Chapter 6

KPOV

Keller stood next to her locker, trying to pay attention to what Galen was saying.

"So...you want to reschedule the tutoring...thing?" Keller raised an eyebrow, leaning against her locker.

"Yeah, sorry if it's trouble," Galen apologized, eyes downcast.

"Naw. I should be grateful you're even helping," Keller forced through her teeth.

"Come over to my place, Friday night, 'kay?" Galen said, already turning and waving goodbye, smiling like a fool.

"Hey, Galen!" a light voice greeted, giggling slightly.

Keller's eye twitched. Time to go.

QPOV

"Please. Just hear me out."

"No way. I'm already breaking major 'sisters-for-life' rules by just talking to you...jerk."

"Keller, I already told you I didn't mean to!"

"Not budging."

"Please, Keller. Just...please."

Quinn saw Keller crack a smile and sighed in relief.

"Sure, I'll let you explain yourself...start by explaining who Dove is." Keller drawled, pushing the chair back on two legs and propping her feet onto the desk.

"Ah."

Keller just stared at him, eyes serious and impatient.

"Dove..." Quinn murmured, closing his eyes. "She is...was...Lily Redfern's sister."

Keller spat out the water she had in her mouth and shrieked, "what?"

Poor Morgead.

Quinn's father was a priest. So, it was surprising that Quinn himself had turned to be rather rebellious.

Or maybe it's not very surprising at all. His father never understood him. Never asked him if anything was wrong. Never ever cared for Quinn or his mother. He only cared about going to the church every Sunday, and making sure that them – being Quinn and his mother – didn't make a fool of the family name. That was all Quinn's father ever cared about.

Quinn's father also strongly disapproved of Hunter Redfern's family. Probably sent from the Devil himself, he said.

When he was younger, around five or six, he would go to his world's end to try to please his father. He studied hard, and almost always got top grades, but his father would just brush it off and say, "so this is what you were doing when I told you to go to church with me? Studying? Don't waste time on this useless hobby of yours, son."

After that, Quinn tried to never touch a school book ever again.

When Quinn grew older, maybe thirteen or fourteen, he would go to his wit's end to do everything in his power to displease his father. He threw eggs at the neightbours' cars. He spray-painted the school walls. He skipped classes to go to the club for other troubled kids, the Crypt. He became best friends with Hunter Redfern's nephew, Ash Redfern.

In fact, he even fell in like with Hunter Redfern's daughter, because even though he had thought it was love at the time, what could a tween know about love? His whole life had been deprived of love.

When Quinn was fifteen, he asked Dove Redfern out on a date. He was supposed to be grounded, but what was he supposed to do in his room? Waste time on that useless hobby of his?

Quinn's father found out, of course. And it wasn't bad enough that it was Hunter Redfern's daughter. Hunter Redfern himself approved of it. Quinn spent less and less time at his own house and more and more time at the Redfern's residence.

One day, Quinn's father decided he wouldn't take it any longer.

Quinn remembered, clearly, that he had been trying in vain to remember the Redfern family tree. It was impossible, he had thought miserably.

Lily Redfern had slapped his face, after he dosed off. Slapped it so hard that her nails drew four lines of blood.

And then Quinn's life tumbled into chaos, because Dove Redfern was found dead.

Dead, murdered in a deserted alley, by someone who hadn't taken anything valuable. Nor did he do the unthinkable.

No, the murderor had simply pushed a stake into her heart.

Someone who thought the Redferns were sent from the Devil himself.

Someone who had probably found it very amusing to kill a Redfern with a stake.

Quinn never saw his father after the cops pulled him into the car, with him yelling that Quinn was a disappointment in everything he did.

Quinn just hardened his eyes and laughed.

RPOV

"Something wrong, Rashel?" Galen asked in his usual calm voice, eyes not leaving the whiteboard as he scribbled endlessly on his notebook.

"Not anything that involves life and death, Galen," Rashel sighed, doodling on a piece of paper, which was now littered with randomly thrown words – such as "I never want to see you again", "If I could, I'd push a sword through your heart", and "The world would be a better place if you died" were a few to name – and hastily doodled stick figures, always with one dying a terribly painful death and the other not smiling in satisfaction, not laughing in triumph, or smirking. The other who just had its back turned.

"Everyone has problems, Rashel. We just have to see what ours is and find a way to deal with it," Galen said quietly, still scribbling.

"And what would yours be, Galen?" Rashel asked, continue to colour the blood coming out from the dying one's chest.

"Mine?" Galen laughed lightly. "I have to choose from two good things. Family or...love, I suppose."

Rashel stared at Galen. No one who looked at him would have thought of him as blunt. But not in Keller's rough way. He had a nicer, gentler way of showing it.

"How about yours?" Galen asked, finally pausing in his never-ending writing to look at her. "The best way to deal with it is to accept it."

Rashel smiled slightly.

"It's about...a boy." Galen nodded, encouraging her to continue. "And...his girlfriend...figure."

Galen let out a small chuckle. "Most teenager's problem would be about love."

"What?" Rashel hissed, eyes wide. "I don't love him. I will never, ever love him."

"He seems to be very important to you, to have such an effect."

"But I – and he – I'd never – and – " Rashel spluttered, eyes even wider.

"If it would help you, Rashel – which I think it will – I will tell you my secret. And maybe you'd find something helpful from it?"

Galen was too...trustful. He trusted her to his secret, even though he'd only known her for little more than one week.

"If you trust me," Rashel muttered hesitantly.

"Okay, then." Galen smiled, dropping his pen. "My family owns a large company. My parents agree that the best way to improve the company further would be to marry our rival company's heiress."

"Oh," Rashel said. That's terrible. Having your future ripped away from you like that.

"You know Iliana Dominick?" Galen asked, and seeing Rashel nod in confusion, he added, "she's the one."

"Po – " Rashel stopped herself before she could say any more than that. How would Keller feel if she'd accidently blurted out Keller's unknown feelings for Galen?

Exactly.

"Anyway," Galen continued, staring at the page he had scribbled on, "I think that..." Galen glanced at Rashel and quickly looked at the notebook once more. "I think that I like your sister, Rashel."

"Oh, Galen. You should know it's pass like by now," Rashel murmured sympathetically.

"Iliana is...nice," Galen said, closing his eyes, "but Keller is...different. Special."

Rashel smiled, nodding even though she knew he couldn't see her.

"She isn't as socialable as Iliana is, but she helps people just the same, if not more. She'd risk her life for someone, if it would save them. And Iliana...would probably consider it for a while before she actually did anything."

Rashel grinned even wider.

"She's just...wonderful."

Rashel was absolutely beaming now.

"Too bad she'd never want me," Galen sighed, opening his eyes and glancing at Rashel in a bemused fahsion.

The smile slipped off Rashel's face.

"Of course she wants you. She likes you. In fact, she might even love you. Keller's just...very inexperienced in feeling."

"Feelings? I would have never thought," Galen smiled.

"Not feelings, Galen. Feeling at all," Rashel winced slightly. "Before that...jackass killed my friend Timmy, my Mama and my aunt Corrinne. Before I had to go into an orphanage, Keller was already there."

Galen's eyes widened.

"Daddy left for a mission or something, leaving Kell' with Grandma," Rashel continued, almost whispering. "But there was a break-in, that night. Grandma...she died trying to hide Keller from the thieves. It worked, but Grandma got shot from one of them. They didn't care whether she was an old lady or not. They just shot her."

Tears started trickling down Rashel's cheeks.

"The cops found Keller, of course. They put her in the orphanage, because they said Daddy had been reported missing. Apparently, the kids there didn't like Keller."

Galen just continued to listen intently.

"They pulled her hair all the time, they poked her, they told her that Mama and Daddy didn't want her because she was a freak." The tears streamed down faster. "The adults there didn't know. Nor did they bother to tell Keller about Grandma and Daddy."

Rashel hastily wiped the tears away, and continued, "Keller just...blocked it all out. She ignored them, because the first time she reacted, she ended giving two kids black eyes. That's when they started to call her a freak."

"After I came, the adults said she improved. She smiled more, got more active in sports. But at night, when she thought I was asleep, she'd cry to herself."

Rashel smiled sadly. "The one emotion Keller felt comfortable with, she told me when we a bit older, was loneliness and sadness."

I'm hoping this chapter is for character-development. Like their backgrounds? Yeah...

Reviews, please?