Leighton Academy

Prologue by xCharleex

Leighton Academy is a pre-eminent establishment for the education—BLAH! BLAH! What crap! But, crummy education beats rotting in a cell. And Leighton had another perk too—I'd never admit it—but there sure was something about Jesse Andersen...

[JxJ] [Sex, Violence, Death] [Language]

Welcome one and all, old and new. I have embarked upon a new adventure with my two favorite characters: Jesse and Jaden. My last story, was called Of Rain, Destiny, and Love (.net/s/5124177/1/Of_Rain_Destiny_and_Love - if you're interested) And without further ado, here is my latest creation, Leighton Academy. The story is written from the point of view of various characters. This first chapter is all Jaden :) So enjoy. Review. Much love. Peace.

Prologue – Jaden Yuki

Shit!

It was really the best word I could come up with to describe my life—kind of summed it all up in a neat package. The kind of package that smells and that nobody wants to go near. The kind of package that needs to be flushed away into a dark hole and never seen again.

Yep. That was me.

"Hi, Jaden, I'm Clara."

I looked up at her; she was smiling. That pissed me off. She was kind of hot, or she would have been in leather, at least—kind of in a dominating-lawyer-that-teaches-bad-boys-the-law sorta way. And I definitely fit into that category. Bad. Yeah.

She stopped smiling and sat down. I think she'd wanted me to grin and shake her hand or something. I'm not sure if she had quite figured it out, but I wasn't in the best of moods right now. The whole stuck in a watch-house thing wasn't really my thing.

"Look, Jaden," she lowered her voice and leaned across the metal table—like it made her my friend instantly, or something— "I know you're probably still a bit shaken up, but I'm confident that the magistrate will let you serve a suspended sentence."

She waited for me to start whooping, or dancing, or smiling, or something—I think—but then she realized I hadn't spent 3 years at law school, so I didn't really know what the hell she was talking about.

"No jail time," she clarified, widening her eyes and looking at me with the I'm-honest-please-trust-me-because-I'm-trying-to-help-you face. That improved my mood slightly, but only because she almost looked like she meant it.

"Yay," I said dryly, looking at her properly for the first time.

She grimaced, and then sat back a little, tapping manicured fingers on the metal table. The sound was annoying. Really annoying.

"Jaden?"

The brunette lawyer, Clara, had asked me something—whoops. Well, maybe if she hadn't been trying to dent the table with her silly little nails we could have had a conversation, "Huh?"

"I was saying, Jaden, that you'll need to phone your parents. We have to release you into their custody, otherwise you'll have to wait here until your hearing—and that could be months from now."

I stared at her. I must have had a blank look on my face, because she pushed a cell phone towards me and smiled a really encouraging smile, and repeated herself, "can you call your Dad? Get him to pick you up?"

I swallowed, "Could be a bit tricky...seeing as how I haven't seen him...oh...ever..."

She grimaced, mumbled something—"your Mom, then? Any family, over 21?"

"I—I don't have—" I chocked. I didn't mean to, but I did. Mom was definitely not in a fit state to pick me up from anywhere...coffins didn't have wheels, after-all. And family—HA!

Clara's grimace seemed to reach its peak. She probably felt sorry for me. "Where do you live?"

"Projects," I mumbled. Technically I shouldn't still be there—what with Mom dead and everything—but nobody had bothered to kick me out yet (it had been a month, or something) and I sure as hell wasn't going anywhere fast.

Clara made this weird 'Oh' sound then, like she'd finally given up trying to understand things. She grimaced again, then muttered something about there being nothing she could do, since I didn't have anywhere to go.

Shit.

I was going to have to tell her. Anything was better than staying in this place any longer. Even the community housing block he lived in was cleaner than the filthy cell he'd been cooped up in for the last couple of hours.

"Umm. Clara?"

I used her name. I did need a favor, afterall...

"I do have a place to go to, actually. Only...they're probably not expecting me. And...I don't know the number."

She seemed to brighten at this. Figured. Only a lawyer would be happy at something that was so obviously making me miserable. Too bad I was out of options.

"Do you have a name? I can track down a number, and we can give them a call?"

"Well—it's not...umm...it's Leighton Academy," I mumbled and trailed off quietly.

A tiny laugh escaped her before she bit her tongue and grimaced again. Bitch. I changed my mind—she wouldn't even look hot in leather. She was just a bitch...an ugly one.

"Leighton? Are—are you sure?" she seemed almost about to laugh again. I almost wished I hadn't told her. Almost.

"Yeah. I'm sure. My name's been down for—well—forever—I just never...went," I trailed off lamely again. I was doing that too much tonight, "My tuition's paid and everything," it sounded even stupider than it had in my head—and it had sounded really stupid there.

Clara now regarded me with something between suspicion and jealousy, I guessed. Yeah. Fuck Leighton. She seemed like the type who tried to get a scholarship to the snooty place. Why anyone would bother is beyond me...

"Jaden. Leighton Academy is a—well, it's a very respectable—what I mean is—" Clara was the one being lame now. I kind of wanted to watch her squirm, but I recalled someone telling me never to waste a lawyer's time, but I wasn't sure if that applied if you weren't paying for it.

"Yeah. I'm poor, don't worry. I didn't pay for Leighton—it was my granddad. He paid for 12 years there and died before I had a chance to tell him I'd rather he bought me a dirtbike, or something."

"Or a house..." Clara muttered. Then she cleared her throat, seeming to catch herself. Maybe she thought I was lying, and wasting her time. Or, more likely, she was just jealous. She seemed like the type. Jealous of the shittiest thing any one person could ever do for another—provide an education at Leighton Academy. I just about threw up. But if it got me out of here til my hearing—well—maybe granddad's total waste of time and money wouldn't be totally crap.

...still would have rather had the dirtbike, though.

A couple of phone calls and car rides later, I was sitting in some fancy wood-paneled office, looking at some guy called 'Chancellor Shepherd' who seemed sort of cool. He'd warbled on about responsibility, and being a good student, and I'd made all the right noises in all the right places—even though we both knew exactly why I was here—and then he chilled out a heap and started telling me how happy he was to meet me, finally, and how glad he was I'd showed up. He said something about granddad too, and what a great man he was. But I wasn't really listening—I was watching his mouth and the short black beard he kept, which was weird, I thought, because he was bald. Shiny head too.

I waited for him to stop talking so I could thank him and go to my room. It didn't happen. Shepherd clearly didn't appreciate that after 4 hours in a jail cell, 6 hours waiting while Clara dithered about calling people, and another 14 hours travelling by car, plane and then boat to Leighton, I was really just hoping to sleep a little. My mental math made me grimace then, because exactly one day ago (24 hours, for those without my incredible mathematical knowledge) I was lying face down on rain-splattered pavement getting steel shoved around my wrists, and bundled into a wagon.

I looked at the office again—the giant glass pane looking out onto a vista of mountains and the ocean, behind the enormous desk and the equally large bookcase to the left. Paintings hung everywhere—they were probably priceless originals, but I didn't know anything about art, so they could have been ordinary knock-offs too. I didn't care really. I just wanted out!

Shepherd finally shut up as I was looking at the ornate golden clock (probably solid 24ct gold, at that) which proclaimed it to be 8'o'clock in the evening. He muttered something about showing me to my room, and then we were off.

It took less than ten minutes to traverse the many wings and floors and halls and easements and corridors that made up the sprawling Leighton Academy, and head across the grounds to one of the houses. I hoped they didn't have some lame setup with actual houses and points and sport and competitions between them. If they did...what was I saying—of course they would. Hadn't I avoided coming to this place for 9 years because of such crap? All the good it did me now.

We arrived outside my new room—number 404—and Shepherd knocked, which seemed like an unusual thing to do since I—OH GOD! NO! HELL NO!

"I'm not sharing a room!" I shouted before I could stop myself. I didn't add that my only objection was that I'd be sharing with some snobbish, rich, pushy, overbearing douche of a kid who—

The door opened to reveal said douche. He was tall and had a wide (currently yawning) mouth, but I noticed his hair first, it was kind of a greenish-blue—I guess I'd have called it teal, but I didn't know a whole bunch of colors, so maybe that was wrong. Then I started as I took in his eyes—that color, I knew. Emerald. Fucking Emerald.

The presumably snooty-douche-rich-kid-guy was also well muscled and had a respectable set of abs going on—not that I was looking at another dude's body...just something I happened to notice on account of him wearing nothing but a towel loosely round his waist.

Shepherd was talking and gesturing to the douche, but I don't think emerald eyes was listening any more than I was, because we were both looking directly at each other. Shepherd cleared his throat and broke the silence—we couldn't have been staring for more than a few seconds though—it wasn't weird…

I continued to tell myself how not weird my initial reaction to my new room-mate (I cringed) had been. And then before I knew it, Shepherd was gone, and I was left all alone with emerald eyes, and he really needed to put a shirt on...