Disclaimer: I don't own Covenant.
My favorite thing about my mother's childhood house was that there was a large, thick forest stationed behind it. This provided me with the privacy to scream my lungs out, cry, and the best of all … Use without anyone knowing it. My Using resulted in a twenty foot diameter clearing.
I'd had been so angry at my father for being a traitor, my brother for abandoning me, my mother for dying, and just about everything else I had built up inside.
The power built up inside of me like a flood, and billowed out of me. The result: a twenty foot clearing in the middle of a densely populated forest. But, the plus side is that I felt better, although I was now very much out of breath.
Now, here's the thing about Using. A first born male gets his power at thirteen and ascends—at which point he gets more power—at eighteen. Well, since I was neither a male, nor a first born, I got my powers at thirteen, and at eighteen … a cake. Whatever. It seems the Power is a male chauvinist. Of course, there are ways to get stronger powers without ascension, but most witches and warlocks won't go those sorts of routes. Most.
Anyways. I practiced some deep breathing techniques to calm down. In through the nose, out through the mouth: yoga was a godsend.
My Blackberry vibrated in my pocket, telling me it had received a message of some sort. I pulled it out and pushed the trackball to see that Tyler Simms, my cousin, had sent me a text message at 5:34pm. I opened the message: "I'm at ur house. Ur dad said u went out … where r u?" Well, I'd least he'd used punctuation.
I hit reply: "The forest." Within a minute I got a reply back: "That tells me a lot … lol. I think I'm pretty close to finding u ne ways."
"Wow, so I was closer than I thought!" yelled a male voice only a few seconds later. I turned around to the direction that the voice came from to see my cousin Tyler … and Tyler's friend? It seemed he had brought some blonde guy. Great. Tyler would probably figure that the Godzilla-sized clearing was from her having Used, but what would she tell the other guy? Oh, um … the cows did it? Yeah, right. But, alas, Tyler to the rescue, "Did something explode here?"
"Dunno," I lied.
"Hm," he responded, nodding. "Awesome. Anyways, this is Reid. Brinly, Reid." Reid stuck out his hand in a nonchalant sort of way.
I shook it, but looked at my cousin as I did so, "What are you doing here?"
"Well, we," he indicated himself and his friend, "thought you might need a break from all the unpacking. We're heading to Nickie's if you want to tag along." He smirked at the dirt smeared across my face. I'd gone a tad overboard I guess. "You might want to shower and change first though. You look like you rolled out from under the local bridge."
The corners of my mouth twitched without me telling them to, "And how do you know I didn't?"
He shrugged and smiled, "I don't."
I laughed as I started walking in the direction of the house. "Well, if you want to hang out with Lei for a bit back at the house, it won't take me long to get ready."
***
By 6:30pm, I had showered and changed into a clean t-shirt and jeans, and was getting into Ty's Hummer. Lei had managed to talk her way into going with us, but she was taking forever to get ready. I sighed and shut the door as Tyler started the engine. No point sitting in a cold vehicle.
"Will she be much longer?" he asked.
I shrugged, "No, idea. Depends on what she's doing…"
"Probably giving herself a 90210 make-over," muttered Reid. He was clearly not happy with having the 16 year old tag a long.
"Here she is, let's get going," said Reid as Lei got in the vehicle.
Twenty minutes later, our group of four was entering Nickie's. We were met with the overwhelming sounds of people talking, a couple pool games, television sets, and foosball—and those were just the sounds that I could pick out. Places like this drove me crazy because the sounds always made the spaces seem smaller.
"Hey, there's Caleb and Pogue," Reid said, nodding to two guys that were in a corner with a fair, blond-haired girl and a dark brunette.
"Come on," Tyler said to us as he and his friend made their way through the crowd to their other friends. I grabbed my sister's hand and trailed after Tyler. Both of us girls were petite, but Lei was even more so. In this monstrous crowd, I didn't want to take the risk of my sister getting body blocked somewhere.
Tyler immediately began introducing us to everyone at the table as soon as the we caught up. "Guys, these are my cousins, Brin and Lei," he said, pointing to each of us in turn. "Girls, this is Caleb, Sarah, Pogue, and Kate."
"Nice to meet you," said the one called 'Caleb'. He had a deeper voice, and was strongly built, although not as built as his friend 'Pogue'. "Tyler told us you were moving to Ipswich. Are you going to be going to Spencer?"
I nodded and smiled, "Yeah, me and Lei are moving into the dorms in the next week."
"Oh, yay!" piped in Kate.
"Yeah, we need more girls in the dorms," Sarah said.
"To balance out all the testosterone…" Kate added.
I nodded politely. I didn't feel like saying much and didn't really know how to respond. The two girls were just so … drop dead gorgeous? I didn't think I could compete. Also, they were way too outgoing. It was unnerving.
"So, do you play any sports?" Pogue asked me.
Tyler snickered, to which I rolled my eyes and smiled. "I run cross-country and I do yoga." Tyler didn't consider those to be sports.
"Do you swim?" Reid asked with a slight mischievous tone.
"No."
"Damn," he responded. He was probably less interested in seeing me swim and more just wanted to see me wearing just a swim suit.
"Well, Spencer's all about the swimming scene, but we have the other sports too," Kate informed her.
"And what about you, Lei? Do you swim?" Caleb asked my sister.
Leilah snorted. "No."
"Lei doesn't do anything," Tyler commented.
"I do too!" she exclaimed, derisively.
"Oh, yes, she's perfected the art of sitting on her—" but I didn't get that last word out because someone shot the little foosball soccer ball at me. That someone received a glare from the four boys. Apparently the boy didn't care. In fact, he seemed rather pleased with himself.
"Aaron," noted Reid. He picked up the ball, and threw it back, barely missing Aaron.
"Reid! Knock it off! We're not getting kicked out again," Caleb said.
"I threw a little plastic ball at him, Caleb. It's not like I shot him," Reid frowned at Caleb, but changed his expression when he turned to Brinly, "Sorry about that. You'll learn that Aaron Abbot thinks he's pretty hot shit."
Tyler nodded, "He hit you on purpose." Not that I didn't know that already though.
I frowned, and looked over my shoulder to glare at the guy. He was grinning from ear to ear, trying to act debonair. I tossed him a dirty look and shifted my gaze back to our group. I knew exactly why he'd thrown the ball. New girl in town. Obviously single. Untraversed territory. Wait 'til the punk met my big brother. Then he'd wish he was a eunuch.
In any case, I ended up sitting down next to Tyler who sat next to Caleb in the circular booth. After I scooted in, Reid slid in next to me.
So, I was sandwiched between my cousin and a guy I didn't really know. Awkward. And Lei? Well, Kate patted the open space next to her, and Lei took that spot.
"So," Pogue began, rubbing his palms together, "who's up for drinks? I'll buy."
"I thought it was Reid's turn to buy?" Caleb sent an unreadable look towards Reid.
Reid laughed and shrugged, "I'm broke."
"How does a trust fund kid become broke?" Sarah asked.
Reid gave her a dirty look, which got a dirty look from Caleb. "That money's all tied up. Can't touch it," he responded.
"Aw, so you actually have to work for what you spend?" Kate asked him in a somewhat mocking tone.
"Yeah. Some of it."
"Some of it!" Pogue guffawed. "How 'bout not hardly any of it?"
Reid glared at Pogue, who snorted in response. However, before either of them could 'get it on' my phone rang. It was the sound of Pain by Three Days Grace. "Hm," Reid said, "Didn't peg you for the type."
I shrugged and checked the caller ID. It was my brother. "Hi. What's up?" I stuck my left index finger into my open ear. Reid let me out when I pushed him a bit, and I began to sift my way through the crowd towards somewhere quieter.
"Hey, kiddo. Is anyone gonna pick me up from the airport?" He sounded tired, but at the same time he also sounded like his mischievous self.
"The airport?"
"Yeah, like one of those places, y'know, where planes park and people get their relatives to pick them up from. The place where I'm stuck because I thought it'd be cool to surprise my three favorite sisters by visiting them."
"You're here? Like actually here in this state, in Massachusetts?"
"That would be the place…"
"Why? Of all the places, why would you come here?"
"Hey, as much as I'd love to harp on Massachusetts with you, I'm kinda hungry and don't wanna sleep here."
"So, get a taxi," she responded.
"Damn it all! Won't you please come get me?!"
"I can't," I responded edgily. "I'm at a bar…"
"You're at a what?!"
"A bar. It's so loud in here, gotta go!" I was somewhat lying of course. It really wasn't loud in the little corner I'd found. I just didn't want to talk to him.