Three days later, Cahill was being wheeled out of the hospital and was
brought to a limo that was parked out front. She grasped the arm rests and
raised herself carefully not wanting to hurt herself more than she already
was. She stood and walked slowly to the door that was being held open by
the driver, she then climbed in and the door was shut behind her. Today she
was dressed much more modestly, wearing a pair of jeans with a red baby-
tee and a black hoodie sweatshirt over top. Her hair was pulled up in a
ponytail and her face was free of all make-up. Even in sneakers she still
towered above many of the people around her, naturally being 5'11. She was
suspicious when she saw the limo and her thoughts were confirmed when she
noticed that the driver was heading for the edge of town. They weren't
letting her go home, they were sending her straight to this boarding
school, 'Well damn there's goes plan A, well there's always plan B.'
She leaned back and relaxed, knowing it was going to be a long trip and it was, somewhere along the way she dozed off and was awoken as the limo came to a stop. She quickly opened the door and stepped out, before the driver had a chance to open the door for her. As she stepped out of the car she noticed that they had stopped for gas, she looked at the driver and saw he wasn't paying any attention to her so she went into the store and walked over to where the clerk was restocking some shelves. She tapped him on the shoulder and as he turned around she gave him a sweet smile, "Hi there, where's your payphone?"
He smiled and pointed to a hallway that was near the back of the store; she thanked him and made her way over to the phone. She pulled out her calling card and punched in all the information before dialing the number that she knew by heart. After four rings the answering machine picked up and she cursed quietly, while listening to the message, "Hey you've reached Hunter, leave me one."
"Hunter it's me, I just thought I'd let you know that the rents are sending me to some fruity psycho school out in the middle of Canada." She was about to go into details over the incident when she heard the door open and noticed that the driver had come in, "Look I gotta go but I'll call you when I get a chance." Quickly she hung up the phone and then grabbed a coke and a Twix bar and paid for them while the driver paid for the gas. On the way out Cahill studied him, he must have been a new one because she didn't recall ever meeting him before. Then she thought darkly that they must have trained him well since he hadn't said one word to her on the way up or bothered to even look at her for the most part. She didn't know what bothered her more but either way the guy was really starting to creep her out and that wasn't very easy to do considering where she was from.
She didn't bother waiting for him to open the door just climbed back in and then grunted because she'd ended up hurting herself by moving to quickly. She laid back and rested her head against the window, and then opened her coke and took a long swallow. 'Damn this is going to be a long ride, but there is no way they're keeping me there.' She finished eating and then contented herself with looking out the window and studying the landscape as they went by. When they pulled up she jumped out of the car and took a good look at her surroundings, that's when she realized that she was in the middle of Camp Timbuktu, in other words, the middle of nowhere. She glared at the trees and then the driver when he stepped up next to her, waiting for the guy who was walking towards her. It wasn't having any effect though because he was just ignoring her, as the guy got closer, Cahill let her Dagger mask fall into place. She looked him up and down and then went on to looking bored with everything around her, if there was one thing Cahill could do right it was make the people around her feel uncomfortable. She thought about what would be the best approach would be and then laughed, realizing it. Most kids probably come here all pissed off, which she was but she never let her true emotions show so she would just do the opposite and be sickeningly sweet.
As the man stopped in front of her she smiled brightly and held out her hand, "Why 'ello, you must be the owner of this fine establishment. My name's Cahill O'Hara, want to know a secret?" The man looked taken aback and mentally patted herself on the back, it was then that he decided to indulge her and nodded, so she leaned closer. "I think I'm going to be your patient for awhile." She had even used her English accent, which was actually natural seeing as how she grew up there before her father died and her mother moved to the states, but by now it was usually something she chose to repress and not use. Now, though, it might come in handy for her.
He nodded and took her head, "Yeah I guess you are, I'm Peter Scarbrow. You can call me Peter, all the students here do," He looked at the driver, mildly confused, but the driver said nothing just handed him an envelope and then moved towards the trunk to take out Cahill's bags. She followed him, curious as to what her parents packed, she was relieved to see a box, which probably held all of her photos and then she saw it. They'd packed her stick, they must be trying to get rid of her for good, she though cynically but then smiled and shrugged to herself and thought of all the things she tried to do to make them do that. Of course, none of it had worked; she wondered what had finally pushed her mother to get rid of her.
As she turned back to Peter, she noticed his raised eyebrow and the peculiar look on his face, "Guess ol' mum and da just couldn't make it huh? Bet they probably don't want anything to do with me, right. Ah well it's all for the best."
Peter tucked the letter away and smiled warmly at Cahill, she saw the friendliness in his eyes, but knew he was only doing his job. "Okay I'll go over the basic rules with you on the way to your physical and then your counselor will check your bags."
"That's all fine and dandy, but I didn't pack my bag, ducks, mum did. But I don't mind you checking them; you're just doing your job right?"
"Right."
"Well then we better get a move on," She turned towards the driver and walked over and took the majority of her stuff from him, Peter took the rest and within a minute he was back in his car and on his way back to Detroit. Cahill followed Peter towards the offices and put her stuff in one of the empty room and then followed him to the nurses' room. He left her alone with the nurse and the lady told her to change into a gown, so that her clothes could be searched, she did as she was told and the nurse searched her clothes quickly and efficiently before telling Cahill to step on the scale. Again she followed orders without a hassle and she was weighed out to be 125 pounds which for someone 5'11 was incredibly skinny. Cahill stepped off the scale and the nurse did all of the other preliminaries and asked her all of the basic questions. Then it was time for her to take her drug test, Cahill smiled knowing that nothing would show up because she hadn't done drugs since Rocky had gotten taken away.
As she dressed the nurse gave her report to Peter and Cahill stepped out of the office only to be confronted with both Peter and another woman who she didn't recognize but figured to be her counselor. She smiled and held her hand out for the woman to shake which she did immediately and then the pretty blonde smiled at her, "Hi, I'm Sophie, you must be Cahill. I'm your counselor, now I'm assuming Peter filled you in on the fact that I have to search your things."
Cahill smiled, "As a matter of fact, he did, so why don't we just get this over with." Then without waiting for either to respond she headed towards the room where her stuff had been left and once there hopped up on the table there. Sophie and Peter followed her in and Peter gave her a stern look, so she laughed and climbed down from the table.
"While Sophie checks your things, I'll tell you the basic rules. No drugs, no cursing and no inappropriate touching of any kind and that about covers all of the basics. Oh and you'll be rotated into kitchen duty, but the Cliffhangers had that last week so you won't have it for a couple of weeks. I'm assuming you understand all of this."
Cahill smiled tightly, "Perfectly." Sophie had finished checking her stuff so they all took a bag and Cahill carried her box and they headed up to the girls bunk area, once there Peter handed Sophie her bag.
"This is where I leave you. Group is tonight Cahill and I'll meet with you one on one on Thursday." Cahill nodded and he headed off, probably back towards his office. Sophie smiled warmly and led the way up the stairs and into the cabin, she put Cahill's stuff down on the only free bunk and turned around.
"You'll meet the group later, but right now you could settle in and unpack."
"Sure, I'll see you later Sophie." Sophie left Cahill alone to do her unpacking and she put all of her clothes away, glad her mother hadn't packed any of the horrid clothes that she had picked out. She shoved the bags under her bunk and opened the box up. She sat down on the bed and pulled out the hockey stick that had been in there and placed it behind the bed against the wall. It was one of the few things she had that had once belonged to her father and she cherished it more then anything else.
Then she leaned in and pulled out several framed photos and put them on the dresser next to the bed, one was of her dad and her in the middle of a pond. He was spinning her around and they were both laughing, one of the happiest moments in her life. Then another was of Hunter, her best friend, and the guy she always referred to as her brother, even though he wasn't. The only thing that was semi brother-like was her step-brother and she refused to call him by anything but his name which was Ray. She put that one up next and then the last was of her and Rocky; she smiled in memory of when the picture had been taken. It'd been at one of the points when she'd been living with her mother and going to school, it was the one moment that she'd acted like a real teen and gone to a school dance. She was wearing a deep blue long dress and her hair was tied up and she had dark blue flowers wrapped in it. Rocky was wearing a suit, the only time in his life he'd worn one and they were both glowing, it'd been one their happiest times together.
Next in the box was her many notebooks which were filled with her words, stories, poems or songs. She was suddenly sad she had broken her guitar, 'Maybe I'll by myself on later.' With that thought in mind she put all of them in her drawer and pulled out the last few things in the box and then shoved it under her bed. It was the letters Rocky had sent her while he was in jail; they'd continued on for months and then stopped abruptly. She never figured out why, but she just figured he'd stopped caring about her. Smiling she put them in her drawer with her notebooks and pulled out her headphones and slipped in one of her CD's which was Good Charlotte. She laid back on the bed and listened to the entire thing through, it was then that she realized she was late for group. She pulled the headphones off and walked towards the main building. As she walked in she searched for Sophie and spotted her in the back of the main room, by the fireplace. Walking over there one of the guys turned his head towards her and she stopped dead and uttered one word, "Rock?" With that she turned on her heel and ran out of there as fast as her feet would carry her, she ran until she was about thirty feet from the building and then ran right into Peter.
Looking up at his face, she saw the worry and quickly regained her composure, but knew he wasn't convinced and she cursed herself for letting that kid get to her. It couldn't be Rocky, he was doing hard time, he still had three years left, and it just couldn't be him. She then realized Peter had been talking to her, ".running out of there so quickly?"
"Uh I decided to go for a jog and since you weren't at group I figured I was early." She smiled and she could tell that he was debating over it, but then just decided to let it go and turned her back around.
"Well I'm going now, so I'll walk you. Now we're both late." He laughed and she joined, not really seeing what was funny but deciding to go along with him.
"Okay then, let's go." They walked back towards the group together and she refused to look in the direction where'd she seen the boy, it was just too weird. Instead she looked the teens over who were sitting across from him. As the got to the group, the kids stopped looking and took in the newbie.
Peter smiled at them all, "Group this is Cahill O'Hara, Cahill that's David, Auggie, Jules, Daisy, Ezra, Shelby, and Scott." Most of them waved some said hi and the over excited Jules waved and welcomed her with a big smile. Cahill felt a little pity towards her, because it didn't seem like she had many friends here and then she felt the protectiveness swelling up in her. She fought it but knew it was useless; Jules was someone she'd look out for while she was here, when her eyes landed on Scott, she didn't let her reaction visibly show. But her heartbeat quickened and she got butterflies in her stomach.
It was always the reaction she got when she saw Rocky but she quickly shifted her gaze from his face and let it fall on the girl next to him, Barbie Jr. She looked vaguely familiar and Cahill wondered if she'd ever been on the streets, as she took in the definite attitude that shined in her eyes, the answer pointed towards yes. Cahill wondered if Barbie recognized her, then she quickly turned and took on of the empty seats that was next to Jules. Jules seemed to beam with happiness at the prospect of a new friend and Cahill decided it wouldn't be too bad for her if she got a new friend too.
Group went by relatively fast and Cahill participated, but didn't really share what she was thinking, as it ended most of them stayed in the lodge to relax, but Cahill stood and headed out the front door and sat on the stairs, staring at the sky. She sighed, all during group she could barely keep her eyes off the Scott kid and she realized he did look a lot like Rocky but didn't have the same build. She knew it couldn't be Rocky though because he'd told her his real name and it definitely wasn't Scott. So she'd just have to deal and stop seeing her ex in every guy she saw, of course, they could pass as brothers but that was it. 'God Cahill get a grip, you don't date anymore, remember? Besides he's Barbie's Ken.'
She leaned back and relaxed, knowing it was going to be a long trip and it was, somewhere along the way she dozed off and was awoken as the limo came to a stop. She quickly opened the door and stepped out, before the driver had a chance to open the door for her. As she stepped out of the car she noticed that they had stopped for gas, she looked at the driver and saw he wasn't paying any attention to her so she went into the store and walked over to where the clerk was restocking some shelves. She tapped him on the shoulder and as he turned around she gave him a sweet smile, "Hi there, where's your payphone?"
He smiled and pointed to a hallway that was near the back of the store; she thanked him and made her way over to the phone. She pulled out her calling card and punched in all the information before dialing the number that she knew by heart. After four rings the answering machine picked up and she cursed quietly, while listening to the message, "Hey you've reached Hunter, leave me one."
"Hunter it's me, I just thought I'd let you know that the rents are sending me to some fruity psycho school out in the middle of Canada." She was about to go into details over the incident when she heard the door open and noticed that the driver had come in, "Look I gotta go but I'll call you when I get a chance." Quickly she hung up the phone and then grabbed a coke and a Twix bar and paid for them while the driver paid for the gas. On the way out Cahill studied him, he must have been a new one because she didn't recall ever meeting him before. Then she thought darkly that they must have trained him well since he hadn't said one word to her on the way up or bothered to even look at her for the most part. She didn't know what bothered her more but either way the guy was really starting to creep her out and that wasn't very easy to do considering where she was from.
She didn't bother waiting for him to open the door just climbed back in and then grunted because she'd ended up hurting herself by moving to quickly. She laid back and rested her head against the window, and then opened her coke and took a long swallow. 'Damn this is going to be a long ride, but there is no way they're keeping me there.' She finished eating and then contented herself with looking out the window and studying the landscape as they went by. When they pulled up she jumped out of the car and took a good look at her surroundings, that's when she realized that she was in the middle of Camp Timbuktu, in other words, the middle of nowhere. She glared at the trees and then the driver when he stepped up next to her, waiting for the guy who was walking towards her. It wasn't having any effect though because he was just ignoring her, as the guy got closer, Cahill let her Dagger mask fall into place. She looked him up and down and then went on to looking bored with everything around her, if there was one thing Cahill could do right it was make the people around her feel uncomfortable. She thought about what would be the best approach would be and then laughed, realizing it. Most kids probably come here all pissed off, which she was but she never let her true emotions show so she would just do the opposite and be sickeningly sweet.
As the man stopped in front of her she smiled brightly and held out her hand, "Why 'ello, you must be the owner of this fine establishment. My name's Cahill O'Hara, want to know a secret?" The man looked taken aback and mentally patted herself on the back, it was then that he decided to indulge her and nodded, so she leaned closer. "I think I'm going to be your patient for awhile." She had even used her English accent, which was actually natural seeing as how she grew up there before her father died and her mother moved to the states, but by now it was usually something she chose to repress and not use. Now, though, it might come in handy for her.
He nodded and took her head, "Yeah I guess you are, I'm Peter Scarbrow. You can call me Peter, all the students here do," He looked at the driver, mildly confused, but the driver said nothing just handed him an envelope and then moved towards the trunk to take out Cahill's bags. She followed him, curious as to what her parents packed, she was relieved to see a box, which probably held all of her photos and then she saw it. They'd packed her stick, they must be trying to get rid of her for good, she though cynically but then smiled and shrugged to herself and thought of all the things she tried to do to make them do that. Of course, none of it had worked; she wondered what had finally pushed her mother to get rid of her.
As she turned back to Peter, she noticed his raised eyebrow and the peculiar look on his face, "Guess ol' mum and da just couldn't make it huh? Bet they probably don't want anything to do with me, right. Ah well it's all for the best."
Peter tucked the letter away and smiled warmly at Cahill, she saw the friendliness in his eyes, but knew he was only doing his job. "Okay I'll go over the basic rules with you on the way to your physical and then your counselor will check your bags."
"That's all fine and dandy, but I didn't pack my bag, ducks, mum did. But I don't mind you checking them; you're just doing your job right?"
"Right."
"Well then we better get a move on," She turned towards the driver and walked over and took the majority of her stuff from him, Peter took the rest and within a minute he was back in his car and on his way back to Detroit. Cahill followed Peter towards the offices and put her stuff in one of the empty room and then followed him to the nurses' room. He left her alone with the nurse and the lady told her to change into a gown, so that her clothes could be searched, she did as she was told and the nurse searched her clothes quickly and efficiently before telling Cahill to step on the scale. Again she followed orders without a hassle and she was weighed out to be 125 pounds which for someone 5'11 was incredibly skinny. Cahill stepped off the scale and the nurse did all of the other preliminaries and asked her all of the basic questions. Then it was time for her to take her drug test, Cahill smiled knowing that nothing would show up because she hadn't done drugs since Rocky had gotten taken away.
As she dressed the nurse gave her report to Peter and Cahill stepped out of the office only to be confronted with both Peter and another woman who she didn't recognize but figured to be her counselor. She smiled and held her hand out for the woman to shake which she did immediately and then the pretty blonde smiled at her, "Hi, I'm Sophie, you must be Cahill. I'm your counselor, now I'm assuming Peter filled you in on the fact that I have to search your things."
Cahill smiled, "As a matter of fact, he did, so why don't we just get this over with." Then without waiting for either to respond she headed towards the room where her stuff had been left and once there hopped up on the table there. Sophie and Peter followed her in and Peter gave her a stern look, so she laughed and climbed down from the table.
"While Sophie checks your things, I'll tell you the basic rules. No drugs, no cursing and no inappropriate touching of any kind and that about covers all of the basics. Oh and you'll be rotated into kitchen duty, but the Cliffhangers had that last week so you won't have it for a couple of weeks. I'm assuming you understand all of this."
Cahill smiled tightly, "Perfectly." Sophie had finished checking her stuff so they all took a bag and Cahill carried her box and they headed up to the girls bunk area, once there Peter handed Sophie her bag.
"This is where I leave you. Group is tonight Cahill and I'll meet with you one on one on Thursday." Cahill nodded and he headed off, probably back towards his office. Sophie smiled warmly and led the way up the stairs and into the cabin, she put Cahill's stuff down on the only free bunk and turned around.
"You'll meet the group later, but right now you could settle in and unpack."
"Sure, I'll see you later Sophie." Sophie left Cahill alone to do her unpacking and she put all of her clothes away, glad her mother hadn't packed any of the horrid clothes that she had picked out. She shoved the bags under her bunk and opened the box up. She sat down on the bed and pulled out the hockey stick that had been in there and placed it behind the bed against the wall. It was one of the few things she had that had once belonged to her father and she cherished it more then anything else.
Then she leaned in and pulled out several framed photos and put them on the dresser next to the bed, one was of her dad and her in the middle of a pond. He was spinning her around and they were both laughing, one of the happiest moments in her life. Then another was of Hunter, her best friend, and the guy she always referred to as her brother, even though he wasn't. The only thing that was semi brother-like was her step-brother and she refused to call him by anything but his name which was Ray. She put that one up next and then the last was of her and Rocky; she smiled in memory of when the picture had been taken. It'd been at one of the points when she'd been living with her mother and going to school, it was the one moment that she'd acted like a real teen and gone to a school dance. She was wearing a deep blue long dress and her hair was tied up and she had dark blue flowers wrapped in it. Rocky was wearing a suit, the only time in his life he'd worn one and they were both glowing, it'd been one their happiest times together.
Next in the box was her many notebooks which were filled with her words, stories, poems or songs. She was suddenly sad she had broken her guitar, 'Maybe I'll by myself on later.' With that thought in mind she put all of them in her drawer and pulled out the last few things in the box and then shoved it under her bed. It was the letters Rocky had sent her while he was in jail; they'd continued on for months and then stopped abruptly. She never figured out why, but she just figured he'd stopped caring about her. Smiling she put them in her drawer with her notebooks and pulled out her headphones and slipped in one of her CD's which was Good Charlotte. She laid back on the bed and listened to the entire thing through, it was then that she realized she was late for group. She pulled the headphones off and walked towards the main building. As she walked in she searched for Sophie and spotted her in the back of the main room, by the fireplace. Walking over there one of the guys turned his head towards her and she stopped dead and uttered one word, "Rock?" With that she turned on her heel and ran out of there as fast as her feet would carry her, she ran until she was about thirty feet from the building and then ran right into Peter.
Looking up at his face, she saw the worry and quickly regained her composure, but knew he wasn't convinced and she cursed herself for letting that kid get to her. It couldn't be Rocky, he was doing hard time, he still had three years left, and it just couldn't be him. She then realized Peter had been talking to her, ".running out of there so quickly?"
"Uh I decided to go for a jog and since you weren't at group I figured I was early." She smiled and she could tell that he was debating over it, but then just decided to let it go and turned her back around.
"Well I'm going now, so I'll walk you. Now we're both late." He laughed and she joined, not really seeing what was funny but deciding to go along with him.
"Okay then, let's go." They walked back towards the group together and she refused to look in the direction where'd she seen the boy, it was just too weird. Instead she looked the teens over who were sitting across from him. As the got to the group, the kids stopped looking and took in the newbie.
Peter smiled at them all, "Group this is Cahill O'Hara, Cahill that's David, Auggie, Jules, Daisy, Ezra, Shelby, and Scott." Most of them waved some said hi and the over excited Jules waved and welcomed her with a big smile. Cahill felt a little pity towards her, because it didn't seem like she had many friends here and then she felt the protectiveness swelling up in her. She fought it but knew it was useless; Jules was someone she'd look out for while she was here, when her eyes landed on Scott, she didn't let her reaction visibly show. But her heartbeat quickened and she got butterflies in her stomach.
It was always the reaction she got when she saw Rocky but she quickly shifted her gaze from his face and let it fall on the girl next to him, Barbie Jr. She looked vaguely familiar and Cahill wondered if she'd ever been on the streets, as she took in the definite attitude that shined in her eyes, the answer pointed towards yes. Cahill wondered if Barbie recognized her, then she quickly turned and took on of the empty seats that was next to Jules. Jules seemed to beam with happiness at the prospect of a new friend and Cahill decided it wouldn't be too bad for her if she got a new friend too.
Group went by relatively fast and Cahill participated, but didn't really share what she was thinking, as it ended most of them stayed in the lodge to relax, but Cahill stood and headed out the front door and sat on the stairs, staring at the sky. She sighed, all during group she could barely keep her eyes off the Scott kid and she realized he did look a lot like Rocky but didn't have the same build. She knew it couldn't be Rocky though because he'd told her his real name and it definitely wasn't Scott. So she'd just have to deal and stop seeing her ex in every guy she saw, of course, they could pass as brothers but that was it. 'God Cahill get a grip, you don't date anymore, remember? Besides he's Barbie's Ken.'