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It's a Thursday when you realise that they've arrived.
It also happens to be her seventeenth birthday.
You set your alarm for an hour early, but found yourself turning it off nearly half an hour before it was even supposed to go off. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you spent a further ten minutes trying to break her grip around your waist before you could leave her to sleep.
Your mother was surprised when she came down just as you were putting the finishing touches on your breakfast-in-bed surprise. You're pretty sure that she wasn't aware of what you had done to her locker the afternoon before when she was in the sophomore end of year dance committee meeting.
Your mother eyes you with curiosity, pouring herself a cup of coffee. It had been made official between your mother and Kate, that even though her grandmother had legal custody, she would stay here just so she wouldn't be uprooted from her friends, the family she had left, the school that she attended.
"It's her birthday," you mutter, shifting it all around on the tray to make it fit properly.
You nearly knock over the cup of coffee with cream but no sugar, the way you've learnt that she likes it, when the blonde woman to your right asks you what is going on between the two of you. You had made it official two weeks ago, but figured that it would just get back around to your mother, considering that neither of you were shying away in public.
"We're together." She studies you for a moment, as if not understanding your statement. "Together, together," you say, before taking your tray of food and scurrying out of the kitchen as fast as you could manage.
You don't see the proud smile on your mothers face.
While she had been adamant that you don't make a big deal out of the day, you can't help but want to spoil her. She wakes slowly with a groan and the pop of her spine when you whisper in her ear. She protests at the disturbance of her sleep.
"There's coffee. And pancakes with strawberries." You smirk at her response.
"Strawberries? Where?" The only thing she loves more than you: strawberries. She sits up straight and claps like an excited child at the sight of the fruit. When you place the tray over her lap and take your place behind her, you tell her to open her present. You hear the gasp from her through a mouth full of strawberry.
It was the simple silver locket she had seen at the market that day, small and simple but will an intricate design etched into the metal. Inside had a photo of her and her father, both smiling happily at her sixth birthday party, gaps in her teeth and faces covered in cake. The other side is blank, and you tell her that you don't have any photos of the two of you together for her to put in there...or whatever.
She immediately asks you to clip the clasp behind her neck. "If the tray covered in strawberries wasn't sitting across my lap, I would thank you properly."
She giggles when you start placing kisses on her neck.
You barely make it out of your room in time when your mother calls out and says that you'll be late for school. The car ride over is silent and awkward. As soon as you had taken your seats and buckled your belts, she had pleaded for an open door policy if the two of you were going to be sharing a room, leaving the two of you to go beet red, sink into the interior and 'admire' the scenery.
You see four teens standing only a block up from your house, watching your mother's car carefully as you drove past.
You flee the car as soon as you can and head for your locker, trying to watch inconspicuously from down the hall. You smirk as she doesn't even enter her combination, simply pulling at the lock, before swinging her door open with the intention on throwing the object in her hand onto the top shelf.
The door was slammed faster than it had been opened, and she looks at you with worried eyes. You know that it has nothing to do with the streamers.
Melissa greets you with a surprisingly chirpy 'hello' but you ignore the gesture and drag her to your girlfriend. You receive a simply nod at the locker and open it. The brightly coloured streamers had been replaced with all black ones, each and every single one of them marked.
Balcoin.
Blackwell.
Dark.
Murderer.
The same symbol that was etched into her palm was against the back wall of the locker.
"They're here already," she mutters, just as Cassie and Adam join you. Then it clicks.
You saw them this morning.
When you head to class, she's by your side and your hands are gripping each other's so tightly that your knuckles have gone white.
"We need to bind the circle again," she whispers. You agree without hesitation because it means only death can break you all, that she would be bound to you and it means that you're safe, that the two of you are safe.
This would be the ultimate test of will, and strength, nobility and love.
You simply tighten your grip and write awkwardly with your left hand for the hour.
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