Heading back out into the hall, I pick up the pace so I can make it in time. At least I can skip visiting my locker. I curse under my breath as the five minute warning bell rings. The hall is practically empty at this point; that’s a bad sign and I break into a sprint. Why does Chorus have to be in a separate building? Ugh. I hit the door running, throwing it open and flinging myself inside just as the bell rings. I can feel everyone staring at me, but screw it. At least I was on time. With a quick glance it’s clear that they split the chorus by vocal range, with the guys in the back. I grab the closest empty seat with the other girls for the moment. If the teacher needs to move me later, I’ll deal with that then. At least most of the class has gone back to their own conversations instead of staring at the new girl. Sliding my bag under my seat, I look around for the teacher.
“It’s always like this. Mr. Morison’s classes never start on time,” a soft voice reassures. I look over at my neighbor. She’s staring down at her hands, long curly auburn hair hiding most of her face. She glances up and gives me a shy smile, absently pushing her glasses up her nose. “I’m Amy. This is a mixed grade class, I’m a Junior.”
“Senior here,” I answer her unspoken question with a smile, feeling some of the tension leave my shoulders. The teacher pops out of the office, and I wince to myself at his mismatched plaid shirt and bad comb over. Taking a seat at the upright piano, he glances over at the class.
“Alright everyone you know the drill. We’ll start with warm ups and then do our range placements for this year. Everyone stand.” He immediately starts into a series of warm up exercises. It’s clear this is the norm, as everyone immediately joins in. He must use the same warm ups every year. I wait a beat to learn the pattern before joining in. Flowing seamlessly from one exercise to the next without any explanation, it’s definitely a vocal challenge. I’m forced to pause between exercises to make sure I have them correct. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Morison finally stops and I take the opportunity to grab my water from my bag. He disappears back into his office, and I turn to my neighbor in confusion.
“He’s still looking for his class roll,” she whispers, hiding a giggle. I’ve already started thinking of her as Shy Girl in my head. I need to keep a notebook handy and make a cheat sheet of people’s names. “He’s always misplacing it. Once the first week is over and he finishes placing everyone, he just automatically marks everyone here instead of looking for it. If he didn’t use it to make sure he doesn’t miss anyone when doing the vocal placement, I don’t think he’d even bother looking for it. Oh and make sure to see him after class for your winter concert music. He passed them out at the end of last year in hopes we’d practice over the summer. He’s got a set rotation so that we never sing the same concert songs twice, but he doesn’t have to learn new music either. He always spends half the class looking for his lost paperwork; roll call, music, concert schedule. It’s always something. Once we start working on the concert, the student conductor for the concert will do all the work. I don’t know what it’s like where you came from, but class itself is pretty laid back. As long as we put on good concerts, you’re pretty much guaranteed an A for the class.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” I reply quietly, trying to take it all in. The rest of the class is talking quietly amongst themselves, probably catching up on the latest gossip. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s been a while for me.” I tell her vaguely.
“Oh no problem,” she says with a quick smile. She’d be really pretty if she’d stop hiding behind her hair. She has that waifish look that was all over the fashion websites I’d looked at. “So how’d you end up on the island?”
“My parents already had a house here. They thought it would be a nice change of scenery,” I replied, giving her the answer I’d been practicing in my head for the last week. I didn’t want to talk about the real reason for our move. At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter where I lived, every place was equally unfamiliar. I could feel eyes on me, but I refused to look around. Let them stare.
“That’s got to be rough,” Shy Girl says softly, glancing over at me. “Having to change schools your senior year. Not graduating with your friends.”
I shrug in response. No way am I missing my so called friends. Not that they’d have been hanging out in high school with me anyways. “It’s not that bad. And the island is beautiful.” I’m saved from having to elaborate further by the teacher tapping on the podium at the front of the room.
“Alright class, rein it in. We’re going to go down roll for placement. When you hear your name, come to the piano. I expect everyone to be respectful. That means no talking for the rest of the class. Go over the music for the Winter Concert, read a book, study for your other classes, just be quiet. We’ve got about 20 of minutes left. Enough time to get three or four of you done today.” He looks around the room, nodding to himself. “Ok then, first up, Mark Adams.”
I give Shy Girl a smile and grab my bag. Since he appears to be going in alphabetical order, there’s no danger of me being called on today. Taking the teacher’s advice, I pull out my mystery novel and pick back up where the Angel interrupted.
The rest of the class flies by. When the bell rings, I wave goodbye to Shy Girl and head over to the teacher. Thankfully, he knows where the extra copies of the Winter Concert music are and I’m not stuck waiting forever while he searches. Even still, by the time I get back to the main building, the 5 minute warning bell is sounding. Ugh, am I going to be running late for every class?
“Hey Emily, where’s the fire?” The Angel’s familiar voice asks as he drapes his arm across my shoulder. “I’m Sebastian; I’ll be your tour guide for the day.” He says with a laugh, steering me to the right. I force myself to relax. I don’t want to make a big deal about his arm on my shoulder. It’s not personal and I don’t need him realize how just how uncomfortable I am at being touched. “You’ve got Mr. Christy for Creative Writing. He’s a good teacher, you’ll like him.” The crowd seems to part in front of us as we move down the hall. Some of the other students are staring at us, but I ignore them and focus on what Sebastian said.
“Wait, how…” I ask, tilting my head back to look at him. Wow he’s taller than I realized. Even with my three inch platforms, he’s still almost half a foot taller than me.
“I took a peek at your class schedule when you had it out on the table,” he grins. “Lucky for you, we have the same lunch break.” He looks over at me like he’s tuned in to my discomfort. His expression turns serious. “Hey, are you ok Emily?”
“Sure?” I answer, aware it sounds more like a question than an answer.
“Are you really? You seem uncomfortable.” Sebastian asks concern evident in his voice. “No one’s been bothering you, have they? I know this is a small school… and some of the people around here can be pretty narrow-minded. But if anyone is giving you trouble…”
“Oh No, it’s nothing like that, it’s just…” I pause, trying to find words. “Well it’s just complicated.”
“Hmm… Sounds like there’s a story there, I’d love to hear it.”
I shrug, looking away. “Maybe another time?” I answer, not sure what, if anything, I’m ready to share yet. I don’t want to lie, but any story I give will lead back to the “incident”. As nice as Sebastian seems, I’m not ready to trust that to anyone at this point. Not so soon after finally escaping the constant inquisitions about it.
“Alright, just remember I’m here if you need a sympathetic ear. I’m told my listening skills are as good as my artistic ones. And here’s your stop now. Thank you for traveling with Sebastian’s tour service.” With a wink and a quick squeeze of my shoulder, he turns me towards the classroom door. I can feel his breath against the back of my ear. “See you at lunch Emily.” His hand disappears and I glance behind me, but he’s already melted into the river of traffic. Shaking my head, I slip through the open door into the classroom.
I take a quick look around the classroom, noting that it
’s already half full. Thankfully there are still some empty desks in the back corner. I make my way down the aisle and grab the last desk. Closing my eyes, I take a minute to reinforce the barrier keeping out the emotional leakage out. Art class only had about 20 people in it and Chorus wasn’t a problem, even with over 25 singers. But the hallways had been rough, even with… Umm… G’damnit… Uhh… uhh… the Angel there to distract me. The Angel had literally just told me his name, and I’d already forgotten it. Ugh, this is ridiculous.
With one last deep breath, I open my eyes and grab my notebook from my bag. This was definitely going to be the longest day ever. The teacher already had notes up on the board for us, so I start writing them down. If the first assignment was to write about our summer vacation, I was out, even if that meant throwing myself out one of the windows. Hmm, I wonder if they open or if I’ll be throwing myself through the glass. I turn and look them over carefully, noting the fixed pane design. Damn, definitely going to be going through the glass. At least most of my skin is covered.
I turn back to the front of the room just as the bell rings. The teacher I hadn’t noticed before stands and moves around to lean against the front of his desk. He looked more like a member of a rock l band than an English teacher, with a long brown hair falling around his shoulders and his close cropped beard. Just switch out his brown suit and glasses for jeans, a tee shirt, and sunglasses and he’d be all set.
“Good morning class, I’m Mr. Christy. Take a good look around, the seats you’re in now are your assigned seats for the rest of the year. We won’t have any…” He pauses as the door opens and a couple of guys stroll in, without a care in the world. Mr. Christy shoots them a quelling look and clears his throat. “Ahh, Mr. Gabbro and Mr. Steward, so nice of you to join us today.” The class snickers, clearly this was the norm for these two, and I roll my eyes.
“Hey Mr. Christy, sorry we’re late.” The taller of them says; his voice a sexy rumble. He had to be the largest guy I’d ever seen. Built like a tank, wearing jeans and a burgundy tee shirt that was just tight enough to show off his broad muscular chest and wide shoulders. He had to be well over six feet tall, with skin like dark chocolate and a shaved head. If this guy wasn’t on every sports team, then the coaches had to be blind. Hell, he could be the entire football team from the look of him.
His companion was the complete opposite. Dressed completely in black, it made his pale skin stand out more. He’s tall and lean, with the build of a swimmer. His facial features are almost, but not quite feminine with sharp cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and full lips. He looked like he should be on the cover of a vampire romance novel, not in the classroom. His long raven black hair is pulled back in a ponytail, the fluorescent lighting catching highlights of blue as he moved. He scanned the room, before motioning to his friend towards my corner.
The Tank glances my way, a slow grin curving his lips as he heads down my aisle, the Vampire right behind him. What the hell. Why are these two hot guys heading my way? I dropped my gaze, praying they hadn’t noticed me staring. I take a quick look around the classroom. Ugh the only empty desks are the ones around me. Apparently the natives were keeping their distance from me, surprisingly enough. Now that I thought about it, only the Angel and Shy Girl had been brave enough to talk to me so far. I wonder if that was a side effect of the shield I’d created, but immediately dismissed the idea. There was no way my imaginary bubble was keeping the gossips away. Although you would have thought people would have descended on the new girl like fresh meat. If nothing else, to get the first scoop on the gossip.
The Vampire grabs the desk directly in front of me, while the Tank slides into the one next to me. A chill runs down my spine and I fight the urge to shiver as their combined energy hits me at once. It’s not as intense as when the Angel touched me, but being sandwiched between these two was definitely having a noticeable effect on my barrier. I closed my eyes, mentally trying to reinforce the shield, trying to expand it. I wait till the feel of their presence started to drop off before opening my eyes.
Mr. Christy had been talking while I was distracted; hopefully he was just going over the project guideline notes on the board that I’d already written down. Giving myself a mental shake to get my head back in the game, I focused on roll call, not wanted another disaster like in first period. I managed to answer when my name was called, smiling to myself. I can do this. I can make it through class without getting lost in my head. After finishing the roll call Mr. Christy hands out the class syllabus then moves back to his desk.
“Your first assignment is a group writing project. You will decide as a group what the scene is, and what is happening. Each of you will then tell the same story from your character’s POV, or point of view, if you haven’t learned that by now. For this project, you’ll be working in pairs. To make things interesting, the person in front of you will be your partner. Mr. Gabbro, since you seem to be the odd man out, you’ll be working with Mr. Stewart and Miss Langmore. Hopefully Miss Langmore can keep the two of you on track.” The class responds with barely muffled laughter. Wow, are they laughing at me, or the idea of keeping these two in line. It makes me wonder what the pecking order is in the place. Why are two of the hottest guys I’ve seen here the cause of so much laughter? I’d think they were the class clowns, well maybe just the Tank, but they aren’t actually doing anything funny at this point. Of course the male to female ratio in this class might be the issue. Clearly creative writing isn’t a popular subject with the guys, as the majority of the students are girls.
The rest of the class is talking quietly as they spin their desks to group up. A jolt of calm protective energy rolls through me, and I take a deep breath in surprise. I glance down where the Tank’s hand rests on mine. Mesmerized by the contrast between the dark chocolate against the soft tan of my skin, I just stare at our hands.
“You must be the new girl on the point,” the Vampire comments, swinging his desk halfway around. I pull my hand away from the Tank, trying to get myself together. The Vampire props his elbow on my desk, he rests his chin on hand as he looks me over. His bright ocean blue eyes appraising me and I frown in response. As he leans closer, a ripple of suspicious energy rolls over me. WTF is that about. And why do they keep breaking through my shield. I glance at the clock, forty minutes to go. Ugh.
“That’s me, the new girl.” I finally manage to respond. “I’m Emily.” I flash them both a smile, but don’t bother to offer my hand. Their combined energy is already causing tingles to run over my skin. There is no way I can deal with touching them.
“Clayton,” the Tank rumbles in that sexy deep voice of his. His deep brown eyes sparkle as he gives me a broad grin, repositioning his desk so that the three of us form a triangle. The protected feeling fades as he leans back and motions to his friend. “And that’s Jared.” I glance over at Jared. Oh God he’s still staring at me. I wave at him and force a small smile before looking back at the Tank. Clayton, I remind myself. Clayton and Jared. Ugh, I’m going to remember that for all of five seconds. What is the deal with me and names anyways? At least no one can hear the names I use for them in my head.
“So what should our scene be?” Jared asks, looking between the two of us. His gaze falls back on me, and his lips curl into a smirk. “Maybe we should let New Girl pick. I’m sure she’s brought her superior knowledge to educate us poor Islanders.” I glare at him, my lips thinning in a tight line. What is with this guy? He might be sexy as hell, but his attitude is seriously ugly.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I snap back. “My memory isn’t what it used to be.” I cringe internally as the words fall from my lips, my hands tightening into fists. What the hell am I doing? This guy is seriously getting under my skin. That comment hit just a little too close to home for comfort.
“Don’t mind Jared,” Clayton tells me in a stage whisper. Taking my left hand between his, causing a wave of protective energy rolls over my body. I automatically loosen my fist, and he entwines his fingers w
ith mine, flashes of greens and browns sparking between us. Twice in one day? I really need to figure this out. His voice pulls me back to the conversation. “He’s always a jerk till after his third cup of coffee.” Raising his voice back to normal level, he continues. “We should write a mystery. Give three points of view on the same crime.” Clayton managed to defuse my anger, and I flashed him a grateful smile. Even Jared seemed more relaxed, the intensity around him dissipating.
“Sure, that will work.” Jared replied, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. “We need to put together an outline of the event. Then we can each write our portion and come back together to compare and refine them.”
Holy mood swings Batman. The total change in Jared’s demeanor caught me off guard, and I’m tempted to comment. But after a minute I decided to let it go. He could think whatever he wanted about me. He might look like a dream, but his personality was a thing of nightmares. I just needed to get through this group project, and then we wouldn’t have to talk again. I didn’t know these guys, and as nice as … as… ah crap… uhh … the Tank was, neither of their opinions really mattered. Ugh, focus Emily.
“Soooo,” I drag out the word as I try to compose my thoughts. “What kind of mystery are we thinking? Murder?”
“A theft,” the Tank jumps in.
“A disappearance,” the Vampire mutters, giving me a pointed look. My heart stops, and I just stare at him. Does he know about the “incident”? Does the whole school? Is that why everyone is giving me a wide berth? It had been all over the news back home, but I’d hoped I’d be able to keep it to myself on the island for a little while at least. I mean I’m over 1,300 miles from where it happened.
Something Stolen, Something Found (The Magic Catalyst Chronicles Book 1) Page 6