A light grey cloud flooded over the moon when the light glow dissipated from around Seraphina and Kayden.
Quickly, she looked around to see her near the wall of her family's estate, set in masonry stone. As her eyes hit her own home of the modern large bay windows and cubic architecture.
"Thank you." She smiled up at him.
"It's fine." He scratched the back of his neck. "I probably should get out of here quickly."
She glanced to some of the scanning light attached to the house. "Yes, you should. I'll see you on Friday."
The orange aura surrounded him and his body vanished from sight. Then she focused her gaze upon her own home for this summer. As planned, she was on her room side of the house, so she sneaked through the gardens: through the trees and flowerbeds, hedges lining off areas with other monuments and up to where she had left her bedroom window open.
She grabbed onto the rope line she had left out and hauled herself up the rope until she got to the top of her window and rolled inside. She hauled the rest of the rope inside and stored into her empty bottom draw of he wardrobe before she pulled out her own pyjamas.
She turned around to begin to strip off her clothes when her eyes caught on an darker shadow in the corner of her room near the door and she froze. Her ability flashed on as the power rushed through her veins and she ran over, pinning the person to the wall.
She turned her ability off to not over-exert herself only to see her mother standing there. "What are you doing in my room?"
"Seraphina, what are you doing climbing in and out of windows?" she responded.
Seraphina gritted her teeth and growled. "Get out of my room!"
"No, I won't," she replied. She pushed Seraphina away only to be frozen in place.
She clasped her fists by her side. "I said get out of my room now!"
Her mother's eyes shone wide as she brought her arm up to her throat. She let her go out of the time-freeze before she stepped out of her grasp.
"We can discuss this tomorrow," she told her, her voice shaking. "We're having the first day of wedding preparations next morning. I expect you there for ten – dressed."
"But I have a soulmate?" she hissed back.
"What? You're late-bloomer soulmate?" she questioned with a hysterical laugh to the end. "You haven't mentioned any sort of relationship yet. I doubt you have actually met him."
"I have met him. We're together," she replied back.
"Right," she replied sarcastically. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
She left the room, the door slamming shut behind her.
The sheets were drawn over Seraphina's body as the sunlight streamed over her face. Her eyes blinked over, trying to find a way to avoid the sun, before she covered her eyes with her hand and turned over in her bed. She sat up and out to her windows.
She had left the blinds open last night, forgetting in the stress of the moment, and now she looked out of the window of her second storye bedroom to see a group of servants on ladders. Locks and chains were attached to her windows where they would have opened – to prevent them from opening from the inside.
She gritted her teeth in frustration. It would take too long for those locks to rust fully in the elements – over a year – and she wouldn't be let to go around that side and be able to break them herself. And if she did, they would be replaced fairly quickly – or at least she guessed that. There were eyes everywhere here.
She drew up to her feet and drew her blinds down to stop the sun and eyes streaming into her room. Her eyes glanced to her alarm clock, a black block with curved edges and red digital numbers.
Only eight o'clock.
She sighed and went to her wardrobe and pulled up some of her more formal clothes by her parents' taste. Would she have to meet her fiancé again today? The last time had been at her parents New Year's Eve party, but he had ignored her to instead spend time with his friends. Not that she didn't want him to ignore her at that point in her life, though a few years before now she would have been insulted by that.
After she put on a light mint dress with a layered hem that fell down to her knees and that came down from the waistline that had two strips of fabric from the waistline that formed a bow at the back. There was a ruffle detail at the bust area that was a sweetheart neckline and it had bell sleeves. She clipped on her necklace of a diamond hourglass from her sixteenth birthday and a few other bracelets that her mother liked on her. Then she put on her heirloom hoop earrings before she took a look in the mirror. Her heart grasped at her. She hated it. The colour she hated, the dress style wasn't something she would usually wear, but the necklace was great. Unfortunately, too expensive to take to school, but that didn't matter right now.
She reached over to her bed and took out her flip phone that Leilah had brought her. She sent the text 'They put locks on the outside windows' to her before she hid the phone beneath her bed. It may not be laundry day today, but she could see them finding an excuse to move it anyway.
The morning went by before the bell rang for ten o'clock and she now sat in the reception room, a handbag in front of her knees. The door clicked open and she looked up to see a woman with azure hair, a few strands framing her face hilst the rest of her hair was pulled up into a braiding bun. She wore a pale blazer with a stiff collar and sleeves that came down to her wrists, a black blouse underneath, and a chequered skirt.
She stood up to her feet and shook her hand. "Good morning, Elodie."
"Good morning." She looked around. "Is your mother here yet?"
She shook her head. "She went somewhere and hasn't come back yet."
"In the house?"
She nodded. She took her seat on the sofa and continued to fiddle with her fingers.
"So how is school going?" she asked.
"It's going well."
"You're the Queen there, right?"
"No," she replied, her heart thumping loudly in her ears. "I'm currently the school Ace."
"Ah, I thought that was only a position in single sex schools. What does that mean you do?"
"It just means that I don't participate in Turf Wars."
"Don't you still need to train your ability?"
"Aren't I a higher level than your son?"
"There is no point in giving up now."
Before she could reply, her mother walked through the archway, carrying a notebook in hand, and she slammed it down onto the coffee table in front of them. She took a seat next to Elodie on the other sofa and opened the notebook to flick through the pages. "I've started a notebook for possible themes. It's not heavily done yet as I just done it in my free time. Have you been able to get the booking for the venue yet?"
"Yes." She smiled. "It's the one my family has been using for decades."
"Okay." She opened up the page. "I was thinking of these colour themes for it. Will that be going with the venue?"
"Yes. Those colours go," she replied and she peered over at the page.
"Wait." Her leg fell off where she had crossed it to the other and crashed to the floor. "It's my wedding. What are the colour themes?"
Her mother waved her away. "You can get to plan your own children's weddings."
When the afternoon rolled around, Seraphina found herself in the backseat of the car with her mother and Elodie whilst the driver sat in the front. She rested her elbow on the car door and stared out of the window as the clouds and houses passed by. They arrived at a carpark and went inside.
The consultant greeted them and she looked around the room. She glanced back to see her mom picking out some of the ballgowns and she sighed.
"So what kind of dress are you looking for?" the consultant replied.
"Fitted," she replied. Not sure why I even tried.
Her hands flicked between several dresses and chose out some before going to the dressing room.
She sighed as she picked up the first one that her mother had suggested. Once on, she stared at herself in the mirror with the consultant behind her, who had came through to do up the back of the dress. It was a champagne ballgown that the skirt burst out at the waist with the lace flowers pattern flowing down and rim edging at the edge of the skirt. It had a sweetheart neckline with the off-shoulder sleeves with no detail.
It swallowed her slim frame up. The only part of her body the dress kept close to her was her flat chest and she would only have the skirts to look pretty.
Still, she had to show her mother.
"You look spectacular in that, Seraphina," her mother told her as he faced her on the stand, glancing at the mirror to the side of her.
"I do?" she asked.
"You do," she replied.
"Do you not think so, Seraphina?" Elodie questioned. "Is there too little detail?"
She stared at her reflection. Who would consider this to lack detail?
Then she found herself back in the dressing room and this time and she pulled out one of the dresses that she had chosen. It wasn't the most fitted dresses she had chosen with the dress flowing out from the top of her thigs down and not lower and a small train forming. Lace wove trails of white patterned ivy down and the bodice with a v-cut down both of her breasts. The sleeves themselves were not really sleeves but instead lace trailing in the same patterns as the rest of the dress down to mid-hand.
The dress itself was gorgeous. She loved it and she thought it fit her well. In this dress, she actually had curves.
That wasn't so much the case when she stepped outside the room.
"What is that section?" Elodie gestured to her bust or more specifically where the dip was in the neckline.
And so she went on, rejecting the next few dresses according to their preference of them to not have a sudden dip at her bustline.
Now, she had on another ballgown wedding dress, this time white with lace of gold. Golden lace with some continuing up. Then some of the lace burst out from her waist and it covered her bodice with the sleeves made of narrow strips of lace too.
As the other ballgowns had, she felt smothered by the large skirts of the gowns. However, it was another one her mother loved, but Elodie seemed to more take in her dislike of it.
The next dress was another ballgown, but these one of three major tiers at the skirt with another set of ruffles at her waist. The edge of each of these tiers were covered with lace of gold and diamond. The sleeves were also spectacular with loops over from the sweetheart neckline and also off the shoulder.
"This is the one," her mother cried out when she came through. Sera bit her lip as her mother continued her praises.
The consultant looked at her and began to say something before her mother cut her off. "How much is this one?"
Remi took in a deep breath as she sat in the chair in the Authorities station in her local town. Her fists were clasped tight in her lap as her mom sat next to her.
"What did you do, Remi?" she asked her, but she just shook her head. "Do you know what you did?"
Before she could answer, Kassandra came in with someone behind her. The woman had light mind green hair and bright yellow eyes.
"I'm getting a lawyer," her mom said to the two of them.
Kassandra sighed, rolled her eyes and said, "Of course."
They were allowed to go free and Remi found herself sitting in the passenger seat of her mom's car. She stared out the window as her mom drove through the streets and reached their house.
Once they were inside her mom turned to her and told her, "You can tell me what you are in trouble for now. Your dad won't be home for several hours yet."
"I..." She clasped her wrist to the side of her body. "There were cameras in there. I couldn't say anything."
"I'm sorry about asking you that there. I know there are cameras in rooms like that and it's clearly something you don't want to admit too, but Remi, I'm going to find out sooner or later. If your dad and I are going to have to get a lawyer to protect you from what they are accusing you of, we're going to find out and it may be better to understand what the depths of it are now instead of later."
"I know," she replied, refusing to meet her eyes. "I may have gone out at night pass curfew and visited other neighbourhoods for a period of time whilst I was at school."
"Remi, why would you be in trouble with the law for that?" Then her mom's face fell. "Why would you do that?!"
She flinched at her mom's shouting. "I wanted to find out what happened-."
"By putting yourself in danger!" she shouted. "Rei was lost that way. You didn't think that you would also get hurt."
She looked to the floor. "I had backup."
"Is that why your friends are also in trouble? You dragged them into it?"
"I didn't think that it would become this bad."
"You didn't think it would be? Remi, being a vigilante can be a life-sentence and that isn't even counting Ember. Why would you do that?"
"I want to find out who killed him."
"Oh, Remi. It's still being investigated." She wrapped her arms around her.
"Do you really think they are investigating?" She sobbed. "If it's a life-sentence crime, why would they investigate the murder of those who commit it?"
"We shouldn't focus on it," she whispered to her. "Rei wouldn't want us to risk our lives to get justice for his."
A/N: Thank you for reading this chapter. Please share your thoughts in the comments.