Chapter 10...
Shalimar sat there dumbfounded for almost fifteen minutes. The others were just as lost but were a little more worried about how Shalimar would take it. Ferals by nature were predators, protective and territorial. Adam had basically just challenged every single instinct nature had given her. He had invaded her territory stole her child and now in her mind it was time to hunt.
I lost her. He stole her from me and now I have lost her. I will never see her first step or hear her first word. I didn't get to dry her tears at her first day of kindergarten. I missed all her school activities, her prom, all they guys she brought home. She's getting married. She's going to have a baby of her own. Why would he do this? Why? It's not fair. It's not fair. A solitary tear slid down her cheek and she sniffled softly.
Lexa still sat next to Shalimar but didn't offer comfort as she was lost in her own pain. He's about to be legal and I missed it. Everything. Little league games, school, homework assignments. Learning to ride a bike. Scraping his knees. I missed it. I can't believe this. He's getting married. He's going to have a child. Why would Adam do this to us? Lexa stood up suddenly and walked up the stairs without a glance behind her.
Jesse watched the dark haired woman go knowing that if he went upstairs something breakable would just be thrown at his head. He had no clue why but whenever something went wrong Lexa always tended to blame him.
Brennan had watched out of the corner of his eye as Lexa had stalked up the stairs. He also noticed that Jesse had not gone immediately after her. Smart man. But alas he could not himself exert that kind of self control.
"Shalimar. Shal, baby. Are you okay." He asked softly as he bent down and rested his wait on the balls of his feet in front of her.
"I'm fine." The words were said so softly that he almost didn't catch them. Suddenly the blonde stood up and arched her back. "If you'll be so kind as to excuse me I have an interview tomorrow early in the morning and I need to be at my best for it. Good night." She walked up the stairs at a normal pace and fairly frightened the two men she had left behind. She had been acting normal. As if nothing was wrong. But something was wrong.
The two men exchanged a glance before getting extra blankets out of the closet and setting up some makeshifts beds for themselves down there on the living room floor. When Shal didn't show any emotion it was a bad sign. It meant she was holding it all in and that soon she would burst with it. Then as Brennan drifted off to sleep he remembered Shal's parting words. What interview?
The next morning the men woke up to find themselves all alone in the house. Both Shalimar and Lexa were gone and yet their Wafflehouse uniforms were still hanging on the rope outside drying. This was not good. And still Shalimar's parting phrase echoed in Brennan's mind. What interview?
Giving up on the thought for the moment he picked up the phone and called back the police department and set up an interview for the following day. Jesse took his hint and set his up for about twenty minutes later to make sure that they would have enough time playing round robin with the truck. Hopefully the girls wouldn't take it again without telling them. At least if they needed it they could drop the guys off at their interviews first.
Brennan's mind was plagued with what Shalimar had said for the entire time that he worked on the kitchen floor that morning. Finally when Jesse was attempting to make each of them a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches he glanced over at the computer and a thought occurred to him.
"Hey Jess. How do you pull up the last thing worked on this damn computer?"
Jesse's brow furrowed as he glanced up towards his friend sitting with his fingers dangerously close to the keyboard.
"Give me a second and I'll pull up the last few pages activated." He turned his attention to the sandwiches and flipped one over uttering a few curses as he flipped the rest. Damn. I burnt them again. Well it's not like he could make them any better. They'll be fine once we soak them in some vegetable soup anyways.
"Why do you want to know the last pages anyway?" he asked as he loaded the crispy sandwiches onto a plate and poured the soup on the stove into a couple of chipped bowls.
"Something Shal said last night about an interview and the way both she and Lexa disappeared this morning without a word struck some kind of chord in me I guess."
Jesse walked over and set his attempt at cooking down on the crate that served as a table and shoved Brennan out of the chair. "My computer."
His fingers flew at the keyboard for a few minutes in silence while Brennan tried to scrape the black crust off of his grilled cheese only to realize that once he got through the black he was at the cheese. It was charred all the way through. Whew. "Hey remind me not to let you cook when we are able to buy real meat."
Jesse's brow creased in a frown and he hit a final key. "Looks like the girls took our idea."
"What do you mean?" Brennan asked as he spat back out the spoonful of cold soup he had taken.
"Well the last two pages activated were job applications for the local high school. Their interviews were this morning at eight."
"Well then why the hell aren't they home right now? It's after one o'clock."
"Don't ask me. I don't know. I'm not telekinetic you know." Jesse said in exasperation. Shrugging he picked up one of the bowls of soup and drank half of the liquid down before he could register that he hadn't cooked it very well at all. In fact the soup was so cold he shivered as it slid down his throat.
"Well I'm not going to sit around here all day. I'm going for a jog." Brennan stormed upstairs and threw on some exercise clothes and grabbed a waterbottle from beside his bed before turning around and heading downstairs to go out the door.
Jesse watched his friend escape the house and shook his head as he threw the remainder of the food into the trash can beside him. He muttered as he stalked off into the kitchen. "Not like I needed any help with finishing the tile in the kitchen or anything Brennan. Enjoy your little jog."
Shalimar lounged on one of the chairs outside the principal's office while Lexa finished up her interview. God she is taking forever. Come on Lex, this isn't rocket science here. Just tell the man you like art. I am hungry. And that little jerk over there hasn't stopped staring at me since I got out of my interview. Ewww. Did he just lick his lips at me? Shalimar rolled her eyes at the boy indicating her disgust. I bet he isn't a day over 15. Shalimar sighed in relief as the door to the office opened and the principal Mr. Benson came out shaking Lexa's hand.
"Welcome to Lincoln High. Enjoy the rest of today. You both start tomorrow. First class is at 8:30am sharp but we will have a teachers' meeting to introduce you to the rest of the staff at 7:30am. Your day ends at 3:15pm for classes and then you have another two hours on the job either doing detention duty or preparing lesson plans or in your case Ms. Fox giving some of our students extra training so that we have a better chance at state this year. Got it? Good. See you both in the morning." The balding middle aged man sauntered back into his office after his little speech as if he was the king and this was his country.
Lexa wiped the fake smile off her face and started for the door along with Shalimar. "Can you believe how arrogant that pompous windbag is? He asked me to draw something for him before he would agree to give me the job even though he had my portfolio in his hands."
Shalimar laughed, she really hadn't had to do much to get her job. He couldn't seem to take his eyes away from her chest. Personally she figured he gave her the job because he would occasionally be able to walk in on her in the gym training the girls in what he supposed she would be wearing. He probably thinks it will be spandex.
The two women made their way through the maze of the school slowly trying to memorize as much as they could. Just as they were fixing to turn the corner Shalimar sniffed the air a bit.
Lexa turned, "What is it?"
"Fear."
"Okay. Like that isn't what every kid is feeling in here. Someone just has a test they didn't study for. Come on. Let's go."
Shalimar shook her head. "No, Lex. It's not that kind of fear. This is true fear." She pivoted on her heel and turned down a right hand corridor they had just passed and began to jog down the path and take so many turns that Lexa finally lost sight of her.
"Dammit."
Shalimar crept up on the door where the scent was coming from and saw it was the girl's bathroom. Carefully she pulled the door open and walked inside. There was no one readily in sight. She turned her attention to the stalls and when she did she saw a pair of sketchers standing on top of the toilet seat of the last stall.
"Hello? I know someone is in here. My name is Shalimar Fox. I'm the new girls' gym teacher. Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" She perched up on the dry section of the counter behind her.
"Why do you think something is wrong?" a voice quavered from the stall.
Shalimar took a breath, "Well it's the end of classes. Which means if I am not mistaken, that you should either be in study hall or out in the gym. But instead you are hiding here. In the first floor girl's bathroom. So I am going to go out on a limb and say you are supposed to be in gym, considering study hall is all on the second and third floors, and something happened and now you are in here."
"Look you can't help me. Just go away."
Shalimar bit back the response of 'fine' and then pretending to go out the door and then just wait. Biting her lip she thought for a minute. God, she sounds just like I did just before Adam found me. I didn't think anybody could help me. I didn't know there were others like me. I thought I was just a freak.
"STOP! STOP IT!" the girl screamed and sobbed at the same time
Shalimar wondered what the hell the girl was talking about and then remembered she had been tapping the countertop with her fingernails and figured that was it.
"Maybe if you told me what was wrong I could help. But if you are so certain I can't then how about we settle for a normal conversation."
"Okay." the girl replied hesitantly.
"My name is Shalimar. What's yours?"
"Cassandra. Cassandra DeVine. I'm a sophomore." she added as a second thought.
Shalimar decided to take an easy approach to the girl. She still smelled of fear. No where near as much as before but it was still there. "Are both your parents French or just one?" She smiled even though no one could see her. With that one question she had almost eliminated all of the girl's fear.
"Just one. My father...well I assume my father. He died before I was born and my mother just kept the name on my birth certificate even though they weren't married. My mother is Greek."
Shalimar smiled again, the girl's hand was on the handle of the door. There was only the smallest amount of fear left around her.
"So if you don't mind me asking. What exactly brought you in her Cassandra?"
The girl came out of the stall and hopped up on the counter next to Shalimar. Just as Shalimar had thought Cassandra belonged in gym. Her tee-shirt and shorts attested to that fact.
"I don't know really. Suddenly it all just became too much." Cassandra's brow furrowed a bit as she tried to sort out what she meant. "It was kinda like an overload. It's happened before but never this bad. Usually I can calm down enough that I can return to class within five minutes."
Shalimar nodded even though inside she wondered about the girl's answer. Cassandra wasn't lying peruse. But it wasn't the whole truth. She had been overloaded but not just with stress like she was trying to insinuate. Suddenly a violent knock at the door caused both females to jump off the counter guiltily.
"Miss DeVine if you are in there you better come out now or I will flunk you just because of the hassle you have caused me. Do you hear me!" An angry man's voice shouted through the door. "Fine then. I'm coming in and I am going to drag you to the principal's office! You are going to be expelled young lady!"
The door burst open as if he had kicked it open and in response to the fear she once again felt rolling off the girl Shalimar made a quick decision. Her heel caught him square in his middle as he stormed angrily into the bathroom.
"Ooof."
"I don't know if it penetrated your thick skull but this is a women's bathroom and teacher or not you are not allowed in here." Shalimar said calmly but firmly as she dragged him by his collar out of the bathroom and into the hall where students were standing about in curiosity considering the bell had just rung and they had heard all the shouting.
"The next time you feel like terrorizing a student with empty threats I would hope you would ask a female teacher to enter the bathroom for you because if I ever see you near the door to any girl's bathroom ever again I will personally make sure that you are fired. Do you understand me?"
"Who the hell do you think you are?" he roared at her.
Shalimar stood in front of him unaffected by his show of bravado. "I'm Shalimar Fox. The new gym teacher." A couple of female students in the crowd clapped and she figured those might be a few of her gymnasts. She watched the big dumb ox of a man until he disappeared from view and then she opened the door of the bathroom only to find Cassandra gone. Dammit. I guess I'll just have to see her in class tomorrow.
Lexa turned the corner and saw all the students just milling around and wanted to laugh. Teens. "Hey! Either move on to wherever you need to be or receive a weeks worth of detentions." she called out in the most authoritative voice she could muster. Within twenty seconds the hallway was clear and she turned to her blonde friend.
"So. Did you find the source of all the fear?"
"Yea." Shalimar started to walk back out of the maze of hallways to the parking lot.
"And?"
"I'm not sure."
Lexa opened the door to the beat-up truck and raised an eyebrow at her friend. "What do you mean you aren't sure?"
Shalimar sighed as she started the ignition. "She was definitely afraid and it wasn't normal school stuff. She doesn't trust easily either. I had just got her to come out of the stall when that dumb ox came and pounded on the door like he was a member of the inquisition. She has my gym class though. I'll see if she will talk to me tomorrow."
"Okay. So...what do you think? Shopping. Or taking the truck back to the boys?" Lexa asked as she fastened her seatbelt.
"We're gonna take the truck back. They are probably wondering where we got to anyways." Shalimar said with a slight smile as she shifted the truck into reverse and pulled out of the parking space. "Hell they are probably crying right now considering they had to eat their own cooking for lunch." They laughed as they drove down the road back towards their project house.
Brennan hung his head as he started down the final leg of his jog which was the mile long driveway to the house. Damn I'm tired. What the hell is that? Off in the distance to the side of the house he could see a smudge of color. As he got nearer the smudge gave way to an outline that he recognized and he put on a burst of speed. They're back.
Jesse looked up from where he had just laid the last tile in the kitchen to the door that had just opened. In strolled Lexa and Shalimar like they didn't have a care in the world.
"So where've you two been all day?" he asked glancing at the clock that read 4 pm.
"Oh we had interviews this morning." Lexa said not taking her eyes off of his while Shalimar started towards the newly painted white fridge. "Why did you need the truck."
Jesse grabbed onto Shalimar's leg as she tried to pass him. "No way, girl. Fresh tile. Needs at least twelve hours to set. Twenty four is best but I can't expect that to actually happen but twelve will unless you want the floor to revert to what it looked like before."
Shalimar gave the blonde man a glare and stomped off in the direction of the stairs. Jesse turned his attention back to his counterpart.
"No, we didn't need the truck today but we do need it tomorrow. We have interviews at nine and nine thirty in the morning. So we'll be needing the truck tomorrow."
"Well then you are going to have to drop me and Shal off at Lincoln High at about 7:15 in the morning then and pick us back up somewhere around 5pm alright? Because we have to go to work." Lexa told him as she unbuttoned her jacket and draped it on the bottom of the banister.
"So what are we doing for dinner?"
"We?" Lexa asked her eyebrows up high in surprise. "What do you mean we? You are the one that closed off the kitchen. And isn't it your night to cook anyways?"
Jesse hung his head and laughed before meeting her eyes. "Trust me you don't want me to cook dinner. Doing the kitchen floor today was to the benefit of everyone. Why don't we just eat at WaffleHouse tonight? I mean you and Shal still have to work there until you put in your two weeks notice you know."
Lexa turned to look at him sharply. "Oh we forgot to tell you. We were both fired yesterday. We'll just have to find some other place to eat tonight." She turned and walked up the stairs peeling out of her clothing as she went.
Brennan bust in the door just as Jesse picked himself up off the floor to follow the dark haired woman upstairs and thoroughly question her about this whole being fired issue.
"Where are they?"
"Upstairs." Jesse replied before he pulled his shirt up to cover his nose. "Dude, go take a shower before you confront her. You reek. How far did you run on that little jog of yours?"
Brennan took the stairs two steps at a time while pulling his sweat soaked shirt over his head. "Just twenty miles. Nice job on the kitchen floor by the way."
Jesse nodded to himself. I did do a good job didn't I. If anyone steps on it to mess it up within the next twelve to twenty-four hours I myself will personally kill them with my bare hands. Nodding to himself to prove his point he went upstairs to confront Lexa and persuade her to help him think of a place to go out to eat that didn't require a lot of money.
A few hours later the four found themselves ordering dinner at the local mom and pop restaurant. Brennan was still trying to not blow up at Shal for her not telling him beforehand that she and Lexa had somewhere to be so he kept pretty silent mainly watching the other customers in the joint as he ate his chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes.
Jesse and Lexa were arguing over whether or not they should go ahead and renovate all the rooms or just the ones they were living in and if they wanted to complete the add-on rooms that had apparently been started a few years before by someone on the back of the house.
Shalimar just listened to the two of them argue while she ate her steak and eggs and then finally spoke up when they seemed to have reached a stalemate.
"Look. I think we should go ahead and renovate all the rooms and then go ahead and finish the add-ons. I also think that we need to expand the basement. Make it larger, put rooms in it. Make it useful. We don't have Adam anymore so we don't have his contacts but we can still help new mutants. And if they need a place to stay and get on their feet or to train so they can control their powers then we need to have the facilities to help them. Sanctuary's gone we can't fix that. But we can build a new one. An Eden for new mutants." She stopped and looked at all three of her friends dead on, "You know I'm right."
At their nods she went back to devouring her food but all the time her own words echoed back in her mind along with one other thought. Cassandra. She couldn't help but feel that before too long that girl was going to be living with them. There was something about her. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on.
She continued the meal in silence lost in her thoughts even after they paid and went home. Rolling over in the dark she set the alarm on the night stand for 5:30am before snuggling up to Brennan. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
Author's Note:
As I have said in all my other stories that I have updated this past week. I am sorry I took so long but I am having a bit of difficulty of keeping up my imagination for all my stories and yet keeping them along my plot line.
And then I had to deal with the annoyance of someone asking me if my story was up for adoption and then before I could say "no, my stories are never up for adoption" that person took my story and then placed it on their own webpage with their name as the author. Needless to say they got a very blistering email and I had the site their page was attached to shut their page down. They are also blocked from after I alerted the managers.
So here is a lesson for everyone to learn. Never are my stories up for adoption. And if I ever find another of my stories stolen you better hope you aren't the one who took it otherwise you are in for a hell of a ride. I am quite vengeful in that way.
Anyways hope you all enjoyed the chapter. I meant to flush it out a bit more but I figure that this way no one will get bugged down in all the details and forget the important parts.
So can anyone figure out what is so different about Cassandra?