ELEMENTARY VIRTUE: The Savior

by Sonja Wuthrich

  He looked like a surfer with his toned body and his tanned complexion. He knew how to put on a show without attracting negative attention. His light gray Gucci suit was tailored and fit perfectly in color to his ivory shirt and his Italian leather shoes. At nearly 6’5”, he was also taller than most of the other guys. Actually, the ladies appreciated that very much too. Unfortunately, he was a complete fraud - the appearance of an angel with the black soul of the devil. At boarding school, he had been very popular and ruling. The teachers were speaking only highly about him. No shadow was ever cast on him because he knew how to delegate his misdeeds. He always appeared in a favorable light. Only his followers knew what Gabe was in reality. A cold-blooded monster.

  His father used to call him his secret weapon, even as a little boy, because he looked very innocent but was cruel and mean. He still remembered his holiday in Toronto when he was just about five years old. He had put his aunt’s cat in the washer. Then he had put the blame on his cousin Aiden, who always got into some kind of trouble playing pranks. Yet in reality, he would not even hurt a fly.

  Aiden's mother had been shocked and even though Aiden insisted repeatedly that he didn’t have anything to do with it, a doubt had remained. Gabe remembered the incident with a certain fascination. This had been the first time he had made his honest appearance work in his favor. It had never been the same after that. He had never enjoyed it as much after that. Even though his devilish deeds had just started then, the first time was always something very special.

  He was looking forward with mischievous pleasure to meet Aiden at school and he would make his life a living hell. However, he had to be careful so he did not find out who he really was. He would register with his mother’s maiden name and his middle name Vincenzo. He could pass easily as Vincent. He did not think Aiden Grande would recognize him after thirteen years. He had to play it safe and didn’t want people to become suspicious under any circumstances.

  Daddy had promised him a Ferrari Testarossa as a reward, if his mission was a success and he would expose the prophesied Savior. Apparently, there were rumors that the old wife’s tales was not only true, but that this Savior was even at this school. Therefore, it had to be done. He had to be taken care of before he messed things up for Gabe’s dad’s organization, the Black Vultures.

  The Black Vultures could be compared to the Mafia, and his father to the Godfather. Gabe didn’t care about them; he had never wanted to belong to any group, except if he could lead them, out of the background of course. He was a good organizer and would never get his hands dirty. He didn’t like it if somebody else told him what to do. That was why he didn’t like to be his father’s henchman.

  Unfortunately, it seemed that there was no way around it for now. What he especially disliked was that he should make friends with a certain Angel, who had been assigned directly from Sicily to the mission of bringing that prodigy Savior down. This Angel, her real name was Angela di Benedetto, the daughter of a Black Vultures man from Palermo, who was a relative of his father Carmine around seven corners. Oh, yes, they were all a big happy crazy international mafia family.

  He grinned and closed his eyes. This flight seemed to take forever, and he was not in the mood to continue making any small talk with his elderly seat neighbor. Earlier, she had asked him seriously if he had a girlfriend.

  The old lady with the gout-ridden hands smiled, looking at him. Such a nice young man, she thought, delighted and so polite and helpful.

  It was very rare to meet someone like him these days.

  Angel

  Angela di Benedetto seemed to be floating through the airport of Palermo with her rolling suitcase. She brushed her copper-colored, shoulder-length hair aside with a graceful movement that had been blown into her face by the wind. Her golden bracelet decorated with dangling leaves strummed melodically. She handed her boarding pass to a young man from the airport staff... He studied it for longer than necessary and gave her a warm adoring smile.

  “Angela di Benedetto - the name of a goddess. The name just fits you.”

  She mentally rolled her eyes to heaven, but didn’t let it show.

  “Giovanni, Giovanni, I have not heard from you for some time. I didn’t know that you were working at the airport. Have you dropped out of the Liceo for that?”

  She lifted the perfectly shaped eyebrows mockingly and set her grey golden speckled eyes on him. He winced noticeably as she passed by without taking any further notice of him. She was well aware of her good looks and her stunning charm. There was no secret about it. She was a real bitch, even if she didn’t seem that way at first sight. With her delicate features and her high cheekbones, she looked like a frail flower, but in truth, she was a real feline predator with no mercy, given the right circumstances. In Palermo, she had ruled together with Raffaele the most popular guy, and they had absolute power at the Liceo. She had enjoyed every moment of it. She could do as she pleased. No one would dare to get cross with her because her daddy was the mayor of Palermo and the head of the local organization of the Black Vultures, a subset of the Mafia. Suppressing everyone who dared to have an independent mind with supernatural measures, Raffaele and Angela were in total control of the school. Anyone who had any doubts about that fact was severely punished. Angel’s full lips turned into a cruel smile as she remembered. She was master of the earth and knew many mixtures. Such a small poisoning had a miraculous effect and brought many rebellious people to their senses and for quite stubborn cases, and she always had a nice potion at hand.

  She had never loved Rafael, but she had admired his power and his coldness. She had been attracted to his wickedness. It had made him so damn sexy, almost irresistible. Cruelty turned her on. There was an expectant smile on her face, as she flipped through the latest issue of Vogue, waiting for her flight. Her father had recruited her to find and eliminate a certain someone, together with Gabriele Grande, a distant relative who apparently had similar properties like she had.

  She was curious whether this Gabe would live up to her expectations. Her flight was boarding and she was torn from her thoughts. She straightened her Chanel dress, got up in a smooth movement from her seat, and grabbed her Gucci bag. Her golden bracelet strummed melodically and the leaves were moving back and forth. She was the embodiment of class and elegance; always perfectly styled and drawing everyone's attention wherever she was - envious eyes of the female and admiring looks and even lustful drooling of all males. She had blossomed quit early. With her sixteen years of age, she had curves in the right place. Not too much and not too little. She was no size Zero ban and not one of those well-toned, athletic girls. Angela di Benedetto was the embodiment of femininity - an Italian unapproachable beauty. In Palermo, she left many broken hearts behind. She was very picky when it came to guys. She was something special and would only be interested in someone who deserved her and was able to ensure her certain benefits. Maybe she was calculating, so what? She had every right to be selective. She was curious how this Gabe would be. She had heard that he was the cunning type. Even if he was, she would be giving him a hard time for sure. She smiled scornfully and pulled her sleeping mask over her eyes. She had deliberately chosen a night flight so she would arrive rested in Toronto. She hated to waste her precious time.

  Toronto, Scarborough - the gene pool of superlatives

  Something was different today at the Scarborough High, Leyla thought to herself. She sat in the school cafeteria for lunch with Brooklyn and Melissa.

  It had nothing to do with the way Gregory darted a glance at her unobtrusive from time to time and Aiden ignored her completely. That was kind of an awkward situation, but it was something else. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something strange was going on.

  There was quite a bunch of new students, which was kind of funny. She saw them the first time today in the cafeteria. They did not sit altogether. Apparently, they were in different classes with their classmates at different tables, but every single one of them stood out cl
early from all the other students. They all looked somehow different, each one of them in his or her own way. They all were extremely attractive and charismatic, almost transcendental.

  For example, this Angel from her class was an astounding beauty. She had a classy appearance that most girls could only dream about. Delicate with copper-colored hair, gray golden glowing eyes, and a curvy figure. The few guys in her class had stared at her during math instead of listening to Mr. Blane, their math teacher. This had even lead to detention for some of them.

  She had always thought that Mila from Gregory's class had the most beautiful face she had ever seen. However, Angel put her clearly in the shade. Well, if Mila had made some effort by putting some make up on, or even considered combing her hair occasionally, she would still have been in the race. However, Mila seemed to like to keep up to her military outfit.

  And there was this blonde guy with the dark green, mysterious eyes that just looked like she always had imagined a Californian surfer. He was hanging around at Gregory's table. The rest of the new students were in different classes, but they all had something outstanding, unique about them. Leyla grinned to herself. It almost looked as if the Scarborough High had been awarded all the teen kings and queens. She wanted to share her knowledge with Brooklyn, when she saw that

  Aiden and Brooklyn stared at each other for a brief moment. Aiden, who had just laughed at a remark from Jason suddenly froze and looked to the ground. Brooklyn turned to Melissa saying something about the food being bland. She seemed to be extremely cheerful today. Leyla sighed in the inside. She had to go to Judo training today after school and hoped deeply that she didn’t run into Aiden and could avoid him this time around. She had in fact not the slightest wish to talk to him. She dodged Gregory since the morning after the concert. It was now three days ago since the disastrous evening and he had tried to ambush her several times outside the bathroom. But somehow, her mom or her dad always happened to stand in the way. Whenever he felt unobserved, he looked over at her. Leyla could not help it, but she thought that the two guys weren’t exactly behaving discreetly. Talking of dangerous, it might have been better if they just acted normally instead of making such a fuss. It would have been a lot less suspicious. She twisted her mouth into a wry grin. Guys were just weird.

  She looked once more over to the new students, shoving Brooklyn a little.

  ”Have you seen the new ones? There is something strange about them. The gene pool of the best-looking teens have gathered in our school, especially this Angel from our class. So much perfection cannot be healthy. Something is wrong, I can feel it. What do you think?”

  Brooklyn answered with a hum, which clearly indicated she had not listened to her at all and was once more staring at Aiden, who gazed back at her.

  God, Leyla rolled her eyes, it was kind of exhausting to watch these two, staring at each other, actually thinking that no one else would notice.

  She was glad that later on she could get rid of her excess energy doing her weekly Judo Training.

  Unfortunately, it was not possible to evade Aiden successfully. On the contrary, he had apparently been waiting patiently for her in in front of the BJJ. There was no getting around him. He had made himself comfortable on the stairs at the entrance. Leyla wondered whether she would be able to hit the road without him noticing. But then again, she was no coward and would deal with him just fine. He looked at her expectantly as she tried to sneak past him. “What do you want from me? I am already running late anyway,” Leyla said discourteously.

  He grinned disarmingly at her.

  “Hey, why are you being so rude? What did I do? Remember we are training partners. “He was not his somber self today; the punk she knew from School looked quite normal. He wore Jeans, T-Shirt, sunglasses and a funny woolen cap. Probably, he was incognito and didn’t want people to recognize him. He looked like the nice boy next door. But maybe he should have thought over the woolen cap once more, as it was summer. He looked at her unmoved.

  “No problem, I can wait. I have to talk to you urgently. And don’t try to bunk off, I know where you live.”

  He grinned at her cheerfully as if he had just made an especially good joke. Leyla was not particularly amused. “Are you threatening me, you spastic moron?” Aiden shook his head. “No, but I must talk to you because you seem to be the most practical thinking person from all of us. Mila is sometimes a headless chicken, Gregory a novice and I wouldn’t like to involve Brooklyn. She is so delicate and vulnerable.”

  “Oh my god, I am going to cry - poor sensitive and vulnerable Brooklyn.” Leyla sat down beside him on the stairs, propped up her chin on her elbow, jingled with her eyelashes looking at him whiningly.

  He took off his sunglasses gazing at her. He looked actually concerned and seriously worried.

  “You really care about her, don’t you?” she said completely baffled.

  He arranged to put on his unconcerned macho look again. “That’s none of your business and it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  Leyla smiled confidently at him.

  “Oh, but it does. You are so wrong, my dear. If you want me to help with whatever is on your mind, you will admit right away that you are desperately in love with Brooklyn and are behaving therefore like a complete asshole. Do you really want to protect her?”

  She looked at him challenging.

  “You are a damned pain in the neck, almost as bad as Gregory. Probably lies in your genes.

  He apparently saw his chance to escape the annoying topic Brooklyn.

  “By the way, I wanted to talk to you, exactly about the subject of the Genetic pool of super teenagers at our school.”

  Leyla looked at him emotionless from the side.

  “Hell, how many times do I have to mention that I don’t have anything to do with Gregory’s genes? Anyway nice try, my dear. The genetic pool of the superlatives has also struck me, but we will talk about that later on. So we were talking about Brooklyn, a very unhappy Brooklyn at the moment, that much I can tell you. She has been crying her eyes out, after you have dumped her so rudely and ignored her ever since.”

  “Something quite unexpected happened,” Aiden blushed. With his dark complexion, it was more like a short lighting up. He took off his woolen cap running his fingers through his black hair.

  Leyla looked at him expectantly.

  “I am still waiting!”

  “This is awkward,” he said reluctantly.

  “If you must know it honestly, I have feelings for Brooklyn.”

  He turned his woolen cap between his fingers back and forth.

  “Ok,” Leyla said, unmoved.

  She wouldn’t be satisfied with that kind of information. She needed to know more for Brooklyn’s sake, after the morning-after drama hung vividly in her memory.

  “What kind of feelings, I definitely need more information to let you off the hook? There are all kinds of feelings. You know that, don’t you? Come on, spit it out. Be a man about it!”

  “You are really disgusting, do you know that?”

  He gave her an angry look.

  She nodded agreeing.

  “I know, and I am still waiting. If you want, I can also ditch the training. In this case, I would have time for the whole afternoon!”

  He shook his head in disbelieve. “What the hell, of course I am in love with her. Isn’t that obvious? I would like to spend every free minute with her. Kissing her and….”

  “Whoa, I didn’t want to know the details. This is far too much information.”

  Leyla covered her ears pretending to be shocked.

  “You wanted to know how I felt,” he grinned at her and shrugged.

  “Then why did you behave like a complete jerk?”

  His expression darkened.

  “Because these feelings are frightening me. You asked me if I was desperately in love. That might be not so wrong after all. I am desperate and I could not bear if something happened to her. I don’t know if I could go on. There are s
trange things going on at school, with those new students. Nobody must know how important she is to me. If they would find out, she could become their target to get to me. It would make her my sore spot. I don’t want that to happen.”

  Leyla frowned. However, she couldn’t discuss this any further with him because Elliott her trainer, got her attention by wildly gesticulating, probably indicating that the training was about to start.

  She rose sighing.

  “Ok, let’s meet after and I am still expecting more explanation.”

  He nodded and she hurried into the Dojo.

  Today, she was in great shape. The conversation with Aiden had provided some adrenalin rush. Something definitively was going on at school. It hadn’t been only in her imagination. She succeeded doing all the throws perfectly and Jamie didn’t stand a chance against her today.