Isobel wearily opened her car door and dragged herself out of her car, this was the last place that she wanted to be but Kate was incessant about this whole coming into town thing so here Isobel was despite the fact that she felt terrible and no doubt looked like the grim reaper's mothers. It was a nice autumn day in Ipswich but chilly enough, that upon exiting her car Isobel had to make sure her jacket was zipped up and her scarf was wrapped tightly enough around her neck. Shutting her car door, Isobel crossed to the street and walked over to where Kate along with Sarah and the new boy who she had become faintly acquainted with last night at the party at the dells. Unlike her, all three of them seemed bright eyed and bushy tailed but they were all looking at her with this odd look, no doubt because Isobel had been running late because of her conversation with Tyler. The conversation with him had run on longer than Isobel had expected and as she met her friends, Isobel forced an apologetic smile on her face. The quicker she entertained Kate, the quicker Isobel could go home, relax and get herself together before school started back up in the morning.
"Hey guys sorry I'm late, I just got caught up with things at home and lost track of time…" Isobel rambled, trailing off midway through her sentence.
"Hungover?" The new boy asked and Isobel shook her head, even though that would be the most obvious explanation as they were at a party last night. But Isobel hadn't even been drunk at the party, she had a couple of drinks at the party but that was it. Isobel wasn't hungover, this headache that she had did not come from any alcohol that she may have consumed last night.
"Not even in the slightest but I have this freaky headache and my head is throbbing so I need to go to the pharmacy to get some aspirin before we do anything." Isobel admitted with a weak smile.
"Well you're just in luck! That's where we were heading right before you arrived." Sarah chimed and so Isobel set off with the rest of the small group, walking down the streets of Ipswich with idle conversation being exchanged back and forth but Isobel wasn't taking part. She wasn't in the most chattiest moods in the world so she was just walking along with the group, occasionally making a comment to make sure Kate was getting her entertainment's worth. As the last thing that Isobel needed was for Kate to start questioning why she was in such a quiet mood.
"The party got interrupted before we could properly get introduced but I guess now's a good a time as ever; I'm Chase Collins."
Isobel looked at the new boy and his offered hand before she reached out and finally shook it, making sure there was a nice bright smile on her face. As she needed to make sure she made a better second impression with Chase, then her first one last night. "Isobel Hembry. Feel free to call me Isobel if you like, it's nice to finally get around to the formalities Chase since we didn't have time to do it last night because of all the excitement, but enough of that Chase. Welcome to Spenser and Ipswich…"
"Thanks I didn't expect it to be so… Wild." Chase said choosing his words every carefully and Isobel couldn't help but laugh, last night had been pretty intense but if Chase thought he had come to a sleepy town to attend some stuffy boring private school where nothing happened, he had come to the wrong place. Ipswich was a quiet town but that didn't mean it didn't have it moments and the kids who went to Spenser knew how to make their own entertainment.
"Yeah… Well newbie the first thing that you should know now that your one of us; is that you need to get used to running because the cops always break up the parties at dells and the sooner you get used to that then the less likely you'll get busted. Trust me, if you get busted by the cops everyone will know about it as people talk about it. Following that I'll move onto my second point which is, in small towns everyone talks so if you've got any secrets than keep them to yourself as that way it won't travel through the whole town by dinner time and last but most importantly stay away from Aaron Abbott. You probably already know this from last night but the guy's an ass and will literally devour your soul." Isobel instructed and she heard Kate stifle a snicker.
"Devour my soul? Seriously Izzy?" Chase sceptically questioned.
"Isobel." Kate quickly corrected, turning her head over her shoulder to look at Chase and Isobel who were walking behind her and Sarah. "Nobody is allowed to call her Izzy, well only one person is allowed to call Isobel that."
"Sorry."
"It's fine." Isobel replied brushing the whole thing off, it wasn't a big deal as Chase didn't know that Isobel wasn't a big fan of people calling her Izzy, except for Pogue. "So I may have been exaggerating a little bit about the Aaron thing but either way the guy is no good for anyone, so avoid him if possible and try not to look him in the eyes or stand too close."
"Thanks for the heads up, with me being the new guy I could use to some tips on how to settle in. Small towns like these, everyone tends to know each other which is kind of intimidating…" Chase stated and Isobel let out an amused laugh.
"Then you should probably just ignore everything that I've just told you if you want to settle in as I'm the poster of child of non-settling in. I kind of stick out the like a sore thumb here, if you get what I mean…" Isobel nonchalantly commented.
"Are you talking about what happened at the party last night? What that girl Kira said and also what Aaron said?" Chase questioned and Isobel glanced at Chace briefly before looking around and taking in the scenery. "The two of them have no right talking to you like that Isobel."
"Oh trust me Chase, I've already forgotten about all of that and it's nothing that I'm not accustomed to, Kira and Aaron love the whole name calling thing and anything they say to me is nothing that I haven't heard before. You know what they say about sticks and stone. It doesn't really bother me much, but on the rare days that it does bother me I just tell myself that someday they will be end unhappy and alone one day with nothing good in their lives whilst me on the other hand? I'm surrounded by the best people possible so I'll be happy as larry." Isobel replied with a small shrug of her shoulders, high school didn't last forever and one day none of this would no longer be important to me on the day she left for college.
"That's true but just in case that doesn't work, remember that you do have friends Isobel." Chase said and Isobel crinkled her nose slightly, first Tyler and now Chase, this was getting kind of weird and a part of Isobel was still certain that I was dreaming. But just like Sarah, Chase was a new friend and despite the fact that Isobel liked having Kate as my her 'official' friend, it wouldn't hurt to have a few more.
"Would you believe that's the second time today that someone has said that me?" Isobel questioned.
"Yeah I would because it's the truth,"
"I guess it's too late to give the whole we shouldn't be friends speech, right?"
"Probably."
Isobel found herself laughing as the four of them continued to walk through a few minutes until they had arrived at the pharmacy, Chase held the door open from them all and as soon as she entered, Isobel went about locating some aspirin. Her head was still throbbing and hopefully this would do the trick, so as soon as she grabbed the first aspirin that she had come across and headed straight for the counter to pay for it but a she turned the corner of the aisle she had just left, someone pulled her from behind.
"What the hell are you playing at Iz!?"
Turning around Isobel saw that it was Caleb who had just suddenly just yanked her out of nowhere and she was not happy about it. Her heart was currently trying to reset itself because Caleb had scared the crap out of her, which irritated Isobel as she hated it when people snuck up on her.
"What are you talking about?" Isobel hissed as she had no idea what on earth Caleb was taking about.
"Someone sent me a darkling last night Isobel!"
"What?" Isobel ask flabbergasted, as she couldn't actually believe what she was hearing as a person sending a darkling was some pretty dark hearted and it was not for the faint hearted. To conjure a darkling required some pretty serious magic to pull off something like that. That kind of stuff was what Isobel's father said he would kill any of them over, if he caught or heard that we were doing anything of the kind. There was only one thing that Isobel really truly feared and that was her father's temper, Isobel made a conscious effort to stay away from her father's dark side. But for some reason Caleb seemed to believe that Isobel was being his late night visitor.
"You think I sent you the darkling?" Isobel demanded in shock, in the space of less than twenty four hours, she had gone from being the creature in the lake to the girl who was sending darkling's to other people. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, what Caleb was accusing her off. There was no way in hell that she would do something that stupid, she didn't even have the faintest idea on how to go about conjuring a darkling. The only things that Isobel knew was from the stories that she had been told about that had been passed down through the generations. "Why would I want to do something that stupid? Go and talk Pogue and let him tell you how I covered all your ass' from Papa Hembry last night before you accuse me of something like this."
"I spoke to him already."
"So you think I sent the darkling as a warning? Or something to scare you?" Isobel questioned and Caleb said nothing in response which basically just confirmed everything to Isobel. "Like I said before I don't give a rat's ass if you all kill yourself by using so I'm not the one whose going to be sending a darkling to you! I have better things to be doing with my time and the fact that you think that I would do something like this is pretty damn insulting."
"It makes sense Iz." Caleb began and Isobel could feel herself get even more worked up and it wasn't doing anything to help her headache. "You hate when any of us use and you were especially pissed with us yesterday because we made you use your powers particularly Pogue."
"Yeah I was pissed but listen to what your saying, I was pissed at Pogue very much yesterday and I'm always pissed with him and if you had spoken to Pogue about last night then you would know that the two of us were fine when he left my house last night. So why the hell would I send you the darkling instead of him asshole? Please tell me the what possible reason I would have for sending you a darkling. We all know I hate using magic so why would I use magic to try and punish you?" Isobel retorted in disbelief, Caleb was seriously losing his rocker if he thought that she was sending him a darkling.
"I-I…"
"I would never do something like that, it's stupid and reckless not to mention it is magic that should be well enough alone! If I wanted to punish you for something I wouldn't need magic for it because I know better than to use my magic for vendettas especially if it's against another founding families. Our families made a pact to protect each other and I would not put that or the rest of the covenant at risk all because I had to use magic to help you morons out. I am better than that! I am not that petty!" Isobel snarled in annoyance, she had never been so insulted in he life.
"Caleb? Izzy?" Kate questioned as she turned round the corner and found the two of them arguing and Isobel watched as Kate sighed in annoyance over what she had discovered. "Please tell me that you're not arguing again…"
"Yeah, we are Kate but for once this isn't my fault, it's actually Caleb's fault for once." Isobel hissed through gritted teeth to Kate before turning her attention back over to Caleb briefly. "Why don't you ask the golden boy here what he just accused me off which has made me so mad? The thing so insulting that I don't even want to look at him let alone being in the same room as him."
"I'm sorry–" Caleb began but Isobel had enough, she took the packet of aspirin that she had in her hand and shoved it into Caleb's chest before storming out of the pharmacy.
"Go screw yourself!"