Chapter 27 - Sexist
"What are you looking at?"
Fang turned in his swivel-chair slowly, facing it in my direction. He didn't look too amused by my antics of ambush, much less surprised. I really needed to work on my sneaking-up-on-people skills.
It had been a few days since I'd asked him about his past; when he walked out on me so he wouldn't have to answer my questions. We hadn't talked about that incident since. Time had also passed since I had my embarrassing, gushy, self-reflecting thoughts about Fang. I still felt a little awkward around him, but he didn't seem to notice.
He whirled back to the computer screen in front of him. "I was doing research on Itex," he said quietly. I peered over his shoulder at the large screen while he scanned the computer lab anxiously to make sure no one was eavesdropping. He was on Google, the word 'Itex' in the search box. Under the results, I saw everything from a Real Estate Agency to a Financial Business to someone misspelling 'Itech', which was a hockey equipment manufacturer. Nothing dealt with genetics, medicine, or hospital-like companies at all.
"And you can't do this at home why?"
He looked at me like I'd just asked why he doesn't wear bright clothing. "One, it might keep a history of my searches, and I don't want your mom checking what I'm doing. And two, Ella always hogs the computer. I can only get on in school."
Well, he did have a point there.
I don't think I ever mentioned this, but upstairs there was a small foyer out in the hallway, the only spot in the house we had enough room to fit a computer so it wouldn't be solely for one person. Mom put it there so we wouldn't be doing anything we shouldn't and for checking up on us easily, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure everyone's thinking, doesn't she trust you guys? Well, she does, and I'm smart enough not to be looking at anything I shouldn't at home anyway, so it doesn't bother me. The only one who really cares about the whole privacy issue is Ella, so you can only guess what she's up to.
I curled a strand of my hair behind my ear, watching as Fang hopelessly typed away on the keyboard. Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that his injuries healed pretty shortly after he received them. When we took him to the doctors to have them remove his stitches, they were surprised to see the cuts appeared to have healed a lot sooner than they expected. They also took an x-ray of his hand and found it completely fine, too. Like I always say, who needs doctors? They never get anything right. Sorry Mom, I hope you don't read this!
Jeb, on the other hand, I hope you do read this.
At the bottom of the screen, I saw a second browser that had been minimized. I tapped the glass where it was located and read the name: LiveJournal. "What's that?" I asked mischievously. I'm not stupid; I know what LiveJournal is. But seeing Fang using it, or reading it for that matter, was pretty dang hilarious.
He glowered at me. "Max," he sighed. "I'm really curious about Itex. Your mom worked there, Jeb probably worked there, and it sounds familiar to both of us but we don't know why. There are bound to be answers out there, and from the looks of it all traces of evidence have been wiped off of the Internet. If I write a blog about my search, send it around to the right websites, I might be able to find someone who knows something. If this company is as low-key as it seems to be, it makes me wonder if they did something that led them to that point. That made them shut down and inaccessible."
It took me a moment to digest this – I mean, I'd been living with Fang for a little over two months and I don't think I'd ever heard him make a speech that long. "What do you mean?"
"If a company violates any regulations they can be shut down. If someone did something crazy enough, the government could have gotten rid of any evidence that they ever existed. But obviously you can't erase people's memories. I need the right people to see my search." His eyes scrunched for a second then turned back to me. "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you have class?"
I shook my head and grinned. "Teacher's out sick, so the sub gave us a study hall. Besides, I'm meeting with someone."
"Who—?" he began, but was cut off.
"Yo, Max, there you are!" We both turned to see James walking down the aisle of computers, coming toward us. Lovely timing, I thought.
"You invited your boyfriend?" Fang inquired with some amusement.
I scowled at him. "No, he's not my boyfriend."
"Denial's the first step, Max." As he said this, I saw his eyes tighten slightly. "Please, don't let me hold you back; I don't want to be a third wheel," he added, with what sounded like bitter sarcasm. It was hard to tell with Fang.
"Fang—"
"What's up?" James asked as he took a seat next to us. Fang oh so subtly turned his attention back to the computer, his shoulders tensed. I rolled my eyes, not really wanting to deal with Fang's attitude, and turned to James.
"Not much, I wanted to do research on my biology project. But now that you're here we can talk about our next tactic in…" I dropped my voice to make sure no one overheard. "Spying."
He nodded. "Yeah, nothing new has really surfaced in a while. We need to change our game plan."
Fang sighed. "If you want me to leave, I can. I'm technically not involved in your scheme."
"You should be," James said thoughtfully. "Actually, with your power you could be our best spy."
My eyes widened to the size of golf balls. "James, how did you know about Fang?" I asked, keeping my voice cautiously low to keep from screaming. Was there something they weren't telling me?
Fang looked darkly at James. "Nice going. You didn't tell her?"
James backed up a bit. "I thought you told her. You live with her, after all."
"When did you find out?" I asked quickly, breaking them up before their quibble could get any more trivial.
"I dunno, a few weeks?" James guessed. Fang nodded. I hung my head low. Great, these guys were keeping secrets behind my back. What else did they do? Did they have an underground hideout I don't know about? Maybe they knew of other freaks besides the three of us. Was there some secret club that I was unaware of?
"Max, relax," Fang said calmly. "It was an accident. I found him working for you." He always had to be annoying by bringing that up. "And someone came, so I had to make us invisible."
Oh, well when he put it that way.
Wait a second…
"You said 'made us invisible', as in, the both of you?" It took all my self-control to keep my voice level and in a whisper. "Are you getting more powerful?"
He shrugged, trying not to look too proud.
"Have anything you want to fess up to?" I asked James warily.
"Well, I can control my 'site' better." He used air quotes around the word "site". "It doesn't sneak up on me as often as it used to, and I can use it at will."
Jeez. I suddenly realized how bad both of their powers could be if they were used for evil. "You two aren't teaming up to spy on the girl's locker room, are you?" I put a warning in my voice that said if you are I will gleefully kick your butt for being sexist pigs. I wouldn't put it past James to be doing that, but Fang? I wasn't sure.
"Of course we aren't!" James sounded appalled, but then he grinned evilly. I did not want to know what he was planning. I hope I didn't give him any ideas…
The bell rang loudly, echoing off the ancient walls. I grabbed my book bag, muttered my goodbyes to the boys, and got the hell out of there. It was pretty ironic how my only two friends were also the most annoying people I knew.
I was literally shaking in my seat when the school day ended, anxious to get out of the place. I was still wound up about Fang and James sharing things behind my back, and I knew the only real way to calm down would be taking a nice, relaxing ride on Gale. There's something special about animals that make them able to listen to every problem you ever have, never respond, and yet they somehow always make you feel better.
The general routine for letting students out at Nimitz High basically was anarchy— students roam the front yard freely while waiting for their parents, buses, or whatever else shows up to take them home. There are usually cliques grouped together laughing, jocks rough-housing, and the occasional jokester trying to hoist geeks' underwear up the flagpole. Luckily this was one event that the guards had stayed away from, so at least students had some excitement to look forward to. All in all, it was a pretty chaotic time of the day, but as long as you knew who to avoid and where to wait, it was the normal lame-fest you'd expect it to be.
An announcement came over the intercom— which for the record, I hardly was able to hear since the sound system was obsolete— came across the schoolyard that my bus was running late. By now most of the other students had dispersed so the only stragglers were the few kids on my bus and the lamoid seniors that were goofing off before they drove home.
I sat leaned back against the brick edifice they called our school, looking out at the road for any oncoming vehicles, which of course there wouldn't be for a while. I never understood why we just couldn't walk home —
"Hey, babe, what's going on?" I turned to my right to see a muscled jock in a leather sport jacket leaning his weight on his arm against he wall. A dopey, arrogant half-smile was playing on his lips.
It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. "Um, can we say sexist?" I said, walking toward the main entrance. Ugh, if there was one thing I hated more than anything else in the world, it was guys who called women 'babes', 'chicks', or my least favorite of all: 'my girl'. I didn't understand how we, as females, could accept that. It was derogatory and demeaning.
He reached out and wrapped his large hand around my wrist. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked with a little humor. "There haven't been too many girls like you around."
"I'm sure you use that a lot," I snapped. "Is that the only line you know?"
"Aren't you feisty?" He tried pulling me in when I snapped my hand from his grasp. I turned the other direction when I was stopped by another loser-jock. He looked down and smiled.
"She's hot," the second one said without shame. "Must be a freshman."
"Ugh, two sexist pigs."
They laughed. "Relax, we just want to talk." They closed in and I sighed. Well, they asked for it.
I almost felt sorry for what I was going to do. Almost.
I got some cool news - in August I'm gonna be going to see Wicked the Musical in New York City!! :D I haven't picked a date yet, but I'm excited cause I love that musical. I also just scheduled a date for my driver's test, so hopefully I get it first try.
But I was disappointed to see there were only 5 reviews for the last chapter. :o I was pleased to see that some were new reviewers, but I'm wondering where everyone else is. Vacation? Did the last chapter suck? I have no idea, but any feedback is better than none. I really thrive off of response from other people, so that's what keeps the story going. So thank you to all the new reader/reviewers such as VenomShadowCatt and smartipanz816! Dt, I totally know what you mean about the raging hormones. I'm like Max, in a sense, when I say I really hate the gushy emotion stuff. And again, thanks Mo for the shoutout!! Btw, I told you Vampire Kisses was good. :P haha
There's a new poll up, so do that if you haven't. Then the usual: Ghost of Me, new profile page, review, tell people about my story. Um, did I mention review??
Review please!!