The boys acted like animals in the restaurant, and the girls were very annoyed at the amount of food that was on their plates and the way they ate. I agreed with them; I had been taught better than that and would receive a swift slap to the cheek if I had carried on in such a way while I was growing up.
Finally, it was time to go. I couldn’t wait much longer, as I had been here for a few days and had not checked in yet. The boss would want to know what was happening and would start ringing me if I didn’t check in soon.
Grabbing my mobile from my pocket, I pressed the one number that was entered into the contacts. It was answered promptly, with no greeting, getting straight to business; the relationship with my boss was strictly business these days.
“Have you found the subject,” this voice was spoken with no emotion.
“Yes, and she is, as you have said, deceitful,” I said.
“I want it taken care of.”
“There is one problem; she has the humans here fooled. They may report her missing,” I said.
“That won’t happen; I will take care of that myself. Make yourself known, and she will run. Then kill her as soon as she leaves town.”
“Understood.”
The call was cut after I responded, with no well wishes for the completion of my mission or farewells. I was taking this to the next level and was going to prepare to complete the mission and leave.
Chapter Nine
Indiana
After school the next day, no plans were made as a group. The boys were going to practice their totally sucky skateboard tricks. Nate was a god to them—all I ever heard from everyone but Connor was how great he was. All I wanted to do was throw up all over them.
Around seven I felt the need to go for a run, so I sprinted from my house down the road, across three blocks and to the other side of town. The distance was easily eight kilometers without a break, and I had no intentions of stopping either. I wanted to feel the wonderful burn of pain as it worked its way through my muscles. When the throbbing heat took over, I welcomed this sensation knowing it would not be long now. These small, insignificant reactions from the overuse of my muscles were exciting for me. The awareness of these responses from my body parts would never grow old.
As I neared the shop, I heard footsteps running behind me. The way they moved indicated they were trying to keep up with me, but keep their distance at the same time. Looking to my right from the corner of my eye, I caught a reflection in one of the shop windows. A person was behind me. The black clothing was suspicious, and his or her head was shielded with the hoodie of a jumper. I didn’t recognize them from the glance I managed to get; it could have been anyone, but they had followed the wrong girl. Turning around as fast as I could, I checked the area behind me. It was empty. There was no one else around on the entire street. I must have imagined it. There were mannequins in the window—I must have foolishly mistaken them. I turned around and continued running. Everything seemed normal and nothing was out of place.
When I got home, a familiar set of blue eyes stared back and me, and placed next to him was a big bag full of clothes and lots of junk food.
“Sleep over?” asked Connor.
“How about I get you a key, Connor, that way you can let yourself inside,” I said.
“Thanks, babe. You got any plans? I have the first three Scream movies.” With pleading eyes, Connor persuaded me. Even though we had school tomorrow, we could at least watch one or two.
With steaming hot popcorn and cans of lemonade, we laughed at the obviously fake scary parts. Connor would have been really small when this movie first came out, and back then this stuff nearly made me crap my pants. For an angel, I was a bit of a scaredy cat. Not scared for myself, but the characters in the movie. Throughout the movie, AJ’s phone line in his room rang a few times. It had become distracting so I closed the doors. I would listen to the messages later and see if there was anything I should investigate, but for now I was having too much fun.
We went to bed around one in the morning. I had decided to hell with it. I would have to be tired all day and in a grumpy mood at school, but I only went for the social life, and Connor had decided long ago that he was going to follow in his dad's footsteps and become his apprentice mechanic when he finished school.
The following day I was up in time for a lovely shower before we left, and I thought Connor would have been up, but I had to drag him out of bed with the promise of Oreo and chocolate pop tarts. I had an emergency stash for situations just like this.
Today I was lucky enough to not have Personal Development, but I did have Recreational Activities. Mr. Hopwood was not my teacher, but he would be around to supervise the boys. I was hoping for a non-unisex sport, and hopefully indoors, too, away from the hot and humid outside.
I didn’t have time to rid my disappointment. We were organized into same sex teams and would be playing against the boys. I was teamed up with Nessa, Corrina, and Casey. I knew I would have to work very hard because my friends were not athletic.
We were directed to the second volleyball net on the other side of the sporting area. Our referee would be none other than Mr. Hopwood. The team we were playing against consisted of the superstar footballer, Mark, the track field champ, Connor, Brandon, who was good at most sports, and the wild card, Nate. I was unsure of his athletic ability. Nessa and myself were at the front and the other girls were to cover the back half of our area.
Brandon served the ball fast, but Nessa easily deflected this. The ball went back and forth half a dozen times. Mark hit it as hard as he could over my head to Corrina, who was not expecting it, and missed the ball by miles.
It was Nessa's turn to serve the ball. She aimed for an unoccupied space. A second later Connor threw himself into the emptiness and launched it back into our direction. Many times more, the ball flew over the net. I hit it at full speed and gained our first point.
The boys did not like that I had got us this point, especially Brandon. He went for the ball and slammed it as hard as he could over the net, and it landed straight on Nessa's face. Wow ... they were competitive.
Brandon attempted to run around to comfort Nessa. He was met with her open hand extended out toward him, warning him to stay away. Apparently, she didn’t want affection from her lover-boy at the moment.
The sun pounded down on us, and I was sweating heavily. My top was sticking to my skin. Why couldn't we have played a sport that involved minimal exertion? While I had been complaining internally, the boys scored another point.
Mr. Hopwood made some witty remark, which he thought was funny, but was only sexist.
“Why don’t you chicks give up now?” Mark was going along with the teacher.
The boys thought this was funny and the remarks just got worse the more points they scored. At half time, we swapped sides and rotated. I grabbed the girls before the game recommenced and told them we had to win regardless.
“Sure, Indy, I’m not all boobs, you know,” said Corrina. Hearing this come from Corrina was quite funny, because she had portrayed herself as being only a body and no brains on many occasions. Especially when she said dumb comments—blonde jokes were directed at her regularly.
Corrina ran over and filled up her water bottle, setting it as close as possible while not in the playing area. She started to play around with her top also. What the hell was she doing? Casey served first. Corrina bent over waiting for the ball to come back our way. It never did. Mark had totally fumbled, and he was extremely distracted. Nessa and I exchanged curious looks, shrugged our shoulders, and faced back to the net. The ball came back our way, and Nessa successfully deflected toward Brandon. He then did the sweetest thing and missed on purpose. If I weren’t trying to win, I would have pretended to vomit. We were now catching up and gaining ground. As a team, we were going to try as hard as we could. We gained another point out of sheer luck. Corrina turned around to give me the thumbs up. That’s when I noticed why we had scored our first point. Her top was
barely sitting above her nipples. Mr. Hopwood was getting slightly cranky at the boys for letting us gain a few points.
“You’re not going to let those little girls beat you, right? You bunch of pansies!”
“Sir, we are trying!” yelled Connor.
Connor had spoken for the first time since the game begun. He was a good sport and did not see the point in trying to dampen our spirits like the other boys did. Sweat covered his face, and he used his sleeve to mop it up.
“Well you’re not trying hard enough! If you lose, ten laps of the football field!” said Hopwood.
That was a bit excessive; where was his sportsmanship? I was lining him up in my vision; I made sure to deflect the next ball and hit it as hard as I possibly could. The volleyball was on a direct course with his fat head. This would be sweet. Out of nowhere, Nate dove in the direction of the ball and hit it as best he could, straight into the net. I didn’t score a personal point, but the satisfaction of a score for the team was bittersweet. Corrina was thirsty and asked me to take over for her. The rules had gone out the door when Mark hit Nessa in the face. I threw the ball back over and felt a few drops of water on my back. Corrina was a real Playboy. If she wanted a future in that industry, they would beg her to sign. The bottle was strategically positioned over her head so that she was pouring it all over her white sports top and matching bra. She a very crafty little minx, and, as she said before, she was more than just boobs. Another point was awarded to us. The teachers were not paying any attention to the time. The bell rang signaling our next period was to commence in five minutes, and we didn’t have enough time to get back, change, and get to the next lesson. The entire class would be in the wrong uniform; the senior class would be sweaty and smelly ‘til lunchtime. The air-conditioning was calling my name as we entered the building. A collective sigh rang out from all our mouths. The coolness was so inviting.
We had history next. This was a subject I took to see how accurate the textbooks recorded specific times throughout the generations. The entrance of the classroom was lined with pictures of Henry VIII's wives. The teacher for this class was Mrs. Harvey. She was a lovely old duck who appreciated my opinion on class subjects. Her hair had gone completely white during the last semester, and a lot more wrinkles were noticeable on her face. She must be facing some kind of stress to age this fast so soon.
“Good morning class, this lesson we will be learning about Henry Tudor's darling eight wives. Who knows the name of the first wife?”
“It would have to be the ugly Catherine of Aragon,” a braces-wearing, pimple-faced boy responded quickly. Like he could talk. He was not in the greatest physical shape, and he didn’t get the lovely DNA his sister in year seven got.
“Well yes, Catherine of Aragon.”
Mrs. Harvey was unsure of agreeing to the way the answer was being spoken.
“I object strongly. Her title in England may have been Catherine of Aragon, but the original name she was blessed with was Catalina, infant of Spain, and she was far from ugly.”
“Look at the photo ... does she look hot to you, Indiana?” pimple-face was fast to retort.
“That picture was commissioned after she was divorced from Henry. Do you think he would want a pretty picture of the wife he rejected? Go and Google the painting done by the Spanish artist.”
“Okay class—the second wife—why did Henry divorce her?”
Before anyone got a chance to lash out nasties about Anne, I commented, “Because by this stage, he had slept with half of the English and French royal courts, and syphilis was rife back then, and we all know about those symptoms from Personal Development.”
For the rest of the class no one was game to disrespect the wives of Henry. I would have had plenty to say on their behalf, also. I ran with the royal circle in those days, but backed off a lot when beheading became the chosen punishment. I didn’t know if I would have liked having my pretty little head cut off.
I couldn’t have been happier when the day ended. Connor waited for me out front, and we walked home together. We were nearly home when I got the sense someone was following us. I could hear a scuffling behind us and a few sticks being broken. I could not see them yet, but stopped to spy when Connor ran inside to grab a milkshake at the corner shop. I hoped we were ahead enough that they didn’t know we had stopped—I waited to see who it was. I felt the person getting closer as they neared the end of the street about to turn the corner. Coming out from behind a tree, I couldn’t stop laughing when a big Doberman ran right into me, sniffing me for food. He was clearly hungry. I opened my bag and gave him my tuna sandwich that I didn’t get a chance to eat. He devoured it in seconds, nearly taking my hand in the process. He was a really sweet dog and nuzzled up to me while I waited for Connor to finish inside. Internally, I was battling a losing fight and considering taking the beautiful puppy home. Connor came out from the shop and was the voice of reason, and we walked the big fur baby to the nearest vet. The staff was wonderful and said they would try and contact the owner. I was hoping he was a stray, so I asked the receptionist to contact me if the owner no longer wanted him. Sadly, I left him there. Saying good-bye, he looked up at me with his big, brown puppy eyes and moved his head from side to side. He was simply adorable.
Connor had suggested we grab Subway on our way through town and eat it in the park before heading home. It was getting late, and I was famished.
Sitting on the park bench, my sub was going everywhere. I had opted for the toasted version and it was very crunchy and falling apart. I was trying to lean over to avoid any of the pizza sauce going all over my clothes. Connor, though, he took three large mouthfuls and the foot-long was destroyed; now he was looking at my other half licking his lips. Pushing my water toward him, he gulped it down with a mouth full of food. He pointed at the lone figure across the park.
“Yeah, what about him, Connor? He doesn’t like me. But I couldn’t care less,” I said.
Connor swallowed his mouthful of water fast so he could respond.
“I don’t know what his problem is, but he does look at you a lot. I’m still trying to figure out for myself why he stares at you the way he does.”
“He doesn’t stare at me,” I said.
“No ... he does, and it's very intense,” Connor said.
Nate scanned the park, turned around, and headed in the opposite direction.
“Do you think he saw us?” I was more than sure he had seen us, but had to ask anyway.
“Oh, he saw us, and I’m glad he walked the other way. He creeps me out slightly,” confessed Connor.
“Really, I don’t get that feeling from him at all.”
Nate didn’t seem any less or more normal than everyone else at school. He seemed like your average boy who was interested in sports and not much else.
“I’m going home, what are you doing?” I asked Connor.
“Do you mind if—” Connor stopped mid sentence, and I interrupted him.
“Of course I don’t mind,” I said.
I didn’t stuff around. We ate our dinner, finished our walk home, and I went off to bed. Connor would be up watching TV again ‘til late, but that didn’t worry me at all.
Chapter Ten
Indiana
The next morning I woke from flashes of bright lights and a screeching noise scraping across my bedroom window. The loud terrifying claps of thunder sounded shortly after each streak of lightning. The scratching of the tree outside was vexing my irritation to no end. Jumping out of bed, I walked down the stairs in my underwear, wiped the sleep out of my eyes, and grabbed an iced coffee out of the fridge. I walked over to the TV and turned it to the music channel. The hottest boy band at the moment, One Direction, was playing their new song.
“Turn that crap off Indy,” said Connor.
I froze on the spot. How had I forgotten that I was not alone in this house? I grabbed the nearest shirt, which belonged to Connor, and lifted it up to put it on.
“Mmm, nice view. Don’t m
ind me. I could wake up to this every morning.”
I quickly slipped the shirt on. It was quite long on my petite frame and fell down to my knees. Turning around, I apologized profusely. This got me nowhere. He really didn’t mind and would not accept my apology.
“I’m going to have a long cold shower now, Indy. Don’t expect me out too soon,” said Connor.
I read between the lines and was kicking myself for my stupidity.
Heavenly Hell (Heavenly Hell Book 1) Page 6