Chapter 6

xxxx

(Pristine’s POV)

June 8, 2010.

World History.

Pristine headed the page, then set down her pen to listen to her tutor’s lesson.

“It was the year 1833 when the slaves of the British Caribbean were finally emancipated, at this time-“

“How is she doing?”

Pristine’s head snapped up at the sound of her father’s voice. Her eyes widened in shock when she spotted him standing next to her, she hadn’t even heard him enter the study.

“P-Pardon me master?” the tutor stuttered, her father never inquired about her lessons. Sven didn’t repeat but merely stared at the man quaking before him, his face devoid of emotion. He also never repeated himself.

“Oh, she- Pristine is doing marvelously master, she does excellently in every subject area, but I’m afraid she has…a lot of work to do on math” he finshed. Sven’s hand came to rest on Pristine’s shoulder as he spoke.

“Since when are you on a first name basis with my daughter Ronald?” he froze, his heart pounding in his chest.

“I-she, she insisted that I call her Pristine master, I was only adhering to her wishes”. He brought up a hand to swipe at his brow.

Sven laughed, a blood curdling sound that echoed through the house sending a chilling fear through the creatures standing guard outside.

“ She insisted?” he chuckled “ my daughter is but a mere child, she has not the power to insist upon anything, but she is of greater importance and status than you ,therefore you will address her as Miss Dlanor, her first name is and forever shall be off limits to everyone but me, is that understood Ronald??

“Yes sir-I mean master” he corrected.

“Now, if you will excuse my daughter from her lessons for but a few minutes, we have matters to attend to . I will deal with you later”

Ronald trembled at the softly spoken words and his eyes filled with tears he dared not shed before his master.

“Come Pristine, there is something I must show to you.” He placed a hand around her shoulders and guided her from the room. As they descended the stairs Pristine focused on controlling her breathing less her father detect any hint of fear. He always boasted that she was the one person who did not fear him and he loved her even more for it. If he knew the truth, there was no telling what he would do.

They stopped before a row of glass windows which allowed them to see outside clearly, below them, on the sun bleached grass, stood five werewolves in a perfect queue. To the left of them were three condoloids also in a line and around them stood eleven shape shifters, all creatures were looking up at Sven and his daughter.

 Sven then turned to a bewildered Pristine and spoke in well modulated tones;

“Yesterday, while I was away, the creatures standing before us in a queue were assigned to guard you, they were positioned further away from the house to act as ‘backup’ or want of a better word, to Shura, Grad and Gain, the three werewolves who were killed yesterday.

Due of their utter incompetence, they allowed an enemy of mine, a vampire whose name I refuse to even speak, to sneak pass then, murder the three wolves and enter our home, however temporary it may be” he turned from her and looked at the group before him, she mimicked his movement. He stared silently for exactly a minute before he continued,

“If I had not returned two days earlier than I had planned, it is evident that he would have….extinguished your life as well”, Sven glanced at her to see if his statement had affected her in any way, when he saw that it had not, he smiled.

“Why did you return early father?”

“Ahh…I was in Austrailia recruiting more…allies, I had just persuaded” his smile widened “ a very gifted condoloid to join our group, when your face appeared in my mind’s eye, it was a memory of you when you were younger, four I believe and you’d fallen after tripping over a rock outside our first home and you began to cry when you realized no one had yet helped you to your feet as they usually did, the memory came and went in a flash but I knew something was wrong, a gut feeling I suppose you’d call it, so I contacted my teleporter and appeared here in a flash and just in time I might add.

After my men had dealt with the vampire, I enquired as to the reason no one had come to your aid and do you know what I learned?” he paused, his eyes on Pristine. She didn’t answer for she knew it was a rhetorical question.

“Not one of the guards was in the position I had instructed them to be. They were gallivanting with each other a few miles away; their excuse was that they did not think anyone would try to harm you. Can you believe it? I gave them simple instructions and they defied me.”  He was calm as he said this.

“So now you will use your ability to punish them. I want them on their knees; heads turned up to the sky as if begging for salvation, then I’ll have someone remove their heads.” He said this as though he were discussing his plans for the day.

Pristine shuddered, “Dad you don’t need to do this, let’s just give them a warning this time” she pleaded.

Sven laughed and patted her cheek, “Your compassion never fails to amuse me Pristine” he dropped his hand and turned once more to the window, she knew she could brook no argument, he expected her to carry out his instructions and so she did, tears filled her eyes as she watched the creatures being slaughtered one by one and she cringed inwardly at the piercing screams that filled the yard as each creature, unable to move, watched as his companion’s head was unmercifully removed from his body.

A full ten minutes later, Pristine was ordered to return to her studies. As she turned to go, Sven announced “I will not punish Ronald after all”.

She entered the study to find her tutor sitting in his chair head bowed, when the door creaked open, he lifted his head and stared at her in terror, eyes red, tears cascading down his age worn cheeks. Pristine never despised her father as much as she did in that very instant.

Xxxx

(Jasam”s POV)

“Oh yea, who won the race?” I asked Sultan when we were walking down the hallway headed to our first class for the day.

Sultan rolled his eyes and mumbled something under his breath which sounded like ‘ dumb ass question’, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Hey guys!” we both turned to see Tira running toward us, when she caught up she squeezed herself between us and grabbed hold of our hands; my left and Sultan’s right. As we walked, people stopped and stared, whispering to each other, about my injury I guessed since I wasn’t in the mood to eavesdrop.

“You’ll never guess what I did last night!” Tira enthused.

“lemme guess, you read a very good book” Sultan concluded.

“noo, I read a great book it was…wow, about this girl on a quest to find true love”. I groaned but she ignored me.

“but the thing is, she’s not human, she’s like you guys, if you knew the horrible things she had to go through with her father and stuff, I know it doesn’t sound interesting to you two but if you read it you’d understand and she’s in love with this human-oh wow, I’ve never asked you guys to read one of my books before but this-this you got to  read!, the author is P.Dlanor, now my all time favorite novelist! But that’s only her first one, can’t wait till she writes another” she sighed the last word and as she entered the class she seemed to be floating on a cloud.

To be in love was bad enough, but to read about love and be acting this way, the more I thought about it the more I realized Grandpa had truly lost his mind, love, I scoffed, what a load a sh- then it hit me, did Tira say P.Dlanor?

“What did you say the author’s name was?”

“P.Dlanor, not sure what the P stands for though, why, you gonna read it?”

I reflected on the name for a moment,

“It can’t be.” It took me a moment to realize that Sultan and I had spoken in unison. I looked at him,

“What, you know the person?” I queried.

“ I know someone with those initials but…that’s impossible, the person I’ thinking about is pure evil, she doesn’t even know the meaning of the word love” he chuckled.

I thought about Pristine wasn’t that her surname? I was pretty sure she would tell me if she was writing a book, I’d ask her later.

We sat in our usual spot at the back of the class and I was in the process of taking out my history book when I felt the presence behind me, I looked to my left and was shocked to see a girl standing behind me. No one ever snuck up on me, I must be losing it.

“H-Hi, I’m...” she swallowed visibly “Liza, I  j-just wanted to say, I hopeyourhandgetsbettersoon” she rushed, words running into each other. She was the girl from Friday; the one who that guy broke up with in the cafeteria.

I looked away from her to see said guy staring at us, anger blazed in his eyes. I looked at the Liza girl, it was obvious she was trying to make him jealous, usually I’d be disgusted at the thought of someone using me as a means to an end but, I figured she was desperate, she was the second person from the entire student population to talk to me, had to admire her courage.

Everyone knew that I didn’t socialize with anyone but Tira and Sultan, so it would definitely be a huge deal to Liza’s ex if I spoke to her      ( Yes, if you haven’t realized by now, I’m a bit conceited). I smiled, another thing I never did at school.

“Thanks Liza” I heard her heart skip a beat in its fast pace.

“You want to sign my cast?” I added. Her as widened, as expected.

“S-Sure” she gave me a weak smile as I handed her a pen, her hand shook so much I could hardly decipher her words she scribbled but I smiled anyway and turned in my seat expecting her to disappear, instead she spoke again;

“My friends” she pointed to a group of four blushing girls sitting across the room,

“Wanted me to tell you to get better soon” her voice didn’t shake as much as before.

“Tell them thanks, better yet, tell them to come sign my cast.” I was feeling generous today for some strange reason.

“You feeling alright bro?”Sultan enquired when Liza had gone to relay the message. Tira, oblivious, continued reading.

“ I feel great” I grinned and leaned back in the chair watching a group of about 9 girls, far more than we agreed on mind you, make their way over to my table.

“Morning ladies” I said in my best husky voice. I received a few giggles for my trouble but only one girl returned my greeting, I found her extremely hard to look at, what with her face plastered with makeup, she looked more than a red apple that a Caucasian teenager. Fighting back a grimace I said “ So yall wanna sign my cast huh?”

A minute later, my once bland cast was transformed into a splash of color, from wishes to get well soon to a phone number from someone named shyniska, unfortunately for her, it was a wasted effort. This is why I wasn’t nice to people, they tended to take advantage because instead of leaving me to converse with my friends, which I would have preferred, they struck up conversation. Liza was the first to speak,   “ So what happened, were you fighting?” leave it to them to think I was doing something violent.

 “No actually, I was car racing with my family”

“Wow, you race cars?!” Didn’t I just say that?

“So what happened exactly?” I thought about Gabe and my anger returned

“I’d rather not speak of it” I said through gritted teeth.

“Oh ok so who won?”

“ No one, we stopped the race as soon as we saw Jasam’s car run off the road” Sultan had answered and Tira finally looked up from her book, eyes widening when she saw that the table was surrounded by girls, now staring at Sultan, well there went my few minutes of fame.

“Take your seats everyone, take your seats,” the teacher’s voice boomed from where he stood at the front of the class. The crowd dispersed reluctantly and I sighed in relief.

“What was that all about?” Tira questioned Sultan, her face flushed and I got the distinct impression she was jealous and that’s when I decided it was almost time to put my plan into action.

            We got through all our morning classes the same way we did every day, being ignored by our teachers. After our second week at Range mountain High, we had become somewhat of a nuisance to our professors because in each class we happened to find a fault with something they taught and so corrected them constantly.

Did I mention that sultan and I were…hmm trying to find a word that doesn’t make us sound that impossibly awesome…nope, no word for it, we were geniuses, the only reason we were referred to as such was because my father did not accept failure, it was 100% or nothing and so we studied probably more than the average person ( guess you really couldn’t call it genius, just good old fashioned hard work).

So with me trying my best not to disappoint my father, Sultan trying his hardest to fit in-even though he was already viewed by the rest of us as part of the family- and Tira, the extremely voracious reader, teachers had a hard time keeping up with our constant corrections, so they opted to conveniently overlook us during every lesson. We didn’t mind though, if they wanted to teach their students absolute rubbish, who were we to stop them.

We sat at our usual spot at lunch, Tira had finally set the book down and was picking absently at her dried up cheese burger.

“I like your shirt by the way” she smiled at Sultan. He beamed and when she turned to ask me if I’d studied for the history exam we had the next day, he gave me a thumbs up. What an idiot I thought, though I was still attracted to Tira and if I didn’t get those together soon I’d have to deal with this crap longer than I could bear.

I decided then that I’d confront her about it in our next class, Sultan had physics and we had sociology, it was the perfect time. In answer to her question, I shrugged and she turned back to Sultan after giving me an annoyed look. I’d studied of course, there was no way dad would accept another 93% and I’d rather not get on his bad side again.

“…but you always study at my house” Tira was saying to Sultan.

“Yeah, but that was before your killer cat tried to tear me to pieces. I still have the scars to prove it” he rolled up his shirt sleeves and sure enough, his arms were decorated with an array of jagged angry looking marks. Tira chose not to look at them.

“They healed the second you got them, what’s the big deal?” she countered.

“That’s not the point” he laughed ‘If I lose an eye it’s not gonna grow back.”

She cringed and dropped the subject.

            At the beginning of sociology, I’d gleaned the information necessary to carry out my plan. After a few minutes of denial, hesitation and deep scarlet blushes, Tira finally admitted to being in love with sultan, she swore me to secrecy and I told her how Sultan felt before explaining my plan. However I waited until after class to execute it. I searched the class for a decent looking male who’d also be present in our next class.

“Yo  Raymond!” I shouted to him where he stood with his friends across the room. He looked around, when he realized I couldn’t be speaking to anyone else, he slowly made his way over to me, his friends staring after him with interest.

He cleared his throat, “Yea?”

“I need you to do something for me”

“Ah- me?”

“Yeah, is there a problem?” I asked, then narrowed my eyes trying to intimidate him. It worked.

“N-no of course not, no problem at all”

“You see my friend here?” I placed my hand on Tira’s shoulder and she smiled shyly at him.

“Yeah?”

“You’re gonna ask her out” I commanded. It felt good ordering people around, no wonder mom was happy all the time.

“What?!  No way that’s Sultan’s girl!” his voice quivered as he said this

“ I know that, so when Sultan comes to class you’re gonna come over and ask her out, she’ll accept and you make a date for tonight, take her number and tell her you’ll call her later with the details, simple”

He was now sweating profusely, “ I-can’t, she’s Sultan’s girl, h-he”ll kill me!” he raised his voice, eyes darting from side to side as though he was trying to find the best escape route. I stood up then; towering a few inches over him, glared into his eyes and made my voice dangerously deep

“and what do you think I’ll do to you if you don’t do as I say?”

 He swallowed. Hard.

“I’ll do it” he choked out.

My smile was sickly sweet “ Good, what we’re trying to do here, if it isn’t painfully obvious is let Sultan see that if he doesn’t ask Tira out himself, then someone else will, in this case, you and until my brother comes to his senses, you’ll pursue her every chance you get..Ah  and Raymond?”

“yeah?”

“Be convincing, I’ll make sure Sultan gets nowhere near you. You may go, but remember, this stays between us.”

“Just one-“he licked his lips “question, should I ask her as soon as he gets here or after class?”

“After  class.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this, it’s not fair to Raymond and what if it doesn’t work?” Tira sulked.

“It will.” I smirked.

                                                                XXX 

                                                   AUTHOR'S NOTES

THERE YOU HAVE IT GUYS :) CHAPTER 6.. ENJOY AND REMEMBER TO COMMENT, READ AND FAN! -DoUbLe.A

-unedited