he says, shrugging.

  “No, I like Chip. You should go with that name,” I tease.

  “You pain,” he says, walking faster.

  I catch up quickly, looping my arm through his. He looks down at me, surprised. I beam up at him like a little girl.

  “What next, Chip?” I ask innocently.

  Gabe stops by the side of the road, hailing a cab. “We go to find Lucien,” he says, opening the door of the car for me to hop into.

  The ride to Lucien’s grandma’s house is about fifteen minutes long. Most of the car ride is silent, but we both comment on something if we remember or see something cool, but that’s not very often. The car comes to a stop. Gabe pays, and we walk up to a cute cottage. It is small and wooden and far from the city. We walk up to the cottage, and I stand back.

  “Your turn,” I smile.

  “Prepare, Lucien, for you are about to get punched in the face,” Gabe says, readying his fist.

  “Hold back, Gabe,” I warn, “It might be his grandma that answers. And why would you punch him if he hasn’t done anything yet?”

  “He just has that type of face,” Gabe says, shrugging before knocking on the wooden door.

  An old lady who looks around eighty answers the door, her eyes going straight to Gabe’s raised hand. She smiles sweetly at us, though, an old lady toothless smile.

  “Hi,” Gabe waves and flashes his most charming smile and unclenching his balled fists in one hasty movement.

  “Well, hello, young man. What is it that I can do for you?” she asks weakly. What is a lady this old doing out in the country by herself?

  “Hi,” I say, stepping back from behind Gabe, “I’m Alex, and this is Max,” I say, pointing to Gabe.

  She smiles at me. I remember her. She was always so nice to Lucien and me. Her name is June, and she is very down to earth but also slightly mad.

  “I-I, forgive my age. I thought you were someone else I used to know. What is it you want dearies?”

  “Lucien, your grandson. We’re friends of his, and we were wondering if he’s with you right now?” I say slowly.

  “Ah no, I have not seen that young boy in two weeks,” she says. “He came and spent three days with me before disappearing. I assumed he went back to his father.”

  I look at Gabe, worrying my bottom lip. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks off to somewhere that I can’t see.

  “Th
ank you,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face. “You were a good help,” I lie.

  She nods, looking at me carefully for a few moments.

  “It was good to see you again, my lovey,” she smiles at Gabe before walking back into her house.

  I laugh nervously. That’s what she used to call me years ago when we were all still family. That old lady is still amazing. We walk out onto the road, where the cab is still waiting for us. Gabe opens the door for me to enter first, following me in a moment later. Once the car starts, I turn to Gabe.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  Gabe simply shrugs, looking out the window.

  “Gabe,” I huff impatiently.

  He looks back to me, sighing before taking a deep breath and speaking.

  “He’s probably just going through a rebelling stage,” Gabe explains.

  “Hey, I know that you don’t like him, but Lucien was there for me years ago, so I should return the favour,” I say, pleading with Gabe.

  I know that he probably has a better idea of what is happening than I do, and I just need him to care enough to tell me. Gabe watches me as I enlarge my eyes and put on a baby pout. He doesn’t crack even the smallest of smiles. Damn, he really doesn’t like Lucien.

  “Come on.” I groan. “You’ve got more than that. Tell me,” I say, shaking his arm annoyingly.

  “Stop it,” he complains, trying to pry my hands from his arm. “He’ll be back at school within a week, you’ll see.”

  I let go and try looking immensely disappointed. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes and turns to look out the window. I know I can get him to spill. I just need to find his weakness. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I slide as far away from him as possible. Gabe looks over at me.

  “Get back into your seatbelt,” he orders across at me.

  Gabe is all about my safety. If I can get him to think I’m in danger, he’ll do anything to get me safe again.

  “Nuh-uh, where is Lucien?” I ask, reaching for the car door handle. I know that this is a new level of stupid. It’s not like I’m going to jump out of a car. I just want Gabe to think that I’m prepared to. I’m also curious to see how far I’ll get before Gabe really loses it.

  “I don’t know,” he says calm and cautiously.

  Obviously, he doesn’t think I’m going to do it. I look over at the driver, who has earphones on, listening to music. He hasn’t noticed anything yet, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t give a damn either. I open the door, only a tiny slit, but enough to make Gabe freeze in horror.

  “Close the door,” he orders.

  “Come on. I’ll do it as soon as you tell me what you think is really going on with Lucien. He’s not that bad, and if there’s something horrible happening with him, he deserves to be saved. You’re a Protector. This is your job. Isn’t it supposed to be something like not letting personal feelings affect a mission? This is a mission,” I say, getting a little bit worked up.

  “No, this is not a mission. We’re actually on leave right now. That means no missions allowed.” he clarifies, still eyeing my grip on the car door.

  “Gabe, you know how stubborn I am. You can tell me now, or you can tell me when you come to visit me in hospital tomorrow,” I say, inching the door a little bit wider.

  “Your stubborn-headedness is going to get the both of us killed,” he points out calmly. Why’s he so calm right now? Usually, we’d be fighting dramatically right about now.

  “Gabe, come on, we need to help him,” I beg.

  “We already checked with his sister and grandma. Obviously, he doesn’t want to be found,” he says. I notice that he’s moved from his original position.

  Damn, he’s good. All this time, he was being so calm and talking to me civilly when he’s just been buying himself time to get me away from the door. Gabe knows that I know what he’s doing. He sighs and closes his eyes tightly.

  “Alright, fine,” he says defeatedly.

  I smile brightly, closing the door again and locking it, buckling myself back in.

  “He’s…MIA. I have looked before this, so have a few girls in his class. Alice was also looking for any reason that he might not be attending school presently. Nothing. No one has seen him in three weeks. Our cams couldn’t spot him either. I think it might have something to do with the fact that he can see through glamours.”

  “So, what next?” I ask, recalling the time when Lucien saw my bandaged wrist while it was glamoured.

  “We wait for Alice to gather more info, steal it and track him down.” Gabe sighs. “Lucien is not worth all this trouble.”

  “I thought we couldn’t participate in any missions this week, and Anne said you never break rules,” I say, smiling, pushing it.

  “Yeah, well, I’m willing to break the rules just this once so I can be the first one to punch Lucien’s lights out. It’s the payment for my services.”

  I shake my head, grinning like the Mad Hatter.

  “What are you up to tonight?” he asks, looking back out of the window, taking his gaze off me for the first time in ten minutes.

  “Nothing, my dad has to work late tonight, so I’ll probably have a night of Netflix,” I admit.

  “Hey, it’s not even six. We should get the gang together to do something fun,” he says, emphasising the word fun because I said we had to do that when we were told to go back to school.

  I nod as I stuck my hand out for his phone. Gabe knows exactly what I want and hands it over reluctantly. Looking for the group chat that has Anne, Ty, Hayden, Jessica and myself in it, I type.

  G: Hi guys and girls, this is Di.

  Come to my place at six tonight

  For a movie and pizza. It’s time

  We did something fun.

  Xx

  Handing the phone back to Gabe, I smile.

  “What’s happening?” he asks excitedly.

  “Movie and pizza at mine in thirty minutes. We’ve got to order the pizza and pick it up on the way back.”

  Gabe immediately pulls his phone back out and logs into Domino’s web page. “We have to have pineapple and ham. That is a must,” he says, adding it to the order. I wrinkle my nose.

  “Ew, that’s gross! Pineapple on pizza? Who the hell has that?”

  “For your information, it’s amazing, and I do that, along with Anne and Ty. It’s our childhood favourite,” he says, chuckling to himself, probably over a fond memory.

  “Alright, order a cheese and garlic one, along with a vegetarian. That should be enough, right?” I ask.

  Gabe looks at me, amusement evident on his features.

  “Let’s add a supreme to that as well,” he says, paying for the order.

  “How much do I owe you?” I ask, pulling out my wallet from the backpack.

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it,” he says, shrugging.

  “It’s my party. Therefore, I pay for everything. How much?”

  “Well, I’m helping you host it. Therefore, it’s both our party. It’s at your house, so I’ll pay,” he says, pushing away the money that I was trying to shove into his hand.

  “Let me pay for half,” I request.

  “Nah, how about this. We can stop at the shops, and you can buy the drinks. You can’t have seventeen-year-olds over without soft drinks,” he negotiates.

  “Alright,” I say defeatedly.

  We arrive back at mine ten minutes before six, scrambling to get the drinks in the fridge and the pizzas on the coffee table. Fetching paper plates and cups filled with ice, I set up Netflix. There are two long couches in front of a medium-size TV and large pillows on the floor.

  The doorbell rings just as I get off the phone with my dad, telling him that I was having some friends over for a movie and pizza. Gabe is at the door before me, letting in the rest of them. Anne comes up to me, handing me a tub of triple chocolate ice cream, smiling brightly.

  “Thanks,” I say, stuffing it into the freezer. “Make you
rselves at home,” I call as Gabe shows the others to the living room.

  Walking into the room, I sit on a pillow against the couch next to Anne. Gabe distributes the pizza and drinks while Ty flicks through movies.

  “What do you guys want to watch?” I ask.

  “Horror!”

  “Romance!”

  “Comedy!”

  “Action!”

  “Really? Why can’t you just make it easy for once?” Jess exclaims.

  “Hands up for romance and action!” I call.

  Three hands go shooting up. Two of them being mine and Anne’s, and the third, to my surprise, is Ty’s.

  “Hands for comedy and action!” Anne finishes.

  The last three hands rocket up.

  “Ty and Hayden, do scissors paper rock,” I announce.

  After three rounds of that, it is declared that we watch a romance action movie. Ignoring the loud protests from the rest of them, Anne and I play the third movie of the Twilight series, Eclipse.

  It takes ten minutes to get them all to shut up, enough for us to enjoy the movie to some extent. Twenty minutes in, the pizza is finished, and we are all laughing at how unrealistic the Lycans’ transitions are. We whisper about how absurd the vampires are. Since when do vamps sparkle?

  At around nine o’clock, when the movie is nearly done, my dad calls out from the hall. I pause the movie and turn to face him. My butt is unnaturally sore from sitting on the floor this whole time. Dad walks into the living room, spying the three boys lounging on the couch. He turns to look at me, then back at them.

  “I know you, not you, and not you,” he says, pointing to the three boys in each turn, Ty being the one he knows.

  I stand up fast. “Dad,” I say, walking over to the boys who right themselves in a better position. “This is Ty, who you already know from next door,” I say, pointing at him. “This is Hayden,” I say, walking over to him and patting him lightly on the head. He ducks on the third pat, swatting me away playfully. “And this,” I say, walking over to Gabe and resting my elbows on his head, putting the weight of my own head onto his, “Is Gabriel,” I say formally.

  “Gabe,” he corrects absent-mindedly, removing my elbows slowly from his head. “Thank you for having us over.”