The Final Pieces

Chapter 2

Safe… For Now:

I woke up when I felt the lack of warmth, and opened my eyes to an empty bed. Julian must have left for work already. School wasn't in session on Sundays, but all of the teachers met at the school for meetings. He would only be there until noon, but it didn't make it any less annoying. Weekends were weekends, and should be spent off of work, especially if you work at a school. I groaned as I pulled myself out of bed. The further I was with my pregnancy, the harder it was to move around. I took a quick shower before throwing on black knit pants, a loose white shirt, and an oversized cardigan with snowflakes on it.

Christmas was coming up, I might as well dress for the occasion. This would be my first ever Christmas with Julian and outside of the Society. I had learned that Christmas in Aelmount was different from Christmas in the Society. Here we decorate trees, and wreaths, and hang lights up outside. There are also big feasts that family and friends have together, and on Christmas Eve you place cookies and milk out for a large man dressed in red called Santa Claus. On Christmas morning there will be presents under the tree, but only if you were good for the year, if you're bad you get lumps of cold.

With the Society, we celebrated Christmas by holding a town meeting. A Society member makes a small speech and then another speaker comes up to preach about the kindness of the Society and what kind of world we would live in without them. School and work are canceled, and after the meeting families are sent home to spend time with each other. Aelmount's Christmas seemed much more exciting!

By the time I was done getting ready and had eaten my breakfast, a bagel with strawberry spread and a large cup of coffee, Tyberious and Quincy Summers had shown up. "Hi Annabell!" Ty said as he swept me in a hug, he smelled like acrylic paint and fresh mint. "Ty!" I cried, returning the hug. "You'd think you haven't seen each other in years with the way you two act," Quincy remarked as he shut the front door behind him. "Oh you want a hug too, Quin? All you had to do was ask," I laughed as I wrapped my arms around him even with his complaints about not needing one. "That's quite enough hugging for one day, and what have I said about calling me Quin," Quincy whined as he crossed his arms across his chest. He tried so hard to appear much older than he really was.

"So, do you want any coffee?" I asked as I headed into the kitchen, ignoring Quincy's comment altogether. "Sure," they both replied as the got their things ready. Ty disappeared into the art room with his bag before returning empty handed, and Quincy set up his books, notes, and papers up on the dinning table. After they were set up, the two took a seat at the barstools in front of the kitchen counter and I slid two cups of coffee in front of them as well as the sugar bowl. "So what are we doing today?" I asked as I poured myself my third cup of coffee today.

I ended up doing math for an hour with Quincy, going into the art room with Ty for the next hour, then the hour after that was science with Quincy, and so on. By the time noon rolled around I had finished my math, science, and language classes for the day and worked on my shading technics for hair using pen, charcoal, pastels, and china marker. I was working on history when Julian walked in, "Hey, Ty, Quincy," Julian said with a nod of his head in their direction and he kissed my forehead before looking over my shoulder at the history book that sat open.

"The Rebels, huh?" He asked, "Are they interesting?" "Eh," I said as I made a so-so motion with my hand, "Its a group of teenagers that rioted against the Society's ways. It happened about thirty years ago, apparently they were the start of what made Aelmount what it is. They fought to keep freedom here, but most of them went missing after the big war. I guess they got scared and ran away?" "Hmm, cool. So you remember Cecily, right?" Julian asked. "Your cousin?" I questioned. Julian nodded his head, "Yeah, well her parents have to go on some business trip on the other end of Aelmount. They're going to be getting a hotel there since its several hours away from home, and Cecily has school so they wanted to see if she could stay with us for a while, so?"

Cecily was a nice girl, she was fifteen years old and so very smart and polite for her age. She was always so much fun to be with. "Sure!" I said excitedly, it got a little boring being the only girl at the house, "When does she come?" A cheeky grin crossed his face at that, "In an hour actually, I may have already said yes. I was just really hoping that you would say yes."

"So not cool," Quincy interjected. "Hey," Julian laughed as he slung his arm around Quin's shoulders and mussed his hair, "guys are suppose to have each others backs!" "Not when their wives are pregnant," Quincy defended himself, "When my mom was pregnant with Kadence and Octavian she went crazed at the littlest things." Julian just raised an eyebrow, not believing him at all. "Its true," Ty supplied, "She used to make up arguments in her head with us and then think they really happened and flip on us. It was always funny when it wasn't you she was mad at, but scary as hell when it was." Ty shivered at the thought.

Slowly, Julian looked over at me and I put on an 'oh so innocent' smile. "I love you dear. Please don't kill me," Julian said with his hands up in surrender. "Don't worry. If I killed you, I wouldn't have anyone to get coffee for me, you're safe for now," I said with a small shrug of my shoulders before taking a sip of my fifth cup of coffee. It was amazing how I could still sleep at night with all this caffeine.