Of Misdemeanors and ***

Quite honestly, I wasn’t too mad about the Hitler moustache thing. It was actually a pretty good joke, and I would have plenty of times where I got to explain to people what ass holes my three friends were. It took me thirty minutes of alone time to realize how funny the situation was, however. The humiliation to come would suck, but at least Damion had started acting a little bit more normal. That was pretty much the only upsides I could find in the whole ordeal, and believe me, I searched hard for those bright sides.

There was still at least an hour until curfew, in which case, if I were prowling the halls without a pass of some sort, I would probably find myself with a punishment that I wouldn’t look forward to. Keeping this information in mind, I found myself strolling up to the top most wing of the school, where the students could find entertainment. TV, video games, pinball, old school arcade games, there was even a theater built into the wing. It was a pretty sweet place to hang out on a rainy day. Of course, I had yet to check out the facilities first hand, which made this the perfect time to do so.

I climbed the nearest stairwell leading up to the top floor and found myself in a short entryway leading to smooth, wooden double doors. To my dismay, I noted that inscribed on the doors was the word “push”, reminding me of Leon’s earlier jeers. I approached the doors and gave them a rough shove, as if defying some higher power.

Upon entering through the double doors, I was greeted by instant warmth, like walking into a grandparents’ house, with one of those ancient wood stoves and a stack of cookies sitting nearby. However, this room was much wider than any old living room with a fireplace, in fact there wasn’t even a fireplace, just some vents where the heater filtered warmth into the enormous expanse of a room. As I peered around the room I saw that the arcade seemed to envelope the right side of the room, while on the left side of the room was a pool table, foosball table, air hockey table and a door that read “Theatre” above it. Somewhere near the back was an unlabeled door that most likely led deeper into the floor. The right side of the room seemed to have restrooms for those that didn’t want to trek all the way back to their dorms to take care of bodily functions.

I felt myself drawn to the pool table almost without realizing it. There wasn’t much I could do really, unless I felt like playing against myself, since the room was absolutely deserted. Apparently the majority of the student body was more wary of curfew than I was. Strolling up to the pool table anyway, I ran my fingers along the wooden lip of the table, it reminded me of the few times I had hustled some people a few years back. I hadn’t quite made a career of it, however, since I couldn’t always sneak my way into a bar where drunken idiots thought they could beat a little girl at a game.

I wouldn’t say that I’m the best pool player out there, but I gotta say, I’m pretty damn good. Mostly, it was because of my brother. Raymond was so busy working and trying to take care of me, he seized any free time to get me out of the apartment to hang out with him. More often than not, we’d end up at an arcade, playing pool because I preferred it to the old Pac Man machine tucked in the corner. Which led to my eventual mastery of the game, or as close as I could possibly get to mastering it.

“Shouldn’t you be in your room like a good little newbie?” a sharp sounding voice asked, breaking through my thoughts.

I jumped marginally and swiveled around, pressing my lower back against the pool table as I scrutinized the person standing in front of me. The one who had recently been standing behind me and watching me like a creeper, might I add.

Sleek black hair, sharp blue eyes, broad shoulders, flawless skin for no apparent reason. Derek Fairborn, of course. I couldn’t keep the scowl from crossing my features, which, in turn, caused him to smile haughtily.

My ingenious response to his jeer: “Hi Derek.”

My unparalleled wit astounds me sometimes.

“Hey, told you I’d see you around, Babe,” he replied with a wink.

Flirting. Gross.

“I had hoped you were lying,” I told him with a poisonous smile on my face.

“I know your whole routine,” Derek informed me, the confidence never leaving his expression as he stalked toward me, moving around the opposite end of the pool table.

“Really?” I inquired sarcastically.

“Yup. You play hard-to-get, because you think it attracts the kind of guys you want. Persistent guys, mostly, none of the pansy ass fags that give up after one rejection,” Derek continued, picking up a cue stick and eyeing it speculatively. I noticed that it had a natural curve to the left and made a mental note to not use that particular cue stick in the future. Derek seemed to notice the flaw as well and set it aside, picking up a less worn cue stick.

“Wow, you’ve sure got me pegged. No point standing around to chat then,” I responded dully, his presence wasn’t the most reassuring for me, so excusing myself in the rudest way possible seemed like the best plan. Besides, I had curfew to think about, all the power in public rooms was probably on a timer anyway, the lights would go out soon. Being alone, with Derek, in a dark room three floors above the dorms, didn’t sound too appealing.

“Not exactly, actually. There’s one thing about you that I don’t get,” Derek admitted, causing me to slow down on my way to the exit. I didn’t turn to look at him, however, lest he get cocky about catching my attention.

“And what would that be?” I inquired, humoring him despite myself.

“You never struck me as the type of girl that was looking to grow a moustache,” he said in a tone so calm, that I could have kicked him in the head.

My embarrassment flared across my cheeks as I recalled the lovely ghost of a Sharpie moustache splayed on my upper lip. I could only drag up my recent anger at receiving the appalling ink-stache to defend myself against what would most likely be Derek’s explosive arsenal of jeers and Hitler jokes. As I turned a fierce glare on him and opened my mouth to fire off some sort of insult regarding his insecurities, I instead became increasingly aware of how much nearer Derek had gotten to me without my noticing. His face was only an inch or two from mine, his body heat radiating off of him in waves. Unfortunately, this was the part where my brain shut down completely and left my body to react on it’s own.

I leapt backward, forgot my witty verbal assault and instead stammered, “W-what, are we dating? Back off creep.” I mentally wished I could turn my stammer into a material thing so I could punch it in it’s metaphorical face for making me look so foolish.

“Not yet, but we could be.”

“You wish,” I spat in reply.

“I’ll give you that one,” he admitted with a shrug, taking a few casual steps toward me again. “So why’d you choose the Hitler look, exactly?” Derek asked with a raised eyebrow, ignoring that I inched away from him when he came closer.

“I hate Jewish people?” I offered with a sarcastic smile. I was trying to cover up the fact that my heart was hammering away in my chest. And not in the good way that was shortly followed by butterflies inhabiting my stomach. More like the way a rabbit’s heart pounds just before a wolf tears it to shreds.

“Oh, does that mean the gas room in the basement of this place belongs to you?”

“Classified info, sadly,” I deadpanned and reached behind me to grasp the handle of the door behind me. “I’d hate to stay and chat, so I’m gonna go. I had a horrible time talking to you and hope you fall and impale yourself on something sharp and preferably rusty. Take care now,” I said in a condescending tone, yanking the door open and backpedaling through it only to stop a second later.

“Wait, wait, wait, I saw you staring at the pool table,” the sentence rushed out of Derek in such a hurry, I almost thought he might have truly been concerned about me leaving.

“So?” I paused in the doorway.

“So…I was gonna challenged you to a game, with a friendly bet of course…” he trailed off, with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes.

What could he have possibly wanted from me? I imagined the numerous sexual favors he could conjure in his brain and shuddered. On the other hand…if I won--which was more than likely--I could ask him to do something. Although, if I asked him to do any sexual favors, they would most likely be for Irwin for my own comical pleasure.

“What kind of bet?” The question slipped out before I could will my feet to carry me down the hall.

A smirk adorned his facial features. “Oh, you know. If I win, you let me take you into town and tell me about your interest in Hitler’s moustache over a drink.” Derek must have thought I would throw the game for a deal like that. The only way I’d agree to going out to drink with Derek Fairborn was if I got to throw said drinks repeatedly in his face. Now that is what I would call a night on the town.

My brain staggered for a moment and rewound to his bet conditions. Go into to town for a drink? That sounded suspiciously like what a guy and a girl might do if they both had an interest in each other and wanted to get to know each other better in public. Also known as what one might call a date.

Being the mild hustler that I was, and the selfish thief that I loved to be, I knew better than to turn my back on a bet before knowing what I might get out of the deal. Which is why I asked, “And if I win?”

“You tell me,” Derek answered with a shrug, leaning against the table closest to him.

I thought about that for a moment, wondering what I could possibly do to make Derek’s life a living hell for even challenging me to a trivial game. The first step to my vengeance for the numerous ass kickings I had received from him for no apparent reason other than I was a girly wimp of a guy. Before I could concoct a punishment fierce enough for him to endure, there was a soft click, followed by the complete absence of any light in the room. Guess that meant the lights out curfew of renegade Shadowstep students like myself had been reached.

“Looks like it’s bed time,” Derek growled in evident annoyance.

“I’ll have to get back to you on the bet,” I said, ignoring his complaint about the light issue.

I heard him push off of the table and move toward me, though all I could see was a vague silhouette of a guy taller than me, stalking closer. If he were a burglar and I were a helpless house wife I would have attacked him viciously with a baseball bat for even considering touching my good china. Which, even if he wasn’t a burglar, I still would have enjoyed beating him with a blunt object.

“So you’ll play?” he asked, and I could practically hear the grin on his arrogant face.

“If I can come up with good enough terms for your half of the bet, then yeah, sure.” I inched backward again, aware that he had yet to respect any shred of my personal space.

“Then it’s a date, don’t blow me off, Babe,” Derek spoke in a quiet tone, which led me to believe he had leaned toward me in an attempt to be alluring with a voice smooth as silk.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be blowing anything for you,” I replied in a sickly sweet tone, reaching out carefully until my palm rested on his cheek. There was a brief moment when I was almost certain Derek was at a loss for words at the contact, while I made sure my hand would find it’s target when I pulled away. Just when his silhouette shifted, his hand reaching up to mine, I lifted my hand away and brought it back in a quick slap across his cheek. I can’t even explain to you the satisfaction it brought me to see his shadowy form jolt in surprise. As if I would share any sort of intimacy toward him, the silly little fool. “See you around, Loverboy,” I cooed, and ducked out the door, hurrying down the stairwell before he could follow me.

Sneaking back to my dorm as quickly and quietly as possible was a cinch, and I found the door closed as it should have been. I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open as silently as I could manage and tip toed inside.

“You decided to come back, huh?” Hayden’s voice met my ears in what might have been a relieved tone.

Guess I wasn’t as silent as I had hoped. Or Hayden had superhuman hearing…yeah that was probably it, which had nothing to do with my sneaking skills. “Yep. Miss me?” I squinted into the darkness of the room and saw a lump in the middle of Hayden’s bed shift slightly. “Why are you laying awake in the dark? Having guilt issues keeping you up?” I sneered, kicking off my shoes and ambling over to my own bed.

“Hardly. It’s only nine thirty, can’t sleep yet.”

“Not even a smidgen of guilt?”

“Not even a smidgen,” he repeated, a suppressed chuckle in his voice.

“Wow, and I thought I didn’t have a soul. You’re giving Satan a run for his money here,” I commented in a mock-surprised tone.

“You have several souls. Most belonging to devoured children…but, that’s beside the point,” Hayden joked.

“Hayden?” I questioned, crawling beneath the covers of my bed while I awaited a response.

“Hmm?”

“You know I hate you, right?” I asked with a small chuckle.

Hayden laughed at that and sighed. “I’m very aware of that.”

“Good. Just making sure you knew,” I murmured back, a small smile on my lips as weariness coaxed my eyelids shut.

“Hey, Raven?” Hayden inquired, rousing me from my almost asleep state.

“Yeah?”

“You’re not still mad about the moustache thing, right?” he said, his voice carefully quiet, showing the slightest bit of remorse.

That pushed my tiredness away from me and I sat upright, turning myself and craning my neck to peer at Hayden’s silhouette. Startled by the sudden movement, Hayden sat up too, his eyes blinking through the darkness at me. “I knew it. You feel bad because you’re a jack ass with a heart of gold!” I exclaimed gleefully.

I could see the irritation in the slump of his shoulders. He slammed himself back into his bed with a huff. “Whatever, I don’t even care anymore. I hope that under that Sharpie moustache a real Hitler moustache grows in,” Hayden grumbled at me, turning the opposite direction so that he wouldn’t even have to endure the sight of my vague outline.

“Don’t you put that voodoo curse shit on me!” I protested jokingly, thudding back against my own pillows with a vague smile, closing my eyes yet again.

“You’re so fucking weird,” Hayden retorted with a snort of laughter.

“Is that your comeback for…” a yawn cut into my sentence, “every weird thing I say?” I questioned in a vague mutter.

“Go to sleep, Raven. You sound stoned.”

My response: “Bite me.”

“In your dreams.”

With that conversation pushed to a halt, my mind stilled itself and I was sent into a dream where a giant plastic pair of wind-up teeth named “Hayden” chased me through the halls of Shadowstep Academy.

____________________________________

Her clear blue eyes swept over each of us, and I could tell her eyes clung to me a fraction of a second longer. The Hitler moustache was faded for the most part, broken black globs of ink sitting just beneath my nose. She probably thought I was some crazy, overzealous Sharpie sniffer. I tried to keep my face from turning red with embarrassment, and opened a notebook to scribble down numerous ways to murder my friends and get away with it. As I crossed out “run over with bus” on my list of possibilities, I stole a side glance at the new teacher.

She was young. Incredibly so for being a teacher, she couldn’t be any older than twenty-six, with gorgeously curly, thick, brown locks of hair. She had curves in all the right places and legs that far outstretched my own. Her blue eyes stuck out in her pleasant, tan face, making her teeth seem less intense in their pearly whiteness. As decreed by my schedule, her name was Miss Lockhart.

Shifting my attention to my right, and managed to catch Leon in a moment of weakness. Staring at the new teacher with hazy eyes and what I swore was a trickle of drool at the corner of his mouth. I leaned over and nudged him, snapping his attention to me. “I’d tap that,” I muttered, suppressing a giggle as I gave him an approving nod.

Leon flushed a shade of scarlet and shoved me back into my seat, almost knocking me over the other side of my chair. I snickered at his reaction and turned my attention to what Miss Lockhart had begun saying.

“As most of you may know by now, my name is Miss Lockhart. I don’t think it will surprise you that I’ve been added to the staff at Shadowstep, beings that Mr. Jager and Mrs. Lilany both have a shocking amount of duties to attend to. Due to this fact, Headmaster Wilkins decided I would be the best choice to teach the newest class. I feel that I was very fortunate that Headmaster Wilkins allowed me to teach this class, since it’s something I’ve had experience with.” Her tone was calm with the slightest of lilts highlighting some sort of accent I couldn’t place.

I leaned over and nudged Leon again and he turned his head skeptically. “Let’s hope this is Sex Ed, eh?” I gave him a suggestive eyebrow waggle and he just rolled his eyes at me, the slightest of smiles tugging at his mouth.

A fast blur-like motion caught my attention and I glanced over to find Irwin’s hand held straight up in the air, a dutiful look in his eyes. Miss Lockhart’s serene smile never left her, though her eyes narrowed ever so slightly in curiosity at the overeager boy. “What’s your name?” she asked, pointing shortly to Irwin.

“Irwin Delves,” he supplied promptly, his hand slowly lowering to rest on his desk.

“Okay, Irwin. Did you have a question or comment?” Miss Lockhart seemed to have the patience of a saint. Or the lazy, delayed thought process of a stoner, either way, she was pretty damn relaxed.

“Yes. What exactly does ‘Thievery and Infiltration’ entail as a class? Isn’t thievery what this entire school is for?” Irwin sounded like a tightwad business assistant in training. He was that guy that would ask the questions that everyone would think of, but wouldn’t bother to ask.

“Excellent question,” Miss Lockhart said with a small smile, as if she were waiting for someone to ask that particular question. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, throughout your freshman and sophomore years at Shadowstep Academy, your classes have been focused around academics. Math, Literature, Science, all of your general education, with simpler thievery classes, like Agility, thrown in later. I’ll be dedicated to teaching you more complex forms of thievery…well I guess I shouldn’t say that. I’ll be teaching important thieving techniques and skills, and help you to hone the skills you already have.”

“If there aren’t any other questions, I’ll start today’s lesson with something simple,” Miss Lockhart stated, a glint of life filtering into her eyes. Without another word, she reached behind her and pulled two things off of her desk. One item was a metal padlock with a keyhole in the center of it, while the other was a thin stick of metal with an uneven edge. “How many of you have ever picked a lock?” she inquired, her easy eyes sweeping over the room.

The majority of the people in the room put their hands up, and I was proud to include my hand in the poll. Irwin was among the few who shifted uncomfortably in their seats. It wasn’t too surprising, since he really didn’t seem like the on-the-field type of thief. He probably did all the behind the scenes crap, like, marking floor plans, memorizing floor plans, information gathering, all the stuff that normal thieves didn’t want to do but had to.

“Excellent, this is a pretty advanced class then. You guys are Juniors in your first year, correct?” Numerous affirmations from the students and she continued, “That explains it. So you’ve all been out on field missions already?” More muttered confirmation. I didn’t bother to explain why I hadn’t been on any extra credit jobs and just nodded absently with the rest of the class. “Okay, well. I’ll pass everyone a padlock and a set of lock picks. You’ll have fifteen minutes to pick your lock, just to gauge what your skill levels are.”

As she pulled two separate boxes from behind her desk, two boys leapt to their feet to assist her in passing them out. Though one of them pretended to drop a padlock in order to attempt to look up her skirt, it was the thought that counted, right?

As it turns out, Leon and Hayden only knew the bare minimum of picking a lock, they didn’t even own their own kits for God’s sake. Amateurs. Damion on the other hand, knew more about picking a lock than even me, and I had been doing meager break-ins and picking locks since I was fourteen. Apparently, Damion may have had a family to go home to at the end of the day, but most of the time, it wasn’t a home worth going to.

Damion shrugged, and dug the lock pick into the padlock, tweaking it expertly in what appeared to be random directions until the padlock clicked open and he held it suspended in front of Leon’s face momentarily and set it aside. “I was a bad kid. I’ve had a lot of practice,” he commented and leaned back in his desk chair.

I gave him a sideways stare while he was focusing on Leon, wondering what his life must have been like before Shadowstep. I mean, I could have been a charity case, but he had actually had a home, right? What reason could he have had to be a “bad kid”? Was a he rebellious little shit that didn’t appreciate what he had? Or had he been as poor as me? I stifled my curiosity and turned my attention to Leon’s response. What did I care anyway? I didn’t need to show any sort of extra interest in Damion, not after I’d brushed him off over Christmas break. But still…everyone at Shadowstep seemed to have a story, was it so strange that I wanted to hear one of those stories? Maybe compare it to my own?

Leon gaped at him momentarily and then glanced back to his own padlock. He chucked his own lock at Damion, who caught it abruptly and sat forward again with his eyebrows raised. “I’d like to see you do that again,” Leon proclaimed, gesturing expectantly at the lock in his hands.

Damion snorted in response and tossed the padlock back at Leon. “Nice try, pick your own damn lock,” he said with a grin.

“Could you have been any more obvious?” I asked with a small chuckle, nudging Leon in the side.

He scowled and gazed at the lock picks in front of him and then sighed. “It was worth a shot, right?”

Whilst we had been babbling, Hayden had been busy picking his own lock and now finished, setting it aside with a triumphant smirk on his face. “You guys got six minutes left, I’d hurry it up,” he commented calmly.

I glanced at the clock. Damn it, he was right. Leon looked at me momentarily and then hurriedly began to try random lock picks on the lock in front of him. I picked up my padlock finally and peaked at the keyhole, committing it to memory, I looked at the lock picks sitting in front of me. Choosing the one that was most similar to the lock, I inserted it into the keyhole and felt it slide off of the inner metal workings. I scowled and tweaked the pick until I felt it click into place. With a triumphant smile, I turned the lock pick and opened my padlock, setting it on my desk with the pick still in place.

The timer on Miss Lockhart’s desk went off. She stood up and promptly and turned it off, looking around the room with the same calm smile on her expression. “Okay, time’s up. Padlocks and lock picks down,” she stated, sending a few groans throughout the room. Leon dropped his padlock onto his desk with a growl of frustration.

“Epic fail,” I whispered in a sing-song voice, which warranted a half-hearted shove from Leon who glared at his padlock as if it had killed his first born child. Hayden and Damion snickered but said nothing, apparently aware that Leon would show no mercy to members of the same gender.

Before Miss Lockhart could say anything else on the lesson, the bell rang, signaling our departure. “See you all tomorrow, no homework or anything,” she called as everyone started to shuffle around and stand up.

I walked next to Hayden down the hall, wanting desperately to ask him about Damion, out of a blistering curiosity considering his past. He couldn’t just say “I was a bad kid” and leave it at that, but on the other hand I didn’t want to pester him, or get any further on his bad side than I already was. Regrettably, there probably wouldn’t be a chance of getting Hayden alone to interrogate, at least it was highly unlikely until we were back in our dorm room at the end of the day.

So I would just have to bide my time until then…

_____________________________________

I rammed into Hayden’s shoulder with my own, sending us both stumbling into a broom closet. He managed to stifle a cry of surprise when he stumbled over a mop handle and landed in a pile of empty detergent bottles. I blithely closed the door behind the commotion he had so clumsily made and turned to see him seething up at me.

“What?” I asked defensively on impulse. Though I was well aware of why he was giving me that scathing look.

“‘What’?” he repeated, sounding totally the opposite of the suave thief that he should have been. “You just blitzed me on the way to Agility, what is wrong with you?” he asked incredulously.

Truth be told, I had a few minutes to get to my next class too, but I managed to spot him in the hall, without Leon and Damion around, and decided it was an opportune moment to ask him about Damion and Shadowstep. I considered that a moment and came to the conclusion that I was a creeper with a one track mind. I grimaced at what I had ascertained and shrugged whilst Hayden waited expectantly for me to explain myself. “I wanted to ask you something,” I told him simply. “Why the hell are you sitting down anyway? You look ridiculous down there,” I scoffed with a small snicker.

Hayden scrambled to his feet, knocking empty plastic bottles everywhere. At the rate he was making noise, we were going to draw some attention from someone. “I would have gladly stayed standing, if someone didn’t, oh I don’t know…tackle me,” Hayden snapped, brushing imaginary dirt from his jeans.

“Sorry princess,” I mocked and added, “what kind of guy lets a girl overpower him anyway? What if I was trying to rape you? You don’t even have a rape whistle on you. You are so unprepared.”

Hayden glared in response. Okay, so he wasn’t in the joking mood apparently. “What did you want to ask me? That was so damn important?”

I hesitated now. Although it was a good idea at the time to tackle Hayden and question him, I now realized I would need more than a few minutes to hear a life story. I bit my lip in thought and then grinned sheepishly at Hayden. “I forgot,” I lied apologetically.

He threw his hands in the air in what was most likely exasperation. “I’m going to class, have fun hanging out in a closet,” he said quickly and reached past me to open the door and stroll out into the hallway.

I followed him and closed the door. Watching him continue down the hall I called to his back, “You know we have the same classes, right?”

He flipped me off over his shoulder and kept walking.

“Okay! See you later roomie!” I replied with a small smirk on my lips. His buttons were easier to push than a mass murderer on the verge of a psychotic break. On the bright side, I only had a little while left until we would head back to our dorm room before dinner. One more class and I could put my restless mind at ease.