Thanks for reviewing, those that did. As for those who didn't, may your life be interesting.
Chapter 3 (Chapitre trois)
Cass sighed. Asa gave her an inquiring look.
"It's Riot." Cass explained. "I'm worried about the effect this place is going to have on her."
Asa nodded slowly. "I'm more worried about the explosion thats going to happen when Tyler realises who she is."
"If. If Tyler realises who she is."
Asa met her eyes. "When."
Cass sighed.
----
Riot, meanwhile, was halfway between Spencer and town. The trees were blurring past, but she didn't notice that she was almost fifty k over the speed limit. She was thinking, and remembering.
A younger Tyler grinned at his father, delighted to be allowed out long after his older twin had been sent to bed. The man smiled back, and opened the door for his son to climb into the car. Holding a finger to his lips, he closed the door softly, and climbed into the drivers door, glancing once more at the house where his wife stood silhouetted against the light spilling out into the otherwise dark yard. The car purred to life, barely audible from inside the house, and began to pulled onto the private road from the Sims house to the old farm house owned by the Danvers, where Gorman, the other men of the covenant, and their sons waited. In her room, fully dressed despite the dark, Ceilidh stood watching, invisible from the outside. As the car disappeared down the track, she opened the door to her room and slipped silently down the back stairs and out a side enterance, closing it behind her with barely a sound.
Sirens ripped Riot out of her memories. She glanced in the rearview mirror and swore. Sparing a look at the spedometer, she slowed and pulled to the side of the road, turning down the blasting Slipknot as she did. Behind her, a young officer stepped out of his car and swaggered up around her car to the drivers window. Riot rolled the window down, offering the man a low-watt smile.
"Hey, little lady." He tipped his hat to her. "Do you know how fast you were going?"
"I'm so sorry, sir. I didn't realise I was going so fast." She widened her eyes, enhancing her innocent expression.
He smiled briefly at her. "I'll let you get out of it this once. Once, mind."
She gave him her biggest and brightest social smile. "It won't happen again, sir."
He nodded, fixed his hat back onto his head, and went back to his car. Riot waited until he had started it and passed her before she started her own car and pulled more slowly onto the road. Less than a minute later, another car was behind her. Adjusting the rearview again, she groaned. Possibly the only one of its kind in the region, Tyler's hummer was very recognizable, the blond behind the wheel even more so.
"Fuck."
----
In the end, Reid stayed behind her the entire way back to the school, and the four boys insisted on helping her move her many guitars and music supplies from her car to her room. Then, Pogue and Caleb helped her set up the multi-guitar wall rack that she'd bought while in town. Meanwhile, Tyler and Reid browsed through the multitude of pictures stuck to the corkboard she'd placed on the wall the night before. Finally, when the rack was up, Cass and Asa appeared in the doorway.
"We brought your laptop." Asa explained, holding up a bag.
Riot nodded, waving slightly from the floor, where she was setting up an amp, and connecting several cords to a small keyboard in a corner. Nearby, two microphones sat on the ground, cords neatly coiled.
"Dude," Reid commented. "do you own a music store?"
Riot shot him a glare, but it was Cass that answered. "Not quite. Riot is quite musical. She plays guitar, keyboard, drums. . . she had two rooms back home. One was a kind of music studio, and the other was for her to sleep in and store stuff. Not that she slept there often."
Now Asa smiled. "Want me to set this up?" She asked, brandishing the laptop.
"Aight." Riot muttered around a cord in her mouth, the end of which she was fiddling with.
As Asa began the set up procedure, Caleb and Pogue watching interestedly as she connected several cords - one to the wall, one to the keyboard, one to an amp - and turned it on. Tyler and Reid were questioning Cass.
"She sings, she writes music, she even has a kind of CD." Cass explained. "With the stuff she has here, she can do some recording. She even plays all of the parts herself, and put them together later."
"She has a CD? How did she do that?" Tyler demanded.
"Buy the right programs and the right equipment," Riot replied, "and you can do just about anything at home that you can do in a professional studio."
"And it's not an official CD." Cass added. "Only friends have them, I guess. Some people wanted them, so she burned a few copies, made a cover for the cases on, like, Paintshop Pro(1), and handed them out."
"Can we hear it?" Caleb inquired.
Everyone looked at Riot, who shrugged. "I don't have a copy."
"Typical," Asa muttered. "I'll get mine. Une momente, s'il vous plaite.(2)" She disappeared into the hall.
Cass went to the sterio balanced precariously on the desk, and plugged it in. Riot continued connecting plugs.
"Sound test."
Cass plugged her ears. The boys looked askance at her, then winced as a crack sounded through the room. Behind them, Riot grinned. She adjusted a knob on the amp, then strummed another chord on the guitar across her lap. This time, it rang clearly, if loudly into the room. She turned the volume down, and set the guitar on the rack, turning the amp off as she did so, and went to the keyboard.
"You learn to do that eventually." Cass told the boys as she removed her hands from her ears. "Or, like Riot, you simply become immune. I'm not sure which is better."
----
An hour later, the boys took their leave.
"We're having lunch with Ty's parents." Caleb explained. All three girls nodded, and there was no change in Riot's expression. Soon after, Cass and Asa left to retrieve some stuff from their appartment, and unpack the rest. As soon as she was alone in her room, Riot flipped her phone open.
"Hello?"
----
(1) I do not own or have any rights to Paintshop Pro.
(2) "One moment, if you please." Translates loosely to "One moment, please."
Sorry for the short chapter.