Rell and The Rose

Ch. 31, The Sacred Rules of High School

Lorcan

"For your service." I tossed a gold coin over the seat to the taxi driver, who turned it over several times, before he shrugged and pocketed it. It hadn't taken long for Cat to flag down a car, and we'd made our way to the city, where I used a few of the gold coins in my belt satchel to trade for passage home.

Still, the yellow carriage she'd secured was rather undignified. I made my way around the car, and then opened the door, and held out my hand for Cat. She seemed surprised by this, but recovered quickly and stepped out of the car with all the grace of a princess. Then she stopped, and looked a bit sad for a moment as she stared at the small, two-story house before. "Well, this is my house."

I wondered why she didn't say home.

Darkness was falling over a street of orderly, if somewhat similar, houses. I followed her as she opened the door and gestured me inside. Despite my few quick journeys to the Human Realm over the years— usually to capture a warlock or vampire who'd gone rogue— I'd never actually been inside a house, only hotel rooms. I stared around the house with curiosity. It was much cozier than hotel rooms, with shelves of books, and other knick knacks, and pictures on the wall that held people, unlike the strange pictures in hotels of fruit and shapes. The entryway opened to a staircase on the left, and on the right was a wide area with a television, couches, and behind it a kitchen.

"AH!!! Thank God!!! I will never, ever leave you behind again. Unplug from technology, my ass!" She picked up a satchel from the dining room table, and pulled out a device I knew was called a phone. The light lit her face, and she moved her finger over the screen several times, and then snorted. "Ha, figures. I disappeared for three days, and my mom doesn't even notice."

I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. I'd been trained for over thousands of different social situations, who to address and how, how to avoid conflict, but none covered being isolated with a young woman in her home without a chaperone. Cat seemed oblivious to my discomfort.

"Oh sorry, would you like something to drink?" she waved a hand to the kitchen. Her eyes were still glued to the phone.

"Water would be excellent." I hesitated as she walked to the kitchen still staring at the phone. She came back with a full glass of water.

I took a long drink, before I cleared my throat, and she finally looked up.

"If I may ask, where is your father?"

She snorted. "Wouldn't know."

"And your mother?"

She rolled her eyes. "Prolly off screwing some dentist."

"Oh." I had no idea what a dentist or screwing was. "That sounds painful."

She laughed, and then pulled me after her to the staircase. "Come on. We've got a lot of work to do if you're going to come to school with me tomorrow. Lucky for you my mom used to work as a secretary there, I'll get some papers made up. I'm thinking a foreign exchange student will work as a nice cover, it'll at least partly explain— " She turned, and circled her finger at me, "—all this."

"I'm not sure what you are talking about," I said stiffly, and held out a hand for her to climb the staircase. She grinned, and I lowered my hand slowly.

"Lesson number one: guys in high school are dicks," Cat intoned.

"Dicks?"

She laughed and shook her head. "This is gonna be a lot of work. Lucky for you, I happen to be an expert at high school. Which means we're gonna pull an all-nighter."