Double Life - Book 1 of the Vaiya Series

by Vaiya Books

  Double Life

  Book 1 of the Vaiya Series

  Published By Brandon Fiechter & Derek Fiechter at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 Brandon Fiechter & Derek Fiechter

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Chapter 1

  Flinging open the glass doors of Sparta High School, Ian Hansen sprinted inside and weaved past two of his classmates, vicious thoughts about school circling through his mind like hungry sharks. It wasn’t fun being a junior; his classes kept on getting harder and harder and no amount of studying could prepare him for the tests.

  Last Friday, after studying for five hours the previous night, he’d gotten a D+ on his first government exam, which he’d found out on the school’s website last night. It hurt more than he’d care to admit.

  He’d always consoled himself for his low GPA by telling himself, his family, and his friends that if he wanted to get all A’s he could easily do it--now he wasn’t so sure. Hopefully, his best friends wouldn’t ask him what grade he’d received on the exam, as it would be too painful to tell them, especially knowing that Darien would probably get an A, and that even Eddy, who could care less about his school grades and wasn’t even very smart, couldn’t do as badly as he did.

  Forcing his lips into a subdued smile, he carefully formed his school mask, putting a hint of boredom in his eyes, giving his eyebrows the right slant, and keeping his posture somewhat slouched yet not necessarily rebellious.

  Not paying attention to his surroundings, he darted around a corner with the metabolism of a Type A personality and collided face first with the cross country coach Terry Sandler. Stumbling onto his knees, striking the rough floor, he immediately heard hushed giggles from some girls nearby. Shamed, he averted his eyes from them--knowing who they were would only make him feel worse.

  His nose now steaming like a pot of chili, his knees scraped up, Ian scrambled off the floor, reflexively dusting himself off, before smiling sheepishly at the middle-aged balding man who’d trimmed down considerably, probably from his new diet.

  “Sorry, Coach,” he murmured. “Didn’t see you there.” This wasn’t the first time he’d run headfirst into someone, but it was definitely his most public spectacle. Usually this reckless behavior was confined solely to home, and only with his brother Erik. Now he’d crashed into the cross country coach, an impulsive, competitive man who expressed complex and unpleasant emotions on a whim.

  Staring at Sandler’s now red nose, awaiting a verbal assault, he was surprised when the coach merely smiled stoically with a relaxed expression on his face: “Ian, we need to talk.”

  “About what?” asked Ian, massaging his throbbing forehead, disturbed by the man’s indiscernible face. “This isn’t about when I burned Skyler Harrison with the Bunsen burner last Friday, is it? I said I was sorry.”

  He cleared his throat. “No, it’s not that.” Embers of a dying fire smoldered on his face. Skyler was one of his seven best runners, and to have him wounded in any way, even if it were just the tip of his thumb, was not something the coach could easily forgive.

  Not knowing what the coach was getting at, Ian dove his left hand into his blue jean pocket rather flustered, regretting even mentioning Skyler. “Then what’s this about?”

  Sandler rubbed a thick finger over his bushy pirate eyebrow. Settling down, he folded his arms across his chest, as he revealed his true intentions: “Ian, we need you on our cross country team.”

  Ian’s mouth fell partway open as he shook his head, becoming deeply upset. “No way, Coach. It’s been a whole year since I ran cross country.”

  “But you still have it in you, Ian,” countered Sandler, his eyes lighting up like Japanese lanterns. “Last year, you were by far my best runner.” He paused, the silence dragging his face down a dark alleyway, his lips twisting into a writhing scowl. “Why’d you drop out?”

  Ian shoved his other hand into his pocket, tapping his fingers uneasily against his cell phone. Back to this sore subject again. “Well … I guess I wanted some more free time--”

  “That’s not what you told me before,” snapped the coach. “Last time you made that lousy excuse about competition.” His eyes fixed heavily on Ian. “You still have a problem with it?”

  Ian’s arms hung limp at his sides; he shrugged, trying to loosen up. “Yeah, I just don’t like it. It sort of brings out the worst in me.” The coach bit his lower lip, his face a fiery furnace, as two of Ian’s least favorite classmates, Kenn Ashton and Jeff Burnes, smirked wickedly at him before sauntering off to their classes like comic book villains intent on fulfilling some evil plan. What was their problem?

  Feeling a rush of annoyance towards the young men, his voice cracked. “Sorry, Coach, but it’s the truth.”

  Sandler’s teeth clenched tighter. “Quit the lame excuses, Ian. You’re not a baby anymore; you can handle some real competition.”

  Cringing at the insults, he altered his mouth into a semi-smile, masking his true emotions. “I’m not sure why you even need me, Coach. Don’t you already have your seven?”

  “Not anymore!” Infernal fire rained from his eyes. “Skyler Harrison, my second best, broke his right ankle while skateboarding yesterday.” Ash seeped into his countenance. “He’ll never recover in time; the state championship in Peoria is this Saturday.”

  Lowering his head in shame, Ian felt very foolish. Eddy had already texted him about the accident last night and he should have remembered it. Still, this did little to assuage his boiling anger. “I’m sorry to hear about Skyler,” he murmured, “but can’t you just replace him with somebody already on your team?”

  The coach growled lowly. “No. None of them are fit for this. They’d make me look like a joke.”

  Ian fought back a sickly frown. This was ridiculous. “So you think I can just come in and fill the position when I haven’t been in cross country for a whole year?”

  The coach sighed as he unfolded his arms. “Don’t be modest, Ian; I know how good you are.” He paused. “You’re in shape, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but--”

  “And you still run almost every day?”

  Ian reluctantly nodded his head, as he dug his feet into his shoes. This was the last sort of thing he’d expected when he’d come to school. “So I can come in just like that? No paperwork or anything?”

  “It’ll all be taken care of,” Sandler replied firmly with growing enthusiasm, the faintest silhouette of a smile crossing his face.

  Ian’s brow furrowed with annoyance. “But I’m not even on the team. I didn’t run in any of the races.”

  He wasn’t fazed as he summed up the situation. “Yes, I know you weren’t at the regional, sectional, or semi-state meets, but that’s no problem. Your name was still on the list so we’re not doing anything illegal here. Besides, we’re desperate and people understand that.”

  Heart thumping, wondering why the coach had never removed his name from the list even though he’d been out of cross country for a year, Ian gazed down at the polished terrazzo floor, uncomfortable with his decision. After what seemed like forever, he finally plucked up enough courage to speak. “Coach Sandler,” he muttered nervously, as Terry watched him like a hawk, waiting breathlessly for his next words. “I�
�m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

  “You what?” Sandler ground his teeth, then let out a deep sigh and looked intently at him, adding in an annoyed tone, “You’re not going to do poorly Ian; quit worrying--”

  “No,” he interrupted.

  Sandler immediately clenched his fists, his mind no doubt visualizing his team’s finest new trophy; he didn’t back down. “Our school’s never gone to state before.” His eyes burned into Ian as if he’d stepped onto hot pavement with bare feet. “Do you want to be known as the boy who betrayed his school? The boy who melted under pressure?”

  Ian took a deep breath, aware that other students were listening, as Sandler’s words shook him to the core. As much as he hated angering the coach and turning him down, his fear of running in the race and losing more than made up for it; with the utmost reluctance, he stared at the coach anxiously and replied, “I’m not doing it.”

  Stunned, as a man who’d just found out he’d lost his house to a fire, the coach hammered his fist against his left knee repeatedly, wrath fuming from every pore in his body. After a short silence, his glare grew even more intense, as a dark brooding enveloped him. “I hope you have nightmares, boy,” he muttered eerily. Then, after a brief pause, he added with spite, “If you don’t rethink your decision, you’ll regret it forever.”

  As Sandler strutted away, his head held in the rigid manner of a grave digger, face still as proud as a soldier’s, silence held Ian’s tongue, the coach’s ominous words pounding in his ears. He felt terrible, as if he truly had betrayed the whole school, but he could do nothing about it.

  Shaking away the harsh words and the sinister threat, he focused on the day ahead of him, forcing himself to begin another awful day of school, made even worse by this unexpected encounter. Even for a Monday, the day was starting out unusually bad.

  Jerking out his chemistry book, he kicked his locker shut with his foot, as two girls skipped up to him, eyes wide, prying interest written on their smiles.

  “Hey. Why aren’t you helpin’ him out, dude?” asked Shayla Reiver, a thin black-haired cheerleader with dark blue eyes. Though most guys found her down to earth, friendly, and peppy, he’d never liked her. She was a gossipmonger, and thus abnormally talkative; she discussed meaningless things with anyone who cared to listen--he didn’t.

  “Cuz I don’t wanna be involved, Shayla,” he replied distantly, as he bypassed the two girls and glanced back at them. “Understand?”

  “Not really.” She shook her head slightly, gazing at him as if waiting for a good explanation, one he wasn’t willing to give.

  “Well, start trying.” And that ended the dialogue, one of many that he’d had with Shayla over the past couple of months. Avoiding their dirty looks, puzzled as to why Shayla kept talking to him more and more frequently even when he only grew more aloof from her, he strode down the bustling school halls towards his first class.

  Entering the chemistry classroom, shaking the bubbly, annoying image of Shayla out of his mind, and the icy, displeased frown of her nosy comrade, Alena Benton, he plopped down between his two best friends, Eddy Sarris and Darien Bryer, and waited impatiently for the hour-long lecture to begin. Yawning, he felt his eyes grow dim. He grew drowsy. His eyelids began to droop.

  Faintly hearing his two friends talking about some party, he drifted off, diving straight into a delusional nightmare where Skyler Harrison tripped, while running in the race, breaking his foot, his leg, and his arm. As Skyler limped painfully along the track, everyone else breezed past him. Seeing Skyler in such an impaired condition, the coach yelled at Ian as if Skyler’s injuries were his fault and then shouted at a policeman to arrest him. Within seconds, a burly policeman charged out of nowhere towards Ian, quickly shackling his arms, and then shoved him towards his car....

  “Hey, man.” His friend Eddy nudged him, jolting him out of his bad dream. “Look at the dork; he’s sittin’ all by himself again.”

  Eyes now wide open, Ian faced his friend fearfully, expecting to see the policeman. Seeing Eddy instead, he breathed a sigh of relief, while subconsciously tightening his red bandana around his short-cropped chestnut brown hair, Eddy’s words replaying through his mind.

  Wondering who he was insulting this time, Ian saw him gazing over at Alan Reade and frowned. Of course, who else would it be? Every day Eddy picked on him and never tired of the repetition, but rather seemed to take fresh amusement in every jeer and ridicule. Staring at Eddy coldly, he hoped he’d drop the subject. Today, he couldn’t handle it.

  “Tired again, Ian?” Eddy smiled mischievously as he punched Ian lightly on the shoulder.

  “Yeah, I only got two hours of sleep last night.” He was glad for the new topic. “I guess you could say the Pirates of the Caribbean did me in.”

  “I knew it.” He gave Darien a quick smirk and then resumed. “I told you Darien was persuasive. You watched the third one after I left, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t stop there. Darien insisted that we watch the fourth one as well.”

  “That’s rough. That’d put you until about four in the morning.”

  Tiredly, Ian shrugged as Darien gave him a light smirk. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

  Chuckling at the comment, Eddy grew even more animated as he brought up another subject. “So, man, how’d that government test go?”

  His friend couldn’t have picked a worse topic. His weak smile broke into more pieces. “Not the best. I should’ve studied longer.”

  “But you studied five hours.”

  “Obviously not enough,” snapped Ian, the conversation already making him ill.

  But Eddy disregarded his irritation and just widened his grin, his personal boasting delayed for long enough: “Sorry to hear that, man, but guess what? I got a B+.”

  To say that these words brought joy to his soul and that he rejoiced in Eddy’s good grade would be worlds away from the truth. He’d much rather have had Eddy flunk the exam. Yet somehow, through this revelation, he kept his face mildly pleasant and replied, “That’s great.”

  Smiling at his words, Eddy, now done with the topic, like a boy who couldn’t decide which candy tasted better, abruptly switched the conversation back to Alan. “Poor lonely Reade,” he began, in a deriding tone, oblivious to Ian’s sudden biting glare. “Nobody wants to be his pal.”

  “Quit it, Eddy. I’m not in the mood.” His friend was pulling all the wrong strings.

  Smug, Eddy rolled his pencil back and forth across his desk like it were a toddler’s toy. “Why not? You actually feelin’ sorry for the loser?”

  Flames of fire swirled through him; he slammed his fist into Eddy’s forearm. The professor shot him an evil scowl, a few girls turned around with eyes in shock, and a few guys glanced at him scientifically as if making mental notes of his dangerous capabilities, but he wasn’t bothered. Eddy deserved it.

  Glancing at Eddy, who looked entirely bewildered, as if he’d done nothing wrong, Ian muttered angrily, “What?”

  Eddy just squeezed his arm to ease the throbbing. “Why’d you do that, man?”

  “Because I’m sick of your immature behavior.”

  Eddy huffed in pain. “You never cared before.”

  “Well, I do now.”

  Eddy just scowled and would have retorted, but Darien stopped him. “Hey, simmer down, guys; it’s not worth fighting about.” Glancing at Eddy, he shook his head disappointingly. “And, Eddy, Ian’s right--you’ve really gotta stop teasing him.”

  Sneering, Eddy creased the front page of his chemistry book. “Why?”

  Darien rubbed his eyebrow in disgust. “It's not right; besides, I know what he’s going through. I was in his position three years ago, remember?”

  A smile of recognition flickered across Eddy’s face. “Yeah, yeah, who could forget?” He extracted a gooey blob of white peppermint gum from his mouth and stuck it to the bottom of his desk while the professor wasn’t looking. “But that was before you became the team star on
the tennis and football teams and before your face healed from its large spotty acne.”

  As Darien shifted uneasily in his chair looking grieved, a grin crossed Eddy’s face. He stuck his legs on top of his desk, and stretched them out, old memories resurfacing. Rolling the pencil between his fingers, he added, “Yeah, and remember those square glasses, man? Can’t see you wearing them now … I wonder what they’d do to your popularity with the ladies?”

  Darien frowned deeply, faintly blushing, as he avoided eye contact with the girls in the row ahead of him who’d likely overheard the whole conversation as smiles broke forth on their faces. “That’s enough, Eddy. I just brought up my past to make a point.”

  Eddy smirked. “Fine, I’ll stop.” Bored with his pencil now, he snapped it in half and threw the two pieces onto the floor, smashing them into the wooden floor with his black sneakers. As this was common behavior for him, nobody seemed to care or take notice, except the professor, who frowned at him, Tianna Summers, who, glancing his way, gave him a “that’s not cool” look, and Darien, unamused, who continued to stare at him.

  But unaffected by them, Eddy murmured, “So, you think there’s hope for the computer geek?”

  “Sure,” replied Darien, squinting at the insult, his dark blue eyes steady and confident. “Just give him some time.”

  “That’ll be the day.” Eddy chuckled, slapping his leg with mocking hilarity. “You really think the turtle’s gonna leave his shell?”

  “Yeah I do. You just wait--”

  “Today, class,” interjected the middle-aged teacher in his droll nasally voice, not wasting any time on opening formalities, “we will be discussing electrons. After that we will explore the exciting world of electromagnetic radiation and will learn--” Boos issued from the class upon hearing today’s agenda, causing the teacher to halt temporarily as he backtracked.

  “I know all you want to do is learn how to blow up things in the lab, but that is only a minuscule part of science. If you truly want to be scientists, using a Bunsen burner, mixing chemicals, and creating new compositions is not how to get there. There is theory involved as well, and theory comes by studying textbooks and listening to lectures. Besides, we’ve had a few accidents last Friday involving corrosive chemicals … and hot flames.” Here he gave Ian a sharp glance, causing some students to chuckle, before adding, “Thus, for everyone’s safety, we won’t be having any lab work this week.”