The heart of Cleopatra

The envelope of nightmares

Chapter eleven

The spontaneous destination soon came into sight as Cleo pulled her sleek grey Audi r8 around the last corner. Canon high school. This place was in constant battle with Arcane high, the only two schools in Arcane, so it was natural that they would try to outdo each other.

She scanned the rival school's car park until she struck gold. Locking her prized car she weaved in and out to see the deep blue BMW, Cleo was positive as to whom owned it. Kai West!

The boy she hated more than anything, well, supposed to hate. Everything with these two has been a competition. He too is a victorious street racer, Cleo could never deny his ability behind the wheel, in fact without him Cleo may not have ever pushed herself as hard to be the best. Their bickering and verbal arguments over the past teenage years suddenly felt less important when Cleo saw the picture of the man who nearly destroyed Kai. She knew this because the night Kai was nearly wiped out Cleo found him and drove him to safety; her kind act was out of character but she would secretly miss his irritable personality.

The loud inside bell could be heard outside. It was the second half of the day and if Cleo's assumption was correct the boy she was waiting for would be out in minutes. Just enough time to mess with him, for old times sake. She went to the back end of his car and let out the air of his rear left tire, it was a minor inconvenience and a while ago she would have slashed them but she had time to screw with him yet.

As she leaned on the newly uneven blue car, spotting the curly haired, sharp looking boy that she hadn't seen in months. It took him a while until he noticed Cleo leaning on his car. A smirk rose upon his noticeable handsome face, Cleo did notice his good looks but his annoying manner outweighed them.

"Are you real or is Cleopatra Valencia's ghost haunting me?" He asked as he reached half way. Cleo laughed at his surprisingly pleasant welcome.

"Well Malakai West, I am in fact real. And I wouldn't waste my time haunting you." She replied. His smirk turned to a scowl. Kai hated when she called him by his full name, and Cleo loved knowing that. Similar to her people were scared to cross him so nobody dared to call him Malakai.

"I thought you were knocked off."

Cleo rolled her eyes, what a lovely way of addressing her near death experience she thought. "You'll be glad to know you can finally stop mourning me."

He chuckled taking a second to get his head around the fact that the person he enjoyed hating was still alive. He could never admit that he liked their sarcastic exchanges and heated encounters but he could never completely deny it either. "So, what are you doing on my side?"

Cleo cleared her thought momentarily forgetting her objective, she hadn't valued what they had until she was stripped of it. "Oh please, I own Arcane, you're merely a wanna be in this world." She smirked.

He shot her a threatening look, it has never once intimidated her. "I'm guessing you're back then."

She sighed just thinking of her situation. "Not completely, it's complicated."

"Whatever. I'll ask once more, why are you here? Because I doubt it's for a chit chat. You must want something" He crossed his strong arms clearly growing impatient, not that that was out of character for him.

Cleo laughed at his confidence. "Rest assured Malakai I will never need anything from you. But you certainly need something from me." He narrowed his eyes at her boldness.

"What could you possibly have that's of value to me?"

Cleo could think of a thousand comebacks to his question but she kept it together seeing the importance of the topic. "Here." She said offering a A4 envelope to him. One of the files she swiped from her Hade's office and made copies of. The pictures they had captured were enclosed ready for his viewing.

She felt Kai had a right to know what he could possibly be facing. "You might want to open it somewhere private because you're not going to like it." He slowly reached for it already questioning this exchange. Cleo has never done anything helpful, so why is she suddenly being friendly and holding back her witty and intended hurtful comments? "I'm going to get going." She said pushing herself off his car, she expected him to say something about her ruining his paint work but instead he caught her arm lightly and held her back. "Malakai." She said lowly as they faced opposite directions but side by side.

"Are you okay?" He asked with an unusual sentiment in his words.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Cleo questioned pushing back the odd feeling of being so close to him.

"Because you basically rose from the dead and you don't seem fazed, but something is telling me you aren't ready to be back."

His reasoning had some truth to it. Cleo had spent last night wondering if she was ready to face the situation that nearly killed her, but the possibilities of being killed any way along with others out ranked her fear.

"I'm fine and it's not any of your concern Malakai." She broke from his hold. "You should be more worried about losing yet another car to me on Saturday." She smirked taking the conversation back to their usual topic.

He laughed. "Oh in your dreams Valencia."

She mocked his lame reply walking closer to her car. "Bring your black Subaru, I've got the perfect space for it." Cleo shouted back.

He scoffed. "I intend to, but you'll be walking home anyway."

"Hey Malakai!" She called out gaining his attention since he turned away looking down at the envelope that was holding an incoming nightmare. "Good luck getting home." He narrowed his eyes once again in confusion. But from knowing Cleo for so long he realised she must have tampered with something just to annoy him.

He groaned looking down at his flat tired. "You little..." Cleo couldn't hear the end of his sentence because she closed the door of her car with joy. Her simple petty act brought the familiar rage out in Kai that he had missed. One of the only things she did miss about him.