Saturday 3rd October 2020
Detentions at the academy were the worst. Of course, there were the obvious reasons that detentions sucked like sitting in silence bored, and missing out on hanging out with friends. But at the academy all detentions were held on Saturdays, making them even more tedious and gruelling to attend.
As many students as possible were crammed into a classroom, with extras being put into other rooms. Quinn knew that he had been lucky when it came to this – there were only seven students in this room, meaning at least it didn't get as stuffy as the more packed rooms most likely did.
Each of the students were sat at a table to themselves with homework in front of them that they were supposed to be doing. Quinn's homework was for Biology and considering he hadn't spoken to Eve all week, it was obvious he wouldn't be getting help from her anytime soon. The only chance he had at completing this work was to go to the library and check out some books, but he wasn't even allowed to leave detention for that which he thought was ridiculous.
Quinn was sat at the back of the classroom, giving him a clear view of the others in the room: Gracie Benedict, Raven Fox, some guy from his year that he didn't know the name of, a year seven girl, and two year ten boys.
A teacher should have been in the room with them making sure they stayed quiet and did their work, but for the time being they were unsupervised. Simon, a Power Construction teacher, had been in here with them but had just been called out for an emergency with a kid from his form class.
Gracie, who was sat at the table in front of Quinn, turned around in her seat and flashed him a grin. "Heard you got into an argument with Eve and walked out of your class."
Quinn shrugged, feeling uncomfortable having to talk about this. "What are you in here for?"
"I got angry at my Savant History teacher and lost control of my power. She kind of went flying against the wall and ended up with a bad concussion." Quinn gave her a shocked look. Sure, people lost control of their powers all the time here, but he'd rarely heard tales of a student injuring a teacher in the process. "I know what you're thinking," Gracie continued, rolling her eyes. "But I wasn't really the one to blame. We're doing a unit on crime at the moment, and she was talking about a family that did a lot of bad things a while back – the Hawk family. My aunt was a Hawk before she married my uncle, and I said that, and I said that not all Hawks were bad. In fact, it was the ringleader Oliver that did everything, really. I met him, I saw him kill my- Never mind," she shook her head, flushing slightly. "Ms. Dales didn't listen to me though. She just kept saying that all the Hawks were evil, and my aunt doesn't deserve that so…" She trailed off, shrugging like it was no big deal.
Quinn replied, "That's awful Gracie, but you shouldn't have let yourself get that angry."
"Ugh, not you too! Believe me, I've already had a lecture from Killian. He's disappointed I lost control after all the work I've been doing to stop losing my cool. He says I'm lucky they only gave me a detention and didn't expel me, but whatever.
"So, you and Eve, huh? She seems pretty pissed at you. What's that about?"
"It's about Quinn being a dickhead," Raven answered from the other side of the classroom. "That's all you need to know."
Quinn glared over at Raven. He'd liked Raven, he really had. She'd been his friend and he'd wanted her to like him, hoped she might put in a good word for him to Eve. Even after she'd slapped him, he hadn't hated her. Now though, now that he'd seen the rest of that awful vision, he couldn't stand her. One day she would kill Eve if he didn't figure out how to stop her – she was vile.
He wanted to curse her, wanted to tell her to stay out of it. This was between him and Eve, Raven needed to let her sister deal with her problems on her own without Raven stood next to her telling her what to do. He was about to say all this too, until one of the year ten boys swore loudly.
They all looked towards the front of the classroom where the boy was gawping at, and saw the year seven girl stood in front of Simon's desk, facing them all. She looked so young, her clothes too big on her small body and her brunette hair tied in two plaits. She had a focused look on her face as she held a sharp knife against her throat.
Quinn's first thought was: where the hell did she get the knife from? His second thought was: what the hell was going on?
Gracie slowly stood up from her chair, holding her hands out as if the girl were an animal she was trying not to frighten. "Rosa, what are you doing? Put the knife down, sweetheart, you don't really want to hurt yourself, do you?" She spoke in a tentative, shaky voice. Quinn didn't blame her for being scared; he had frozen the moment he'd seen Rosa stood there like that.
"Yes, I do," Rosa replied in a sweet voice. She was smiling slightly and seemed totally calm and at ease. "She told me that this is what he wants me to do, and all I want is to make him happy."
Quinn's mind briefly went back to his vision, to Eve saying "Don't let him make you do this", and Raven saying, "He'll be thankful that I did this". Were they talking about the same guy as Rosa was? It was a long shot, but possible.
Rosa's arm jerked, the knife slicing across her throat. Blood spilled down the front of her white t-shirt. Gracie screamed and suddenly all six of them were rushing towards Rosa in a panic.
Quinn couldn't believe this had happened. He couldn't wrap his head around why it had happened. It was such a disturbing sight, all that blood over such a little girl and the thought that she had done that to herself.
Raven dropped to the ground next to Rosa, pulling the younger girl into her lap and squeezing a hand around her neck, covering the wound. At first Quinn thought that she was simply trying to stop the blood flow, but then the veins in Raven's hand turned black and it looked like they were moving. Her head was down, eyes closed; Rosa's eyes were wide open and she looked surprised at the turn of events more than anything else. Raven's body started shaking and she let out a low moan.
The guy Quinn's age knelt next to Raven, putting a hand on her back. "This is too hard for you, you're not strong enough. Stop," he said, sounding desperate.
"No," Raven replied through clenched teeth. "Back off, Micah."
Micah didn't move, but didn't say anything else either.
A couple minutes later, Raven's hand slipped away from Rosa's neck. Quinn's eyes widened when he noticed that the wound was completely gone, not even a scar remaining. Rosa's eyes were closed now, but her chest was still rising and falling so she just must have been unconscious. Quinn remembered that Raven's power was the ability to heal, and wasn't it just frightening to watch.
Raven was clearly exhausted. She slumped back against Micah's chest, breathing heavily, her body still shaking a little. Micah wrapped his arms around her and held her. It looked intimate and Quinn wondered how he'd never seen the two of them around school together before. Evidently they were close, but he'd never even heard Raven mention anyone called Micah. Was he the guy that drove Raven crazy enough to hurt Eve?
Raven's eyes fluttered closed and didn't open again. Quinn didn't hope she'd die or anything like that, but he was sort of glad that she was in pain and he hoped she suffered. It was some kind of karma for what she was going to do to Eve in the future.
The classroom door creaked open then and Simon walked back in. He stopped after two steps, looking flabbergasted at the sight in front of him. All he said was, "what happened?!"
The library was the most perfect place in the school, in Eve's opinion. It was full of books for starters, the librarian was lovely, there were plenty of secluded areas you could hide yourself away in, and it was almost silent it was that quiet. It was her favourite place to go in her spare time.
That evening, she was looking for a corner to curl up in with her new book, preferring to read here rather than in her bedroom where Leigh could break the silence and disturb her. There was a spot on the second level that she seemed to always go to, so that was where she was headed. She turned the corner and stopped, annoyed to see that someone else was already sat at the two-seater sofa.
It took her a moment to realise that it was Quinn sat there. He had a notebook on his lap, and a textbook open beside him, but he wasn't doing any work. He was… Crying. Quinn was crying. Tears soaked his cheeks and he was sniffling and wiping his eyes whilst trying to read something from the textbook.
Just turn around and walk away, a voice in the back of Eve's mind said. He hasn't seen you yet, so he'll never know. You know that you never know what to do when someone cries in front of you. Besides, why should you stick around after the way he's treated you?
She hesitated. The voice was right, of course. But the nice side of her was warring with it, telling it that it would be impolite to just walk away. Maybe Quinn would prefer to be left alone though? What guy came to the library, hid himself away, and wanted people to find him crying? And the voice was right, she never knew what to do when someone cried in front of her. When she lived at home and one of her siblings were crying, she'd often just walk out of the room because she felt that awkward about not knowing what to do or say. She really should just walk away now and forget that she ever saw Quinn here.
Just her luck though, Quinn looked up at that moment and saw her there. His eyes were red and puffy and when he recognised her his cheeks blushed (that was odd considering it was always her doing the blushing when they were together), making him look slightly embarrassed.
Well, it was too late to walk away now.
As she walked towards him, Quinn moved the textbook so that she could sit next to him comfortably. Eve spent longer than necessary taking her bag and coat off and placing them neatly on the ground in front of her just to drag this out, before she finally started a conversation.
"So… You're crying." Yeah, well done pointing out the obvious, you idiot.
Quinn forced a smile. "Ha. Yeah. I am."
"Why?" This felt like the only way to answer him and she didn't even sound sympathetic at all. He probably thought she was a bitch or something.
Quinn met her eyes and shook his head once. "Everything's just really getting to me. My visions are driving me crazy, I fucked up my friendship with you and said things that I didn't even mean, I saw a girl try to kill herself this morning, and now this." He gestured towards the books he had. "Biology homework without your help? It's impossible. Totally turning me into a stress-head."
"That's enough to make you cry?" She raised her eyebrows, genuinely surprised. He always seemed much tougher than that.
"I'm an emotional guy, Evie," he said, finally giving her a real smile. His tears had stopped by now. "I just don't let people see that."
"You sound like a cliché guy from the kinds of books I read," she smirked. She realised now that she was trying to make him laugh, to get him to stop crying – not just because him crying made her feel awkward, but because she didn't like the sight of him teary eyed. It made her sad. "Let me guess, you're very misunderstood and wish people didn't treat you like a mystery?"
"Honestly, I'd like that. Here, at this school, nobody's a mystery. Everyone's business is well known."
"That's true," she acknowledged. "Just like I know about Rosa Benitez. Raven's fine now, tucked up in bed fast asleep. She's not really strong at healing yet, she never had a good teacher for it until we came here, so it took a lot out of her saving Rosa's life. I heard they're calling a phycologist in to talk to Rosa. Raven thinks they should call the police too – she thinks all these suicides are linked. I mean, she might be right. It is a bit abnormal. I think the school just doesn't know how to act right now, you know?"
Quinn nodded, looking like he was deep in his own thoughts. "I'm just glad Rosa's okay. I can't even describe how appalling it was to see that."
"I can imagine," Eve said quietly, wondering if she would have ever been able to get over seeing someone try and commit suicide.
Just then, Quinn pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was vibrating and the screen said 'mum calling'; Quinn rejected the call and put his phone away again.
Eve frowned. "You know, you should have answered that. She was probably just wanting to check in with you, make sure you're okay. If I had a mother that cared enough to do that, I'd always pick up the phone."
Quinn returned the frown, looking at her intently. Eve felt her cheeks heating up as she got his full attention, still not used to having somebody that attractive look at her like that. Or anyone, for that matter. "What do you mean by that? Your mum doesn't phone you a lot?"
"Never," Eve admitted, gulping. "It's Raven that's she stayed in touch with."
"Why would she call Raven but not you?"
She wanted to open up to him. She wanted to forget about their fight and just tell him, just have a friend that knew about her family life. So she pushed away the voice that told her not to tell him, and she told him. She spoke clearly, unashamed, and looked into his eyes the whole time. She was brave for once, she thought.
"What you might not know yet is that there are mixed feelings all over the world about the seventh child in a savant family. The seventh child typically ends up the most powerful, or has the most powers out of all their siblings. Some people believe they're good luck to the family, some believe that they're a curse.
"My mum always wanted six children, because six was her lucky number. So she was devastated when in her sixth pregnancy she was told that she was having twins. I was born about ten minutes or so after Raven, and mum hated me from that very moment. She's a brilliant mum… Just not to me.
"Dad found his soulfinder and moved to America with her a month after we were born. The last we heard of him was two years ago when he told us that his wife had had a baby girl called Alice. Mum always says that it's my fault he left because I cursed the family.
"Then when Lavender, my sister… Something happened to her and mum blamed me. The whole family did, really. I blamed myself too. But my mum took it way too far, threatened to kick me out and everything. She only let me stay there because apparently my dad said that if she did that she wouldn't get any maintenance money for me. She'd never turn down money, my mum.
"All my life, she's always made sure that I knew I was the unwanted child and that I still am. I used to try everything to get her approval, but I've just given up and accepted it now."
Quinn looked disgusted. "That's atrocious! What kind of mother believes her own daughter is a curse and doesn't love her?! I'm so sorry Eve, it must have been horrible when you were younger."
"Yes and no. I'd get really upset about her, but my siblings always took care of me. My sister Oceana especially. It's not like I grew up without love." Eve shrugged and gave Quinn a smile. "I don't talk about this with anyone. I don't even really talk about it with my family, it's just a normal thing to us all now."
"I just can't imagine not ever being close with my parents. I'm glad you told me, I feel like I don't really know that much about you. I want to though." He sighed, reaching out and putting a hand on top of hers. "I am so sorry about what I've said, Eve. I didn't mean it. I do want to be your soulfinder, I'm so happy that I am, and it is definitely not easy to stay out of your life. Can we hang out tomorrow, do you think? Can I have another chance? Please?"
He looked so desperate as he pleaded for a friendship with her and the look reminded her of a cute puppy begging for forgiveness. She still felt angry about what he said, but she knew that from the moment she joined him on the sofa, she had forgiven him. He was clearly stressed out about a lot right now, and he did looking genuinely sorry about all he'd said and done. Honestly, Eve was sick and tired of being angry at him. It was tiring, if she was being honest.
So she flipped her hand over so that she could squeeze his, and gave him a cracking smile. "Sure, tomorrow. We'll get your Biology homework done, can't have you crying over it again, can we?"
In the next chapter: Raven is suspicious about Polly, and Eve receives a gift in the post.
