Copyright © 2013 All Rights Reserved
Sharp Practice by Sierra B
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A throbbing pain, so intense it causes Ianna to cry out, pangs through her head surging her out of her unconscious state. “Rhylee!” she cries out desperately, shooting up from her horizontal position. The darkness of the room coupled with the cloudiness of her eyes constitutes her as blind; the throbbing at her temple being no help to her. She firmly presses one of her hands into the mattress that her slender form had sunken and presses the other against her throbbing temple. “Quentan!” she calls.
She blinks, the darkness slowly receding from her vision; she was in a rather large room, the dim light of a street lamp from outside filtered through the curtains hanging about the window. The walls were painted a dark color that looked black in the low light; posters covered in vague dark shapes occupy three-fourths of the walls space, the rest of the space being populated by all kinds of white paper Ianna knew were drawings. Piles of paper and clothing were scattered all over the floor and Ianna could faintly make out a pair of boxers laying on top of one of the piles. I’m in boy’s room?
Ianna slowly turns and tries to carefully get off of the bed, but she stumbles not expecting it to be so high off of the ground. She half walks half drags herself over to the window and with her eyes closed, presses her forehead against the cool glass, groaning with relief. As the throbbing recedes she wonders how Quentan got up and fought with that kind of ache; she probably will never know. At the thought of her missing husband Ianna sighs and slowly opens her eyes to survey her surroundings.
Ianna looks outside and freezes, the sight on the other side of the window causes her breath to hitch. Her chest starts to tighten and the oxygen fleets out of her lungs as she takes sharp shallow breaths. With a struggle Ianna turns and collapses against the wall, sliding down onto the floor. She reexamines the room, feeling like an idiot as she takes in the odd yet familiar set up of the room walls which slant at the ceiling, the arch of the closet doorway tucked in the far corner of the room away from the door, the glow in the dark stars having long lost their illumination still stuck to the ceiling.
She slumps over, her face pressing into the shag carpet just as the door on the adjacent wall pushes open.
John walks in with a malevolent looking smile playing on his lips. “Welcome home, Ianna. I bet you never thought you’d be coming back here again.”
Ianna wanted to tell him all the places where he could get bent at but she couldn’t find her voice to speak. In fact it took everything in her power not to quake in his presence because no matter how much older she got her father would always be her worse nightmare. Screw you.
“What’s wrong Ianna?” he asks walking towards her, the smile still on his face. “Can’t speak? Cat got your tongue? Maybe it’s from the panic attack you just had?”
Kill yourself, John. Ianna wheeze as she tries desperately to calm herself.
He squats down in front of her and yanks her upright off of the floor without actually touching her. “Now Ianna, why do you insist on saying such awful things to your own father?”
You’re not my father; you're nothing but an abusive, manipulative, power hunger, sperm donor.
“If your mother where to hear you say such awful things, she would have a fit,” John says frowning.
“You know,” Ianna croaks swallowing the excess saliva in her throat. “I always wondered why Mom didn’t just leave you like she wanted to.”
John frowns, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I remember right before Mom found out she had the tumor, I came home and found her in my room crying on my bed.” Ianna says glaring at him. “She said that she loved me and that she wished she could afford to take me away from this place and to take me away from you because you were going to burn me to the ground.”
“You shut your mouth you ungrateful little harlot, you know nothing about your mother and I’s relationship,” he growls.
“She hated you and she wanted to leave just like I did, she just died before she got the cha-” John smacks her midsentence knocking her to the side.
“Don’t you dare talk about your mother like that,” John hisses his face red with anger. “You know nothing, nothing about our relationship or what we went through to make sure you grew up the way you did. You are an insignificant little brat even with the extra strength of your soulmate boosting your powers and due to the events concerning your daughter, you and your darling husband won’t be needed here for much longer after all.”
Stay away from my daughter you monster. Ianna glares at him from the carpet.
“See I would but she’s already here and by her own accord.” The malicious smile works its way back onto his face. “This may be a bit childish but I’ve been waiting seventeen years to say it,” he clears his throat and smiles widely at his daughter, “you lose.” He erupts into laughter as he stretches up to his full height. Walking back to the exit he stops in the doorway and looks over his shoulder, “I hope you like what Kris did to your old room, we could never get those stupid stars off of the ceiling though,” and with that he closes the door once again leaving Ianna alone.
She sits up and slowly rubs her cheek coaxing the sting off of her nerves. She can feel something bubbling up in her throat and she fights desperately to contain it but eventually she just can’t. Ianna starts to laugh so hard it shakes her entire body. She had made John so upset that he lost his cool and actually struck her; John wasn’t as strong as she always thought he was; she had gotten to him.
Ϡ
“Ugh, of all the places she could of hit, it had to be in the eye,” Yuli whines examining her black eye in the small mirror hanging on the wall of John’s study. She turns to Quentan who had been handcuffed to a chair in front of John’s desk, “Do you know how much foundation it’s gonna take to cover this up? I’m gonna have to use liquid and powder just to get it to my skin tone now and I don’t even have powder foundation.” She turns back to the mirror, “I’m gonna have to go to Sephora tomorrow and get some and let’s pray that they have one that won’t break my face out.”
“For the hundredth time, I DON’T CARE! Please shut up,” Quentan groans slouching down in the chair. He had been cuffed to the chair since they first arrived there forty-five minutes prior; John and his male lackeys departed immediately after leaving the Asian, who had been complaining about her eye the entire time, to watch over him.
“I can’t really afford anything too expensive you know,” Yuli continued completely ignoring him. “I’ll probably get Maybelline or CoverGirl or something. Ooh how about Loreal? “ She turns to Quentan, “Do you think Loreal is pretty?”
Quentan throws his head back in exasperation and groans, “Why couldn’t he have just physically tortured me?! Twenty year old girls are so damn annoying!” He looks at Yuli with wild eyes, “Good God girl do you every shut up? I have a sixteen year old daughter and I have never heard any kind of stupid makeup shit like this.”
“That’s ‘cause your little brat probably doesn’t even wear makeup, that’s why she looks so pasty,” Yuli huffs turning back to the mirror. “Stupid bitch,” she mutters under her breath.
“I heard that,” Quentan grunts. “Don’t talk about my daughter that way, your just mad you got beat up by a sixteen.”
“I didn’t get beat up, she sucker punched me!” Yuli cries. “Besides, had Kris not have stopped me I would’ve got her in more than her eye.”
Quentan grunts at the thought of Kris; he had found satisfaction splitting the skin under the boy’s right eye, busting his lip, and bruising his jaw. He wished he had time to continue doing damage to the boy who had hurt his daughter but John had used Quentan’s own powers to knock him off of Kris. “She still threw you against the wall,” Quentan notes.
“Oh shut up old man!” Yuli roars in frustration just as the sound of the doorbell rings throughout the room. “I’ll get it,” she grumbles disappearing in that instant.
Quentan sighs in relief; he didn’t know how much more of her he could take. He looks around at the room around him; it looked a lot like his study. Bookcases lined the walls with all kinds of worn out books occupying the shelves. All kinds of certificates and diplomas hung on the wall which was void of any and all kinds of pictures.
Suddenly a bang erupts from upstairs at the exact moment the door to the study opens and John appears looking smug. “Hello Quentan, guess who’s here.”
Quentan grunts refusing to answer him.
“Oh come on Quentan, be a good sport,” John pauses to wait for Quentan to reply but after realizing he won’t he continues, “Fine.” He turns back around and heads for the door, “I guess I’ll just tell Rhylee you're busy.”
“What!” Quentan exclaims in utter disbelief. There’s no way Rhylee could be here, he thought. She doesn’t know where we are, she’s with Destiny.
John smirks, turning back towards his prisoner, “On the contraire Quentan, that doorbell and crash you just heard was your daughter coming in.”
“What did you do to her?” Quentan growls fighting against his restrains which bit into his wrists.
“I did nothing,” John says putting a hand to his chest. “And before you ask, I didn’t have anyone do anything to her for me. That crash was her doing something to us, or should I say Yuli.”
“Ianna’s powers can’t make you see two places at once,” Quentan growls. “So why should I believe you?”
“Ianna’s powers, no, however I have a whole array of Enlights willing to let me use their powers for certain occasions.”
“These people you brainwash into following your delusions of world domination are just power sources to you, aren’t they?” Quentan hisses.
“Refrain from using the term ‘world domination’ to describe my goals, I’m not a Disney villain,” John grunts rolling his eyes. “I don’t hold any silly dreams of world domination, many of the world’s leaders are one of us, Quentan. I would just like to be able to use my powers in public without simpletons claiming my natural gifts are some kind of cheap magic or devil’s work.”
“If it’s you using your powers than it is devil’s work,” Quentan grunts.
John sighs. “Put your animosities aside and listen to me for a second Quentan. All throughout history Enlights were massacred because their natural God-given abilities were perceived as different and dangerous. Menai, Bolton, Salem, Babi Yar,, yes some of the genocide during the second world war was against Enlights. The human race hasn’t evolved much since in the past seventy years, it’s sad but true. We are the dominant race but we are still a minority and unless we collect ourselves into communities and train our children to develop our powers, if we try to rise we too will be executed just like Enlights before us.”
“You try to spin it as if you're talking about us preserving our lifeline but what you're really talking about is a militia. You’re training kids to become soldiers to fight for-” Quentan pauses trying to determine whether or not to finish his sentence; world domination, he thinks.
“I already told you to refrain from the term ‘world domination’,” John grunts clenching his fists.
Quentan can see the annoyance in his eyes and smirks. “But that’s exactly what it is; another half developed plan to take over the world and turn every non-Enlight into your slave.”
“That’s a very simple-minded statement,” John says as his eye twitches.
“I’m a simple guy,” Quentan shrugs, “who can clearly see your plans for world-”
“Quentan,” John interrupts him quietly, his fist starting to shake, much to Quentan’s amusement. “I will not say it again, do not to call it ‘world domination’ or else…”
Quentan looks John up and down and though logically he knew it was dumb to provoke John from his position handcuffed to the chair, he also reveled in the thought John losing his composure and showing the short tempered monster he knew he was. “World domination,” Quentan says slowly with a smirk.
A/N Blah blah blah long time. Blah blah blah will update more. Blah blah blah dedicated to *blank*. Blah blah blah see u later.