Born Dark

by H G Lynch

  "Yeah, actually I've got two.” Reid smirked, giving Perry a high-five. Brandon looked disapproving, as always. Ricky just shook his head indulgently.

  "How did you wrangle that?" Perry laughed.

  "She wanted to bring her roommate along.” Reid shrugged. That got Ricky’s attention. He lifted his head and straightened his shoulders.

  "Her roommate? The blonde one with the green eyes?" Ricky asked quietly.

  Brandon grinned. "I think Kee here has a crush.” He used Ricky’s much-hated nickname. The boys had given him that nickname because, when they were seven, he'd lost his front teeth and couldn't say Ricky properly - he kept saying Kee-Kee. So they'd started just calling him Kee. Ricky smiled weakly and shrugged, blushing. He was the baby of their crowd, the youngest, with almost as strong a moral compass as Brandon, but sometimes Reid could persuade him to have some fun.

  "Well, bring them over here to meet us!" Perry suggested. Brandon was shaking his head, frowning slightly, while Ricky was snickering and Perry was roaring with laughter.

  "Wait, are you going to feed on them?" Brandon hissed, tugging on Reid's arm as he was about to leave. He kept his voice low. His dark eyes issued a warning that Reid understood all too easily. He considered making a smart-ass remark just to piss Brandon off, but he refrained.

  Instead, he just said, "I've fed this week already. I just want to corrupt the little one.” Reid smirked and wandered off to collect his dates.

  Unfortunately, they were gone. He scanned the crowd for them, but they weren't there.

  He returned to his friends unhappily. "I think some prick picked up my dates.” He slid into the booth next to Brandon, and smacked the table with a fist. Perry was grinning like an idiot, making Reid wonder how much the larger boy had had to drink this evening, but Brandon, being the golden wonder, was worried.

  "That's not good. We don't know who might've gotten them or maybe the girls were taken. You should go look for them and make sure they're OK. We can't afford any disappearances linked with any of us.” Brandon sounded concerned, but his point was logical. Even Perry had stopped grinning now. Brandon was right of course; they couldn't afford anyone digging into their business because of missing girls. Reid hated it when Brandon was right.

  "Fine, I'll ask Bernie if he saw them leave, and check their dorm room later. Happy?" Reid hissed and got up to ask Bernie the Bartender if he'd seen anyone make off with his dates.

  Bernie had seen them swipe out of the club laughing, earlier. Reid cursed the girls mentally, not impressed. So they thought they'd make a fool of him, did they? Well, he had ways of getting payback on that account.

  Ember

  It was 3am when Ember woke up to banging on the dorm room door. She blinked her tired eyes, then threw a slipper at Sherry to wake her,

  "Sherz, wake up! I think Reid noticed we were gone,” she whispered, and heard Sherry giggle under her breath from across the room.

  She went and opened the door, blinking sleepily and then trying to look surprised at seeing Reid behind the door. She was too tired to resist her reaction. She simply burst out laughing, her hand covering her mouth as she saw the anxious look on Reid's face. He looked genuinely worried and then almost hurt when she started laughing. She could hear Sherry's muffled laughter in the bed at the far wall behind her.

  "I'm… I'm sorry. I just… I just,” Ember gasped, unable to stop laughing. Reid was no longer looking worried, he looked angry.

  "You just what?" His voice immediately dimmed her laughter to hiccupping giggles. It was cold and hard, frightening almost. She looked up and saw something icy glint in his eyes. She guessed he'd never been made a fool of by a girl before.

  "Look, I'm sorry. We were just having some fun. Messing with you. I just thought I should make it clear that...well, I'm not stupid. I thought I should make that obvious right from the start here, so nobody gets the wrong impression of me. Sorry for running out on you like that, though.” She did feel a little bad about it, thinking he might have actually been pretty worried when he discovered the two new girls had vanished in a busy club. Even an asshole would worry that they'd been kidnapped, right? It was only human.

  "Well, I was just, you know, worried. As long as you're OK, I guess it's alright.” Reid was suddenly quiet and bashful. He changed attitude faster than she could track. Freaky.

  "Yeah. Sorry again. Night." Ember smiled at him and watched him turn to head down the hall. She closed the door and immediately burst into hysterical giggles again, Sherry joining in.

  It took them a long time to get back to sleep after that and they'd regret it the next day.

  "Ember, Sit up! Unless you want detention, I suggest you stay awake,” Dr Callums cautioned her and she pulled her head up from her desk. It was halfway through the day, and halfway through Chemistry, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She was starting to think this was karma's work. She'd made a fool of Reid, when he'd only been trying to be helpful. She had to admit that it really did seem like he had actually been being nice. After all, he really had shown up to take them out. She'd had no reason to blow him off the way she had and now it was coming back to bite her in the butt.

  She was contemplating finding a way to make it up to Reid, a real date maybe, when there was knock on the Chemistry lab door. Dr Callums, a short, mousy man who had a habit of digressing into random stories in the middle of a lesson, went to the door, opened it and spoke to whoever was outside. She couldn't see who it was, because Dr Callums was blocking her view.

  "OK, Reid, you'll have to catch up on notes from someone,” the teacher said in a patient voice. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Weird coincidence. The blonde boy sauntered into the class, shooting a smile at her, and taking the empty seat next to her.

  "Mind if I copy your notes?" he asked simply, a tiny smile on his face and his eyes kind. She just nodded and passed him her notebook. Dr Callums was droning on about the experiment they were about to do. Honestly, she'd done it before and it wasn't difficult.

  She collected all the equipment and chemicals, lighting the Bunsen burner and setting the chemicals in the little white bowl on top of the tripod. She turned to get the iron chips to put into the bowl, and heard a whizzing pop. She turned back quickly and saw the contents of the bowl were alight, and a wad of paper was burning in it. She instantly doused it with a beaker of water, causing a plume of steam to puff out. She turned off the gas tap and coughed, beating at the thick steam.

  "Ember, what's going on here?" Dr Callums came over, looking stern. He examined the half-charred, half-soaked crumpled paper in the bowl. He picked it up and carefully unfolded it. He read whatever was written on the paper, and then glared at Ember. "Detention, after school today. Half an hour,” he said in a cold voice and shredded the paper before dropping it in the bin.

  Ember stood in shock with her mouth open for several minutes before the bell rang. She could hear soft chuckling as she tidied up her equipment. She had been thinking about how she simply couldn't get detention, she couldn't! She'd never had detention in her life, and she'd only been in this school for a few days! But when she heard the chuckles, she began thinking about what had really just happened.

  She finished tidying and grabbed the arm of the person snickering. "What did the paper say?" she hissed at Reid, not bothering to ask if it had been him who'd messed with her experiment. She knew it was. She didn't know how she knew, but she did.

  "What do you mean?" he asked innocently, but he was having trouble keeping a straight face.

  "You know what I mean. What did the note say?" She was still gripping his arm, quite tightly. He looked down at her hand on his arm and looked faintly surprised for a moment.

  "Does it matter what the note said? You've still got detention anyway,” he smirked at her.

  "I was right with my first impression of you,” she said coolly, letting go of his arm and swinging her bag onto her back.

  "Oh, really?" Reid said vaguely.

 
"Yeah. I thought you were an ass and I was right.” She shoved him out of the way as she strolled out the door, planning to have lunch in her dorm room today.

  "Well done. You're a genius...Wait, aren't you going to tell Dr Callums I was the one who wrote the note, like a good little tattle-tale?" He was walking right alongside her, even though she was clearly trying to get away from him.

  "There would be no point. You already have detention. And I can't prove you wrote it. It was in my experiment and you were supposed to be busy copying my notes,” she spoke shortly and coolly, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye.

  "How do you know I've already got detention? Are you stalking me or something?" He was looking at her oddly, like she'd said something astounding.

  "No, but you're the kind of guy who has detention at least four days a week,” she muttered, slamming open the door to the dorms, hoping to hit him with it.

  "And you're the kind of girl who's never had a detention. Innocent little angel, aren't you?" Reid's voice was scathing, but his words hit her like a knife in the gut. Shredding her pride. She whirled on him with fire in her blue eyes and a growl in her throat.

  "I am not an innocent little angel. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because I’m small, I can’t hurt you. Believe me, I am willing to give it a go,” she snarled in his face, feeling a spark of satisfaction as he flinched back from her unexpected fury. His blue eyes narrowed and they were glaring at each other from a distance of six inches. The hallway was empty now, only the distant sound of fading laughter echoing down the stone-floored corridor. Then rapid footsteps, coming in their direction. Neither of them moved, though Ember wanted to slap Reid and walk away before anyone was around to see it.

  "Hey Reid, what are you...?" someone shouted, and then in a whisper to someone next to him, "Oh, I think he's about to kiss the girl!”

  Ember whipped her glare round to aim it at a boy she now recognised as Perry Romalli. "No. He's not. 'Cause if he does, I'll punch him in the face!" she yelled at Perry, turning her glare back on Reid. Perry murmured something and Reid didn't move as she hissed and stormed off toward her room, planning on skipping Maths. She'd rarely skipped class before, but she was suddenly feeling tired again and had a headache. She'd have Sherry explain her absence to their Maths teacher.

  "What time is it?" Ember mumbled later that afternoon, as Sherry came in, rolling over in her bed. Sherry frowned, dumping her bag on the floor. Ember pushed her hair out of her face and sat up.

  "Three thirty. Why?" Sherry groaned and collapsed on her own bed, and started pulling off her trainers.

  "Shite! I was meant to be in detention fifteen minutes ago!" Ember threw back the covers and tugged a brush through her hair. She was still dressed from earlier and she grabbed her bag from the floor where she’d left it.

  "You? Detention?” Sherry was staring at her like she'd just admitted to being a leper.

  "I'll explain later. Bye!" Ember rushed out the door, giving her friend a quick wave, and started down the hall at a run.

  She burst into the detention room, gasping. Asthmatics shouldn’t run, she thought as she tried to catch her breath, leaning in the doorway for a moment.

  "Ah, Miss Jennings. You're twenty minutes late. You'll be here an extra twenty minutes to make up for lost time.” The teacher, a brown-haired, stocky woman in her mid-thirties who always wore thin-rimmed glasses, was slouching over a copy of Hello magazine at her desk in the front of the class.

  Ember resisted the urge to argue and took a seat at the back of the class. She pulled out her notepad and started scribbling. There was only one other person there, a girl a few years younger with black hair and too many piercings, and she left ten minutes after Ember arrived. The detention room looked like any other classroom, with dull grey-green walls and rough blue-grey carpeting. Behind the teacher’s desk at the front of the class, there was a giant chalkboard, smeared with chalk dust. The paint on the walls was cracking and peeling, and the corners of the room were webbed with silver nets of cobwebs. Rows of plastic-topped tables, all spaced out, spanned across the room.

  "Hey, I half expected you wouldn't show up. What're you still doing here? Your time should be up by now,” Reid's voice mocked from the doorway as he came in.

  "I was late. Had to sleep off a headache,” she remarked shortly, sending the boy a glower. He sauntered into the room like he owned every inch of it, as if it were as comfortable to him as home. From what she could tell, it probably was.

  "Mr Ashton, take a seat. No talking," Miss Hollander commanded from the front of the class. Of course, Reid sat a few seats down from Ember, winking at her as he dumped his school bag. She glared at him and returned to her sketching. She was drawing a rose, one of her favourite things to draw.

  Five minutes later, she was just finishing her shading, using her fingertip to smudge the pencil appropriately, when a note landed on her page.

  What are you drawing?

  The note read. She glanced up at the teacher who still had her nose stuck in her magazine.

  Why do you care?

  She wrote back and tossed the paper at him with a glare.

  She saw his mouth twitch as he read it, and then he glanced up at her. He scribbled something on the note before sliding it back to her. She took another glance at the teacher, and grabbed the note, stuffing it in her pocket as Miss Hollander looked up suspiciously. Ember pretended to be focused on her drawing, until the teacher grumbled and returned to her magazine. She un-crumpled the note and read it.

  Seriously, what’re you drawing?

  She sighed and wrote back swiftly.

  A rose. What does it matter to you?

  She threw the note back and took out a sharp-edged rubber, and began defining light points on her drawing. She did it slowly and carefully, making sure her hand didn't smudge the page. The note came back to her.

  Didn’t figure you for the romantic roses type.

  He was really starting to piss her off. She wrote back once more.

  You don’t know me. You have no idea what ‘type’ I am.

  She tossed the note back a little viciously, hitting him in the head. She let out a giggle and then clamped her hand over her mouth.

  "Something funny Miss Jennings?" Miss Hollander was glaring at her over her magazine.

  Ember shook her head, looking merely disinterested and solemn. The teacher went back to her magazine, and Ember glared at Reid. He made a shrugging motion as if to say, 'What did I do?' She tilted her head sharply and gave him a look that said, 'You know what'.

  She went back to her drawing and felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She stole a look at Miss Hollander and pulled out her mobile. She had a text from Sherz.

  Having fun in detention? Is your boyfriend there? X

  She was about to reply when she felt something hit her in the head. She yelped and glanced down at the offending object: a crumpled ball of paper.

  "Mr Ashton, I saw that. You'll spend an extra fifteen minutes with me for that.” Miss Hollander spoke without glancing up from her magazine, and Ember bit down on a victorious grin. Reid grumbled and sighed.

  The last fifteen minutes of her detention went without interruption. She finished her drawing and replied to Sherry's text with a witty, biting remark.

  "You're free to go Miss Jennings,” Miss Hollander said dully, dismissing her. She packed up her stuff and sent Reid a vicious smirk and a sharp wave as she left the classroom.

  Once she was down the hall she could laugh at how pissed off he'd looked.

  She was still smirking about it when she got to her room. "Hey, did you get my text?" Ember tossed her bag on the floor and shook her phone at Sherry, who replied with a mock-hurt expression.

  "Yeah. No need to be so cruel. Detention made you cold,” Sherry pouted sulkily. They both giggled. "So what did you two get up to in detention?" Sherry wiggled her brows suggestively.

  "Hit each other in the head with paper.” She smiled and kicked off her sh
oes, shoving them under her bed.

  Sherry laughed and put down her book. "Seriously? Why?"

  Ember rolled her eyes and sat down on the floor. "He was passing me notes and I got annoyed and kind of threw it at him. I didn't really mean to though. But I'm glad I did it. Then he threw it back at me and he got caught. So he's still stuck there.” Ember shrugged amusedly. She was sure he'd get payback somehow, but she revelled in having won this round. It was kind of fun fighting with Reid, the same way it was fun fighting with her little brother. It reminded her of how, when they’d been little, her and Josh - her brother - would pick fights with each other, pull nasty pranks on each other, and if one of them went to tattle, it would turn into a competition to see who could lie better. Ember had been very good at it, but Josh had often been better, simply because their parents thought he was adorable. And they knew Ember had an evil streak in her.

  "Well, you know what they say. Boys bully you when they like you." Sherry grinned, picking up her book again. Ember didn’t believe that for one second, never had. Boys bullied you because they were mean or because they thought it made them look cool.

  "Yeah, yeah. You and I both know that's a load of bull,” Ember snorted, pulling her MP3 off the bedside table and plugging the headphones into her ears.

  Reid

  When Reid eventually got out of detention, he was angry. Really angry. He couldn’t believe it; the little new girl wasn’t nearly as innocent as she looked. She was a demon, he was sure. There had been flames flickering in those wide, blue eyes when she’d tossed that smirk at him going out the door.

  This wasn’t just about gaining another notch on his bedpost anymore, another conquest, another challenge; now, this was about beating this girl at her own game, making her miserable until she caved and admitted she wanted him. Every girl wanted him, no matter how good they were at pretending they didn’t. It was just a matter of making them admit it, to themselves and to him. No girl had ever held out longer than two weeks before. And neither would Ember, he’d make sure of that.