A/N: I decided to skip Gazzy's experience. I felt like I was wasting chapters, and really just want to get into the plot. You could just say Gazzy and Emma are automatic BFF's so, yeah. I don't think he's going to be as important of a character as I intended him to be in the beginning. .. Maybe Emma will. Actually I'm quite sure of it. This takes place in Fang/Nick's dorm room.
Chapter 20: Dormitory
Raina's pov
I think I should be on time for this meeting. It is the first one after all, and we need to save him. I was a little sad though. I was supposed to be meeting Harsh at his dorm; we were going to watch movies. We always did that at the beginning of the school year, but this is way more important. I was looking forward to finding him, fast so we could just get back to our normal lives. I hated all the confusion of having the flock around. Don't get me wrong, I love having some of them around, but it gets kind of irritating having to fix everything perfectly for them. And I can't help but adding the fact that Angel is single handedly the scariest seven-year-old I have ever met. She has powers just like Harsh, and more…Her pale blond hair, and bright blue eyes just makes me want to squeeze her cheeks until their pink, but her personality makes me want to run away from her screaming like a madman.
It's just some thing about them. Max is just an ultimate leader, like Lyn, but more into it. Lyn is our leader, and that's just about it. She doesn't disregard our feelings or treat us like kids; she leads us, and that all we ever need her to do. Max is a good leader and all, but she does it too forcefully. In order to create a successful group (or in her case, flock), you need to work an unsaid compromise. Lyn leads us, but she doesn't tell us what to do; she doesn't wave her power in our faces; she doesn't approve of sarcasm. Maybe this is just because were older than them, but seriously; she needs to get her act together, her flock together. It's just about the only way for this mission to work. A smile unknowingly spreads across my face; I have an idea. I know just how to help Max whip her flock into shape, and I'll do it without her even knowing.
I knocked on Fang/Nick's door. After some shuffling and talking, the door opens, and I see him. It's pretty weird how Derek rearranged the molecules, but also makes sense. He created it in a way that only my group, and the flock could see his true face. He made it specifically tuned to our genetic structures, nice. Der is so smart. So when the door opens, I see Fangs face. It's barely a face at all; all you could see was his long dark hair, already creeping toward his shoulders, covering his face. If you saw him on the street you'd swear he was there to steal from you. I thought it was funny how his appearance was. If I didn't know any better I'd think he was a high-class homeless kid. And in a way he was. He was tall, lanky, and piercing. He let me in, and I sat on his bed, waiting for anyone else. "Am I the only one here?"
He looked nervous, and started to scuffle his feet. He just seemed to need to move, he scratched his head. "Nah, you're the only one here so far, but my roommate Joe's in the other room." He pointed to a closed door. Then, he sat at his desk, spinning the chair around to stare at me. His eyes were a dark brown, and were making me uncomfortable. Usually, I would be quiet and stay out of the way, but… there was something about this. I was the only person in the room besides him, and wasn't used to the attention I was getting, so I tried to start some conversation.
"So, how was school? Do you like it?"
He stopped his stare, and I mentally exhaled, to think about it. "It's horrible. This is why I never went in the first place."
"But, I bet you'd learn lots of new things," I felt my voice rising.
He replied with a simple, "I know all that I need to know."
I smirked. "You mean all of that ungraceful swaying you call fighting?"
He was faintly smiling back. "Those fighting styles could totally kick your butt."
I laughed boastfully. "Mhm… sure."
I stared out of the window for a second, amused with myself. Suddenly, there was a weight against my chest, and I felt that nostalgic moment of as you would call it, 'oh my goodness'. He did not just tackle me out of the blue. That is extremely dirty fighting. He won't get way with it, not if I have anything to do with it. As my head hit the mattress, he stopped trying to overpower me. Big mistake. I pushed him off and pinned him against the wall by surprise. He then, got out of my death grip, and we began pushing at each other, fists locked, with all our strength. He pushed me back, and we landed on the bed. I hurriedly got on top of him for the upper hand, and because I felt very confident today, I whispered into his ear, four words. "Never underestimate your opponent."
He chuckled quietly into my ear, sending shivers down my spine. He took that as a moment to apparently, show me a lesson. I was flipped over, pinned, and couldn't move. This time he leaned into my ear and whispered, "Don't underestimate me."
I was about to reply with some smart/witty comment, when he bent his head close to mine, our foreheads touching, and kissed me. It was kind of weird in an odd way (if that makes sense), because over the time I have felt this tension building up with us, but didn't know what it was. Could it have been loving, or rather attraction? His lips were on mine, and it was nice, comfortable. I could've stayed there forever.
I better understood the heroines in the books I read. They treasure each kiss as if it's their last, as if they would never get another. That's what this felt like, mainly because of our dreary situation. We could die at any moment and that scared me, if not any person. Of course I've kissed other boys before, but this was different. I think it was because he wasn't completely human. Hmm… I was kissing a bird, technically.
Our moment ended when the Joshua guy Fang had mentioned before, waltzed into the room with his notebook and a pencil sticking out of his mouth, chewing on the eraser. It was kind of gross, but something you couldn't help but smile at the same time. "Um, Nick can I borrow your calculator for my algebra homework. Mine is out of batteri— " he gasped at our current position. I guess it could be called odd. He was on top of me, pinning me down and all; I couldn't say this didn't look incriminating, but the problem was that it was. "Uh, um, this is awkward…"
He abruptly pulled away from me, and got off of the bed to help Josh with his calculator problem, and I could hear them talking in the other room. Talking about their calculators, and more importantly (and much, much scarier) talking about me. I tuned out, because I couldn't handle it. I'm normally so controlled about these things, but… I guess my teenage hormones got the best of me as it happens to anyone every once in a while. I sat up, and smoothed out the bed, anything to get this awkward and empty feeling out of my chest. I don't think I would ever do that again. I don't even know what came over me. That was so un-Raina-like. I sat in his desk chair, waiting for the others to arrive.
Soon enough, everyone made it into the room. They all found somewhere to sit in the room, and although it was a little crowded, we all managed to find somewhere to sit. We were all arranged in a circle, in a tribal sort of way and the meeting began. Lyn stood up, and started speaking. "This is our first official gathering, or whatever you'd call it, and I'd like to discuss anything you have found out." She leaned slightly forward. "Anything guys?"
I stared around at them, and they all started chattering uncontrollably, after looking around nervously for a few seconds. Lyn tried yelling over everyone. She knew that they wee not going to get anything done if this was so unorganized. She started stared forward, daring to look them in the eyes ever so ominously as she spoke. "Just—just shut up! There's no way we can get anything done if everyone keeps talking at once."
Gazzy smiled mischievously at her, "Jeez, calm down."
"Right then," Tab smiles. "We'll start in a circle and starting with Iggy, we'll go in a complete circle."
Iggy blushed, which was a rather funny sight due to his natural pale skin tone. I could tell there was something that happened that he didn't want to tell us. I hope they wouldn't prod, because by the intensity of his reddened face I was sure that it was none of our business, "I've got nothing to report."
Gazzy, who was for once sitting next to Iggy, spoke, "I don't have much to report either. Emma is very… quiet."
"Well, there is one thing I would like to say. There is certainly something about Audric that is off. When we were at the school store, there was a moment when I could feel any of his feelings. Like at all. It was weird, like he could not purposely feel anything at a certain point in time," Nudge whispered, her voice trailing into thought.
"Further inspect it, okay?" Fang said, causing everyone to turn his way in a moment of confusion. He had just come in through Joe's room after their intense "talk". Nudge nodded and we continued.
"I'm usually good at this sleuthing business, but today I'm pretty dry. There was nothing particularly incriminating about the girls; for the most part, they just seemed mean, but Akira definitely has potential both ways." Angel beamed, a cloudy ambition in her strikingly blue eyes.
"Overall, the day was pretty average until the end. That guy, you assigned me, Lucas; I don't think he's human. Th—there's no way he is." Max's voice was shaky; she was obviously scared, something that I could tell was rare for such a girl.
Derek spoke up this time. "How do you know? I mean, um, what's your proof?"
"He could make me move against my will and his face…"
"Was it inhumanly scarred? Did it contort to impossible measures?" Harsh, who was sitting next to me, asked almost jokingly.
"No it was… cute. I don't know; it just didn't seem possible. I mean in a way that it was so appealing that no one could call him ugly. His face was so cute that it's was almost impossible to find someone with a better face," she said very convincingly.
Iggy, looking very annoyed snapped at her, "Okay, we get it."
Lyn gave him a very startled look, forgetting that he couldn't see it. She rubbed Max's back, whispering softly so that only those next to her or with incredibly good hearing could comprehend it. "Was that all?"
"No. When I was on the plane here I think the director contacted me in a dream."
I crawled next to where Max was sitting and took Lyn's place. I was very good with people, even though I rarely resorted to using these skills. I talked to her, my voice a soft coo, "What did he do?"
"When I fell asleep on the airplane, I woke up in a weird dream. I after I got up, the room turned into one that looked very fancy, as if it was in a mansion or something. The floors were made of fancy materials like marble and the walls were brown with crème swirls with mahogany furniture all around. Oh, and a nice fireplace that was burning brightly. Soon, a dark figure came out in the frame of the door and when he walked through, I saw that it was Nick," she said shakily.
At this, Lyn exclaimed, "Do you have any idea where this could've been? Were there any clues?"
"Sorry, but I didn't see anything that would've given it away. All I know was that the place was very hot, not like here at all although it might've just been because I was inside of a building," she said.
At this I had to interject. "Don't you think that he might be using a new building for base? Before, he had one in an old building, but moved it due its easy accessibility and high crime rating around the seemingly neglected neighborhood. Do you not think it practical that he would look into something of the opposite sort? As in a building that was fine and secluded, but hidden enough to the point that no one would come wandering in on account of it looking abandoned."
Carolynne's pale eyes lit up with their common wonder. "Re, that makes a lot of sense, but how exactly would we find such a building?"
Everyone was quiet for a second. How would we find such a building? Surely, he would hide it well enough so that we couldn't track him down. I glanced over at Harsh, who was thinking just as hard as I was, but seemed much closer to a solution than I was. I could just see it in his eyes, through his rectangular frames. And I was right. "How about we search the news archives for the recent construction of buildings in all districts? I'm sure we could find him that way."
"Yeah," Nudge agreed. "You can use Fang's computer to look through everything. It has an excellent information hookup."
"Oh, what else did he say Max?" I said, trying to get back on topic, and more to the bottom of this. The sooner we found him, the sooner we could get rid of the flock. Their presence was slowly driving me mad. Them, and their ways of running things; them and their kisses…
"The only other things that I think are worth telling are: when I saw Nick, he wasn't himself. His eyes were dark and soulless and the Director's voice came through his. He called him his shell and told me that we need to stay out of his business," she said, a bit more confident in herself.
"Alright. Here are our plans. I want Nudge and Fang to figure out the information of as to where his location is. Everyone else rest up. Tomorrow we are field tripping to his place to get Nick back. Got it?" I said softly, letting the graveness slip through my voice. Everyone nodded.
"Meeting adjourned."
4
