Outcasts vs Monsters

Chapter Five~And all the kings horses and all the kings men...

When Chase told her that the entrance to Miss Sapphire’s ‘Lair’ or wherever ever it was she hung out, was hidden from human eyes, Wendy immeadiantly conjured up images of glass lined floors and bleached plastic tunnels. Definitely a lot of bald suited men carrying heavy guns and tinted sunglasses.  What she hadn’t even gone near to considering was the fact that the secret entrance (or one of them, Chase had told her on the way over that there were many scattered around the town) would be hidden inside the mysterious depths of Blackmore High State school.

Lucky she was still in her school uniform.

When the purring black jaguar pulled up at the visitor’s entrance, Wendy’s heart started hammering spastically in her chest, intensifying her worries of judgmental students and eager to pounce teachers. The school hadn’t changed- it was still a clump of old blue capped timber buildings, dissected by wide grey paths- but Wendy had, even in this short time. Blackmore High was a symbol for the ordinary, the mundane, the normal. Her life before she opened her eyes and found herself in supernatural drama. Before she had lost her best friend. Everything was painfully familiar and her heart gave a painful thump each time she saw the most unremarkable of things.

The soggy school sign for example, reminded her of the first time she entered the school, in grade eight with her hair hidden underneath her hat in embarrassment. The rush of people, the urgency of it all, the sheer motion of everything had surprised her- different in bounds from primary school. And just down the front car park she caught the snippet of customary wooden lunch tables and benches and the memory of her and Ben sitting on top of their table near the art block and throwing bits of his ham and cheese sandwiches at the ‘popular’ chics (Popular in the loosest sense of the word) for teasing Wendy about her pigmentation in the class before.

Wendy felt a bitter smile crawl across her freezing cold face. No matter how much she pretended she hated the educational prison, she couldn’t deny that unwilling bond she shared with the school.

“Okay, anaemic. You lead the way.” Logan’s voice interrupted her clouded nostalgia. They were all still in the car, huddling in the frosted warm air that circulated stiffly through the creamy leather seats and feathered grey ceiling. Logan had been kicked off driving duty on the premise that they all highly valued their lives (Wendy couldn’t help but marvel at the irony; monster hunters afraid of Logan’s driving? But then she had been in the car when Logan was at his head and she wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea either); instead Jenny sat at the wheel, her long brown arms still clutched at the steering wheel even though the car was stationary, her chocolate chestnut eyes eyeing the miserable office block with suspicion. The weather had covered everything in a greying haze, as if they were living inside a black and white movie. Even the soft edges of snow couldn’t brighten up the place.

“Anaemic? That’s insulting. You should really be calling me stout or doughty instead.” Wendy flourished in her vocabulary- and teachers told her off for reading in class. Books sure taught her a hell of a lot more than the teachers did.

“Try not to confuse me with your fancy English words.” Chase’s voice came from next to her, his footballer figure emphasised by the way he lay slumped against the door. When he felt her eyes on him he turned around, his eyes blue flecks underneath a flop of blond hair. Chase regarded her with a bleak expression, his mouth tugging up a small bit at the corner. 

“That is not ‘fancy English’ you Neanderthal. Literacy obviously isn’t you’re strong point.” Logan sighed and dropped his head down to the back of his seat. Wendy could see the inky strands of black hair falling through the gaps in the leather. She could see the lean outline of his shoulders at this angle, the black long sleeve shirt barley softening the hard line of muscle.