The Outsiders

The next day, I blinked open my eyes groggily into my Nightmare Before Christmas sheets. Hey, Jack Skellington’s awesome! I groaned into my pillow, and sat up, slihtly tearing as I yawned.

Only to get glomped by a certain hyperactive idiot.

“Hey—you didn’t rendevous at Shiro’s place!” Jay said (actually, it was closer to complaining).

I glanced past Jay’s shoulder to see Tavia and jess standing there, just…staring.

Jay released me, and sat back on her heels, lookng me over.

I hesitated for several seconds, feeling the tension build. I don’t know exactly why I waited, I just felt like there was something wrong. I quickly shoved the image of my fourth grade teacher singing the ‘one of these things is not like the other’ song out of my head.

“What?” Jess tilted his head to the side, “Something wrong?”

“Nope.” I shook my head.

“Heyy ~!” Jay’s eyes locked onto a silver flash, and reached out, grabbing the teardrop necklace by the pendant. Her eyes widened as she scrutinized it, taking in every detail.

“Oh, cool!” Tavia’s gaze had locked onto the necklace too, “Where’d you get that?”

“Oh. Um…present.”

“From who?” Jess raised an eyebrow.

“Person.” I said bluntly, my tone telling him not to ask again.

“Oh. Okay.” He looked away.

“Okay. One. Why are you all in my room?” I asked, “Especially you, Jesse.”

“Well, you normally turn up at rendevous, no batter how much you’re torn up. So you not limping out of the darkness at least with a broken limb kinda worried us.” Taivia said.

“And this one dragged me here.” Jess gave his girlfriend one of those quick little kisses on the cheek, causing her to color slightly. Even though Tavia was the more dominant of the couple, she always showed Jesse her sweeter side. It was cute just watching them together.

“Tavia…” I growled.

“What? You could’ve been dead.” She said.

“You could’ve just sent Jay up to the window…”

“And why is Jay so special?”

Jay glomped me again, singing, “Haha I’m shpeshal.”

I sighed and pointed to the door, “There’s jam downstairs.”

She let out a half-stifled shriek before bolting downstairs. Ten seconds later she was back, happily eating it out of the jar with a spoon.

“Okay. First, we didn’t know what happened to you. Jess couldn’t hear you or anything, and none of Tavia’s bets couls see you.” Jay’s voice had calmed down about 110%, and her leg had stopped twitching, “So we only assumed the worst.”

“It was probably my wards that didn’t allow me to be found.” I said, hopng that they would forget Zane.

“The Forest Haunt was completely empty, too.” Jess added.

Damn. He really did leave, then.

“Where’s--?” Jay trailed off, seeing the look on my face. She gulped, and shoved a spoonful of jam in her mouth.

“Moved.” I said, my voice beginning to freeze over.

“How so fast? And why yesterday?”

“Said Outsider stuff was messing up his family.”

There are only two Outsiders who can tell when I’m lying and trying to be convincing. Jesse and Zane. I don’t know why, Jay can tell sometimes, but that’s when she’s not acting all ADD/ADHD on us.

Jess’s eyes narrowed, and Tavia noticed. She untwined her fingers from Jesse’s, and dragged Jay out by the back of the shirt. Hey, just because she’s mellow doesn’t mean she’s not immature..

“What really happened to Zane?” Jess’s tone said ‘tell the truth or I’ll set unsugared Jay on you’.

“Nothing.” I said. Usually when Jess uses that tone, I just blurt out everything. Being an only child watching others grow up with someone to play and argue with made you want to add to your family…especially when you weren’t even legally your parents’ kid.

I guess you could say that Jesse was like my stupid older brother.

“Come on, Gabriela. You’re so easy to read.” I could vaguely remember someone else saying something like that.

“No I’m not. And I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“And now you’re pouting like a litle kid.” I know it sounds pretty much like flirting, but we’ve been talking to each other like this before we had even felt any kind of ‘affection’. Like I said, strictly brother-sister.

“Shut up!”

“Come on! You’re not fooling anyone with that pathetic little act.”

“First, I’m not acting like a little kid. Second, I’m not acting!”

I saw that flciker in the back of Jess’s eyes that always sparked when he was getting to the breaking point.

“Gabriela, there are a lot of ways I can get you to tell me what the hell is going on.” I could hear the meaning behind his words.

“Whatever!”

The flare disappeared.

“Gabriela—“ he began.

“Zane left because I made him!” I burst out.

“Why?”

“Because he was being controlled by one of Them, and I didn’t want that happening again.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.

I knew he knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth.

Jay! I almost yelled out loud.

The door banged open, and Jay walked in.

“We’re gonna be late if we wait any longer. Y N?” she asked me.

“No.” something was twisting in my stomach, and the back of my head was burning with a dull, agonizing pain, “You guys go.”

“You serious?” Tavia appeared beside Jay, “You don’t go, we don’t go.”

My smile was full of weary thanks, before I passed out right there.

“Gabriela…Gabriela!” I blinked my eyes slowly open, seeing Jay waving a bowl of ramen around in my face.

See, only three people in my whole life have ever had the guts to call me ‘Gabby’. Jess, Shiro, and…Zane. Anyone else knew I wasn’t too fond of the nickname.

“C’mon, it’s ramen hour!” she said.

“What about--?” I was beginning to finally wake up.

“I emailed the school from all of our parents’ emails. We’re fine.” She reassured me, handing me the bowl wrapped in a towel. It was warm, and Jay had cracked a few eggs in it, just the way she knew I liked them.

“Thanks…” I mumbled as I stared at the bowl, not eating.

“What’s up?” she prompted me, jumping down on the bed as I held the bowl up a bit not to spill, “You haven’t eaten in almost a whole day…and you’re usually all for ramen…”

“What do you mean?”

“Jess says you didn’t tell him anything.” She probed suspiciously, “We all know you tell Jess anything. With the whole, ‘I like my friends as my siblings’ thing. Plus, we don’t like seeing you like this. You kinda locked yourself up and won’t let anyone know what you’re thinking.”

“Just…stuff.” I said, picking at the noodles.

“Come on!”

I didn’t know I was acting so different. Or at least, off enough for everyone to start asking questions.

Zane…you stupid idiot…I felt the singing, burning sensation behind my eyes, the first warning before tears. If I hadn’t been biting my tongue in half, I would’ve already started crying. Of course I was feeling depressed; even though he was one of Them, he’d always been seriously nice to me. Tavia has the ability to know if someone’s being sincere or not…she would have told me if Zane was being dishonest.

My head suddenly throbbed.

“I think something forced my ward open…” I got out through clenched teeth, the feeling momentarily shoved violently aside. I was greatful.

“Hey, guys!” Jay yelled down the stairs, “We’ve got a problem!”

Tavia and Jess were up the stairs in a few seconds, leaving the Munsters on downstairs.

“The fifth sector.” I said, massaging my head. It always hurt like hell when something broke my wards.

“Tavia and Jay, you go.” I said, and they nodded. The dark curtains in my room fluttered for a second, then they were out the window. Hang on…it got dark awfully fast.

I groaned mentally, set the bowl down on my bedside table, and continued my cranial massage. Whoever broke the ward did it pretty forcefully, it was nothing like when Zane would just slip through the barrier.

Actually, this was only the second time my ward had been broken, the other time was because we were training with Shiro and he accidentally overloaded it with energy and completely shattered it.

“What broke your barrier?”

“Six of Them.” I said, the migrane beginning to fade.

Jess’s frame suddenly tensed, and he stared out of the open window.

“I think…one of those is the head of the…Fifth Clan?” Jess tilted his head to the side slightly, listening, “We’ve got about two minutes.”

I wordlessly slipped out of bed and changed out of my stiff clothes. I mean, I’ve known Jess the longest out of all of the Outsiders, so I had no problem.

Okay, lemmie just say this now; I’m ‘stereotyped’ less of a goth, more towards the ‘punk-ish’ side. Honestly, though, I don’t give a damn about stereotypes (though at school, the most common ones yelled to me are ‘goth’ ‘emo’ ‘punk’ or ‘freak’. If that’s even a stereotype).

I quickly dresses, and swung myself out of the window, Jess close behind.