Of Thieves And Do Gooders

Raven’s Point Of View

Ow. Ow. Ow! There was a crick in my neck the size of some unearthly proportion that I would have killed to get rid of. I guess that’s what I get for hiding under desks that don’t allow me room to move around.

I let a full minute pass before I crawled out from under the desk, twisting my neck left and right with much groaning on my part. I will never hide under a desk again, I’ll lay under a bed and choke on dust bunnies first or tuck myself into a closet filled with mothballs.

I continued to roll my neck around on my shoulders, thinking of how I would probably have to wait another minute or so before I could scurry down the hall to hide out in my own room.

That hypothesis, however, dissolved when the door was thrust open and gave me a start. I was staring wide-eyed as Damion waltzed into the room and bent down to dig through a black backpack. He halted his search instantly when he realized someone else was in the room and swirled around to face me.

I saw the surprise easily in his eyes, and just for a moment, his eyes darted down to my toes and back to my face. That was both flattering and creepy at the same time, I didn’t enjoy getting “checked out” as the teenage colloquialism so elegantly put it.

Before either of us could say anything, Hayden appeared in the doorway, looking like he was still trying to prevent the secret from being blown. In that case, he should have run a bit quicker than he had. Failure.

“Hi…I’m Jennifer,” I offered with a sheepish look on my face, one that practically read “oops, secret blown”. However, it wasn’t the secret that Damion thought he had discovered. As far as he could see, Hayden was hiding a random girl in his room, nothing more.

“Uh, hi…I’m…Do I know you?” Damion asked interrupting his own introduction.

I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes, tilting my head to one side in obvious confusion. “I don’t think so,” I said, trying to look like the thought was taking a extreme amount of effort.

“Are you sure…?” Damion asked, obviously trying to recall how he recognized me. Damn, he wasn’t nearly as dense as Hayden, he must have recognized my facial features.

I exhaled heavily, thoroughly annoyed with how terrible I was at disguising myself, apparently the bimbo guise wasn’t a part I played well enough. That, or I was just laying it on too thick. I bit my bottom lip and put my hand on my hip, putting all my weight on one leg while I pushed one hip to the side. “Think about it real hard Dumbass,” I retorted coldly, my shoulders slumping in defeat. They would figure it out soon anyway, once I was back at Shadowstep Academy due to Hayden’s “mysterious” little plan of his.

That just made him frown, more confused than when I was pretending to be someone else.

“Um guys? Did you forget? You know, the importance of a little thing called ‘food’?” Leon asked as he entered the room, looking like a bulky, pouting four-year-old who hadn’t gotten their way. Then his eyes locked on me and his mouth fell open at the same moment that a single word dropped from his lips, “Raven?” he asked incredulously. He couldn’t seem to look away from my hair.

“Yeah, this is my hair when it isn’t cut like a guy’s, wanna take a picture Leon?” I mocked, talking slowly as if he were mentally retarded. Yeah, I was being a bit of a bitch, but if I acted differently they might have taken longer to recognize me. Or at least Damion would have taken awhile, Leon got it without me insulting him first. He was the most observant of all of them, never would have guessed that one.

Damion stared at me for a moment and then squinted and then his mouth fell open like Leon’s. “Raven?” he echoed, looking me up and down again with even less subtlety, except this time it was in disbelief rather than his hormones acting up.

“The one and only,” I chimed with a lack of enthusiasm. What? I was bummed! Everyone was finding me when I had been trying to disappear, which was a major insult to one of my main thieving techniques.

Damion turned to look at Hayden. “This is what you were hiding? Seriously?”

That thought dawned on Leon as well and he turned a curious gaze on Hayden too.

Hayden opened his mouth to try and explain but no words came out. Chances were he didn’t know what to tell them and he wasn’t ever sure where to start with how he even managed to find me.

“Hey, over here.” I waved my arms enthusiastically and all eyes turned to me, Hayden thankful, Leon and Damion both questioning. “I asked him to keep it a secret alright? I wasn’t read to be ‘found’ yet. It was going to be a surprise.” I snorted once in laughter, then added, “Guess that’s a problem since I’m obviously a shitty hider.”

“A surprise?” Damion asked with a quirked eyebrow, his eyes darting from my feet back to my head every once in awhile, it was an annoying habit that he was picking up. I don’t care if he’s only seen me as a guy! He could at least be a little more subtle about it.

“Yeah, I…um…” I sighed and walked over to the nearest wall so that I could hit my forehead on it. “I really don’t want to explain it,” I said without looking at them. The whole situation with Hayden and the apologizing wasn’t something I wanted to recount verbally.

“She’s coming back to Shadowstep Academy,” Hayden said for me, leaving out all of the interesting details, which I assumed was because he was as embarrassed about it as me. They didn’t need to know about our rare but sentimental talks.

Leon looked at Hayden and then back to me, then asked me, “But why’d you leave in the first place? Why the change of heart?”

I grimaced. I had a feeling that Leon had no reason to know about the conversation Damion and Hayden had. So I took the easiest root and lied, “Ha, well, I just got kinda bored, and thought I would explore my own techniques for awhile longer, but…um…” I scratched the back of my head and swallowed hard before I started telling the truth again. “I guess I…kinda…missed you guys,” I murmured almost inaudibly, feeling my cheeks burn from the embarrassment. One advantage to having my hair long again, it was very easy to hide behind.

I heard the footsteps approach me, but I refused to look up, a little scared at what expression I might see, and still half-hoping that they hadn’t heard my last sentence even if it was meant to be something flattering and meaningful. With a gasp, I felt myself get wrapped into Leon’s powerful grip to be enveloped in a strangely powerful, yet careful embrace.

I hesitated for a moment and then returned the gesture a little awkwardly at first, but it was easy to relax with Leon’s arms around me. He was always good at that somehow, making me calm whereas Damion and Hayden only seemed to maximize my awkward limitations. “I missed you,” Leon informed me affectionately.

“Aw, stop, you’re making me blush,” I said jokingly, although it wasn’t a lie. Knowing that I had been missed was a wonderful feeling, I can’t lie, but the hug had gone on so long that I was starting to go back to the awkward stage.

Leon chuckled and released me from his bear-like grip, smiling and then staring at my hair a bit longer. As an absent movement he picked up a lock of my hair and examined it warily. “I think I’ll have to get used to this though,” he said thoughtfully. He dropped my hair.

I rolled my eyes. “Well I’m not cutting it anytime soon, so get used to it quick, I don’t need you staring at my head all day, every day,” I scoffed with a light giggle. That was one forgiveness down, all that was left now was a response from Damion.

When I looked at him though, his expression was tortured and I quickly looked at Hayden, wanting less pressure on myself. I could practically feel the guilt swell up in my chest and sit there, smothering me. He must have known that my reasoning wasn’t quite the truth. Why the hell did Hayden and him have to be so damned perceptive? They couldn’t just accept lies as the truth, they had to see some stupid deeper meaning to it all.

“Hey, Lee, come on, let’s go find some of that food, eh?” Hayden suggested and I threw an automatic glare in his direction. He was going to leave me and Damion alone. How annoying of him.

Leon raised his eyebrows and stole a glance back at Damion, but he had already looked down at the floor, looking a little lost in thought. “Uh, yeah, alright,” he agreed and followed Hayden out of the room, closing the door behind them.

An awkward silence took over the room and I racked my brain for something to say. But emptiness had occupied my head and all I could do was bite my bottom lip and persevere through the silence. Damion was going to have to say something first.

“Raven,” he began in a quiet tone, then continued after a short pause, “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know that you were there. I mean, I guess I should have thought of it sooner but…” he trailed off looking up from the ground to look me in the eyes.

I shook my head slowly and licked my abruptly dry lips before I replied, “You didn’t chase me off if that’s what you were thinking.” I was going to try and keep this light, I didn’t want some huge emotional talk at that moment. “I’m just a little scatterbrained, and…I’m not good at staying in one place too long, so I just figured I should have been moving on, you know?” I knew that he didn’t know, because it made absolutely no sense, I didn’t make sense, but I had come to cope with that.

“But I just gave you the push you needed to convince yourself,” Damion said sullenly, still trying to look me in the eyes, but I was staring harshly at the floor, determined not to look up.

“Stop kicking your own ass, alright? I’m not good at this sentimental crap, but it wasn’t your fault, okay? It was mine. I’ve got some weird wire in my brain that tells me to run whenever something’s difficult,” I explained vaguely. In fact, at that exact moment, my brain was telling to leave, just go somewhere else where emotion couldn’t find me. Too bad a place like that didn’t exist.

“But I must have had something to--”

“You didn’t,” I assured him quickly.

Damion took five quick steps forward and stood directly in front of me, his eyes boring into mine, but I couldn’t look away. I could feel my shoulders tense, I knew what he was going to do, but I forced myself to stay put, there was nothing to be afraid of. Just human contact, which wasn’t so bad. Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, run…wait.

Briskly, he wrapped his arms around me, as if he had the right to do so, as if he’d been waiting too long to do what he had done. He pulled me hard against his chest, as if he might never let me go again. I could smell the heady scent of his aftershave mixed with the smell of his deodorant. I couldn’t deny it: he smelled good. Besides it wasn’t as if Damion was ugly, he was actually very handsome. I just didn’t see him like that. He was a friend in my eyes, any other way it would be awkward, even if he didn’t think that it was, I would make it awkward. Not on purpose either.

Tentatively, I returned the hug. Damion tightened his arms around me in response and I felt like he was trying to squeeze the air out of my lungs. “I missed you,” he whispered down into my hair, sending chills across my body where his breath fanned out across my neck and touched my skin.

“I-I missed you too,” I stammered, thrown off by the raw emotion he had put into the sentence.

“There was something I never got to tell you…you know, before you left,” Damion continued, keeping me in the embrace.

“Um…Damion?” I asked and he looked down at me. “Could you let go now?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood with a small, nervous chuckle.

He hesitated but obliged and took a very small step back. “I never got to tell you how much I…I don’t know when it happened and I can’t really explain it, but, I really like you Raven. But, when you were a guy, it sort of made things…complicated,” he explained, his eyes boring into mine once again. I looked down at the floor.

Why? Why was he doing this to me? To himself? I groaned and he quirked his eyebrow in confusion. “Damion,” I said carefully, but forcefully, quickly trying to gather my thoughts and say what I wanted to. I swallowed hard and began with, “You’re a kickass friend. And a freakin’ sweet guy, but, I can’t think of you like that. I mean, with me, you’ll just end up hurt, I don’t stay in one place long, I’m not lady-like at all, I belch a lot after eating pizza, sometimes I don’t shower everyday--you should want someone better, I have too many imperfections.” I spoke logically and evenly, I had to convince him because I didn’t want that sort of thing with him. It scared the living hell out of me.

Damion’s brow creased in a contemplative frown. “I don’t care about your imperfections and I don’t want someone ‘better’. I want…” he trailed off, trying to look meaningfully into my eyes, but I wasn’t making it easy, I was looking everywhere but at him. Damion lifted my chin gently with his fingertips and I begrudgingly look into his eyes when he finished, “I want you.”

My heart fluttered around in my chest for two reasons: 1) It wanted to escape my chest and run as far away from Damion as possible and 2) It was completely ecstatic at the prospect of being wanted.

I did the most logical thing I could think of, the thing that my brain had been telling me ever since I could remember: I ran.

_____________________________________

Damion’s Point Of View

I stood there, blinking. Raven had just ran from me. Out the door, without even looking back at me. I could feel everything inside me go cold, frozen over like a lake in the winter. She had ran from me, like I was something to be scared of.

Ouch. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and suddenly I couldn’t draw in air. I sat back quickly, glad that Hayden’s bed wasn’t too far off. I took careful breaths, slow and steady, even though it didn’t feel like there was enough air in the room to fill my lungs. I replayed the image over in my mind: Raven heard me, waited a few seconds, turned before I could stop her, her hair whipped around her body and she ran out of the room. And from the looks of it, she didn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Oh, God, I had to hope that she wasn’t running away again, as in, we won’t see her ever again as long as she’s trying to hide. I couldn’t live with that kind of weight on my shoulders.

But I hadn’t even done anything! I just told her how I felt, so she would know, so I didn’t have to walk around with that information smothering me while she found someone else. So I would at least stand a chance against the other guys out there. Fuck, that had backfired on me.

I was aware of a vague aching in my chest and head. I felt like I should have been hurt, angry, crying, something other than what I was feeling at that moment. I was feeling ashamed and mostly hurt, but not angry and I wasn’t crying. I should have known better than to spring that kind of shit on Raven at a spur of the moment, I should have known that she would run from something like that. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I hit myself in the forehead with my closed fist and stood up abruptly.

I had to find her, before she disappeared completely. Good God, if Hayden found out she ran off again and that it was because of me…I didn’t want to think about it. I shook the thought away and rushed out the door after her, even though she had a good two minutes distance between us.

_______________________________________

Raven’s Point Of View

I felt like I was running from a monster. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest and my head was screaming for me to run faster, because something bad was going to happen. I took the stairs down into the observatory two at a time and stumbled when I leapt off the last four steps.

“Raven?” I heard Hayden say, surprised as I pushed past him to get into the hallway.

“Raven, wait!” he called when he realized I wasn’t stopping.

But even he wasn’t stopping me this time, I had to run. It hardly even registered in my mind that Hayden was running after me. I ripped the front door open and yanked it shut behind me, then I kept running, down the gravel driveway and out the gate, into the oncoming night air. I saw headlights coming from down the road and veered off to the right, into a cluster of trees.

With a grunt, I leapt through some brambles, accumulating scrapes on my palms as I pushed branches away from my face. I was breathing heavily, fighting my way through bushes and stumbling over rocks until I came to a particular point where a creek stood in my way. I hesitated, measured the distance, and bounded across the creek, my heel just barely grazing the water before I found my footing and kept sprinting deeper into the woods.

Only when sweat was pouring down my face and my heart was fluttering faster than a hummingbird’s wings did I hear the voice in my head that screamed, Stop! You said you weredone running! So what the fuck are you doing? I stumbled to an abrupt stop and leaned against the nearest tree, doubled over and dragging air into my lungs. The voice was right. Where the hell was I even going? I didn’t know. I looked around the woods and saw a squirrel look at me for a long moment before chattering and running up the nearest tree. Two birds swooped down and interlaced with each other before throwing themselves back up into the air again, chirping jubilantly.

Stop running, I ordered myself, although I was too out of breath to say it aloud. I looked around at the forest still, wondering where exactly I had run to; if it was someone else’s property. I clenched my fingers against my palm and winced, looking curiously at the cuts that had shown up there; they were light pink and hardly worth examining, just irritated skin, really, although they did sting a little.

I looked quickly behind me, almost nervously. But if Damion was following me, I wasn’t so sure I could keep my legs from leading me deeper into the forest, or up a tree or something. With a slow sigh I sat down against the tree I had been supporting myself on, thinking back on my reaction and hardly even remembering it. Last I remembered, I was listening to Damion talk and then the next thing I knew, I was telling myself to stop running. I drew my hand over my face and groaned, realizing that I had done exactly what I said I wouldn’t. But I had just blanked out! I couldn’t even help it, my instincts finally won out.

I certainly wasn’t an easy person to like. But at least Damion knew that now.

__________________________________

Hayden’s Point Of View

Don’t get mad, don’t get mad, don’t get mad, I repeated in my head over and over, watching in disbelief as Raven disappeared out the gate. Even then though I felt my insides burning with unrequited rage, what the hell did Damion do? I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone with that idiot!

Raven disappeared around the right side of the gate and was gone. There was no way I was catching her at that rate, she would put the Mach 5 to shame with that sort of speed. I tried to relax my shoulders and felt Lee’s heavy hand touch my shoulder from behind.

“You all right?” Lee asked carefully, no doubt he noticed my angry silence. But I nodded.

“Fine,” I spat sharply and took a deep breath.

“She’ll come back,” Lee assured me and I let out an involuntary snort. “She will,” he said again, this time with more authority. Like he knew it as a fact.

I laughed a little bitterly and said, “Alright, sure, whatever.” As if he knew Raven better than I did, I lived with her for two months in the same room and analyzed her the entire time. I knew how she thought, and if she was telling herself to run, then she wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon.

I turned as Damion came jogging down the hall, coming to a halt in front of Lee and I. However, he didn’t look at me; good call. “Where’d she go?” he asked Lee, still avoiding my gaze. But I was all right with that, I could just as happily glare at the side of his head, making him uncomfortable.

“Uh, out the gate,” Lee offered with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the open front door.

“Thanks,” Damion said quickly and started to hurry out the front door.

Oh hell no. I moved in front of him, throwing my arm out and bracing it against the doorframe to stop him. “Don’t,” I said in a dangerously quiet voice.

“Don’t what?” Damion asked sharply, straining against my arm, but not quite trying to break out of the house.

“I swear to God Damion, if you go out this fucking door and go after her, I will break both of your legs so that she just has to stand on top of some stairs to get away from you,” I warned in the same quiet voice.

Dame’s jaw clenched and he still refused to look at me.

“What did you do?” I asked, trying not to sound as angry, and failing.

“I didn’t do anything,” Dame said defiantly, finally knocking my arm away from the doorframe. But he didn’t make a move to leave.

“Then why’s she running?” Lee countered before I could.

“I-I just…” he tried to say and scowled at me. Dame hit himself in the forehead and absently rubbed his palm against it, trying to think. “I scared her off,” he admitted sullenly.

“No shit,” I said dryly, closing the front door with a slam. “But how did you do it? She was running like a rapist was after her,” I accused before I could stop myself.

Dame’s glare was fiery, but I didn’t back down from it. “I didn’t try and rape her, good God Hayden what kind of person do you think I am?” he asked sharply, looking thoroughly annoyed with me. Good.

Lee was the level-headed one at that moment and stood between us, pushing Dame back into the hall while keeping me near the front door. “Sounds like someone’s here Hayden, you might want to greet them,” he informed me and continued to push Dame down the hall. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, he kept his eyes on the ground.

I clenched and unclenched my fists. That dumbfuck! I swear to God he only thinks with his dick and his brain shrunk as a result. I heard footsteps down the hall and saw my dad coming, looking at me with a frown on his face.

“Hayden? What’s wrong?” he asked, seeing that I was still struggling to control my anger.

“Nothing,” I spat exasperatedly. “My best friend is just a complete dumbshit,” I added with a growl. I jerked my thumb at the front door behind me, “Someone’s here, you might want to greet’em, I’m going to my room for a little while, I’ll be down when everyone’s here.” With that said, I moved past my dad and stalked up to the upper floor. I hesitated when I saw Dame and Lee round the corner, obviously going to my room too.

I clenched my teeth painfully and marched into Raven’s room instead, slamming the door shut and turning the lock. I wasn’t sure who I was really mad at, Dame or Raven. Maybe it was both of them, but Dame was actually here for me to take it out on. Raven had already run…again. Even when she had said that she was done running.

I cast a glance out the window and saw that it was getting dark, the sun was already down over the horizon. Idiot, I thought, She’s running around and it’s pitch black outside…I hope she doesn’t get lost. I shook the thought away, what did it matter if she did get lost? She probably wasn’t coming back anyway. Absently I reached into my pocket and pulled out the photo of Raven and her brother. Her smile was bright and reached her eyes effortlessly. She was a lot happier back then, a lot happier than she was now. I folded the picture in half so that Raven was the only one showing, not even caring that I put a crease in the picture.

I tightened my jaw and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath before tucking the picture back into my pocket. Goes to show you, you really can’t trust a thief.