Of Thieves And Do Gooders

The remainder of Christmas day was, to say the least, uneventful. I spent most of my time in my room, and Jack dropped by to say a jubilant “Merry Christmas” before dutifully disappearing yet again. A vague part of me wondered where he spent the majority of his time, considering I never knew whether or not he left the house or just locked himself somewhere where I couldn’t find him. That part of me was vague indeed though, since for the most part, I really didn’t give a shit.

I didn’t see Hayden for the rest of the day either, but I didn’t really mind that either because a) I was used to spending Christmas alone and b) after the whole “blow job” incident, I was a more than a little embarrassed to see him again.

As for Damion. Not much of an explanation needed there.

I absently watched as the sunlight seemed to slide from my wall and coalesce onto my bedroom floor. Already sunset, and the clouds had even given way long enough to allow sun through for at least an hour or so.

__________________________________

One minute I was watching the sun go down, the next, I was standing on the door step of Jack Crawford’s house, a duffle bag on one side of me and a suitcase on my other side. Damion was already packed and brooding inside the limo meant to take us to Shadowstep. Hayden was standing just outside the limo with a raised eyebrow in my direction. It looked like he wanted to ask me what the hold up was, but he refrained, which was nothing short of a miracle.

I stared at the closed door, half of me wondering why Jack hadn’t shown up to say goodbye, while the other half of me was trying to remember how to move my feet. It didn’t really hurt that Jack wasn’t there, he was Hayden’s dad, and he was busy, I understood that. But still, I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. Some words of wisdom before I left? Some encouragement before I went back to the school I had run away from in the first place? Just something, I guess, which was better than the current nothingness.

That thought aside, I took a deep breath and bid a silent farewell to the house itself. I had become a girl again, met Hayden again, cried, picked myself up, met Leon and Damion again, met Hayden’s family, almost died, laughed and lived all within what felt like a very short time period. And all of it had happened in that house. A small smile curled onto my lips without my noticing as I slowly started to snap out of my reverie.

“Raven?” The voice was close behind me, soft to the point where I wasn’t sure if it had been my imagination or not. “You all right?” Hayden spoke louder this time, though his tone was still gentle.

“I’m hurt,” I squeezed out the response in a rasp of a voice.

I could feel Hayden stiffen behind me, obviously racking his brain for something to say.

“It took you this long to check on me? Grab my bags you jack ass,” I added as I turned to grin at him.

He relaxed significantly and rolled his eyes at me. “Bitch,” was his only response and he lifted each of my bags in both of his hands. He wasn’t too careful with them since he decided to lob them into the trunk of the limo like bags full of human waste.

“Hey Hulk careful with the merchandise,” I called to him as I plopped down into the limo. I caught sight of Damion pressing himself into the farthest corner of the limo, his face practically against the glass. As I settled in as well I absently watched his breath fog up the window, only looking away when Hayden shoved me to the side to make room for himself in the back.

I grumbled some sort of response that he couldn’t hear, and then resettled myself against the nearest window to me, and the farthest window from Damion. If I was ever going to take an awkward car ride from one place to another in my life, it was going to be now. I popped my earphones into my ear and watched out the window as the limo pulled out of the gates and onto a main road.

Not a few minutes into the drive and Hayden disturbed me by ungracefully kicking my foot. I turned a glare on him and his lips curled into a smile. “Did you hear me?” he asked when I paused my iPod.

“Nope.”

He rolled his eyes. “I said what’d you end up getting my dad for Christmas?”

I smiled shortly to myself at the memory. “Oh, I left it in his study.”

“Okay…that still doesn’t tell me what it was,” Hayden pointed out impatiently.

“I know.”

“You’re not gonna tell me are you?” he inquired with a short wry laugh.

“Nope. You can ask him later, whenever he finds it,” I offered with a shrug and hit play on my iPod once again. The sounds of Paramore flooded my ears.

Honestly, I had given Jack a shitty Christmas present. But I figured it had bought me some time ‘til next year, and it was a gift from the heart…to some degree…okay not really. But it was certainly my style. Sitting in the middle of Jack’s pretty little cedar wood desktop, in his super secret locked study, was a slip of paper which simply read:

I O U

Merry Christmas!
-Raven

I know what you’re thinking. Heartfelt, right? I certainly thought it was.

It was a relatively short drive before the limo came to a halt on the side of the road, just beside the dirt road that led to the Shadowstep Academy parking lot. Damion was the first to exit the limo, crossing to the trunk where he helped the driver unload our luggage. I shoved Hayden slightly as he got up, causing him to stumble out of the limo and curse, and then I followed him out. He shoved me back and I nearly sprawled out across the ground at the force he put into it. Well-built eighteen-year-old guy versus scrawny eighteen-year-old girl, you’d think by now I’d realize that was a losing battle.

By the time I recovered, the limo was already pulling away and turning around, leaving us standing with our luggage. As it turned out, I only ended up carrying my duffle bag, since Damion silently decided to carry my suit case along with his things. I would have complained about the hike if I was willing to endure death-inducing glares from the two boys. So, instead, I chose to mumble to myself as I straggled behind the two physically fit males of my species.

The walk from the parking lot to Shadowstep seemed much shorter than I had remembered, and the anxiety was beginning to bubble up in my stomach. Of course, no one would recognize me, or even remember me for that matter. Or at least I hoped they wouldn’t recognize me. I mean, my hair was the only real difference, I couldn’t very well change my face without some expensive surgery. Well, my hair was different, and then there was the whole “boob” thing, too, I guess. Regardless, I didn’t think anyone other than Damion, Leon and Hayden knew me well enough to recognize me when they saw me.

Damion strolled up through the glass double doors without missing a beat. Hayden on the other hand, fell back to walk with me as I came to an unsure halt. “You all right?” he asked in a careful, yet normal tone. Like I’d throw my suitcase at him and start running the opposite direction of he talked above the appropriate tone.

“Peachy keen,” I replied, pulling up what must have seemed like the fakest, most bizarre smile of all time.

Hayden gave me a strange look.

I wiped the smile from my face and frowned at him. “What? You don’t believe me?”

“Nope, not when you use a phrase like ‘peachy keen’. Don’t say it again by the way, it makes you sound gay,” he informed me with a shrug.

“Whatever.”

“Seriously though?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you’ll cope with the whole Shadowstep-freaks-me-out-when-I’m-going-as-my-original-gender thing.”

“That’s not it,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “But you’re right. Cope is my middle name.”

“Actually it’s Elizabeth, but I get where you were going with that,” he joked with a nudge of my shoulder, sending me stumbling forward a few steps.

My mind reeled for a short moment, pondering how he could have known my middle name when I had never told him about it. But that didn’t really mean anything, there was probably plenty he knew about me that I hadn’t told him. Little things like my middle name were stamped onto my birth certificate, and he was a thief, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to find out things like that.

I smiled faintly and started toward the double doors with Hayden walking beside me. He was solid and confident, something I could use to anchor me down and keep me moving forward. The doors were wedged open in what might have been a toothy grin, as if welcoming me back to Shadowstep Academy.