2.
As they exited the classroom and headed against the current, they both were silent. Without a doubt, they were thinking about the strange person whom they just met as they slowly made their way to the next class. Even when they finally separated to head to different classes, they did not say a word. They briefly looked each other in the eye as the parted, and then they headed in different directions. She didn't glance at the map at all, or even her schedule. Walking with a plethora of confidence, most people wouldn't have known she was a new student, and would have thought she owned half the school. After practically walking to the other corner of the campus (a fair distance), she only stopped once, just a quick pause in her step, to glance at the worn out, embossed room numbers.
Several minutes early of the minute bell (a bell that signals loitering students that there is only a minute until the tardy bell), she arrived in her appropriate classroom, a dark room with only a TV and a computer monitor for light.
"Could you turn on the light for me?" Somewhere in the darkness, the teacher didn't look up as she continued to use her computer. When the lights turned on, they revealed a small amount of students in the classroom, all tightly enveloped in thick and woolen clothes. Only one person was only slightly clad in winter clothes, and was wearing all black. And that person, out of all the luck in the world, was Blake sitting unmoving in his chair with his head buried in his arms. He had taken his jacket off, revealing a black T-shirt with a yellow smiley facing grinning and with fangs. The skin on his arm was pale and unnaturally white, and here and there, was the slightly darkened area that looked like a bruise. In other words, his skin looked like it's never seen the sun. Rubbing her own arms, she shivered, and not because of the cold, for the third time that day.
She walked up, quietly, to the teacher's desk, and after waiting for a few moments, the young, female teacher finally noticed her.
"May I help you?"
"Yes. Um…I'm a new student and I just moved up here from down the hill. My counselor told me I needed to get a signature from you." Rebecca handed her a half-page. After glancing at it briefly, the teacher gave the paper a sloppy signature. "I'm Mrs. Hawthorne, and this is AP Biology."
"I'm Rebecca. It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too." She then turned back to her computer, looking at who knew what.
Rebecca walked slowly, weaving through the student desks, finally selecting a seat next to Blake. Suppressing a shiver that would have went down her spine, she glanced around the room, looking at the diagrams of dissected frogs and other poor animals, as well as the one large picture that showed a censored picture of the human anatomy. There were also colorful posters that were meant to teach kids the value of equal rights and to lift morale, but it was practically common sense that those were either meant for playing I Spy or for students to make fun of.
After several boring minutes that seemed like hours, the minute bell rang, diverting her attention from an extremely detailed picture of the human brain. As a flood of students poured into the white portable, the room seemed like it was packed to the limit. All of the students weren't the buff football players or the make-up made cheerleaders; these students were all sitting straight up and getting out their folders of the class. Sitting one seat away from the back corner, and taller than most of the people in the class, she had a practically unlimited view of the classroom. When Mrs. Hawthorne finally tore her eyes from the computer, and she rose from her desk. Starting her lecture in the typical textbook manner, she said, "Everyone open their books to page 31 and read to page 45." She then sat back down and once again and glued her eyes to the computer screen.
Opening her textbook to page 31, she read to page 45 in a few minutes. Looking up from her book, she glanced around to notice that either everyone was already done reading, or they just decided not to read. The people who could text started to text, and the people who didn't talked with their neighbors or traveled across the room. The person next to her kept on giving her, what he probably thought was secretive, glances that were not even close to secretive. With her glasses, it was hard for her to successfully give him a glare, so she took them off, revealing a pair of eyes with reddish-black pupils. She then commenced to look at him until he finally peeked his way. When the guy next to her finally looked at her, he retreated to the other side of his seat and looked away, blushing. After a few seconds, he gave her another peek, only to be met by one more menacing stare from the creepy eyes. With two more tries, he was finally conditioned to not look at her.
After putting on her sunglasses again, she turned around, only to see Blake staring at her instead. He didn't have his glasses on, revealing his dark red eyes, almost undistinguishable from black, boring holes into her. She met the gaze without blinking. "I didn't know we had the same class for this period too."
"Well, now you know."
"You know, you don't have to be so cold to everyone."
"I know. But I want to." He still kept staring at her, in some strange fashion, as if she had suddenly sprouted antlers and started mooing. "So tell me, what are you doing here? I'm quite sure we haven't met before."
"Well…I…" She stumbled over a few more words and managed to form a coherent sentence. "I'm here because I'm here." Too add to her definite and straightforward stance to this topic, she mounted her hands on her hips. "I can be cold if I want to, too." She turned away, looking for something to do, but ended up finding nothing. A small smile gently touched Blake's lips as he examined her trying-to-be-casual behavior.
"Don't do that", he said, slightly touching her arm. "I actually want to talk to you."
She sniffed slightly with disdain. "I don't have to do what you want me to do. You're not my boss." Finally, finding something to do that would look casual, she started flipping through the tattered textbook nonchalantly. The book practically fell apart under her light touches.
"Hm…" He turned away and buried his head in his arms again and rested on the table.
"There really is something wrong with you!" she suddenly blurted out. She slammed the battered textbook and a few pages fell out.
"Hm?" He raised his head from the table slightly. "What's that supposed to mean?" His brows furrowed slightly. He paused and tilted his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing… I mean…. You're unusual."
"Hm. I know." He put his head back on the desk.
A long period of silence echoed between them. "So…." She shifted slightly in her seat. "What was it that you wanted to talk about?"
"Done flipping through that useless stack of paper?" His voice was not dripping with sarcasm; it was pouring like a waterfall with it.
She crossed her arms across her chest. "I'm finished. So say what you have to say."
"Hm." Instead of lifting his head, he just tilted it, so that his hair was slightly rustled and that he was facing her with his head still lying on the desk. "So…. Who do you live with?"
"I would say that's a bit personal. Besides, you probably don't even know him. And I know that I don't even know you."
"You used 'know' three times. You know my name. And I know that that's more than enough."
"I don't think so."
"What makes you think I care about what you think?" he whispered, almost threateningly. His eyes were closed.
"Well aren't you an arrogant pig! Didn't anyone teach you manners?" She frowned deeply, almost in anger.
"You should know that I used to kill people for saying that. And to answer your question, not really." He didn't even twitch.
She was silent. Her mouth slightly open and her head tilted, as if she was aghast and thinking about something quite important. Without opening an eye, he said, "Hm. So in all of your, what, twenty, thirty years of life (or rather half-life), you've never been threatened before? Where were the raised? The moon?"
She didn't say anything. Her expression unchanging. Without opening his eyes, he whispered, "Close your mouth. You're about to drool and look even more like an idiot." She snapped her mouth shut.
"How do you do that?"
"What? Talk?"
"Know what I'm doing without opening your eyes." She crossed her legs.
"You thought that my eyes were completely closed?"
"You mean they weren't? I saw that –"
"I never said that. I just asked if you thought my eyes were closed or not. You're so gullible…."
"I am not gullible! You're the one who keeps on saying immature stuff!"
"Immature? If I was immature you would've been cussed out. Or dead. But that's beside the point. I'm most certainly not immature."
The bell rang; a tinny sound that could barely be heard over the clamor and chatter that was emitted from the old speaker. But everyone seemed to hear and they all tumbled out, two by two, outside of the classroom. Blake and Rebecca were the last to leave the room. He donned his jacket and backpack slowly, seeming like he was waiting for Rebecca to leave first. But she didn't. So instead, once reaching the door, he practically flew. Turning a quick corner (the room was the last room in the entire school) he went into a long, dirt corridor. With the walls of classrooms on one side and rusted steel fence on the other, there were only a few exit paths that lead back to the main schoolyard.
"Why'd you want to come back here for? There's no one around." She had followed him out the class and was right behind him.
"Because I want to kill you." He suddenly turned around and slightly grinned at her. His glasses were in his hand. She took a few steps away from him and her face turned paler than usual under the cloudy sky. "What?" she nearly shrieked. "So you are cra –"
His slight grin turned upside down. "I was kidding. I thought teens these days were prone to jokes…"
"That wasn't a joke! That was like a threat, or…like…. a promise, or something. You're a freak!" Some color returned to her face.
"Whatever. I came 'back here' so that we could talk. That is, if you don't have an old book to fiddle with." Receiving no immediate answer, he sighed, turned, and started to walk away.
"Wait a sec!" He turned his head to find her holding onto her chest with a look of relief on her face. "I'm coming."
"You're second's up." He started to walk away.
"Geez, you sarcastic bastard! You're the one who wanted to talk!"
"I can change my mind if I want to. Nothing's written in stone. I'm free now."
"Never mind." She caught up to him. "Where's your next class? We only have 7 minutes to get to class."
"It's right over there." He pointed at the second alley/exit. "I can run if I have to."
"Mine's over there too. So we can walk together."
"Yeah. Sure. Are you going to answer my questions this time?"
"Only if you answer mine." She smiled and looked at him.
"I'll think about it." His face had no expression. Rebecca looked quite crestfallen, but he didn't seem to see her.
"So who is it that you and your brother live with?"
"His name's Ignatius. You've probably haven't heard of him. He's never mentioned anything remarkable. But he's rich and he's taken us everywhere. Ignatius would buy us anything we wanted, and we'd take vacations and go wherever we wanted. There were practically no bounds to his money, and we'd each had, like, four cars even though we weren't old enough to drive. We had everything! He found us in London, and then we've been to his New York penthouse for a time. When we said we wanted to finish our education, he brought us here. I never really bothered to ask him why he brought us here. Of all places, why here, right?"
"Yeah….right…." Blake stopped. He seemed to be shaking considerably, and he blanched so much that his face practically turned gray. "Yeah…."
"Are you okay? You seem paler than normal… Do you know Ignatius?"
"Yeah…" he gulped slightly, Adam's apple bobbing. "You see, I knew Ignatius, and Ignatius was… well, I knew him quite well and I've spend too many years of my life with him. I guess you could say he was my 'master' and he most certainly wasn't kind to me at all."