Gabriel picked her up outside the school, the powder-blue junker idling loudly. Mostly powder-blue - one of the doors was white. He would have been easy to spot even if he wasn’t the only one waiting up front. A couple of cars were parked in the back of the school lot - she assumed it was teachers staying late.
She slid into the passenger seat, letting her bag hit the floor and the door slam shut in one fluid motion. She didn’t even want to look at him right now. This was all his doing.
“I’ve never picked a kid up from their first day of school before,” he said, in his oblivious way. “I think you’re supposed to tell me all about your day. Tell me you made lots of friends and a cute boy asked you out and your idiot English teacher gave you too much homework.”
At least now she could speak her own language. “I am not going back in there,” she stated flatly, back to Japanese at last.
He sighed, putting the car in gear. “No, see, that’s not how it works. Talk about how you traded food with other kids in the cafeteria.”
“What am I, seven? And who cares about cafeteria food?”
“Well I do. If they’re not feeding you properly, I’ll have to put in a complaint with the school board. Wait, do I need to join a PTA now or something? Does Havenwood have a PTA...?” he mused.
“You are ignoring me,” Camille fumed.
“I’m distracting you. There’s a difference.”
“Either way you’re not listening. I don’t want anything to do with the other students. They’re either completely oblivious, or they’re tools of the principal. Sheep and wolves.”
Gabriel’s expression sobered at her metaphor. The light ahead changed to yellow, then red. The car slowed and came to a stop at the intersection.
“She called me a monster,” Camille said.
Gabriel took a slow breath and ran his hands through his fine, jet-black hair, looking up at the stoplight. “Damn. Already?”
“She wants me gone.”
“Ohhhh no, kiddo. Not in the slightest. Very much the opposite. She knows what her family would do to her if she let us get away. She may not like us, but by no means does she want to be rid of us.” He paused for a moment, and then a grin spread slowly across his face. That was the smile that meant they were about to do something dangerous, something outside the box, and it almost made her grin as well. He was a very difficult person to stay angry with.
“You know what would drive her crazy?” he said, as the light changed and the car inched back into motion.
“No,” she said, trying to maintain a solemn expression.
His eyes flicked to her and back to the road; they were glittering. “If you did really well.”
“Be serious.”
“That is what she’d hate,” he said emphatically. “Rin Umino’s idea of power is thinking that she and her pet students are better than everyone else. I’m a little...ah...notorious...in their circles. That makes you notorious by association. If you really want to stick it to her...follow the rules and destroy them doing it.”
“We’re destroying them?”
“Metaphorically.”
“Less interested.”
“Come on, it can’t have been that bad.”
“She called me a monster. One of her ‘pets’ tried to interrogate me about the bracer. My notebook is soaking wet. They’re making me take extra English classes, they won’t let me speak Japanese,” she said, and then added. “And no one talked to me.” That last was a lie, she realized as soon as she said it. Jul had tried. Several times. She frowned in recollection.
“That’s more like it,” he said. “First day of school stuff. Then I say things like, tomorrow will be better, and that maybe you should try talking to other people if they’re not talking to you first, and we can fix your notebook with a hairdryer. Wait, do we have a hairdryer? Honestly, extra English sounds like the worst part.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I know your English teacher,” he said, distracted as they pulled into the parking lot of the cafe, noting two cars there.
“Who’s that?” Camille asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said, bringing the car to a quiet stop. He rolled down the windows and turned off the engine. “Can you hear them?”
She concentrated. She could hear the wasp buzzing around the back of the car. The engine cooling down. The wind in the trees across the lot. She closed her eyes. The heat radiating off the shingles. The motorcycle two miles away. The two people arguing inside the church/cafe. Her senses were unusually dulled. She should have been able to hear them crisply from this proximity, but instead she had to strain to pick out their conversation. Voices new to her, but she could place them.
“You don’t need to be here for this,” a man was saying.
“You’re going to try to run him off, and I’m not going to let you do that again,” a woman replied.
“You think I had anything to do with the last time? You’re fooling yourself.”
“It’s Tailor and Miller,” Camille murmured. She could almost smell them, underneath the harsh exhaust smell that permeated the parking lot, and the fragrance of shaved wood and fresh paint that flowed out of the main door. Tailor smelled like old books, coffee, and iron. Miller smelled like oranges and acetone.
“You’d do anything to get rid of him, John. For the hundredth time, I’m not stupid.”
“And for the thousandth time, Charlotte, I’m flattered you think I have any influence over that walking disaster,” Tailor snapped. “Gabriel left because he was done with us, not for any other reason. Not you, not me, not Simon or Kyra. He was bored, so he left.”
“They, ah, they’re...” Camille filed the comment away. “They’re having an argument. About you. Tailor said you’re...a walking disaster?”
“From his perspective, I’m sure I am,” he said coolly. “I guessed it would be them, I just wanted to be sure.”
“I can’t hear them very well,” Camille admitted. “Can something interfere with that?”
“Hmm,” Gabriel remarked. “Call it...one of the side effects of this town. I just wasn’t sure how strongly it would affect you. Well, let’s not keep them waiting.” He exited the car, slamming the door shut loudly. Camille heard the conversation inside cease. She gathered her bag and climbed out of the car as well.
“They’re going to ask you to leave,” Gabriel said lowly, as they approached the door. “You can protest if you like, but do it. You should be able to hear everything from your room anyway, if you care.”
“Why wouldn’t I care?” Camille grumbled, and he patted her head.
Their feet crunched in the gravel as they approached the door. Gabriel opened it, and looked convincingly surprised. “I wondered who would ambush me in my own space, but I suppose I should have expected,” he said.
“No one’s ambushing,” Charlotte said.
Tailor’s expression was sour. He regarded Gabriel with the sort of vitriol Camille chalked up to words like ‘arch enemy’ and ‘nemesis.’
“I appreciate the thought, Charlotte, but John and I are both adults now. I believe we can be civil.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t,” she stated. “Camille, I’m very sorry to ask this, would you mind going upstairs? This is some very old, very boring grownup stuff.”
That was a lie, and a poor one at that, Camille noted. Charlotte Miller was weak at deception.
“It’s alright, kiddo, this won’t take long,” Gabriel said, offhand.
“Whatever,” she muttered, in English. Camille climbed the steps, feeling superior. She and Gabriel could outsmart anyone. She shut the door to her room with an audible click, but she wasn’t inside. With her diminished hearing, she wouldn’t take any chances; she wasn’t missing this for anything. She stood in the hall, waiting for the conversation to trickle up the stairs. Eyes closed, she listened with ears perked.
She heard a huff of breath. Frustration. Tailor.
“If you wanted to talk to me alone,” Gabriel said, “have the sense to do it when Charlotte can’t follow you so easily.”
