Hather (Hather Series Book 1)

by Prince Edan

  Roland sighed. “Why did you want to join the Order?”

  A dark expression briefly crossed Clark’s face then vanished. “Why don’t you tell me your story first?”

  Roland bit his lower lip. Only the director knew his true origins and he had no desire to reveal it to anyone else. Would they scorn him? Would they kick him out of the city, leaving him to survive on his own? Either way, it was not something he was looking forward to. “Look,” Roland reasoned, “you don’t like me and I don’t like you. But we work well together, so don’t chicken out on me now. We’re going to save Hather together, right?”

  Roland wondered if his family would be happy to see him. They probably wouldn’t recognize him after all these years.

  Clark furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief. “Am I going crazy or are you trying to comfort me? You?”

  “Whatever.”

  Clark shivered. “That’s creepy as hell, man. Don’t do that again.”

  “Go to hell, twit.”

  Clark chuckled softly. “That’s the piano boy I love to hate. God, I was worried we might actually be getting along for a second.”

  A cool breeze pressed Roland’s uniform against his body and his eyes followed a purple maple leaf twirling in front of eyes and floating down to the ground. At the sound of approaching footsteps both boys turned around. A brutish fellow and his brainless pack of fools turned the corner of the main building and stood before them.

  The leader, Ryan Luca, was not very smart, but his money was able to buy whatever he couldn’t achieve with his brain. Ryan sneered. Though he towered above Clark, he had a muscular build. He ran his hand through his thick brown beard. His uniform was a tattered mess and beads of sweat stood out on his red face. He walked with a slight limp, and an empty beer bottle hung loosely in his right hand. His goons had a similar disheveled appearance, like they all decided to stop at a bar close by, despite the fact that it was against school rules.

  “I can’t believe the director let these two faggots watch o’er us tonight,” Ryan slurred. “What they gonna do? Sleep with us?”

  The idiots laughed.

  Roland glanced at Clark cautiously. The boy remained glued to his spot, taking deep breaths. Clark’s hand went to rapier by his side, yet he did not remove it from its sheath. He glared.

  “You’re disgusting,” Timmy said, stepping beside Ryan. He pushed his glasses further up his nose. He had a buzz cut that was common for young army members, but Roland doubted the wiry kid could lift a sword. The Order had no use for someone like him. “You guys should rot in hell.” Timmy spat, his saliva splashing on the ground at their feet.

  Ryan’s father was a business tycoon that donated thousands of dollars to the school, and everyone wanted to be on his good side. They all wanted some of his money.

  “You first,” Roland countered, a smirk playing on his lips. “And I’m not gay, so shut the hell up.”

  Ryan snorted. “I wanna beat some fags tonight.” The twelve idiots stepped into line behind him.

  Chapter VIII

  The odds were in Roland’s favor. He could beat a bunch of blundering drunks without much trouble. He advanced toward his opponents on the well worn cement pathway. No weapons. The dark silhouette of the school’s main campus seeped across the ground before him. This would be settled with a simple fist fight. He glanced at Clark who nodded, reluctantly removing his hand from the sword’s handle. Clark lurched forward, quickly easing into a sprint, his sword’s sheath jerking with the sudden movement. It was painfully obvious that Clark was the shortest guy there.

  That didn’t deter him. As Ryan’s goons charged, Clark ran toward the closest target, Timmy. Clark launched off the ground and delivered a powerful high kick to Timmy’s head. They boy’s eyes rolled back, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. Ryan positioned himself behind Clark, tightening his grip around the glass bottle.

  Clark was preoccupied with two other guys, and Roland knew he wouldn’t be able to block the attack.

  “Ryan!” Roland yelled, breaking the big boy’s concentration. Concern flashed in Clark’s eyes but he was unable to break away from the fight.

  Ryan blinked, confusion rippling across his face. Roland dashed forward, darting through the gaps in the gang’s defense and grabbed the collar of Ryan’s dress shirt. He slammed his back against the boy’s abdomen. He mustered the energy to kick Ryan’s leg so the boy would lose his balance and Roland hauled him over his back. Roland gritted his teeth, the veins in his neck bulged as his attacker’s heavy body slipped over his right shoulder. Ryan flipped through the air and landed hard on the concrete. The bottle shattered and Ryan’s fingers were left clutching only the bottle neck. Ryan’s body twitched, drool slipped from the side of his mouth, and he passed out.

  It only took Roland and Clark a few more seconds to finish the rest of the pack. It was easy. The boys lost their motivation after their leader was taken out, and their perception was hindered by the alcohol. They couldn’t land a proper hit if their life depended on it. Roland punched his final opponent in the abdomen and the boy slumped forward, tumbling to the ground unconscious.

  He glanced at the bodies that were strewn all over the path. They looked so weak, fragile. These were the kids that spent most of their days calling him a dirty orphan, a faggot, the kid that no one wanted—not even his parents. Then they would laugh; a jeering sound that always set his teeth on edge.

  “Roland,” called Clark, hunched over Timmy’s body, “come look at this.” Roland stepped over Ryan’s friends carefully and stopped by Clark’s side, following his gaze. There was a dark spot in the material above Timmy’s groin that had seeped onto the ground beneath him.

  “Most of them pissed themselves,” Clark said. “Pathetic, don’t you think?”

  Roland stifled a yawn. He liked battles that got his blood pumping. These guys were a waste of energy.

  “You know, they bullied me too,” Clark said.

  “I saw, I was with you.”

  Clark shook his head. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Don’t you wish that they would all drop dead? The taunting, the threats, the fights. It’s all pointless. They never try to see things from someone else’s perspective, and they’ll always try to force their judgment upon you. Who gave them the authority to dictate how other people should live their lives? They’re not God. They don’t know who’s going to Hell and who’s not. That’s not something for them to decide. I am me, and I’m always going to be me. There is no one who can change that.”

  Roland placed his hand on Clark’s shoulder. For the first time, he had seen some of his own traits in Clark. He looked away, letting his hand fall to his side. “We all have trials that we must overcome to reach our full potential. The question is, will we persevere or will let these challenges destroy us?”

  The tension in Clark’s demeanor faded and he pointed at Roland. “Am I hearing things or did you say something wise? Did you read that in a book or something?”

  Roland slapped the boy’s head and stalked off. “Dumbass.”

  “Wait,” Clark called, chasing after him. “I have an idea.”

  Roland raised his eyebrow.

  While Clark summarized his plan, a smirk appeared on Roland’s lips. It was the perfect revenge. Clark had devised a brilliant prank in a matter of seconds.

  “We’ll need Kio’s help,” said Roland, stroking his chin.

  Chapter IX

  “It’s amazing,” Kio said, admiring their handiwork. He directed his flashlight at the fence before him. “They won’t be able to show their faces in public for a month.”

  Clark nodded.

  They had taken the bullies’ unconscious bodies, pressed their torsos against the fence outside the girls’ dorm, and secured their limbs to the metal bars with rope. Stripping them of every piece of clothing, Kio wrote on each of their backs in block red letters, ‘Asshole’. The victims’ dicks were pointed toward the building. The girls would have an interesting view when they
woke up in the morning. Roland wondered how Cassandra would react. Would she laugh or dismiss it as an immature stunt?

  Roland and his friends crouched in the bushes outside the fence, keeping their voices low to avoid getting discovered. He was glad this had never happened to him. The pranks students played on each other ranged from harmless to traumatizing. Still, Ryan had brought this upon himself. He had insulted Roland’s close group of friends for far too long.

  A crescent moon shone brightly above the dark dormitory among thousands of shimmering stars. Roland heard the sound of hurried footsteps coming toward them. “Turn off your flashlights!” he hissed.

  “We won’t be able to see,” Clark countered.

  The footsteps were closing in on them. There was a rumor that the women who patrolled the females’ dorm tortured the boys they discovered with all sorts of painful means.

  “Do you want to get expelled? Or worse, do you want to die? We shouldn’t have come here,” Roland argued.

  “Oh really? You were pretty excited when you were tying their bodies to the fence,” said Clark.

  Kio sighed and turned off his flashlight, but Clark was set on doing the opposite of whatever Roland said. They fought, Roland trying to pry the light from the boy’s hand. Clark punched Roland repeatedly in the side, but Roland’s hands latched onto his wrist. Now, the light was waving in every possible direction. They were sending a signal to the same guards they wanted to avoid.

  Roland had finished his patrol four hours ago, and it was past the school’s assigned curfew. They wasted a lot of time trying to stealthily carry Ryan and his friend’s bodies over to the females’ dorm without being detected, stopping to hide the boys in the thick bushes that surrounded the school whenever possible. God knew how much trouble they would get in if they were caught.

  “Give me the damn flashlight,” Roland said through gritted teeth as he tried to yank the flashlight from the boy’s hand, but Clark only tightened his grip.

  “Who’s there?” demanded a woman. She couldn’t have been more than ten feet away.

  Roland and Clark froze.

  “A ca—” Clark began, but Roland clamped his hand over Clark’s mouth.

  “You fucking idiot,” Roland muttered.

  “Meow,” Kio imitated.

  The woman was not buying it. “Don’t move,” she ordered.

  “Meow,” Kio replied, sticking to his act.

  “Let’s ditch,” Roland said, releasing his grip on Clark. Roland took off his blazer and dragged it over his head. There weren’t many tall guys with red hair in this school. He would be identified in a flash and reported to the director.

  Kio picked up his paint utensils from the grass and hugged them to his chest. The boys took off, following the path illuminated by Clark’s flashlight, the woman hot on their tail. Kio was falling behind them and it wouldn’t be long before the woman caught up to him.

  “Clark,” Kio called, “slow down a bit.”

  Roland glanced at Clark. The boy was already sprinting around the corner. Roland did not plan on slowing down either. He would make it up to Kio some other time.

  Roland increased his speed, pushing his limits. Kio cursed. He threw his supplies at the woman—paintbrushes and a collection of glass paint bottles that shattered on impact, creating red puddles.

  Kio’s sacrifice slowed down their pursuer. She skidded to a stop as she tried to avoid the flying projectiles. Roland turned the corner. They were passing the main building. There were only a few more yards to go before they reached their dorm. Luck was against them. The guards that were patrolling the main campus’ perimeter spotted them and joined the chase. Roland and Clark reached the fence outside the boys’ dormitory before anyone else. They climbed it skillfully and hauled themselves over the top. Roland’s feet hit the ground with a thud and he glanced behind him.

  Kio arrived shortly after, panting as he pulled his body up the fence and clung to the top. Though Kio was only five feet off the ground, he hesitated.

  “Jump!” Clark urged. “We’re so close.”

  The guards were racing toward them, they had just turned the corner of the main building.

  “I can’t.” Kio was clinging on for his precious life, not even the wind could blow him down.

  “Then climb down,” Roland suggested.

  Kio pulled himself over and carefully climbed down the other side. He heaved a sigh of relief when he landed beside Roland. They ran up the set of concrete stairs leading to the dorm’s great double doors and opened it. Locking the doors behind them, they scanned the marble entryway. Aside from the eerie suits of armor on pedestals and landscape paintings that hung on the walls, it was empty. They went up the spiral staircase and cautiously made their way down the hallway. It was deserted. The only signs of life were the soft amber glow coming from the lamps on the green walls.

  Clark said goodbye and Roland and Kio entered their room. Roland changed and crawled into bed. Footsteps thundered down the hallway, shaking the lamp on his bedside table as the pursuer continued past his door.

  He was safe.

  Chapter X

  Clark sighed as he walked down the bustling hallway. He knew that Kio was probably holed up in his room working on some art project. Though Clark had two more days before he left for the Order’s tournament, he wanted to take Kio to the lake so the boy could enjoy life outside of a stuffy room. He stopped by the door to Kio’s room and rapped on the wood. A pissed off Roland opened it. His hair was wet as if he had just stepped out of the shower, his white uniform ruffled.

  “Clark,” he mumbled and promptly closed the door.

  Clark heard the two boys arguing on the other side and he glanced at his shoes. Though he regarded Roland as a friend, the boy was impossible to get along with. He was inflexible, stubborn. They had been in a lot of shitty situations together. Clark decided he would show some appreciation for that fact. The guys walking down the hallway gave him a wide berth, teasing him from a distance, taunting. He was constantly mocked for his sexuality. Most guys treated him as if he had a contagious disease. They wouldn’t touch him or label him as a human being. He glanced at the door. If only that idiot would let him in already, he wouldn’t have had to deal with this vulnerable feeling. His fingers curled into a fist and his hands shook. Someone’s thick arm wrapped around his neck and Clark’s body stiffened.

  “That was some nasty prank you guys pulled.”

  Clark looked at the brutish man that had snuck up on him.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Ryan said, lowering his voice as a supervisor passed by. “Do you know how many people witnessed that stupid stunt? Thanks to you brats, the girls treat me like I’m a piece of shit.”

  “No one asked you to get drunk and attack us,” Clark countered.

  Ryan grabbed the back of Clark’s head and slammed his face into the wall, hard. A sharp pain radiated in Clark’s nose, blood spewing from it like a fountain, staining his white uniform. It was the weekend, so supervision in the dorms was tight. If they were caught fighting, they would get in a lot of trouble. Clark stumbled backward, dazed. He brought his hand to his nose and blood trickled through his fingers.

  He wouldn’t fight back, couldn’t fight back. If he got expelled, he might as well die. He had taken the chance to mess with Ryan once and he had been lucky enough to get away, but he didn’t want to risk everything a second time. His parents would not waste money sending their gay son to another school. He was their disappointment, the cross they had to carry over their hunched backs for the rest of their lives.

  The supervisor turned the corner and proceeded to the next hallway without a glance in Clark’s direction. Had he been bought?

  Ryan grinned smugly. “I’m going to kill you, faggot,” he threatened. “I swear to God, I’ll do it.”

  People walked by, pretending Clark didn’t exist. Despite the blood spewing from his nose, Clark watched Ryan coolly.

  “Do it,” he said.

  Ryan pulled h
is hand back and punched Clark’s jaw. As Clark’s head snapped painfully to the side, he bit his tongue and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Ryan’s fist collided with Clark’s stomach and the boy stumbled backward, the contents of his breakfast crawling up his throat. Clark’s knees buckled and he heaved his meal on to the floor.

  The bystanders scrunched up their noses and groaned in disgust. Yet they wouldn’t help. Who cared about the fag? His fist clenched and unclenched. No one wanted to go against Ryan’s money. Though Clark’s parents were wealthy, they couldn’t compare to that lunatic’s father. And even if they could, they had already made it clear that this school was the last time they would support him.

  Clark had let his guard down since they got away with the prank, but the tables had turned on him. If he fought back, the situation would be twisted to make it look like Ryan was the victim, and if the boy’s father spent enough money the school’s leaders would believe it. Clark dropped on all fours and took deep breaths. Ryan raised his leg and struck the heel of his boot against the back of Clark’s neck. Clark screamed out. The impact was enough to drive him into the tiled floor, the pain unbearable. His nerves were screaming at him to fight back. The front of his shirt and hands were covered in his own barf.

  He heard the soft click of a door opening and turned his head slightly, but the simple movement sent a burst of pain through his body. He winced. Roland glared at Ryan and the spectators as he stepped into the hallway. Fear rippled across Ryan’s features.

  Roland snorted. “Do you want everyone here to know what happened yesterday? Do you want people to know you got beat by two fagots?”

  Ryan hesitated then said, “They won’t believe you.”

  Roland cocked his head to one side. “Huh, that’s funny. And they’ll listen to the guy that was found strapped naked to the fence outside the girl’s dorm this morning, shaking his pathetic butt for all to see?”