It's Friday! Let me know how you think this is going, suggestions? questions? Anything.... have a great weekend!
*s*t*a*r*s
Rylee dashes off the plane; she knows a car is waiting for her, her mother has arranged it. Sad about leaving her parents so suddenly, but Rylee feels as if she has to hide herself since telling her parents that she is gay. It had been a gut wrenching thing for her, since her own mother had been an only child, and her father as well, Rylee had always imagined that she’d be the next to carry on the generation. Her father had seemingly taken it well, and Rylee suspected that her father had already known. Her mother, Emma, who is away much more often due to her job, had been stunned. Then it had seems just like today, it is okay, but Rylee didn’t feel like it is okay. So, she has run away, but at least it is to school, thought Rylee wryly.
Rylee’s mother has always been an enigma to her, because Rylee didn’t see how her mother could do what she did. Day in and day out, Emma hunts and chases killers and monsters, finding them when no one else can. Yet, at home, she is normal, loves clothes and can get lost a whole day in a book while she sits out on the warm beach that lay before their house. Rylee adores her mother, but is daddy’s little girl through and through. Even now, as Rylee tries to get a firm grip on who she is, she wonders if that has affected her choice, or has made her who she is. Is it because her father had taught her to play football and not with dolls that she preferred women to men? Rylee sighs as she gets into the car that is waiting for her. It doesn’t matter, she is who she is, Rylee Jo Scott is gay, and after Rylee deals with that, the world will have too also.
*s*t*a*r*s
Spencer Andrews slings her olive green Army surplus bag over her shoulder, trudging to the administration’s office. The map that had come along with her admittance papers is nice; it saves her from the embarrassment of having to ask a second or third year student where anything is. Unless, or course, you can ‘t read a map as one of the other freshman had just been lamenting about to her right. Complaining about not having her cell phone and a GPS system, Spencer simply rolls her eyes and keeps walking. Spencer didn’t do well with technology, computers, cell phones, all of them seems to react, well, violently to her. So, Spencer keeps them at arm’s length at all times. TV’s seems to get very snowy when she is around and once, she’d almost forced an airplane to land when she’d awaken from a bad dream in midflight. So, cell phones and GPS systems mean little to Spencer, who prefers to write papers out in long hand to typing them on a computer.
The paper work she’d received has instructed her to report to Eric Storm. Not even one hour on the island, and she is in trouble. Edging the door open, she is greeted by a smiling secretary.
“Take a seat, dear,” the older woman says to her. Spencer smiles wryly, who is she calling dear? Well, the woman is going to get to know her. If there is trouble, it usually falls on Spencer’s back, even if she hasn’t done it.
“Well, if it isn’t Spencer Andrews, welcome to Haven Island,” says Eric Storm from the doorway. “Please, come in,” he says in his accented voice.
Spencer tosses a look at her bag, and then leaves it where it is. There is nothing in there that anyone will want. Rubbing her hands on her faded jeans and entering the room, she is sure she is going to see it often in the next four years, if she lasts that long.
Spencer hadn’t really applied to Haven Island Academy; one of her teachers had filled out the application for her. As a foster care kid, she didn’t expect anything from anyone, foster parents, teachers and even friends. Her grades had never been high, but her tests are always through the roof, if they were on paper. If given with a computer, well, she fried it before she finished the test. Smart, lacking motivation, most of her teachers had always said. She guesses that it has made just enough difference for them to accept her, then again, it looks good for the school to take in strays every once in a while.
“I see here that you listed Jayden Wheaton as your contact?” Spencer nods, but says nothing. “You are allowed to speak, Spencer.”
“Yeah, um, she’s my aunt, I don’t know her. I wouldn’t know her if I saw her. That’s just the standard ‘who to call’ number, I wasn’t about to put down my last foster family,” mutters Spencer.
Jayden hadn’t been in the country when Spencer had come back, so Spencer had been dropped into the foster care system. Spencer hadn’t known any other names of her relatives, and there seems to be no trace of her father, at least not the one listed on the birth certificate. Astton Andrews. After searching for two weeks, while Spencer recuperated in the hospital, she’d met her first foster family. While most families are nice, after a few fried TV sets and blown up computers, Spencer had been carted off to another home, or a foster care facility.
Spencer didn’t care, she is used to fending for herself, and her mother had made sure that she’d be able to take care of herself if anything happened to her.
Spencer knows what happened to her mother, but had promised to never speak of it, to anyone. The young girl had kept her promise. Her mother had dragged Spencer around for the better part of her younger years to distant lands. Searching for things that seemed rather magical to a young girl, as a teenager, Spencer sees that her mother had been delusional. Hearing voices sometimes, raving and ranting about a book of prophecies and Spencer is sure that her mother had killed more than once while she’d been a child.
“Jayden was a student here,” says Eric Storm, snapping Spencer from her thoughts. “Left when she was a second year, when her brother D.J. became sick,” added Eric.
“He died, he wasn’t sick, he died,” corrected Spencer coldly. Even though she’d never met DJ, his death had somehow bothered her. It had bothered her mother also, they had been in Italy at the time. Spencer never had found out why, her mother hadn’t been sad, but curious and cautious instead. Her mother had had more secrets than Spencer had ever seen any other person have secrets. Spencer feels as if she really hadn’t know her mother at all, and now, in hindsight, Spencer is glad of that.
“Yes, well,” stammers Eric, “you are a scholarship recipient. We require all scholarship students to work a job; we’ve assigned you to the library. I have it on great authority that you enjoy books. The librarian, Alex Morrow, will show you around in the morning. You have been assigned to the Jades West dorms. I shall see you around campus then,” he stands, offering his hand to the girl. Spencer follows suit, losing her balance and grabbing onto the desk. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I got a new leg,” she says warily. Then she lifts the pant leg of her jeans to reveal a prosthetic leg – an old cracked affair that seems to be hanging on by a prayer. “Just below the knee, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone either,” she tells him before he asks. Rubbing her hand on her jeans, and then sticking her hand out awkwardly, Spencer doesn’t like anyone invading her space, but Eric seems to be someone who is trustworthy. Eric takes her hand, shaking it and the young woman quickly vacates the office as if it is on fire.
Eric’s face is ashen, sitting down in his chair once Spencer has left the room. He is the Head Master of H.I.A., but in title only. The person really running the school is Natalie Summers. After years of debate, they have decided to finally call upon the children of the women of J*A*D*E*S. They have known where four of them are all along, keeping contact with their parents. Then, fate had intervened and Natalie had found Spencer, hidden in the foster care system, under a name that neither of them had known. Jo Wheaton had hidden her daughter well for what reason they didn’t yet know. If the girl is a danger they would soon find out.
Eric struggles with the thought of Spencer having lost a leg, how, he doesn’t know. Nor will he breach her confidence and tell anyone, including Alex and Natalie. It is painful to him to see Spencer that way, having only met her once, as an infant. Taking a deep breath and hoping that all goes as planned.
*s*t*a*r*s
“… I think this is rather, archaic,” someone is saying from the dorm room that she has been assigned too. Spencer stops at the door, waiting to pick up the rest of the thread of conversation. The common room behind her is filled with returning upper classmen, all of them are getting reacquainted. A loud whoop of celebration when someone new walks in from the hallway and into the dorm rooms, the ambiance is a joyous one. Spencer closes her eyes to the joy and blinks – her eyesight flicker for a moment then she is fine once again. Too much energy, too much to process, she is going to have to find a way to bleed off all of the excess energy.
Observation, it is a great tool, and Spencer has learned, at a very young age, to use this tool to her advantage. Closing her eyes, she listens to the timber of the voices, and the inflection in them. Then, slowly, she begins to feel the emotions behind the words, then deeper, the hot tingling at the base of her skull almost like a shot of adrenaline, but better, controlled and not addictive.
“What, the whole castle thing? Or the fact that we have open bedrooms?” asks a voice that Spencer knows.
Tegan Larkin.
Leaning against the wall, she listens intently. Sweet voice, filled with life, filled with mischief, Spencer let the faint trace of a smile appears on her lips. Tegan must have been a handful and Spencer doesn’t want to know how full of a hand she would be.
“Certainly think that we could at least have, I don’t know, curtains?”
“Sydney, a chronic masturbator, are you?” says Tegan in a sultry tone.
Spencer snickers behind a cupped hand. Tegan is the sort of girl she ccan get use to hanging with. Sharp wit, and a set of killer legs.
“You routinely hover outside women’s dorms?” asks Abby LeBeau as she walks back to her room.
Spencer jumps, reeling around and coming face to face with a stunning light-skinned girl. Spencer recovers quickly, her face regaining her usually stoic look.
“Only when I’m going to be living in it,” answers Spencer softly, her eyes dart down. There is motion in the room, and Spencer’s eyes move towards that.
“SPENCER!” yells Tegan, pulling the door the rest of the way open, and sweeping the girl into her arms. Spencer quickly moves out of the embrace. Tegan doesn’t seem to notice, or she is very good at hiding it. “Abby, this would be our roommate, Spencer Andrews. We only have one more to add to the fray, I wonder who it will be. I had a feeling about you when we met earlier.”
“I don’t like people who hide,” Abby says haughtily. Walking into the room with the bottles of soda that she’d procured.
Tegan takes a bottle as Abby sweeps by, grimacing because it isn’t diet. Abby struts into the room and to her bed, hips swaying. Spencer pulls her duffle bag along with her.
“God, you are a bitch,” says Sydney. “Not even here five minutes, and I don’t like my roomies, damn, not starting off well.”
“You’d be?” asks Abby as she sits on the edge of her bed. Abby had been gone when Sydney had come into the room.
“Sydney Doyle.”
“I’m Tegan Larkin, this is Spencer Andrews and…,” Tegan pauses, looking down the hallway, her eyes find someone that she knows. “Rylee? Rylee Scott?”
“Holy crap, Batman!” laughs Rylee, dropping her bags and running towards Tegan, getting a warm hug from her. Tegan all but sweeps her off her feet. “I don’t believe your mom let you come!” Rylee smiles.
Tegan places a kiss on Rylee’s cheek. Rylee feels the blush on her cheeks. Tegan is always touching, kissing and hugging people, no matter if she knows you or if you have just met her.
“Do you always talk in exclamation marks?” asks Abby. Increasingly sounding snottier with every passing moment, Abby has never been a social butterfly, and that is beginning to become evident.
Spencer drags her bag into the room, nodding a hello to the newest arrival. Sydney waves her fingers at Spencer, who just nods a second hello.
“Resident bitch?” asks Rylee, inclining her head towards Abby.
Tegan nods, swinging an arm around Rylee’s waist. Now Tegan is beginning to think that this is going to be great, Rylee is here.
Spencer has disappeared from their side, moving to one of the empty beds in the rather large room. What looks to be a small kitchenette is to the right. There is also a bathroom area down the small hallway to the left.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” begins Sydney, directing her comment towards Abby. She certainly doesn’t want to start off the school year fighting with her yearlong roommates.
Spencer says nothing, if the rich kids want to be at each other’s throat that is fine by her. It means that no one will pay any attention to her. Flying under the radar, that is a new tact, and she swears to stick by it.
“Hi, I’m Abby LeBeau, and no, I’m not the resident bitch. That one over there,” she says pointing to Spencer, “was hiding outside the door.”
“She wasn’t hiding, she was waiting to come in, isn’t that right?” asks Tegan, feeling the need to defend Spencer. Tegan knows that kids that came from foster homes, or broken ones, are sometimes trepidations about new places, and new people.
Spencer simply nods.
“You shy?” asks Abby, her eyebrows knit together.
Spencer nods again. Hell, she can play mute if she wants too, so Spencer just turns her attention away from the group.
“I’m sorry,” offers Abby after a few moments of thought. Abby watches Spencer for a long moment, thinking that Spencer is one of the most anti-social women she’s ever laid eyes on.
Spencer just shrugs. Quickly unpacking her meager belongings as the room falls into silence. Rylee throws her bags on the bed next to Tegan.
Sydney begins shoving her clothes into the small cabinet next to her bed. Abby, who is already unpacked, just lies on her bed, watching.
Sydney finally finds her MP3 player, connecting the speakers and turning on the small device. Soft, moody rock fills the room. Spencer notices the guitar case that is already hidden under the bed, peeking out, as if asking to be played. Spencer loves music of any kind, she’s even managed to learn to play, when she and her mother hadn’t been trekking the world. Her singing voice is even decent. The problem with her love for music is that it always draws – well – trouble.
“Who is that?” asks Spencer, pushing her bag under the bed, wiping the thoughts of her own troubles out of her mind. She meets Sydney’s dark green eyes, and the girl smiles shyly.
Rylee looks up, comforted by the fact that Spencer does speak.
“Me, actually,” admits Sydney. “Recorded it a few months ago, a present from my dad, I played all the instruments too. I don’t have a great voice, but I write the music, which is better than the singing. I took voice lessons but I’m not great. I don’t have a strong or powerful enough voice to pull off the words I write.”
“Really?” asks Abby. “My mom can’t sing a lick, and neither can I. You’re rather good. I’m impressed.”
“I must agree…,” begins Tegan. Just as she is going towards the bathroom, one of the Secret Service men comes into the room. The girls in the room freeze, stunned that he just walked in, without announcement.
“What if we’d been naked?” asks Spencer quietly, her voice cuts through the rooms silence. A deep maturity resonates from her voice, and a seething anger. Standing from the spot she’s taken on the edge of her bed. Walking towards the man, the room suddenly heavy with anticipation, she stands before him, her blue grey eyes move to meet his. “Or in various states of undress? Or doing things that SS men just aren’t supposed to be privy too?” The man blushes. “Kindly knock, and when you do, you wait for someone to acknowledge your presence, and then, and only then, are you allowed to enter,” finishes Spencer. Gently opening the door and easing the man out of it. Spencer turns and a thunderous round of hoots and applause greets her.
“Now, THAT is worth the price of admission! Girl, you have got a set of brass ones to go up against a man who carries a gun,” laughs Rylee.
Rylee blushes, and turns away from Spencer. A hot flash of something that Rylee hasn’t ever felt rises inside of her belly. The moment she’d met Spencer’s gaze something primal had rushed through her and Rylee has never felt that before.
Spencer smiles wryly. She hadn’t done it to impress anyone; it is just as much for herself, as for the other girls. Spencer limps back to her bed. The fear of anyone finding out about her leg grates on Spencer.
“I propose a round of truth or dare,” says Tegan, bouncing on the edge of her bed. Mischief flashes in her eyes, green emeralds that shimmer when she speaks.
“Tegan…,” begins Rylee with a loud groan. Rylee sits on the edge of her bed, a grimace on her full cherry colored lips. “You can’t get us into trouble our first night!”
“Okay,” says Sydney to the proposal. Abby nods. Then they all look over at Spencer, the girl gives them a look, then shrugs.
“Excellent. Should we set dare limits?” asks Tegan now excited. There is noise in the hallway, the common room is bristling with activity behind the now closed door.
“What fun would that be?” asks Spencer quietly.
“You are more daring than you seem, it’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for,” Rylee smiles. She smiles at Spencer, who smiles back ever so quickly, and then the smile disappears completely. Spencer tucks a strand of her thick blonde hair behind her ear, looking down at the floor instead of at her roommates.
They all sit at the end of their beds, legs crossed, or outstretched, once they’ve all settled in, Tegan begins. “Rylee, truth or dare?”
“Why are you starting with me?” asks Rylee and Tegan cocks her head to the left and her eyes implore her to speak. “Truth,” answers Rylee, thinking that is much safer than asking Tegan to dare her to do something.
“When is the last time you had sex?” asks Tegan, falling back on to her bed in a fit of giggles, grabbing her sides as the look of astonishment washes over Rylee’s face.
They are now all perched on the bottom of their beds; the only one who isn’t sitting with their legs tucked beneath them is Spencer.
Rylee has to shake her head, Tegan will never change, sex on the brain. “Never, so ha! My turn, ohm, Abby, truth or dare?”
“Truth,” says Abby, playing it safe.
“Ohm, what is the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done?” asks Rylee with a dramatic flair to her words.
“Nothing. Does taking my mom and dad’s car out without them knowing it count?” says Abby. She can’t tell them that she takes pain pills to kill the mental anguish? No, it isn’t something that she’s ever utter to another human, it is under control, isn’t it?
Groans from the room, only Spencer says nothing – she is observing, there is a shift in Abby’s face, the timbre of her voice. She is lying, Spencer is sure of that, even the energy she is giving off is tainted.
“God, you live in solitude or something?” asks Sydney her dark green chipped eyes speaks volumes.
Rylee figures that Sydney has done far, far worse than take her parents car out without permission.
“Something like that. My turn to ask the question,” begins Abby with a lofty laugh. “Spencer, truth or dare?”
“You pick,” answers Spencer, her voice no longer as deep as it has been when throwing out the body guard, but there is something keeping her on edge. Tegan gives her a guarded look, and Abby answers her quickly.
“Truth, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone?”
“Killed ‘em,” whispers Spencer after a short moment of thought. Her usually hidden mischievous nature comes into play. Her mother had been a vivid storyteller and Spencer thinks back to one particularly grizzly tale that they’d made up, volleying back and forth while on a road trip in Africa.
“What?” Sydney almost yells.
“Oh my god, someone get the suit outside,” mutters Abby.
“It is an accident. We were in a high speed chase with the cops, we’d robbed this little convenience store…,” begins Spencer, a thoughtful look on her face. Her stormy eyes drop to gaze at the floor, her voice takes on a dark timber falling into the role of storyteller.
“Jesus,” Tegan says softly.
“We’d hit about eighty or so, and they’d laid down the spikes in the road. I hit them, hard, and wrenched the wheel to the left, we started to roll…,” recounts Spencer softly.
“Who was she?” asks Sydney, always looking for an emotional connection whereever possible.
“My friend, just a friend. When I woke up, I looked over because her hand is rubbing my arm. I looked at her, and realized that her body is twitching, like a beheaded chicken…”
“I’m gonna puke,” Rylee gags, her skin is three shades of green, who on earth is she rooming with?
“I crawled out over her body, when I dropped down to the ground, I came face to face with her…. Her head….” Spencer looks around the room, all of them with their hands over their mouth. “You guys believe that?” asks Spencer blandly.
“You asshole, you’re lying?” asks Tegan, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at Spencer. The girl catches it, winging it back at her, hard, like a missile finding its target, it heads for Tegan. Tegan throws herself back on the bed as the pillow thumps into her chest, feeling better knowing that Spencer at least has some sort of sense of humor, even if it is a dark one.
“The worst thing I have ever done to someone is leave them when they needed me,” answers Spencer without elaborating. “Truth or dare, Sydney?”
“Dare,” the adventurous blonde answers quickly. Rylee gives Abby a quick look and Abby shakes her head, here comes trouble.
“I dare you to move…” sings Spencer smoothly, and then smiling at the look on Sydney’s face. Spencer’s voice is smoother and sexier when she sang. “I dare you to sneak out into the boy’s dormitory, and come back with a pair of boy’s underwear. Preferable without the boy in them,” adds Spencer.