She replayed the scene to Ashley in homeroom. She twisted her hands, back and around, and looked around them. “We can`t talk here, come on!”
She dragged her down the hall, peeking into one room after the other. “Just checking pep rally day class attendance, seems good in here,” she`d cheerfully answer each curious face, and move on to the next room. Finally she found what she wanted, or seemed to, and dragged her friend into it. She looked around again, at the dust motes and silent room, then crossed to the door and closed it. “What are you do-“ but she was cut off.
“What are you doing?”
Alyss pursed her lips. “Do you mean about giving that bully a piece of my mind?”
“Of course you don`t like him, but you can`t antagonize him,” she was practically growling at this point. “It`s not safe, Alyss!” Alyss looked at her doubtfully. What could one little creepy kid really do? They had adults, police, people to fix delinquents. Why not send him away? She left the questions unasked, but Ashley growled at her again, finally letting out a reluctant sigh.
“I didn`t want to tell you this. I`ll get in more trouble.” Alyss urged her to continue, and finally it burst out, like a great river that had been kept behind a dam for too long. “Look, people have disappeared, ok? We had a Mrs. Hutchins for this class last year. Mr. Kirk had to step in when she disappeared last Winter, and he`s been here since.”
Alyss looked at her doubtfully again. “Look, you aren`t being reasonable here. She could have had a baby, could have moved… You know, personal stuff. At each negative shake of Jackie`s head, her rebuttals got a little louder. “Look, I`m just saying, one instance is not enough to create a character profile from! You need facts. A pattern. This isn`t a pattern, it`s a bunch of gossip gone so wild even the adults seem to have bought into it!” She finished, huffing indignantly.
“Look, it`s not just that. You think I`m stupid? There have been other things. Bad things.” But she refused to say any more, and responded to each new question with a nervous giggle and chatter about random fluffy nonsense straight from some teen drama. As she dragged Alyss back to home room, and for the rest of the day, she refused to talk about Aeron or the strange atmosphere of the school and chattered nonstop about the lacrosse team party that was actually going to be hosted at someone’s apartment with no parents around as chaperones and party poopers, so of course it was officially going to be the biggest must do event of the year that Alyss was glad to go to even as she worried about her strange new school.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sleeper Cell
Darien stared at the computer in his room. He could do anything he wanted in here, as neither his adoptive parents nor his sister were likely to disturb him at this time of night. And yet he almost wished they would. School had started here and was interesting enough, but he had plenty of memories to haunt him that the sight of the prince had brought roaring to the forefront of his thoughts again. That day and time, in another room, with less of his own belongings. It had been more of a hovel really, perfectly average for an apprentice.
A man burst into the room. His hair was wound up in a long white braid down his back, and he had an even longer gray beard in the front framed by enough wrinkles on his face the boy was certain the skin would stretch a foot wide if he dared to walk up to the man and stretch his face taut. Of course he’d never do such a thing, and not just because it wasn’t really the best thing to do to waltz up to people and manipulate their features. It was far more pressing that the elders of the domed city ruled it and had very particular egos, and those who damaged those egos in any way were always cast out of the community for ever after.
“We all know for certain you’ll mess everything up but we’ve decided. We need you to do it,” the elder told him.
He paused in his mopping and looked around at his clothes, his work, all symbols of how insignificant he was considered here, and they were asking him to do such an important mission?
The elder pursed his lips. It was clear he had a strong idea of what the young one was thinking, and he was not a fan of even thoughts questioning his orders.
“It is not your concern what goes on in the minds of your betters.” He looked at the boy and jerked his head. “ I suppose it will do no harm to discus the plans you are soon to be involved in, however. It has come to our attention that the person they call the crown prince, as if their so called rulers had any authority over us or our people,” he added with a sneer, “Has been looking for a person he holds very dear for fifteen long years. Or well,” he paused thoughtfully, “considering that they are not human, perhaps that could be considered a very short period of time. Anyways,” he snapped back into focus on the topic at hand, “Due to the superior skills, resources, and intelligence of our people, we found the person he has been looking for first. She’s in the human world.” He paused and stroked his beard
