"What did you two do now?"
Two girls looked up into the pale gray eyes of Mr. Brown. They were full of exasperation at seeing them in his office… again. Granted they had ended up in here numerous times in their freshman year at the school, but the vast majority of those incidents hadn't actually been their fault. The students that attended this school appeared to have something against them: the girls often found themselves accused of doing things they had no prior knowledge of.
"Mr. Brown we didn't do anything, it must have been someone else," one of the girls, Mirax, answered evenly.
"Seriously, you can't believe that it was us," the other girl, Axel, said in support.
"It so often holds true that we're innocent. Why can't you be a little more reluctant to believe the reports of our guilt?" Mirax sounded slightly offended.
"We proved our innocence all those other times and we can do it again!" Axel exclaimed, perhaps a little too fervently.
"Alright, let me speak," Mr. Brown cut in softly.
His quiet tone was enough to silence the protests of the girls.
"I don't doubt your innocence in this instance. I already know who did it. I wanted to see your reactions, and to see if you knew."
"So, can we leave now?" Axel interrupted.
Mirax winced visibly and glanced at her teacher. Axel was courteous to all their teachers except Mr. Brown. With him she was incredibly brash, sometimes to the point of being downright rude. She saw Mr. Brown glance at her as she winced, but he didn't react except for slightly narrowing his eyes. She knew the small movement would be stored in the man's amazingly accurate memory.
"Such disrespect. Perhaps I should give you a detention to teach you a lesson. That is my job, is it not, to teach?"
"You wouldn't dare," Axel stated confidently.
Mirax winced again and started to consider a way to rebuke her friend without getting caught. She had seen Mr. Brown angry, and had no desire to repeat the experience. If nothing else, there were no witnesses.
"Oh, but I would dare, and I will if you decide to continue on like this," the volume of his voice didn't increase but the implied threat definitely did.
Mr. Brown's increasingly dangerous anger level was obvious to Mirax, but Axel must have been blind, oblivious, or very angry because she continued to argue. Mirax tried desperately to intervene, but was unsuccessful. She was just considering going to Mrs. Brown for help when she remembered that she was in a meeting. She sighed and watched helplessly and braced herself as the two brought themselves closer to the unavoidable flash point she knew was coming.
"I have had quite enough of you and your nuisances."
His voice was deathly quiet, but was enough to stop Axel dead. As the girls watched with wide eyes Mr. Brown's eyes began to dilate. They changed from the grey they knew all too well to a molten red. Gold flecks were scattered close to his irises. The transformation occurred in seconds. The girls glanced at each other and each saw their own fear in each others' eyes. There was no way this was possible. Could they really be right? Could their theory really be true?
"If I ever need to reprimand you again…"
Mr. Brown's voice had gradually risen to what was nearly a yell. As he finished to word "again" his hand came up then sharply down on his wooden desk. All the eyes in the room followed his hand down, including his own. A deep crack appeared in the wood when it made contact with his hand. Axel let out a strangled gasp and Mirax's eyes widened even more in shock. That had been truly unexpected. Extremely peculiar.
"Get out," Mr. Brown said. It wasn't a suggestion.
"Are you sure?" Mirax managed.
"I merely lost control for a moment. I'll be fine. Go home. Now."
As soon as the girls walked out into the hallway, Mr. Brown collapsed into his desk chair and sighed. That couldn't happen again, he was in enough danger as it was. He heard a door open and looked up. His wife walked through the door in the wall separating their classrooms, looking slightly harried. When she saw him in the chair she stopped immediately.
"You look awful," she commented, looking taken aback.
"Thanks," he responded dryly.
"No seriously, who was it today?"
He sighed and glared at his cracked desk, "Axel."
"Oh, dear. Mirax too, of course."
"Of course. They're inseparable."
Mrs. Brown walked over to stand at her husband's shoulder and looked at his desk as well. She gasped when she saw the crevasse left by the rock hard force of his hand.
"You didn't Ken. Tell me did this after they left. Please." She grabbed his shoulders and shook him gently, "Tell me they left."
"Unfortunately, no. They both saw it."
"Ken, you're going to give us away! Not just us either. If they find us out they'll eventually make the connection to the others." She sounded panicked.
"Haily, you know it's always been easier for you."
"Sure, but that wood was thick, hard and finished. It will probably alert them to the fact that something isn't right with us."
"Maybe they're not that observant or smart."
"Oh, please. Axel notices everything when you're involved and Mirax is smart enough to figure out that you're slightly stronger than the average man." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.
"Well then, I'm a master of Karate and can easily break wood. How's that?" He returned her sarcasm.
"No good. Axel is in Karate. She's a black belt."
"I will never understand how you find these things out," Mr. Brown murmured.
"It's called small talk; you ought to try it sometime."
"Why on earth would I waste my time on something like that?" He asked with mock revulsion.
She couldn't help but laugh. Her husband did have a sense of humor, he just didn't let anyone but her see it.
"One more question," Mrs. Brown said, "Did your eyes…?" She left the sentence hanging.
"Yes, I suppose they did," he confirmed, then smoothly removed her hands from his shoulders.
"We're going to be found out."
"Nonsense, they aren't that smart or imaginative. Now let's get outside," Mr. Brown said. "I want to make sure those girls have actually left the premises before we get this thing started."
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Axel and Mirax walked down the hallway quickly, getting as much distance between them and Mr. Brown's classroom as possible. He was their history teacher and was married to their English teacher, Mrs. Brown. They both knew a lot about each other's subjects so they often covered each other's classes, especially now that Mrs. Brown had a student teacher. The whole core often taught each others' classes: it seemed like a teacher thing.
The girls practically ran the last few yards to the entryway where Marissa was waiting. She hadn't gotten caught, of course. She wasn't conscious enough to be suspected for anything. The teachers were barely aware of her existence, which suited her just fine. It also could come in handy when they needed to find something out. She was the perfect eavesdropper, and she didn't let her conscious bother her.
"What happened?" She asked her friends the question suspiciously. "You two look as if you died and came back to life."
"I'm convinced my heart stopped in there for at least a minute," Axel commented. "Does that qualify as dead?"
"No," she answered, "Mirax? You okay? You look dazed."
"What? Sorry, I was just thinking about Mr. Brown and muscular strength."
"What?"
"Shut up, you two. Don't talk till we're outside," Axel hissed under her breath.
They walked out the doors and into the oppressively bright sunlight. The fresh air seemed to refresh the group, though, and broke Mirax out of her trance.
"Can we talk now?" Marissa asked Axel.
"Yes," she answered and proceeded to explain all that had happened.
While her friends were talking, Mirax was keeping a close eye on their surroundings. She had a very bad feeling about this whole mess. She had figured out that to break that desk with as little effort as Mr. Brown had you would have to be very strong. Inhumanly so. She didn't trust the Brown's not to come walking through a door at any moment, and to be caught talking about them would be most embarrassing. Almost exactly as she thought that, they walked through the front doors. They appeared to be talking at the same time: Mrs. Brown looked panicked, Mr. Brown looked frustrated.
"It wasn't natural," Axel told Marissa, her voice rising.
"Browns," Mirax murmured and they were all silent as the adults walked up to them.
"What are you still doing here? I told you to get home." Mr. Browns tone suggested at a no-nonsense mood.
"We're just waiting for our ride, she appears to be late," Mirax was quick to respond. They certainly didn't want any more trouble today. Besides they weren't lying really, they were waiting for a ride. She wasn't late though, she was supposed to be here in about five minutes.
"We'll just wait for her with you, shall we?" There wasn't much room for argument in Mr. Brown's voice.
Mrs. Brown looked as if she were debating between embarrassed and horribly stunned. She walked over to Mirax and muttered, "Sorry", under her breath. The two of them went to a bench and discussed a book they were both reading. While they were engrossed in their talk, Axel and Mr. Brown stood stiffly facing the road watching each other out of the corners of their eyes. Both were trying to be discreet about it, and both were failing utterly. Marissa was standing calmly, tossing and catching a baseball. She appeared totally unconcerned.
It seemed to take forever for a car to pull into the drive, and when it did both Axel and her teacher reacted a little too quickly, startling each other with their movement. Mirax chuckled quietly then bid Mrs. Brown goodbye. They both looked in exasperation at their comrades, who were now glaring at one another. Mr. Brown looked murderous, and Axel looked as if you could snap behind her ear and cause her to jump half a meter. They were all immeasurably relieved to see the car.
"Traffic must have been horrible," Mirax said, simply to break the silence.
"I guess so," Mrs. Brown said, trying to contribute.
The students bid their teachers goodbye and then climbed in the car.
As they drove away Mirax whispered, "We need to talk, but not right now."
The implication was obvious; they had to talk, and they needed to do it alone. No parents, no adults, no one but themselves.
At this point they were in it alone.