Chapter 3
"He rejected her. They went to the same school and well… you can see that he isn't exactly the worst looking guy on earth. That skank asked him to take her to prom and he refused her flat out. She got pissed and sabotaged his family. He barely got out alive."
"Oh…"
"Yeah, anyway, let's not put this food to waste." Merry forced a bright smile and Riley wasn't convinced.
"I'll be right back, I get the feeling he won't want to come back down for a while and he needs to eat." Riley gestured upstairs.
"I'm not sure whether that's a good idea Riley."
"I'll survive; I used to live in a house of hormonal and prideful boys. I think I can handle a little snapping from him up there." Riley shrugged and picked up a plate and walked upstairs taking two steps at a time. She knocked on the door and silence answered her. "Look dude, I know you're hungry since you came downstairs so I'm leaving the food here. Tell O'Connor I said thanks for letting me stay the night. It was nice meeting you and I'm sorry about what Caroline did to you. See ya."
As she turned around, the door opened silently and Seth grabbed her arm and spun her around. Riley noticed how his eyes were red rimmed, he'd been crying. The small girl suddenly felt awkward and embarrassed, like she shouldn't be seeing him like this since it invaded his privacy. She hadn't even meant to find out about his background life, she was supposed to leave before causing any trouble and yet she'd hurt him. She simply stared at him holding her arm until he spoke.
"You can't go, stay until Quinn gets back and we'll talk," he said letting go of her arm then he grinned. "Thanks for the food; you're daring for someone so small. Even Quinn would keep away from me for a while whenever I'm like that."
Riley's eye twitched, turned on her heel and stomped down the stairs. She felt the ghost that'd been following Merry earlier try to stop her. Something wasn't right, as if it was objecting to something. She was about to walk out of the door when Merry stepped in front of her too.
"You can't go back there, she'll kill you. That Caroline doesn't think twice about these things. I am not sending to your death and I'm sure when Quinn finds out about this he wouldn't mind talking things over again. Stay here for the day; it's a Sunday anyway so where are you going to go?"
"Flat hunting, making I'll manage to convince someone to let me bunk at their place." Riley shrugged.
"Just stay until Quinn gets back at least, please. Am I going to have to tie you to a chair to feel safe or are you going to give me your word you'll at least wait until he gets back?"
"I need to go Merry, I can't stay here."
"So are you going to leave that school?"
"No."
"Then you are staying here until Quinn gets back."
The two girls stared at each other for long moments before Riley gave an exasperated sigh. She couldn't exactly tell them the reason why she had to leave, why not stay for the day. It was a Sunday and she didn't really have anything planned. She was deep enough with Watlington already finding out about the vampires, since she was in hell already; there wasn't anything she could do about it. If it was true that Caroline was going to do anything to kill her, she might as well make the most of what she's got until she has to bail.
"Alright, I promise to wait until we've spoken to Quinn." At this statement everything seemed to calm down, the breeze did, Merry did and so did the house. "Now I wouldn't want to make you be late for work so you'd better get going. What'd you want for dinner? If I'm going to stay till evening, I might as well help cook tonight too."
"Um… I'll see what I can pick up on the way back tonight. See you later and feel free to anything in the fridge, just keep your hands off the beer." Merry warned.
"There's beer in the fridge? Not the last I saw."
"Right, yeah. I kind of hid it yesterday before you looked, never mind what I said." Merry shook her head. "See you later when I get back. It'll be around six."
"Um." Riley waved as the door closed. "Oh what the hell have I gotten myself into?" she asked the house as she sat on the sofa. She felt a surge of warmth cover her like a blanket and she relaxed. "Why does life have to be so complicated, why can't legends stay as legends?"
She grumbled and got out her laptop. It was around 4 when Seth finally came back down. "Hey kid, what're you doing?" he called from the stairs.
"Reading stuff, I am so glad I downloaded online computer version of books, if I didn't I think I might've died considering the damage to my dorm room." Riley grinned. "And don't call me a kid jerk."
"Good to know that you don't hesitate in talking back."
"Yeah and don't forget to wash the plate."
"I'll do it later."
"I'll bet that's what you said last night about the dinner plates; in fact, I'll bet that's what all three of you said last night. What happened? I ended up doing them for you before you even got down the stairs."
"I had pretty good timing though didn't I? I got there just in time to help you put the plates up."
"Okay, so there are disadvantages to being small, there are advantages too y'know." Riley pouted.
"Oh, and what can they possibly be?"
"That's for me and other short people to know," the small girl grinned childishly.
"Alright, well what ever you're doing." Seth narrowed his eyes at the screen. "Time to take a break."
"A break? I'm not working."
"Well, since I don't know what you're doing I'm going to call this a break." He argued throwing a game controller at her which she caught easily. "Shooting, racing, horror or war?"
"Are those my only options?"
"What? Did you expect me to have sissy games?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of Time Splitters or something, something gruesome."
"Do I even want to know how you've played gruesome games before?"
"I lived with a lot of brothers." Riley shrugged.
"No wonder you're feisty."
"Shut up. Hey, when Merry said that Morganville gets everything monitored, does that mean the campus as well?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"So far as I can remember, they don't bother with the school because no one except for a selected few knows about the system here. Only a few actually come here to Morganville." Seth explained.
"Good."
"Why?"
"I like to have some privacy you know."
"Well you don't get much of that here."
"That sucks."
"You're telling me, and I've been here pretty much all my life."
"So… I hear that you were nearly killed by the grim reaper from campus."
"Yeah, I didn't like her, showed it and she got pissed. What'd you do to get on the shit list?" They picked out a horror game and started playing.
"I kind of made her look stupid twice."
Since Seth had the main controller, he controlled the game status and he pressed a button causing it to pause. "You what?"
"It seemed that she doesn't know how to tell the difference between whether a computer is turned on or not. Before the first day I school, I bumped into her in the computer room and she couldn't get the computer to work, I told her to press the big on button and it started working just fine. The second time I embarrassed her in front of a crowd of boys. She thought the Greek god Ares was a pop artist. I just couldn't let someone get something so wrong. You either know something like that or you don't. You can't just go around making stuff up about the Greek gods, that's just asking for trouble." Riley threw her arms in the air in agitation. "I mean, that girl doesn't even know that Latin is a dead language! And she doesn't know about any of the Greek myths, not even the most basic things like Zeus being the most well known as the father of the gods even though he had a father too! That cow is too stupid and loud for her own good. If she actually got things right then I wouldn't care but she wants to kill me because she is stupid. That's irrational reasoning. One of these days she might find a knife sticking out from her back."
"Planning a little assassination are we?" Seth laughed letting the game run again. Riley liked his laugh, it was real and it made her heart skip a beat. "You're not too bad at this."
"Shut up, I haven't lost any health yet." Riley stuck her tongue out at him. "So I hear that there's beer in the house."
"And you're not touching any of it."
"You're no fun."
"Do you want me to tell Merry you said that?"
Riley sighed and shook her head giving him a mischievous grin. "No, I never mentioned the word beer."
"Got it." Seth nodded and turned back to the game.
"So… why did you come back to town? Didn't that police officer say that you left for a couple of years? It was because of that accident wasn't it?"
Silence. Seth kept his eyes focused on the screen and Riley stole a chance to look at him. His eyes were emotionless and his grip on the controller was tight enough to draw blood. Definitely off boundaries… Wait? Why do I even want to know? Oh for god's sake I have to leave tomorrow! What the hell am I doing making friends?!
"What the hell happened? You just got bombed and killed kid." Seth complained.
"What?" Riley shook away her thoughts and looked at the screen, he was right; she just missed a bomb…
"What got your attention?"
"Nothing."
"Yo roomies!" the door slammed and Merry's voice rang throughout the halls.
"In here!" Seth yelled back.
"Good, you didn't go after all." Merry sighed.
"Aren't you a bit early? It's only five, not that I'm not happy to see you."
"I got paranoid."
"You thought I wasn't going to keep my promise." Merry nodded. "Don't worry, I never go back on a straightforward promise. I might find ways to bend around it but I never break it."
"Good to know in the future that if you make promises we've got to be specific." Seth laughed. "What's with the big bag M?"
"Dinner," she told him heading into the kitchen and gestured for Riley to follow.
"Tacos." Riley concluded and put everything she didn't need back in the fridge. Rolling her sleeves, she started cooking and the game continued in the other room. She could hear Merry and Seth talking but she didn't want to intrude, she knew they were talking about Quinn. He wasn't going to happy about this; she didn't want them to risk their lives just to let her stay in a room. She also got the feeling that they were talking about Caroline too. She plugged her ears with her earphones and listened to her music.
" –ley! Riley!" Seth shouted taking her earphone out.
"What?!" she screamed nearly dropping the knife. "Don't scream at me when I'm holding a knife."
"Quinn's back. Leave the food for now."
Sighing, she put the knife down and walked through to the living room behind Seth. Quinn was looking very troubled and slightly harassed sitting on the sofa.
"You can't go back to the dorms Riley and if you stay here in Morganville on your own in an apartment you're in even bigger trouble."
"I can take care of myself."
"Can you? What can you do to protect yourself from something you don't even know?"
"I do know what I'm up against, vampires. Both Seth and Merry have said it. Vampires live and own this town." Riley narrowed her eyes.
"Do you even know how to fight vampires?"
"That's for me to know mate."
"I cannot send you out there knowing that you'll be in danger. I may obey the law around here but I'm not about to send some 16 year old girl to their death either."
"Look, it doesn't matter what happens to me right? I am just some delivery girl that you had a brief encounter with when you signed the slip. Other than that, you never met me. That's all they have to know and none of you will be in trouble."
"Riley, you don't understand. The vampires know things around this town no matter how well it's been covered up. They will find that we have hidden you and that we lied." Merry protested.
"But it is not them who want me dead, it's Caroline. Now, the last I checked, she can walk in the sun so why is she so powerful?"
"She's the mayor's daughter." Seth told her.
"That explained why she's so snobby." Riley nodded with realisation. Damn this is going to be a little tough but not impossible to get around. Why the hell do these three want to keep me safe anyway? They've only known me since like, yesterday evening! "Anyway, I'm not going to stay in Morganville, I was planning to return to the dorms. Or find somewhere else near by."
"Why are you so intent on leaving Riley?" Quinn narrowed his eyes.
"I don't need anyone to get in trouble because of me. And think what might happen if my parents find out about this." Riley argued.
"At least stay until the thing with Caroline dies down." Seth said. "She'll forget soon because some else is bound to talk to her the wrong way. If you just lay low she'll forget you ever existed. I doubt she'd be in any of your classes."
"Look Riley, there's only two options that's safe for you. Get your folks to get you out of school and transfer somewhere else or, stay here for a while. Of course, you're going to have to pay the rent." Quinn stated.
"Alright… how much?" Riley sighed. There is just no way I can tell them I'm pulling out of this school. If I tell them that they'll come here to check things out for sure…
"$100 a month for the rent itself. Then the rest you have to pay as you go along, the rest meaning long distance calls if you use the landline and broadband. You've also got to pitch in with the chores."
"Haven't I already?" Riley grinned. God I'm never going to find anywhere cheaper than this… Looks like I'm staying then. Screw this all to hell. "Thanks for the room O'Connor."
"Why don't you call him by his first name?" Merry asked curiously.
"It's a habit; in my old school we had the habit of calling guys by their surnames unless someone had a really weird one." Riley shrugged. "Anyway, I'm really hungry so I'm going to get the food started."
"I so agree with that." Seth nodded.
