Chapter One
My alarm went off and I groaned as I opened my eyes. Today I had to start school for the very first time, but on the brighter side it wouldn't be as rigorous as it would be with Leland. Every time that I would get a question wrong, I would have to do thirty push ups, fifty curl ups, and as many pull ups as I could do until my arms cramped and gave out. I learned quickly under that tutelage, but I was looking forward to the laid back attitude that the school systems were supposed to be known for. I made my way to the kitchen and made myself some coffee. I added a lot of cream, specifically half and half to it, and sugar to it. I couldn't take the taste of regular black coffee. My phone started to vibrate and I pulled it out, it was a Samsung Galaxy SIII. I answered it and at first there was no reply. "Hello? Anyone there?" I asked.
"Beau? Good, I wasn't sure if this was the right number or not." A voice answered me.
"Who is this?" I asked.
"I work for your adoptive father." The voice replied.
"That helps, a lot of people do." I said with a sigh.
"Well anyway, Silas wanted me to inform you that your schedule starts off with Ecology and Conservation first hour, then CIS Pre-Calculus, German Four, Advanced Placement Biology, a seminar class fifth hour, and something on British literature sixth hour."
"Don't schools typically have seven hours?" I asked.
"Silas got you a Senior release your seventh hour so you can go back to the house and train," the voice replied. "he wants you to keep a log of what you do and how many reps you do it."
I sighed, there went my plans for long rides with my motorcycle. "Very well, I'll keep him informed with my logs, are they online or something?"
"Yes and no."
"That's helpful."
"You log what you do online, but you print it off and you'll hand the log off to someone at the end of every week when they come to get it from you."
"He won't come and get it?"
"Your father is very busy."
"Adoptive father," I emphasized. "My father was killed when I was eight."
There was a silence at the other end of the line and I looked at the time. I still had plenty of it. "I didn't know that, I'm sorry." The voice said.
"Eh, whatever, I need to go," I said. "I have school that I need to get ready for."
"Sorry to keep you."
The line went dead and I set my phone down and sipped at my mildly warm coffee. I shook my head going over my latest conversation with my adoptive father's grunts and added it to the pile of growing weirdness. I finished my coffee and placed the empty cup in the sink. I headed towards the bathroom and stopped. Before I showered, I needed to get clean clothes. I went back to my room and got a pair of jeans, a red T-shirt, a clean pair of boxers, and socks. I now headed towards the bathroom knowing that I didn't need anything else and closed the door out of habit. I stripped and turned on the shower. I waited for the water to warm up a little bit before I got in. I showered quickly and shut the shower off. I dried off and shaved with an electric razor and kept my goatee.
My once light, blonde, hair had now turned into black hair. My black goatee was neatly trimmed and I was in good shape. I put on my clean clothes and exited the bathroom. I threw my dirty clothes in a bin for dirty clothes and went back to my room. I applied deodorant and found my parents' dog tags. I put them on and went to the garage. My motorcycle was in there and I smiled at it. I had no idea where Silas got the money and how he got the motorcycle here, but I was impressed with it. It was a new 2013 Ducati 1199 Panigale R. It had 195-horse power from an 1198cc V-twin four-stroke Superquadro engine. This was one out of 250 that made it to the US, and I was the proud owner of it. I put on my leather jacket and black full faced helmet and opened the garage door. I mounted my bike and started it up. I grinned as I heard the motor purr. I backed out of the garage and once I was clear, I used the automatic door closer mounted on my bike to close the door. I backed up into the street and made my way to the school. I downshifted into first gear as I approached a stoplight. A car painted with flames stopped next to me, but I didn't pay attention to them trying to get my attention. I knew what they wanted, they wanted to race. I didn't want to, but I felt like I couldn't resist the urge. The light turned green and I pinned the throttle. I squeezed in the clutch and shifted up to match my engine speed to the road speed. I got into fifth gear and eighty mph before I started downshifting. I pulled into a parking space at the school and shut the engine off. I put the kickstand down and dismounted the bike.
Thirty seconds later, the car with the flames painted on it parked next to my parking space and a ginger with unkempt hair stepped out. I smirked behind my helmet when I saw his jacket also had flames on it. "I've never seen you before, you new here?" the kid asked.
I only nodded.
"I'm Vince." The kid said holding out his right hand. I extended mine and shook it. There was something about this kid that screamed, asshole.
I let go of his hand and he waited for me to introduce myself. I removed my helmet and looked at him with my green eyes. "Beau." I said holding my helmet in the crook of my right arm.
"Are you new here?"
"Just moved here."
"Ever raced before?"
"Nope, that was my first time." I answered truthfully."
Vince looked shocked. "Wow, but you kicked my ass."
"I have a motorcycle and you have a car," I said. "Use logic, a motorcycle should always win that race."
Vince shrugged and walked away with his hands in his pockets. I shook my head and popped my seat up. I grabbed my backpack and closed the seat again. I slung the backpack over my left shoulder and headed inside. I went to the main office and got my schedule. I then headed to first hour and couldn't wait for the school day to be over.
The school day crept slowly forward and I finally came to my sixth hour class. I was seated next to a kid with raven colored hair and I leaned back into my chair as the teacher talked about useless things that I doubt that I would ever use. "Mister Schwarz, can you answer the question?" the teacher asked.
I was startled for a moment and looked at Mrs. Kaufman sheepishly. "What was the question?" I asked.
The class chuckled and Mrs. Kaufman didn't look impressed. She was in her mid to late forties, short, and had graying brown hair. "I asked, who wrote the play Doctor Faustus?" she repeated.
I sat back in thought and racked my brains. "Christopher Marlowe, I think ma'am." I answered.
"Correct, now class, I believe as some scholars do that if he hadn't been killed that Marlowe would have been more successful than Shakespeare. But our first unit will be on the Dark Ages and our first book, if you will, will be Beowulf." Mrs. Kaufman said.
The bell rang and we all stood to get up but Mrs. Kaufman stopped me. "Not you, Schwarz." I cursed in my head and sat back down as the kids left. She approached me and sat in front of me.
"If this is about me zoning out, I'm sorry." I apologized.
"It isn't," she replied. "I'm here to tell you that I knew your mother. She grew up in Jasper."
"How do you know who I am?" I asked.
"Your face hasn't changed, Beau," Mrs. Kaufman answered. "Your mom would send me pictures of you when you were little. I was going to adopt you when you turned nine, but someone got to you before I could."
"Oh, um, this is weird." I said.
"Sorry, I didn't want to creep you out, I just wanted to let you know that if you ever need anything, I'll be there for you."
"Thank you." I said feeling grateful.
"You can go now."
I nodded and stood up. I grabbed my backpack up off of the floor and slung it over my shoulders. I walked down the stairs from the top of the school and exited the building. I unslung my backpack and unzipped it. I removed my helmet and put it on. I then proceeded to zip my backpack and I put it on again. I saw the raven-haired boy next to my motorcycle and I removed my helmet and approached him. "What are you doing?" I asked.
The kid jumped and turned around to face me. "Sorry, I was just admiring your motorcycle." The kid said.
"Okay," I said looking the kid up and down. "You're in eleventh grade, right?"
"Yeah, but I have a special privilege that some juniors have." The kid replied.
"So it's junior and senior release?" I asked.
"I guess so, yeah."
"Who are you again? I'm sorry I forgot your name."
"I'm Jack, Jack Darby."
"Beau, Beau Schwarz." I introduced myself extending my right hand. Jack shook my hand and I felt like I would like this kid. "I'll see ya around, Jack."
"Alright, see ya." Jack said as I put my helmet on and mounted my bike.
I started the engine once more and backed out of the parking spot. I rode towards my new house and when I pulled within distance, I hit the garage door opener/closer thing. I pulled into the garage and shut the engine off. I dismounted and cracked my neck before removing my helmet. I entered my house and went towards my room to get some workout clothes on. I put on some shorts and a tank top and headed towards the weight room and treadmill. I saw that the treadmill had an electrical timer on it. I guessed that's what the guy meant when they said electronically log what I did. I went to the treadmill first and started it. I turned the speed up to ten mph and started running. I ran for two miles on that thing and then slowed down to a jog at roughly four mph. I jogged for another four miles and then shut the machine off. I was sweating and breathing a bit heavier, but not too bad. I was in excellent shape due to the conditioning that Silas usually had me run. I went to the bench and put a forty-five pound weight on each side for my warm up set. The bar itself weighed 45 pounds, so I was doing 135 pounds. I did that ten times and then racked it. I got up and added a twenty-five to each side and did that ten times as well. I was going to do a 10x8x6 rep set, meaning that I would bench a weight ten times, rack it, add more weight, do that eight times and rack it, add more weight again, do that six times and rack it, and then I would be finished with benching. I removed the twenty-fives and added thirty-fives. I went back down and started to bench that. I got that eight times and sat up breathing heavily. I hated these types of sets, but they built up muscle and muscle endurance. I stood up and removed the thirty-fives and added another forty-five to each side. Here I knew I was going to have difficulty, 225 pounds six times. Not fun. I lay back down on the bench and gripped the bar. I started the last set and counted out the reps as I did them. When I reached six, I racked the bar and just lay there on the bench breathing heavily. I waited until my breathing slowed down a little bit, forcing myself to actually take slower breaths. I got up and got a notebook that I saw in the corner of the room on a shelf. I found a pen with it and I recorded what I did and the weights I lifted with it. I also wrote down what the date was, 9/5/13, and how long I ran on the treadmill and the distance I ran. I closed the notebook and set the pen down on top of it and went back to my room to grab some new clothes. I was about to take a shower when I heard screaming in the alley way behind my house. I frowned, that was a man screaming, or a teenage boy, I couldn't tell. All of a sudden I heard Jack yell, "I don't know her!"
That piqued my curiosity and I started to head towards the back door but my phone rang and I remembered that it was in my room. I headed back to my room and answered the phone, "Hello?"
"Hello, Beau, how was your first day of school?"
"Silas?" I asked in shock. He never, EVER, called me personally when we were separated.
"Of course, boy," Silas replied. "You didn't answer my question though."
"It went well, it was boring," I answered. "When are you going to come here again?"
"I don't think I personally will, but I will send for you when I need you."
"Need me to do what?" I asked curious.
"You'll find out in time."
"Understood, sir." I said automatically.
"You ran for six miles today, I'm impressed."
"Thank you."
"What else did you do?"
"I benched and that was about it, I was too tired to do anything else." I answered.
"What were the reps and how much?"
"Ten, eight, six, were the rep sets," I answered, "and I did one-eighty-five, two-oh-five, and two-twenty-five."
"Nicely done, do lower body tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you probably need to shower, so I'll let you go."
"I'll talk to you later then."
The phone line was dead.
"Figures." I muttered to myself.
Five Hours Later:
I was watching the nightly news and I was surprised to hear that there were a number of accidents on the highway outside of town. From what I had gathered, this was supposed to be a relatively quiet town. The police were still trying to piece together what happened, but the gist of it was that two cars were chasing a motorcycle and the ones that crashed were just collateral damage. Odd, I thought. Why would cars chase a motorcycle and for what purpose?
I mentally shrugged off and went to bed. I felt like I needed the rest. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.
The school day went by very fast the next day and I was surprised to see Jack walking to the giant oak tree in the front lawn of the school. I saw that Raf was there, an extremely intelligent kid that was in my Pre-Calc class. I had stayed in school today to finish the homework for tomorrow and was about to head home to get my work out in. I saw a custom muscle car with a black and yellow paint job approach the two boys and the door opened. Raf pointed towards the parking lot and Jack turned. Raf entered the car and Jack was startled. I didn't' pay any more attention as I put on my helmet and went to my motorcycle. I loved how the light hit it and it appeared to be silver when in reality it was a gold color. To me that was the best part of the bike was the way the light reflected off of the bike. I saw a blue motorcycle with pink fenders behind me go towards the street where Jack was and I looked up and saw the exchange student from Japan, Miko, run off towards the direction of the oak tree. What's going on? I wondered. I shook my head and started my motorcycle and headed home. I ran for seven miles this time and used a leg press to strengthen my legs. The sled on the press weighed ninety pounds, and I added five forty-fives to each side. I just went until exhaustion and when my legs couldn't take it anymore I put the racks up and let the sled fall onto it. I slipped out from the press and stumbled a bit. I was going to be sore tonight and tomorrow. I recorded what I did and wrote down next to what I did for the leg press in all caps "EXHAUSTION." I then wrote down "weight: 540 lbs" I put the notebook and pen away once more and took another shower.
I watched the evening news again as I ate my dinner, a frozen pizza that I cooked in the oven, but nothing on the news was interesting me so I started flipping through the channels until I came upon TBS and found "The Big Bang Theory." I absolutely loved this show and my favorite character had to be Sheldon, mainly due to his social awkwardness. I watched the marathon until 20:30 and then I got ready for bed. I decided that I would as Jack about what happened at the oak tree on Monday.
Authors Note:
So far nothing is happening, right?
But eh, sorry, it'll get better.
Please Read and Review.