Author's note:
Hello! So, just to clarify something. This is a kind-of sequel to Innocent Illusions, just like Stealing Phoenix is to Finding Sky.
The main characters are new characters, however Killian and Gracie and the others from I.I. will be a big part of the story too! It continues on directly from the last chapter of I.I.
Not a lot happens in this first chapter but I've set the scene and left you with a little mystery from both characters. I hope you like it, please follow/favourite and please leave reviews to let me know what people think! :)
Monday 7th September 2020
Quinn Chamberlain stepped out of the car his father had hired to take him from London to Yorkshire and looked up at the school that would his new home away from home.
The Savant Academy was not what he had expected. He'd imagined steel walls, a vibe similar to a prison's, and students looking miserable to be back considering most of them had been sent here by the net against their personal wishes. That was certainly why he was there, after all. Instead though, the students looked happy as they greeted each other on the first day of the new school year, and the school's façade looked quite welcoming. It was a largish building, made of dark brick with trails of ivy running up it, and the window panes were painted white. From what Quinn understand after having read the information leaflets the net had provided him with, the building ahead of him was the girls dormitories. Behind it there would be two other buildings: the boys dormitories and the main school building. Quinn didn't want to be here but at least it wasn't as bad as he had been expecting, he thought to himself.
He watched as his chauffeur got back into the car and drove away without another word after leaving Quinn's suitcases on the ground beside him. He hadn't been expecting a goodbye, but seeing how abrupt the departure was made him envious of the students here whose parents had managed to make the trip with them.
Taking hold of his luggage, his eyes lingered on the sight of a suitcase floating in mid-air across the green of the front courtyard. He knew that all savants had the ability of telekinesis, and others had powers that enabled them to control objects in other ways, but it still came as a shock to him to see it out in the open like that. The person doing it was a girl who looked around his own age, with olive skin and long dark hair. He watched as she looked over her shoulder and blew a kiss to two guys: one her age with strawberry blonde hair, and one older whom Quinn was guessing was the girl's father going by the resemblance they shared.
The girl, like many others around her, seemed delighted to be here and Quinn just didn't understand that. Was it just because he was new and they had been here before and had friends here? Probably. Still didn't make him feel any better.
Deciding to actually start moving instead of standing there looking like a lost sheep, Quinn followed a group of boys a few years younger than him, allowing them to unknowingly lead him to the boys dorms.
The front door led into a lounge area, with many sofas, chairs, and beanbags. There were five flat screen TV's, a couple computers, and a door that he presumed led to the kitchen. There were no parents in here and he remembered the leaflet had said the kids would have to say their goodbyes to their families on the front courtyard. Some students were lingering around down here still, conversing and joking around.
A couple guys were throwing a rugby ball back and forth. When the ball came flying towards him, Quinn acted on instinct and caught it seconds before it smacked him in the face.
"Dude!" One of the guys called out. His bright red hair was styled in dreadlocks. "Nice catch!"
Quinn grinned. It was the first time he'd smiled all day and it was really only because he was totally into sports. He threw the ball back before grabbing his cases again and heading up the stairs. He had been told his room number was 18 and he found it on the second floor.
Going inside without bothering to knock, he found that his roommate was already inside. Roommate… God, Quinn had never shared a room with anyone before. He was used to having a whole two floors of his house to himself. This was certainly going to take some getting used to.
His roommate was pinning a poster of a topless woman on the wall, giving Quinn a moment to get a good look at him. Appearance-wise, the guy was the complete opposite to him. Whilst Quinn dressed very well and stylish, his roommate was wearing a grey tracksuit with some named brand trainers. Quinn never wore trainers unless it was for sports. Never. He figured that he and the guy probably came from totally different backgrounds, him being wealthy and previously attending an all-boys grammar school, whilst his roommate probably was quite common and came from public school. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but Quinn didn't get much interaction with people like that.
Guess I will now, he thought to himself.
His roommate stepped off the bed he had claimed, poster now firmly stuck to the wall, and looked over at Quinn. His ash blonde hair hung into his face and his green eyes looked Quinn up and down, taking in his tailored coat, suede brogues, and designer suitcases.
"Rich boy, huh?" He made eye contact, the amused smirk on his face meeting his eyes. Due to his accent, Quinn could identify that the guy was from Liverpool.
Having been raised to always be polite and a gentleman, Quinn stuck his hand out. "Name's Quinn Chamberlain."
"God, even your name is posh," the guy laughed. He ignored Quinn's outstretched hand, leaving him feeling awkward as he dropped it. What kind of person didn't know how to shake someone's hand? "I'm Miles Kennedy, but everyone calls me Flash. Must be your first year here, right? 'Cause I've been here two years now and I've never seen you before. Pretty sure I'd remember it if I did." Quinn nodded to indicate it was in fact his first year here. "So, why'd the net send you here? I got sent here for using my power to shoplift," he shrugged as if it was no BFD.
Quinn's eyes widened. Shoplifting? Couldn't say he'd ever met anyone who did that before, nor had he ever wanted to. Where he came from, all his friends' families were wealthy so there was no need for stealing things. He tried not to judge Flash because of it, but it was kind of hard not to imagine him as being the kind of rough person Quinn would usually avoid.
Answering Flash's question, he said, "I was sent here as a sort of introduction to the savant world. I only found out I was a savant in July."
"Wait, what? How is that even possible?" Flash laughed in disbelief.
This time it was Quinn who shrugged nonchalantly. "I was adopted. My power only started to manifest in February, I had no idea what was happening to me. The net has someone that can track people like me, and when they found me in July they decided to send me here."
"Fucking hell, as if! I don't think I've ever met someone who thought they were ordinary before. Well then. Welcome to the savant world, Rich. It's mysterious and damn right dangerous, but I can guarantee that you'll love it."
As the two boys began to unpack their belongings, Flash told Quinn some things about the school that hadn't been in the information leaflets, and some things that had. He told him about the curfew, about Power Construction classes which were everybody's favourite. He talked about how now they were in their first year of sixth form they'd be able to sign up for classes they'd never done before, and that the school usually didn't do two years of sixth form but over the summer they had announced that from now on they would do. He also told him that nobody wanted to have a dorm room on the second floor because it was where the teachers put the students they wanted to check up on the most so there was less of a chance of getting away with anything you shouldn't be doing, but there were positives: the rooms on the second floor were bigger despite only having two to a room instead of up to four people, and each room had it's own small balcony.
As they spoke, Quinn had to admit that his first impression of Flash was already starting to change. Turned out he wasn't as unpleasant to be around as he would have thought, and they both massively loved sports so at least they had something in common.
Taking a break from unpacking about half an hour later, Quinn opened the glass double doors that led onto the balcony. It was only small like Flash had said, probably only enough room for two chairs and that was about it, and there wasn't much a view seeing as their side of the building faced the back of the girls' building, but at least it gave him somewhere to go when sharing a bedroom with someone got too much for him.
The space between the two dorm building was about as big as a small house – it wasn't far enough to see completely into the windows or be able to shout across to each other, but it was close enough that when a girl walked out onto the balcony of the second-floor room directly across from his, he managed to get a good view of her.
She looked small height-wise, but still like she'd be in the upper half of the school. Maybe even the same year as Quinn. She was wearing skinny jeans and a light pink t-shirt, but her outfit wasn't what caught his attention. It was her hair. Down to her waist, it's natural colour was brown but from the jawline down she had dyed it dark purple.
Quinn wasn't the kind of guy to focus on a girl's hair, he just focused on it because it made him realise that he knew the girl. Not personally, although it felt that way to him.
The first vision he had when his power manifested in February was of this girl. The other visions had repeated themselves for about a week, and then he never saw them again. But the vision of this girl across from him had stuck with him since the first time he saw it. He had the same vision of her at least once a week and it had always bugged him as he wondered just who the hell she was.
Now that he'd finally found her, it didn't make him feel relieved one bit. No, it instead gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. Somehow, he knew that this wasn't good news. At all.
Eve Fox had turned up at the academy almost one hour ago, excited to be there. That excitement had quickly dissolved however.
She had been looking forward to being away from home, away from all the memories in the house, both good and bad. It had been her twin sister's idea to get their mother, who worked for the savant net, to ask her superiors if the girls could go to the school. It hadn't taken much persuading for them to say yes because of how respected their mum was, and both girls had been thrilled when they were given permission.
When they had been sent their room details, both had been glad that they weren't staying in the same room. Eve and Raven may have been twins, but that didn't stop them from despising each other and wanting a fresh start without the other one right next to them. But, just their luck, when they'd arrived at the academy they'd been informed that arrangements had been changed and they were now to share a room, just the two of them, on the second floor.
Eve was dealing quite well with it, in her opinion. The two had shared a bedroom since they were born. Yeah, she'd wanted her space from her sister for once, but it's not like it was anything new. Raven on the other hand had had a hissy fit and shouted at the teacher who had told them the news. Now she was unpacking her things, mumbling to herself angrily and practically throwing her clothes into her wardrobe.
Walking out onto their little balcony, Eve took a deep breath. It was good to be away from Raven, even if there was only a door between them. As she thought about what to do with the balcony – she was pretty set on creating a little flowerbed to brighten it up – she noticed that across the centre courtyard, there was a boy stood on a balcony. He was tall and had dark hair styled into the perfect quiff.
She didn't quite like the idea of being watched like this, but Eve wasn't one for confrontations and making presumptions about people. Maybe he was just checking out the school, maybe it was his first day too. He probably wasn't watching her for any malicious or creepy reason. She hoped he wasn't anyway.
Looking around at her environment she couldn't deny that despite the living arrangements, she was still somewhat excited to be here. She was interested in seeing if her powers could in fact be developed and was curious as to what it would be like to be around other savants her own age. Her family were the only savants she had ever known, and she liked the thought of being able to interact with others.
Deciding that she better finish unpacking before she even thought of doing anything else, she took one last curious glance at the boy across from her before heading back into the room. She left the sliding glass doors open to let in some fresh air.
Rooting around in her suitcase to pull out her bedsheets, she was aware of Raven glaring at her back from where she was now sat on the edge of her desk.
Eve straightened up and turned to face her twin. They were identical in looks aside from the hair. Raven had never dyed her hair and it used to be just as long as Eve's until she had stunned the whole family by coming home one day last month with it cut in a pixie style. She pulled it off – Raven could pull off anything – but it had still made Eve sad. Sure, they weren't close anymore, but they'd always been totally identical and it was just odd having something that set them apart appearance-wise. "I didn't want this either, you know," she said in a quiet voice. "We're just going to have to deal with it, Rave. I'll stay out of your way as much as I can, I swear."
"That's gonna be hard to do when we share a room," Raven snapped, her blue eyes narrowed in frustration. "It's not fair! I only asked mum if I could come here, I didn't want you to be here. The whole point of coming here was to get away from you."
Eve tried not to show how much that comment hurt her and refrained herself from snapping back at her. "Mum was the one who signed me up too, I would have been fine with staying at home but you know she doesn't want me there. And we can stay away from each other, it'll only be at night and in the morning we'll have to face each other. Believe me, I wanted a room away from you too."
"Well I'm going to complain about this. I'm going to fill in one of those forms to request a room transfer for either one of us," Raven informed her with a clenched jaw.
"I don't get it. Why are you making such a big deal out of this? At least I know your boundaries and you don't have to deal with a new roommate getting in your way all the time," Eve pointed out. What she didn't add was that she was slightly soothed to know she wouldn't be forced to talk to new people. Being an introvert, that was her idea of hell.
"Because it's not right." Raven answered in a quieter, less angry voice. Pain was evident in her voice and Eve knew exactly what, or rather whom, her sister was thinking about. "It's too painful. I can't even stand the sight of you anymore."
Her words sounded cruel but Eve knew that Raven for once didn't mean them that way. She sometimes felt the same way about Raven. "I know," she whispered. At a normal tone again she added, "fill out the form then. Let's just hope there's somebody willing to switch with one of us."
Not being able to meet Raven's eyes again, Eve grabbed her toiletries bag and headed into their en-suite bathroom, closing the door behind herself. Turning on the shower and stripping out of her clothes, she stepped under the spray of water and reveled in having a moment of peace.
She hated that things between her and Raven had gotten like this. It felt like ages ago, but once upon a time they had been inseparable. They'd told each other everything and used to have such similar personalities with loads in common. Now though, they were completely unalike.
Eve wanted to hope that being away at the academy and away from the rest of the family may make them close again.
Truth was though, she was almost positive that it was going to drive them even further apart. She didn't like how that sounded like it would be a good thing to her.