FrAcTuReD (Part One) (Completed continued in Part Two)

Chapter. 17

"Maybe..."

Mordecai leaned against the wall near the entrance of the music room, originally he intended to practice a bit but when he saw Charla and her friend he couldn't bring himself to intrude, although because of his unintentional eavesdropping he had learned something that made him somewhat relieved but the girl had a long way to go in coming out of her shell that she had locked part of herself away for so long. not that he or anyone could blame her for choosing to lock part of herself away, yet with the small conversations that they had shared thus far Mordecai couldn't help but feel that there was something else, something darker on Charla's mind, but he wasn't sure what it was.

"So this was where you went," his golden gaze glanced to a girl with long pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes as she smiled smugly at him as she held an almost triumphant gleam in her eye. "I've been looking for you Mordecai."

"So what if I am Stacy? Is there something you need from me?"

Stacy Vander and her younger brother, had both transferred to the school two years ago but with it came the new surplus mall and Sunrise Burger, which her father owned not only the company for the burger place but also decided to "modernize" the town by adding an unnecessarily large mall making many of those who working in the shopping districts a rather hard time of it.

What's more Stacy shared the same class as Mordecai and would constantly try to get him to join her for shopping, which never really interested him. He liked browsing, just not constantly shopping for needless things. Or what's more being some form of arm candy for other girl's to gawk at. Not that Stacy seemed to notice his displeasure on it.

"Actually I and a few others were wondering if you wanted to join us at the mall for a bit after school. You've been rather busy lately right? You need some time to relax."

"I wouldn't really call going to that place as "relaxing" as you put it. I'm not going, besides if you recall we both have projects due at the end of the week."

She placed her hands on her hips and gave an annoyed look. "Oh come on, who cares about school? You need to live a little Mordecai."

But then her attention turned when she saw Charla and Alex leave the music room and headed down the hall as the tall brunette was talking about an event in some type of video game where your character and friends try to stop a killer from throwing people into a TV during foggy nights in the game's Japanese town, a game of which Charla had played as well.

Stacy scoffed when she saw Charla with a less than impressed stare. "So that's the girl everyone keeps talking about? What's so great about her besides the fact that she's got old money?"

"That's not why people talk about her; she's from one of the founding families, much like me. They don't care about the money, and neither should you since she doesn't flaunt it. People wonder what she's like if she'll be like her father or grandfather."

"Who the hell cares about that? It's not like it's important,"

"It is for some people in the town," Mordecai told her. "Besides if her brother was here I bet you'd be saying something completely different."

Then a look of interest sparked in her eyes as she then eyed Charla. "Oh so she has a brother? How old is he?"

Mordecai merely glanced at her with a disapproving expression before shaking his head and said. "He'd be the same age as Charla if he was here."

Stacy frowned. "What do you mean?"

He looked to Stacy with a blank expression. "Her brother died Stacy. He's not alive anymore, hasn't been for several years."