Dear Readers- Okay, so my next chapter will be up shortly. This chapter was supposed to be both what is written here and thenext chapter, but it became to long, so I had to cut it off where I did. But don't worry. The rest will be up in an hour or two! Thanks.
-SDSL
Disclaimer: I don't own the covenant. I can only dream that I did.
Evan
I walked into my photography class right as the bell rang. It had been a couple of weeks, and Alice and I were becoming close. She was a very easy person to talk to; it seemed like she could relate on a personal level most of the time. She would always understand though, even if she couldn't relate. We talked about a lot of stuff, but usually just trivial little details, like my cousins, or the Sons and her brother. And then there was Reid. Nine times out of time, she ended up talking about Reid at any given point in our conversations. This caused me to feel a pang of guilt at what I was doing, and I usually tried to steer the conversation in another direction that caused me to feel… less guilty. I couldn't help but notice the other emotion I felt when she talked of him. It was an emotion I had seen so much over the years; but now, to actually experience it, it was different then I had expected, than I ever could have expected. It was jealously, and I was falling for Alice Danvers; my target. If Rachel, or Brooke, or Chase ever found out… hell if my father ever found out, I would cease to exist.
As soon as I walked in, Alice popped up right beside me. "Hey." She said, smiling brightly.
"Hey." I beamed back at her, all my warmest emotions flooding back to me upon seeing her face.
"So, Miss Barnes wants you to take photos of people today…" She told me.
"Alrighty then, why don't you and I find a place to work?"
"Sure. Any ideas?"
"Well, what about the courtyard?"
"Sounds great!" She said.
"Let's go!" I said, grabbing my camera as she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair. I grabbed her by the hand, pulling her out the door.
We were laughing by the time we made it to the courtyard after having run into a hall monitor who went all postal on us.
"Okay, where do you want me?" She said with a half-smile as she did a little spin, causing me to laugh. She was so funny. She acted like a little girl a lot, and it was adorable.
"How about on the edge of the fountain?" I said, pointing to the white-stone fountain mounted in the middle of the courtyard.
"Sounds good." She said, sitting on the fountain, arms back, legs crossed, head cocked to the side. Her long hair cascaded down her back, pooling on the fountain ledge where she sat, her cheeky half-smile playing on her lips, the sun hitting her in just the right way. She was even more gorgeous than before; and that was something I hadn't thought to be possible. "How's this?"
"Perfect." I said. "You're perfect." She looked at me and I corrected myself, slapping myself mentally for my foolish slip up. "I mean, it's perfect." I started snapping pictures, and after a bit, I said, "Okay, that should be enough." And I sat down next to her on the fountain. "So, how are you doing?" I said, turning to look at her.
"Um… okay, I guess…" She said, looking down at her hands folded in her lap.
"So then why are you pouting?" I teased her.
"I am not pouting!" She scoffed, giving me a friendly shove.
"Seriously, though, what's going on in your life?" I asked.
"Just normal stuff, I guess. Caleb is being his normal crazy-possessive self. And Reid is… Reid is definitely trying to piss off Caleb, for reasons unknown to me." She told me. "You know, normal stuff."
"Ah, so I see you still haven't told Caleb yet?" I said.
"Are you kidding me? He would skin Reid alive." She said, looking up at the sky. "I just, I dunno what to do, Evan. I wanna be with Reid, but not telling Caleb is making me crazy!" She looked at me abruptly. "What should I do?"
"Well, what do you think you should do?" I asked.
"You're gonna make me figure it out on my own, aren't you?" She asked. I just smirked. "Damn, I hate that!"
"Be positive!" I joked.
"Alright… I'm positive I can't do this!"
I laughed at her. "You're a good person, Alice. You can differentiate between right and wrong. You can handle this. You know that, right?"
She sighed, "I know."
"Look, Alice, I know you're having a hard time right now. And I'm here for you, you know that, right?" I said, staring in her eyes.
""Yes, I do." She said with a nod. She sighed again, unfolding and refolding her hands in her lap. "It's so hard to for me to find people I can trust, ya know? It's just, for me, the only people I've ever been able to trust are my brother, the other Sons, and Kate… and now Sarah. It's just, very hard to explain… we're
very close-knit, like a family. I guess it's kind of because the parents in our lives are useless and nonexistent."
"What do you mean 'your parents are useless'?" I asked, confused. Chase only told us about the targets; not their parents. He didn't really tell us all that much about them. Now that I think about it, he barely told us anything, and seemed to avoid everything parental about them.
I could tell I caught her off guard as she shifted nervously. She sighed, and finally said, "My dad… he died, not too long ago." I froze as the words left her mouth. I didn't know this before. If Chase had anything to do with this… I was gonna kill him. She broke me out of my thoughts as she said, "But even before that, ever since I was a little, he'd been sick. Always sick. He was on bed rest for the longest while. When he… died… my Mom became a bit… depressed. She was inconsolable, and she turned into a bit of an… alcoholic, I guess you could say. Needless to say, my brother has always been the one who's taken care of me. He's actually my legal guardian." I was shocked. "Pogue lives on his own… his mom died during childbirth, and his dad died about four or five years ago. Tyler lives alone with his mother when he's not at school; his dad died a few years ago, too. Kate's mom just recently got married, and her stepdad is a real prick. I don't know much about Sarah; Caleb said she's got a brother and her parents are divorced, and she had a second brother that died three years ago, but that's all I know. And Reid… his mom died last year. His dad is a jerk. He's always away on business trips, never comes home, and always treats Reid like crap." I had never felt so bad about what I was doing until now.
"Oh wow. Alice, I'm so sorry." I murmured, leaning towards her as she faced me.
"Not your fault." She said, leaning in towards me a bit as well. "It's just so hard to find someone I can trust, Evan… someone I can depend on to be there for me."
"You can trust me."
"I know I can." She said in a low voice, leaning into me herself, unconsciously unaware of her own actions.
I almost met her lips when, "Hey, Alice! Girl, you coming?" We both jerked backwards, turning towards the voices. We looked to see a petite girl with long, wavy, blonde hair and another girl with dark, straight hair coming our way.
We stood up as they walked over to us. "The bell rang already. Didn't you hear it?" The blonde said.
"Are you serious?" She asked as we stood, and she grabbed her blazer. "Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't even notice."
"No problem." The dark-haired one said, eyeing me.
"Oh, um, this is Sarah Wenham and Kate Tunney." She said, pointing to the blonde first, who I know understood to be Sarah, then the other one who was Kate. "Girls, this is-"
"Evan Marcus." I said, shaking their hands. "Nice to meet you."
"Say, are you new here? I haven't seen you around much… if at all." Kate said.
"Um, yea, me and my cousins, we just transferred in a few weeks ago." I said, seeing them at the end of the courtyard. "Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear." I said as they waved to me.
"Oh, um, hey, do you wanna meet up with me and my friends later? Sarah Kate and I were going to get ready."
"You sure?" I asked.
"Yea, of course. You ever heard of Nicky's?" She said.
"Yea, I think so."
"Well, we're meeting there at like six-ish, if you wanna go. You could bring your cousins, meet a few new people." She asked. I was giddy that she wanted me to go, but I couldn't let her see that.
" Yea, okay, sure." I said with a little wave. "Seeya later."
"Bye." She smiled.
I walked over to Brooke and Rachel, smirking after I had turned my back on Alice, Sarah, and Kate. "Well?" Brooke said expectantly.
I looked back at her as she walked away. My heart fell, because as much as I wanted to believe she could be mine, she would never be so. I was just fighting a loosing battle. The only thing I could do is continue on with the mission and hope these feeling one day fade. I looked back to them as they waited for my answer. I smirked, saying, "Jackpot."
Dear Readers-
So, what do you think? Lemme know! Please R&R!
-SDSL
