Destiny's Children
Chapter Three – Born to Fly
He sat down at his father's desk once more, evening out the papers that littered it.
"Make sure they are in alphabetical order, alright Cori?"
"Yes mom," he rolled his eyes at his mother as she shut the office door. Being the middle child had its good times and its bad times. This time it was a worse time. Earlier that week, he had gone out with his friends and dyed his hair a nice medium blue, just so he could be rid of his bland black hair and dark brown eyes. When he got home, his mother completely flipped out on him and today was his grounding day. In all his fourteen years he had never done so many chores, and now he had to organize his dad's office before he got home.
Cori glanced at the clock. It was about four o'clock.
"Fat chance in hell." He muttered to himself as he glanced out the window, his two little brothers were tackling each other. They were probably playing Cops and Robbers….again. He could be out there playing with them instead of organizing his dads crap. Speaking of – his father would be home at six.
He sighed. All this pain for a stupid hair change – he put all the papers into a neat stack then propped his elbow on the desk, staring at the outside world. His mother had demanded that he change it back to black, but he had spent all of his allowance getting it to be blue. He rubbed the sore spot where she had tugged at it, believing it to be a wig.
He was in his last year of school and his parents were probably going to refuse him college to work on the family farm. By family farm: they had their house, plus two acres of tilled land. The Tsuo family grew many things, since they were in the perfect weather for such.
He groaned; he hated this place! He had two older sisters and two younger brothers, plus another baby on the way. This place was hell in the morning when getting ready for school, especially since there were only two bathrooms and his sisters had already hit puberty…hard. They left their dirty girl stuff all over the bathroom floor and they bitched all day long when "T.O.M." came to visit.
Not only was he in school, but he also had to work at his job at the mall, Bagel World. He shuddered, he wanted to quit but his mother would not let him.
With a sigh, he reached for the desk drawer and pulled it out. He was avoiding the work; he's in as much trouble anyway, what else could his mother do? If she kicked him out, there went her income.
He blinked when something caught his attention. He heard something clamoring around in the drawer just as he closed it back.
He pulled it out again to discover that he had jarred loose a marble of some kind. He reached for it and picked it up, "what's this?"
It was tinted orange with a Japanese kanji inside. "Justice?" He guessed. Cori was Cantonese not Japanese, but he did take a course about it one time.
He noted how at peace he felt when he had touched it, that or his curiosity won out over his grief. The smooth marble felt cool on his palm. He rolled it back and forth between his hands along the desk, playing desk hockey, he smiled as if playing with it was the most fun thing in the world.
A bang at the door returned him to reality, "Get back to work! Stop playing with your father's stuff!" he winced at his mother's shrill voice and felt the marble stop at his left palm.
He stayed silent, unwilling to admit that he was in the wrong. He sighed and looked outside, for some reason he couldn't get mad again as he heard his mother pad off back into the kitchen area just outside the office.
He felt a small warmth on his forehead but chose to ignore it as he shook his head and got back to work. The files weren't going to organize themselves.
Time flew for him and he accomplished the impossible just before his father could be heard poking at the dinner pot. He smirked hearing his mother chide him, and he looked at the office.
With a grin he clapped his hands together, "done!" oh what a difference there was when you weren't doing things angrily.
He grimaced however when she heard a slap. One of his brothers must have gotten into the food again. And along with the slap, on cue, no less, his little brother could be heard stomping off, huffing all the way to his room, Cori's room. Especially since there were only three rooms: the girls got one, the boys got one, then the parents got one. He hoped that the new child his mom was carrying was a girl. Otherwise he'd die if he had to live with yet another boy in the house. A baby sister didn't sound too bad, then he wouldn't be the middle child anymore.
He shook his head and walked out into the kitchen, "I'm – "
"Cori, set the table."
He paused before talking, "Yes ma'am." He did so, not without a sigh though, even if he was a more patient Cori since the marble, he still hated being cut off.
Dinner flew by quickly, consisting of spaghetti with homegrown tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. There were jars and jars of those veggies in the freezer. In fact there was another freezer out in the garage filled with those that were not sold last year. They rotated carrots, onions, tomatoes and spinach in the fields. To say the least, they were only vegetarians during a dry spell, in which they had no other money to buy a chicken or some beef. They had enough to maintain their bills and keep the heat and AC going. Especially since the Carolina summers got excruciatingly hot with the humidity.
Cori got tired of the same old, same old, and wanted more out of his life than to maintain his family, He was getting tired of them yelling at him for working his brains out every day and for the one day when he didn't have to work, his small amount of independence was taken from him quickly. He was grateful for house, family and home, but as mentioned it was getting a little boring.
Sometimes he wished that something would just whisk him away from his drab life.
It was later in the evening and Cori was relaxing in bed; the sounds of the nighttime surrounded him. His two brothers were snoring lightly on the bunk beds across the room. His bed was by the window, and since his mom was so frugal, there was a thin sheet over the window. Moonlight spilled over his stomach in a thin line. He yawned lightly glancing at the clock, lights out at eight and it was already 11:49. He held the marble so that the moonlight shine through it. Where it came from, he had only his musings, but somehow he felt that it belonged to him.
A sharp creak from downstairs snapped him to attention. After a few moments, it grew quiet again, but he could hear someone rustling downstairs. It sounded like they were being careful to be silent.
Something was off, however. He didn't hear the upstairs creak that catches everyone because it shifts which made him wary because all of the bedrooms were on the second floor.
He shrugged; it wouldn't hurt to check it out. He grabbed his pocket knife, carefully adjusting it in case he'd have to use it, then slowly and carefully padded out of bed and down the steps. He heard the shuffling stop immediately after a resounding squeak came from beneath his toes. He did not halt, though, he kept creeping down until he reached the door of the kitchen.
He remembered how the marble had helped him achieve a for of peace, so he concentrated on it, perhaps it could help him figure out who was there. He closed his eyes. A new sensation flooded his senses. He could feel the air molecules around him – every last speck of dust that floated through the air. He could tell from the breathing in the kitchen was irregular and that of a masculine nature. The softest of sounds were amplified ten fold; had a pin fell it would have sounded like an explosion.
He froze and like an explosion, the click of a gun resounded through the room.
That cancelled out his entire family.
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First cliffhanger. Thinking I'm evil now:) Stay tuned for more.
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