Chapter Ten

School Talk

The bellowing scream rang throughout the whole town of Scarlatina. Courtney and her father were in the depth of a conversation when the subject had turned to school.

"WHAT?" Courtney was in shock at what her father had suggested.

"Courtney, you're still only sixteen," Nigel reminded his daughter. "You have to go to school."

"School, yes. School here, no," Courtney protested. Nigel didn't think his only daughter would put up this much of fight about school after she had spent the last ten years raving about every sick day she had to take off school. But, to Courtney, after everything she had gone through, school was not in her top priorities. There were still days when she didn't want to get out of bed because her life has gotten too weird.

"It's the only high school around here."

"What about my old school? Sure, I had no friends, but I was an A Plus student!" Nigel sighed, he knew he wasn't going to win this battle. Courtney always won their battles. He knew he was very soft with her while growing up, but he couldn't help it. He always let her get her own way.

"Your old school thinks you're on a business trip with me," Nigel explained. The subject of school hadn't been brought up at all until now. "You can return there once all the Tracker's have left town. They'll soon realize that there's nothing in Muskoka for them and we can go home in a few months."

Courtney sat down on the sofa, a scowl printed onto her face. Her brows were furrowed and she wouldn't make eye contact with her father. She didn't realize how much she missed her home until she thought about the fact that she may never see it again. She knew her father had said it would be a few months, but he was so much happier in Scarlatina that Courtney didn't think she would want to take him away from this life.

"I don't want to go to this school," Courtney calmly replied. She didn't want to get mad at her father.

"School is school, and you're going."

"I don't want to!" So much for calm. Nigel was still pushing her buttons when he had usually given up by now.

"It's not a case of what you want-"

"I'm not going!"

"Stop acting like a spoilt brat and do as you're told!" Nigel yelled, his voice hitting the ceiling and echoing through most of the house. "You're going and that's final." The father and daughter stayed still, staring each other down. That was the first time Nigel had ever raised his voice at his daughter. He had never shouted at her before, she had never done anything to be shouted at. The second Nigel had done it he started to regret it. Courtney didn't reply, she looked away, eyes burning.

"I'm going out," she whispered, getting to her feet and leaving the room, not giving her father time to apologize to her.

Courtney Black loved school. She always had. Always top of the class, always teacher pet. It was as if school was purposely built for her. School was where she belonged. The only reason Courtney didn't want to go to school in Scarlatina was because she was scared. None of her friends would be there, for a start, since the only one who was of school age was Bridgette and she was home schooled. But it was also the fact that this high school was for people like her-vampire's, werewolves, fairy's, sorcerer's, and whatever else she had only been dreaming about a few weeks ago. Everyone there knew what they were doing while Courtney was still making rotten apples and changing house colors. If Courtney went to school she felt as though she would stick out like a sore thumb.

"Going somewhere, Princess?" A flash of green and Duncan appeared at the fuming girls side. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged him away. It wasn't that Courtney was mad at Duncan too, she just didn't want to be around anyone.

"As far away from here as possible," she replied as she continued to walk away. Duncan kept up with her pace quite easily. He walked along side Courtney as she continued to walk in a direction she had never ventured before. He didn't bother Courtney with any more questions for a long while, before he thought he would help.

"Can I show you something?"

"Duncan-" Courtney tried to stop him, but he was adamant this would make her feel better. Not feeling as if she had much of a choice, Courtney agreed, and Duncan started leading them in the same direction they were heading, anyway. It was another one of Duncan's favorite places, but it was situated on the opposite side of Scarlatina to the lake.

The couple passed the row of houses where Duncan lived and continued up a side street that ran right beside the tall, iron fence. They passed many more houses on their travels, each looking as new as the last. Duncan explained that this part of town had only been built around twenty years ago, while the back part of town had been around for hundreds of years. It was only recently that the population started to grow, so they had to expand the small town into a bigger one.

Duncan pointed up to a tall tower in the corner where the iron fence changed direction. It was still fairly far away, but Courtney could make out that it was a cellphone tower of some sorts.

"It's a beeper tower," Duncan told his confused girlfriend, though the sentence only confused her more. "Beepers are how people communicate here. Cell phones are sort of banned, though people do still have them." Courtney nodded her head and Duncan took a small device from his pocket. "It's kind of a cross between a pager and a cellphone, I guess." Courtney took it off him. It was small enough to fit in her palm. It was blue plastic, with a small white screen and full qwerty keyboard, though the buttons looked too small for anyone's fingers to use. She handed it back to her boyfriend, making a note to ask her father about getting one as she had learnt that cell phone signal was few and far between in Scarlatina.

When the two arrived at the base of the Beeper tower, Courtney looked at Duncan expectantly. He had a sly grin on his face as he exclaimed, "We're going to climb it."

"W-What?" Courtney stuttered over her unsure words. "We could get into trouble or something!"

Duncan chuckled. "Quit worrying and follow me." Duncan took a small running start and jumped up the first few foot holes. The clang where his shoe hit the metal sent a pet peeve shiver through Courtney's body. She watched as Duncan climbed higher and higher. When he was about halfway up he turned to look back down at her. He had been climbing slowly so she could keep up. He looked expectantly at his girlfriend, who, after a sigh, started climbing herself. She still wasn't as fast as Duncan, who made it to the platform that was situated halfway up the tower in ten minutes flat, but twenty minutes later Courtney found herself lying on the cold metal floor.

Duncan held his hand out and pulled Courtney to her feet. When he'd first moved to Scarlatina he used to climb to tower because it had the best view. Of course, back then he was hunting prey, not staring at the pretty houses. But over the years he had lived in Scarlatina and all the years he came back for work, Duncan had found the tower to be a sanctuary for him. While the lake was a public place, no one ever really had the sense to climb the tower and find out that it was like a tree house.

"It's...It's so beautiful up here." Courtney's eyes couldn't take in every inch of Scarlatina at once. It was an ongoing beauty that didn't have an end, it reached into the beautiful abyss and just kept going. Duncan pointed out her house to her- though with the roof still pink it wasn't hard to see. He pointed out his house too, where, with his vampire vision, Duncan could see Phoebe and Derick fighting on the porch. Courtney pointed out a large brick building in the background and Duncan explained that was the Palace. Courtney hadn't been anywhere near the Palace, and she had no reason to. It was very large, standing at six stories tall with slanting roofs and stone archways. Duncan pointed out the courtyard and the servant entrance that he used to get in and out of work.

"What do you work as, again?" Courtney asked, leaning her arms on the railing that stretched around the platform as she turned to face Duncan.

"I'm a bodyguard for the Princess," he calmly replied with a smile at Courtney. She felt there was something more there. "It was originally going to be twenty-four seven, but when I said I was moving to Earth, they changed it to only for Royal events only. I'm so good at my job that they didn't want to let me go completely." Courtney nodded. She understood why Duncan would be good at his job; she'd seen him fighting at school. He wasn't weak and could take pretty much anyone.

"What's the Princess like?"

Duncan laughed. "A pain in the ass." He turned to look at the Palace again. "But I enjoy her company. The Palace is like a home away from home to me now. I've worked there for twenty-seven years- Damn." Courtney could see in his eyes that Duncan loved him job, but there was something hiding behind it, a sadness that didn't belong there. She placed a kind hand on his arm.

"How old is she, then?" Courtney asked. "If you've been working there for twenty-seven years, shouldn't she have been crowned Queen by now?" Duncan laughed again, the sadness almost forgotten.

"The current Princess is only slightly younger than you," Duncan explained. "I worked as a bodyguard for her mother before her. Ten years for Maria, seventeen and on-going for Arianna." The sadness was there again.

"Why did you stop working for her mother?"

"She died. Tracker attack." Courtney gasped, raising a hand to her mouth. She knew Tracker's were ruthless, but a killing spree on the Queen? That sounded outrageous to her. Though she couldn't help but let her mind wander... "But enough about me. I brought you up here so we could talk about you. Why so angry?"

Courtney shut up instantly, turning away from her boyfriend. She knew Duncan could easily read her thoughts if he wanted to, but he didn't. He waited for Courtney to tell him what was going on up there instead.

There was silence for a long time. Courtney was still thinking about the Tracker's. Duncan was worried she was still thinking about the Palace.

"My dad's trying to force me to go to school here," Courtney eventually told him. The sadness was now in her eyes. "And...It's not like I don't want to go to school, because I do, but it's almost summer and we'll be leaving in a few months anyway, or my dad says...What's the point of me starting a new school?"

"Because you're sixteen and need an education?" Courtney didn't find Duncan very funny.

Out of nowhere, Courtney exploded into a rampant rage, "I want to go back to before I met you guys! Before I knew the stupid secret. I just want everything back to normal again." Tears started welling in the brunette's eyes.

"You don't mean that," Duncan kissed Courtney's temple, not angry with her."Why do you feel like this all of a sudden, the secret's never bothered you before?"

"Why do you care?" Courtney replied, rubbing her eyes and making them puffy. She was being snappy with Duncan when she knew he didn't deserve it. He hadn't done anything wrong and it wasn't like he could change her fate where school was concerned.

"I love you," Duncan whispered to the wind, his eyes trained on Courtney the whole time. She still wasn't facing him. She couldn't face him. He was probably thinking she was being stupid for causing so much fuss over school. But he wasn't thinking that at all. "I don't like seeing you upset, Princess." Courtney gave a small smile. He hadn't called her that in a long time now.

Courtney walked around the platform, away from the stunning view of Scarlatina. She walked to the side that showed the outside world. With the way her life had been in fast forward mode, Courtney kept forgetting there was still the rest of the world outside the gates. "Where's the next school too?"

"A few miles away," Duncan pointed far into the distance as he moved to be at Courtney's side again, remembering a place he knew all too well. "But you don't want to go there."

"Why not?"

"It's one of the Tracker Academy's." Courtney looked away from Duncan, down to the floor. "There's three of them in Growlen and many more on Earth. They train Tracker's to hunt us and...well, you know the score by now." Courtney tried to push the thoughts of Tracker's out of her head, but it wouldn't budge. It was imprinted in her mind like a scar across her brain.

"Right now I'd rather go there," she mumbled sadly.

Duncan gave half a scoff, "The worst part is that you'd get in."

The two fell into an uncomfortable silence. Duncan knew what she was considering without even reading her mind. It was a vicious tension that had appeared between them. Courtney knew what she was getting herself into. No matter what she had promises in the past, this was the future for her. She couldn't see anything other than herself attending the Tracker Academy.

"I'm thinking about going there." The words were barely more than a gurgle in the back of her throat, but Duncan heard it too clearly for his liking.

"I can't tell you not to go," Duncan spoke softly, still not angry with Courtney. "But do you really want to spend the rest of your life chasing the ones you love? Do you want to spend the rest of your life hunting me, hunting Nigel, hunting Bridgette and Geoff and Gwen and Trent. Hell, even Taylor and Leah!"

"If it means getting out of this place, then yeah."

Duncan walked Courtney home after that, but the two never said a word to each other. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left her to Nigel. Courtney knew she had to tell her father her plans, and when she did, it didn't go down too well.

"No, Courtney, I'm not letting you!" Nigel shouted. He had apologized for shouting as soon as she had come in through the door, but now that Courtney was talking nonsense he had no choice but to raise his voice again.

"I'm not a child!" Courtney screamed back. "I'm old enough to make my own decisions, dad! You have no control over me anymore..."

"I'm your father and I'm saying NO!" Nigel was furious. Joining the Tracker's? It was absurd.

Courtney lowered her voice, shaking her head at her father. "Like I said, no control." She left the living room and went straight up to her bedroom to start packing. She had had enough of all the arguing. Being in Scarlatina had changed the relationship the father and daughter had, or maybe it was Courtney not trusting her father after all the lies he had told her through her life. She was seeing him as a different person now.

Nigel was worried. Courtney's mother had left to become a Tracker when she was sixteen, and the memory was too fresh in Nigel's mind to let his daughter go through the same thing. Her mother had left when she was eighteen to come back to Scarlatina. She had been shunned for a long time after that, and just before she turned twenty-one, three weeks after her daughter had been born, the Tracker's took their revenge; they killed her. Nigel did not want to sit by and let the same happen to the only person he loved in the world.

"SHE'S DOING WHAT!" Taylor screamed, jumping to feet in anger. She knew Courtney couldn't have been trusted.

"Going to the Tracker Academy," Duncan confirmed. The group were sitting around the fountain like they usually did. As soon as he'd walked Courtney home he'd sent a message to everyone to meet at the fountain. They'd all arrived in record time to hear to heart-breaking news. No one wanted to admit Taylor was right about Courtney all along.

"She can't," Trent said without thinking. He was in disbelief.

"It's Taylor's vision," Duncan replied. "She's going." He still wasn't angry with his girlfriend, if anything he was disappointed. Disappointed that Courtney could be blind sided by an urge. He could sense it in her that she wanted to go to the Tracker Academy because she was more curious than anything. The fact that it was in her blood to be curious about it didn't help much. Duncan had gone through the same thing with her mother.

"Please tell me she'll be rejected," Bridgette tried to sound hopeful. "She's not got enough Tracker blood or something." No one said a thing. No one wanted to admit that Courtney could walk straight through the doors and no one at the Academy would stop her.

Gwen turned to Geoff. "Can't you do something?"

"If Courtney wants to go then she can," Geoff stated. Being the level headed man he was, Geoff was taking Courtney's thoughts and feelings into consideration. This was still her life and her decision. He understood why she would want to be a Tracker, and Geoff didn't want to be the one who stood in her way.

"We're her friends," Bridgette moaned, resting her head on her boyfriends shoulder. "She can't want to kill us." It came out more of a question than a statement. Bridgette was too confused. She felt as if she had done something to push her best friend in the opposite direction. "I need to talk to her." The fairy got to her feet and started walking towards Courtney's house. Taylor followed quickly behind. She had some yelling to do.

Nigel opened the front door to his house and found himself facing two teenage girls. Without a word from any of them he walked over to the staircase and shouted up the stairs to his daughter. A muffled reply came back and Nigel sighed, turning to face Bridgette and Taylor.

"Try to talk some sense into her."

"That's why we're here," Taylor told him nervously.

Courtney was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at the three having a worried conversation. She wiped her eyes dry from the tears that had been falling for the past half hour and walked down the stairs to greet them, "Hey." Nigel took it as his opportunity to leave the three girls alone.

"Don't 'hey' us!" Taylor snapped, her eyes tinting red. They hadn't turned that color around Courtney since the time the two had hugged, but Taylor was really mad.

"Why are you doing this, Court?" Bridgette asked, tugging on Courtney's arm and pulling her into a hug.

"I want to go." Courtney pulled away from Bridgette, not able to look either of her friends in the eye.

"Why do you want to?" Taylor asked.

"It's my life, so just butt out!" Courtney snapped. Bridgette shook her. She thought she knew Courtney better than anyone else, the two had been best friends for eleven years. She must have been wrong.

"Fine," the blonde whispered, struggling to stop the ears from dripping down her face. "It looks like we're not friends anymore." Courtney looked at her best friend in shock. She hadn't been expecting Bridgette to be so harsh about her decision, but quickly collected herself.

"If that's the way it has to be." Taylor wasn't happy with that response.

"No! You're meant to say 'but I still want to be friends' and then we'll say 'then don't go' and then you'll say 'fine, I'll stay'."

"Well, if you don't want to be my friend then don't. I have lots of packing to do." Bridgette left the house without a goodbye. She was too angry and upset with Courtney to face her for another minute.

Taylor stayed, staring her cousin-in-law down. Courtney didn't have the energy to fight her. "You told me you didn't like hurting Duncan. Well, I've got news for you, Court, you're killing him right about now." Courtney was speechless. She shook her head once and retreated back upstairs. She didn't have anything to say to Taylor and Taylor didn't have anything more to say to her either. She left the house in peace.

"That went well," Nigel muttered, the sobs of his daughter echoing through the house.

Courtney had stopped packing and was lying face down on her bed, letting the tears fall freely. She didn't have an impulse to wipe them away anymore. She couldn't believe that she was now friendless. She hadn't been thinking straight when she told Taylor and Bridgette she didn't want to be friends anymore. Courtney hated to admit it, but Taylor was right, she should have told them she still wanted to be friends with them. She should have told them that she wanted to stay with them because she did. But, somehow, Courtney couldn't find the words. Now she was stuck going to the Tracker Academy and leaving this world behind her.

A/N: Ooooooh...Courtney, what are you doing?!
I do see the rational and irrational side to Courtney's reasoning, though so...

Did you like the chapter? Because...Guess what? THERE'S ONLY ONE MORE LEFT! Yup. Only 11 chapters in this story and this is number 10...wow. It's gone by so fast...

Why is this chapter two days late, you may ask? Because on Thursday I had one of my stories removed from the site. Yeah...Fanfiction took down Fitting Room Fun, a oneshot I'd written for The Mortal Instruments, because it may or may not have contained public gay buttsex...

But I'm back now and that's the main thing =P

Thank you to AHRedDeath, kamilamc and RangerManaInSnuggieWar. You guys RAWK!

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX