Hi!! I'm back!
The new character gets intoduced in this chapter so I hope you like her!
Disclaimer: Travis the lawyer: -sulking-
Kayka-chan: Oh, come on! It's not that bad...
Travis the lawyer: Not that bad? You insutled lawyers in this chapter and you expect me not to care?
Kayka-chan: Well... yes?
Travis the lawyer: -scoffs- Well, then I'm glad you don't own Darkest Powers or you would taint it with you horrible... horrible stuff!
Kayka-chan: Does someone need a hug?
Travis the lawyer: I don't want your smelly hug!
Foolish
Chapter Eight
----XX----
When justice decides to stand still
will any sanity prevail,
where justice once stood still,
can any unity ever be restored
----XX----
Derek stood right behind his door, waiting to open it until he was sure that it was completely safe to do so. He tested the air carefully and listened intently.
Good.
The only scents that meant anything to him were not recent enough to cause him worry. He cracked open the door and looked both ways, up and down the hallway before pushing the door open the rest of the way and stepping out carefully. A floorboard under his feet creaked and he froze himself. When he was sure that no one was going to come running at him, he carefully continued his slow and dangerous trek to the kitchen. Why, you may be wondering?
Because noon was the worst time of the day.
Noon was when Chloe wandered the house more.
And that's bad.
Derek walked as quietly as he could, stepping cautiously and looking over his shoulder every so often. When he heard the sound of Chloe's laughter wafting up from down stairs, he held his breath and quickly backed into the nearest room, which happened to be an office of some kind. Unused and dusty, there was an old looking lamp with cobwebs all over it and a rickety aged wooden chair. A type writer sat in front of the rickety old wooden chair and there were papers that had faded to a sickly yellow color clustered messily around it.
He leaned his back against the wall and slid to the ground, putting his hand to his forehead and resting it there. He couldn't take much more of this. A person can only avoid someone for so long in a house that he's not allowed to leave.
Derek had been avoiding Chloe for two days straight. He had seen neither hide nor hair of her in the time since he had slipped up and assaulted her. And the art of avoiding someone is not as easy as it sounds. Simon knows something's up, so does Tori, but both Derek and Chloe refuse to talk about it. He knows that Chloe hasn't talked about it because Tori's room is not too far away from his and he can hear everything she complains about. The most recent one was; "That little turd. She's hiding something and I want to know what it is."
Now, whether she hadn't said anything about it to Simon or Tori because she is embarrassed about kissing him is a totally different matter, and one that he had tried not to think too much about. Derek sat up and moved onto his knees, placing his ear on the door. He couldn't hear her anymore so he had to assume that all systems were go. He heaved himself to his feet and placed his hand around the door knob. He went to turn it and walk out into the hallway when there was a sharp tapping noise on the window behind him.
Derek turned quickly and saw a… a person. A woman, actually. She was sitting in the window box among the dried up and dead flowers there and was tapping her long nails against the glass, popping her gum loudly. Her curly red hair was rather… volumized and she was wearing the most ridiculous combination of clothing. A wispy pink scarf, a ratty old T-shirt, which he soon realized was one supporting Po from the Telly- Tubbies, gloves with the finger tips cut off of them, a green ballerina skirt, knee high rainbow socks, and a pair of high-tops. After Derek got over the fact that there was a twenty-something year old woman sitting outside in a window box on the second floor dressed like a clown, he had to wonder who she was. If she was an enemy or not. The wolf was wary of her but he hadn't growled any warnings yet.
"Hello-o-o?" The woman called in a slightly muffled voice. She was pressing her face against the glass and cupping her hands around her eyes, squinting directly at Derek. When she saw him she smiled and waved, pointing to the lock keeping the window shut and her out and motioning that he should open it for her.
It was then that Derek began to wonder if he looked just that stupid.
The wolf growled at her now and Derek took a step back. When the woman saw him do this she frowned and ran one of her finger nails down the glass producing a high pitched squealing noise that racked Derek's ears and caused him to slam his hands over his ears. The wolf let out a whine and flattened his ears to his skull. She stopped quickly and smiled smugly, once again pointing at the lock. Derek squinted at her, his ears still ringing. He angrily stalked up to the window and glowered at her.
"If you want in, go and knock on the front door like a normal person." He said, loud enough so that she could hear him but quiet enough so that no one else could. The lady scowled at him and then turned around and leapt off the window box. Derek jerked in surprise and looked down, expecting to see her writhing in pain from the fall, and instead saw her walking briskly towards the front of the house.
Derek couldn't believe it and the wolf was in a similar state of shock. Completely forgetting that he was supposed to be in hiding, he went to the door, yanked it open and walked down the stairs. Chloe, Simon and Tori were all standing outside the kitchen and looked up at him when he stomped his way down the stairs. Simon called a greeting, Tori just watched him, and Chloe looked away, the strong scent of embarrassment coming off of her to meet him. He ignored them all and strode right up to the doors, pulling one of them open and looking down at the woman, her hand posed to knock and a large blue bubble protruding from her mouth.
"When I told you to go to the front door I was being sarcastic." He growled at her. The bubble popped and she craned her neck back to look up at him.
"Jesus, boy. You're huge." She informed him, like she thought that he didn't already know. She squinted at him and then added as an afterthought; "and rude." Derek cocked an eyebrow at her and the wolf snickered, because he apparently found this woman to be hilarious. She reached over and pat the arm that was holding the door open. "But don't worry; you can fix that with therapy. Most of the time, anyway." She bent at the waist and looked under his arm, blowing another large bubble from her mouth and popping it. "Are you the little necromancer?" she asked.
Derek turned and saw the other three, clustered in a group and watching the proceedings with a mixture of amusement and uncertainty. When the strange woman pointed out Chloe, she jumped and brushed her fingers along the amulet again, looking around as if she expected someone else to answer for her. She was clearly uncomfortable being the center of everyone attention.
"Lil? You're here already? Good lord, who died?" Andrew said in a playful voice that Derek had never heard him use. The woman, still bent over, looked at Andrew who was walking down stairs and smiled.
"Not sure who she is. Won't tell me her name, but she kept bugging me till I came here." She retorted playfully. As Andrew neared, Derek stepped to the side and let them greet each other. They hugged happily and Andrew thumped her on the back.
"It's good to see you again." He told her. Derek stayed off to the side and into the shadows through the greetings so that he didn't interfere and was mostly out of sight, but he could feel Chloe's eyes drilling holes into his flesh. He avoided looking over at her. Andrew turned quickly motioning for the three of them to come closer. "You guys, this is Lillian Dawson. She's the necromancer I was telling you about. She's here to help out." Lillian Dawson bowed dramatically at the introduction and Derek noticed that she had a black headband with a small bow on it in her tangled mass of hair.
"A pleasure, I'm sure." She said with a gaudy British accent when she straightened out again. She wore a pleasant smile on her face as she blew another bubble. Her entire scent was filled with sweet things, like lollipops and chocolate. It was overwhelming how much sugar she had engrained into her smell. Derek and the wolf both wrinkled up their noses slightly. Then he realized that under all the perfume, he caught a faint smell, no doubt the one she was trying so hard to cover up, that smelt of death. Like at least ten corpses. Derek's breath caught in his throat and the wolf growled.
"…And this is Chloe. She's the one that you're going to be training." Andrew introduced, pulling Derek out of his thoughts. Lillian flashed Chloe a two fingered salute and then trained her eyes onto Simon.
"So you're the lawyer sorcerer's kid? Poor guy. Lawyers are horrible." She said in a dreamy voice, patting Simon on the head. Then she moved her eyes over to Tori. "You too. Your mother's a bitch. No offence intended, of course." Tori just blinked and tried to hide a smile tugging on her lips. When she got to Chloe, she just looked at her, her brown eyes roving up and down Chloe. They came to stop on Chloe's necklace and she let out a soft gasp. "God almighty, child. Where did you get this?" she muttered as she grasped it in her hand, her nails clicking against it softly.
"I-it's a gift from my mother." Chloe answered, trying to lean away from the Lillian. Lillian stopped moving and looked up at Chloe again. She squinted at her.
"Would your last name happen to be Saunders perchance?" She asked quietly. When Chloe nodded, Lillian dropped the pendant quickly and back away. "Ah. That explains so much." Chloe looked at her confused. Actually, everyone was looking at her with confused expressions.
"Lil, what's going on?" Andrew asked coming up behind his friend. Lillian glanced back at him.
"I knew her uncle. Powerful necromancer. Good man. Bad death." She explained, crossing herself with a sad expression on her face. Derek was captivated. He didn't know that Chloe had an uncle; much less that he was dead. Derek glanced cautiously over at Chloe to see that she was staring intently at Lillian and was no longer shooting glances his way. Lillian reached over and pat Chloe on the shoulder awkwardly. "Don't worry, though. Vengeance was mine."
"W-what?" Chloe stuttered out. Lillian looked down at her sadly.
"Now's not exactly the time to talk about it if you don't know about what happened to him." She said pointing out the fact that they weren't alone in the foyer. Derek watched as Chloe lowered her head and chewed worriedly on her bottom lip. Simon reached over and slipped his hand into hers. The wolf snarled at this movement, the odd sensation of possessiveness growing in Derek's gut. To his pleasure, Chloe didn't look so happy to have Simon holding her hand, either, and kept sending glances his way.
"Well," Andrew said loudly, clapping his hands and startling everyone in the room aside from Lillian who was staring at Chloe. "Let's have some lunch! I'm sure you're starving, huh Lillian?" Andrew grabbed onto her wrist and began to lead her away in an awfully transparent attempt at redirecting the conversation. Tori followed and Simon tried to get Chloe to follow but she held up a hand.
"I'll be right there." She told him quietly. He nodded and walked over to the kitchen. Chloe stood there and waited until Simon was out of sight before looking over at the shadow Derek was occupying. "Derek?" she said with care. Derek grit his teeth and unfolded his arms, walking out of the shadow and trying to stride past her and make it to the stairs so that he could go back into hiding. Chloe stepped quickly into his path. "D-Derek we need to t-talk." She said to him, blushing furiously, but looking him straight in the eye with determination.
"There's nothing to say." Derek grunted at her, desperately trying to avoid the awkward conversation. He stepped to the side in an attempt to get around her and she stepped in front of him again. She no longer looked embarrassed. Now she just looked mad.
"Excuse me? 'Nothing to say'? There's plenty to say." She hissed, looking over at the kitchen quickly before looking up at him. Derek clenched his teeth harder and curled his hand into a fist. The wolf giggled mischievously, telling him that he should do it again because his bitch wanted a round two. Derek told the wolf to shut up and once again tried to sidestep Chloe who, once again, intercepted him.
"Chloe, do we really have to do this now?" He asked her gruffly casting a pointed look in the direction of the kitchen where Simon was laughing loudly at something. Chloe looked over also before returning her scowl onto him.
"Yes, because you're apparently back to avoiding me and now's the only time I've seen you in two days." She told him, keeping her voice lower than a yell but above a whisper. Derek flinched slightly and stuffed his hands into his pockets. This was one of the reasons why he kept such a careful hold on his emotions. He didn't want something bad to happen and hurt someone again. Now, he was causing Chloe severe discomfort. He had pretty much sexually assaulted her, and now she was not happy. What's worse, he had probably ruined any form of somewhat decent friendship that they had.
"Look," He said, cutting her off, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen and it would be nice if you would just forget about it. Okay?" He looked away. Derek hoped that's what she wanted to hear. He really, really hoped that's what she wanted to hear, because it wasn't the truth. He didn't want her to forget it, for some odd reason. He wanted her to enjoy kissing him. He kept telling himself that it was the wolf's influence, but part of him wasn't so sure anymore.
You are the wolf, Derek
He looked back down at her and saw that she had a somewhat stricken look on her face. Chloe slowly looked at his feet, and then flashed her eyes back up at his face. She worked her mouth, trying and failing to say something. She cleared her throat and tried again. He could smell the faint scent of salt and knew that it meant she was going to cry.
"But… " She said, her voice wavering as she desperately looked from side to side and fiddled with the hem of her shirt. Derek winced again and walked around her, going for the stairs quickly. The wolf sat in a disappointed silence. "Derek." Chloe whispered desperately. He didn't look back. He quickly walked up the winding staircase, hesitating once when he got to the top and was out of sight, seriously considering running back down. He didn't. He just stood there, every muscle in his body somewhat lax. Then he clenched his jaw and his fists, walking briskly towards his room.
"She's probably real upset, you know." A female voice said to Derek, causing him to jump slightly in surprise and look over at Tori, leaning against the wall, half hidden in shadow. Derek righted himself and looked down at her distastefully.
"And what do you know about anything?" He snapped at her, looking down through his hair. Tori chuckled softly and pushed herself off the wall.
"I know plenty about a lot of things." She told him. "And, even though I don't know what's going on between you two, I know that she's not happy right now, which is a first in two days." When Derek gave her a confused look, Tori said; "Little Miss Ray of Sunshine down there has been in a creepy good mood ever since she nearly bowled me over running out of your room. I've tried to figure out what it is, but she won't talk."
Derek blinked down at Tori. The wolf was somewhat proud due to the statements that had just issued themselves from Tori's pie-hole, but Derek was seriously befuddled. The questions as to why she was in such a good mood were most prevalent. The way Tori said it made it seem like Chloe was happy that he kissed her…
"What?" Derek said dumbly. Tori sighed in a way that clearly said; 'why me?'
"Look, whatever's going on between you guys, you need to straighten it out. Fast." And with that, Tori turned sharply on her heel and marched away. Derek watched her walk away, slightly aghast.
Did Tori just give me advice?
He chuckled slightly in spite of himself before leaning his back against the wall heavily. He knew what Tori said, he had an inkling of what it meant, but that wasn't good. He wasn't the good guy. He wasn't right for her. Chloe could do so much better than him. Simon, for example, would be perfect for her.
They got along great and he was the good guy. He would be the perfect one for Chloe. Not him. Not Derek. All he would bring her was anger and hurt. She just needed to figure this out, sooner rather than later, when it was too late.
But… first he needed to convince himself of that.
Yay? I don't know. I'm not really sure if I like the way this chapter turned out...
Review please!
