Chapter 9

The Hardship of Consciousness

“EVERYTHING WILL BE alright Oksana,” Matvei repeated for about the hundredth time while I kept on hitting my head on the wall by the front door.

            School had never really been a subject of stress for me, but that was before being aware that it would be crawling with mythical creatures. Because, as I had been graciously informed, this city was one of refuge and a bunch of freaking creatures were living among the humans, playing house.

            I turned around and threw my hands up in the air. “How can you be so sure?” I exclaimed. “I could get kidnapped and dragged into some warehouse and get eaten for all we know!”

            Pavel, with one strap of his backpack lazily swung over one shoulder, walked towards the door, “Don’t be silly,” he said, slipping in his shoes, “there aren’t any ghouls around, and even if there were, they have to stick to corpse, otherwise we’d kill them.”

              I narrowed my eyes at him. “That makes me feel so much better.”

          Matvei scowled my cousin momentarily and then looked back at me with kind eyes. “Look Oksana, you’ll be fine. Pasha and Hugo will be in most of your classes and Marisha will be there too, and there are other suprahuman in the school that will see you with them and know that they have to behave around you. Nothing’s going to happen.” I know what he said should have made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but no, things just didn’t work that way.

             “You deliberately put my life in peril!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air again.

          That bastard was trying to hold back his laughter—I could see it because the corner of his eyes always crinkled when he laughed, just like Semyon’s did. “Look,” Matvei said, taking a step towards me, “if you don’t want to go, it’s fine, don’t go. I just assumed… you’d want to have a life as normal as it can be, curse aside.”

          I sighed. What was I supposed to answer to that? And it was weird to have someone actually caring about that kind of stuff for me. A normal life. Nobody ever cared about me having a normal life. It was kind of nice in a way.

          “Now, come on let’s go. Don’t want to be late on your first day of school, do you?” Pavel urged me, trying to push my back, but I quickly shied away from his touch. He just shrugged and headed outside, Marina quickly following after him, while I just stood there, awkwardly swaying on my feet, looking everywhere but at Matvei that obviously wanted to say something, or maybe—oh the dread—hug me!

          I got the hug part right though, because Matvei tentatively took a step forward, his arms slightly opening. I gazed around, panicking, trying to find a weapon close to bash his head with it, but then reasoned with myself. What is wrong with you dude, that’s your dad, he’s not going to try to grope you god dammit, you aren’t in HillBillyTown.

          Very slowly, always making sure I wasn’t going to deck him I think, Matvei wrapped his arms around my shoulder, giving me an awkward hug, while I stayed stiff—okay well I patted his side a little, to let him know I wasn’t going into shock, and then we both stepped back quickly. I was sure that to any outside people watching this happen it would have been hilarious.

          “Maybe if you don’t get killed by anything, tonight we could go out to eat, to celebrate your first day of school,” Matvei asked, looking unsure. I think that deep down, he really wanted to take me out and have some father/daughter bonding time, and I couldn’t argue with the logic. He had been nothing but kind and understanding with me so far. I should really try to make more of an effort, starting by acknowledging he was my father maybe.

          “Alright, I’d like that.”

          He was fighting against the grin that was about to consume his face, I could see it. “Perfect.” I nodded. “Now go, before Pasha leaves without you.”

          I chuckled at that, swung my new backpack over my shoulder and hurried to Pavel’s blue Audi Q5.

          Because I had taken so much time chatting with father-dearest, Marina had taken shot gun and I had to crawl in the back seat—luckily that meant I had the whole back for myself and could lay down there for all I cared.

          Hugo was driving some Tesla fancy looking car that worked on electricity and that had no room what so ever in it for more passengers and he was adamantly obsessed with being on time, so he had already left—like thirty minutes ago—freak.

          I held my backpack preciously against my chest as we drove away from the house. I never had so many new things gathered in the same place and as pricey as these were before. My backpack wasn’t the ordinary hand-down HelloKitty kind of crap I used to have. No, this was some fancy waxed canvas backpack, that was sort of squared and that could have a strap put on to make is a messenger bag. And it was pretty and it smelled new and I couldn’t believe it actually belonged to me and I didn’t have to steal it to get it. My clothes too were new, thanks to Marina crazy shopping spree and Matvei’s unlimited credit card funds and my peasant shirt, with shorts and boots probably made me look like Cameron in Sarah Connor Chronicles when she loses her memory at the supermarket, but details, really.

          It was kind of crazy to be clean and going to school in a fancy car—all things that weren’t stolen I mean, with clean shampoo smelling hair tied into a pony tail, with actual school furniture in my bag and a freaking phone!

          If only this whole good luck thing wasn’t going to stop now that I was going to get killed by attending high school.

          “Can we stop at a Church, and maybe like, get some holy water, and a big ass crucifix that I can parade around school with, strapped to my back,” I asked, to no one in particular, before going back to eating my nails and compulsively trying to smooth down my hair.

          “And play the new Messiah?” Pasha chuckled, looking at me through the rear-view mirror.

          “No, just to scare away evil biatches!” I grinned.

          Pavel shook his head and rolled his eyes at the same time. Marina was texting and not giving a damn about the whole conversation. “Well, for one thing,” my cousin started to rant, “I think that’s blasphemy. Also, throwing water in people’s face tends to just piss them off more, plus if you do decided to throw holy water at suprahumans and hit them in the face with a six feet tall crucifix in solid gold and they haven’t done anything bad, then you’re the one that’s going to get in trouble.”

          I shrugged. “Not if you help me hide the body.”

          Again, Pavel just shook his head and didn’t talk again, so that put a big lump on my evil plan. I sulked in the back, my arms crossed over my chest, pouting.

          As we drove though, I saw a place named Gay City State park, so that perked up my day a great deal.

          But then I saw the doomed ground of my new hell on Earth, or as everyone called it, RHAM High School.

          The whole thing was kind of big, bigger than I had imagined for a school in the middle of nowhere. Cars were quickly filling the empty parking spaces and kids were gathering around the doors around the school, getting in.

          I held my backpack tighter and tried not to hyperventilate. First class was going to be the worse, I knew it because I had already gotten my schedule and it wasn’t because it was English Lit, it was because it was the only class I was going to be in where I didn’t know anybody. I shared all of my other classes with either Pasha or Hugo, or both. But not the first one. And I was freaking ooooout.

          After Pavel parked the car, he turned around to scowl at me. “Calm down Oksana, I’m sure you’ve faced much more threatening things then a first day of school.”

          “Wouldn’t bet on that,” I grumbled.

          Marina got out of the car, still texting and ignored us as she went to join her friends waiting for her. I got out too and all but threw myself on my cousin—I almost freaking grabbed his hand for comfort—almost.

          “Come on, I’ll take you to your first class,” Pasha urged me, and I swear he was about to throw me over his shoulder and drag me to the class.

          We walked in silence side by side, while I looked everywhere around me. People weren’t scowling at me, or well, basically they weren’t really noticing me, they were talking among themselves, or heading to classes.

          When Pasha finally stopped in front of a classroom and I recognized the number over the door as the number on my schedule, I sighed heavily in defeat. “If I die, please tell Johnny Depp I loved him.”

          Pasha chuckled. “You’ll be fine,” he assured me again, patting my shoulder, and weirdly I didn’t strike him in the face—maybe I was slowly beginning to trust the men in my family.

          I took a deep breath and stepped in the classroom. It looked like any normal classroom in the world, though it was pretty big, like could easily have fifty students in there big. It was still fairly empty so I settled for a table in the middle of the class, to make sure to not attract attention on myself—though they were tables, so that meant that someone else would have to sit with me. I hoped the class wasn’t full and I wouldn’t have to have a partner.

          Slowly, the classes filled in and my wishes were granted. When the bell finally rang, there were at least six tables with only one person—even two in front with no one sitting there.

          I sighed contently and took out sheet of papers out of my bag and a pencil, getting ready to take notes, or maybe doodle.

          The teacher was a forty something man with a mustache—yes, a mustache, a Magnum P.I. mustache, and even a tacky short sleeves dress shirt with printed flowers on it. He was lame at an epic level. Just for that I listened to him.

          But his lecture on how reading this year was going to be awesome was interrupted by a late student.

          Black-haired dude. The one I had seen with the bitchy looking girl arguing with Semyon, and the one that had found me during my little run away stunt. Oh lord.

          Everyone in the room froze. I could hear and see some girls almost fanning themselves—a couple of boys too actually. I could feel like again, but even strong, some sort of pull that boy had, like I couldn’t possibly look away. And Magnum P.I. didn’t seem to be bothered at all that he was late. He just smiled at him when the creepy possibly mentally challenged boy handed him a piece of paper and looked back at the class.

            His eyes scanned the room and landed on me. He looked like a predator stalking his prey as he made his way, slowly, to my table and sat beside me. My finger nails were digging into the palm of my hand painfully. I didn’t want to get killed so soon.

          “Relax,” black haired green eyed boy whispered to me, smirking, just slightly.

          I looked at him sideways. “Huh?”

          He leaned in closer to me. “You’re worried because you’re the new kid in town and you assume you’ll get notice because of it, and you don’t want to be noticed but trust me when I say, you’re not the only new kid. New kids are kind of a big thing around here. If you tell people you were here last year, they’ll probably believe you,” he whispered in a rush. People were whispering around and because it was a big class, the teacher didn’t seem to notice that much—or maybe Magnum P.I. just didn’t care.

          “Thank you for your insightfulness,” I answered in a rush, not looking at him. He smelled good—very good, like something exotic, maybe fruits, and fresh. Something that couldn’t be name but that was completely intoxicating.

          “My pleasure” he grinned, a lazy grin. “So? What exactly are you?”

          I froze in my seat. “Excuse me?”

          I looked around quickly, and leaned towards me more, speaking even more quietly. “Well, I can’t seem to get a feel on you and you don’t strike me as one of the Faustin’s bastard with that blonde hair of yours… well maybe Kara. Oh! Are you an illegitimate daughter of Kara? You don’t feel Valkyrie though. Baby Valkyrie? Einherjar?”

          I freaked out. What was I supposed to do? What was I suppose to say? Beat him unconscious and hide the body? Lie. Lie, lie, lie, lie. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I mouthed.

          “Please.” He rolled his eyes and gazed back in front of the glass, taking some notes that were incompressible to me. Keeping his eyes on his sheet, he continued whispering. “Don’t believe the stereotype that all good looking boys are idiots. The Faustin aren’t a halfway house. They wouldn’t keep a fragile human with them. Actually, they wouldn’t really keep anyone around aside from Hug-A-Tree.”

          My eyebrow furrowed. “Who?”

          He rolled his eyes. “That tree lover.”

          “Hugo?”

          “Yeah. Hugo.” He said the name with a sneer. “Hug for Hugo and Wood because Dubois is like An-Article-We-Don’t-Have-In-English-Wood in French.”

          This boy was weird, really weird. “Well, I rest my case. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

          He half smiled, his eyes locked on the notes in front of him. He breathed deeply a couple of times. I swallowed loudly. “If they treat you like crap or you just want to get out of there, just tell me what you are, and I can get you out,” he added, out of nowhere.

          Weird doesn’t even begin to cover what he is. “What?”

          He looked at me this time. “You heard me. I can get what I want.” He leaned in closer, his lips almost touching my ear. “Anything I want.”

          That was borderline creepy. And I couldn’t help but hear the double meaning in what he was saying. I raised an eyebrow. “Like that girlfriend of yours?”

          That made him frown. Funny. “What girlfriend?”

          “The one with you when I first saw you.” I explained, a glorious smile filling my face. “Don’t tell me she’s your sister,” I nagged him, trying to keep my voice low.

          “She’s not my sister.”

          “Your daughter?”

          “No.”

          “Mother?”

          “She’s…” he frowned a little, thinking about it, “well kind of like my ward.”

          “What do you mean?”

          “I mean I found her, and she was rabid and in a frenzy and she was about to be put down so I took her in, took care of her and now she’s under my protection,” He explained, “And if she fucks up, I have to pay for the consequences.” That was all very interesting. I wondered what she was. I was also a tiny bit relieved that she wasn’t his girlfriend for some dark and mysterious reason.

          “How noble of you,” I stated and scribbled nonsense on my sheet. I think Magnum P.I. was exchanging summer stories with two or three students sitting in front, thinking that people around actually found it trivial.

          “I know right,” the boy beside me whispered, overly proud. I tried not breathing too much from my nose so I wouldn’t smell his intoxicating scent, but then it’s like I could taste it on my tongue. Seriously, what was he?

          “Well, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not telling you anything. Especially if you won’t tell me what you are,” I replied. Good for you, stand up for yourself Oksana, and don’t look at him. Wearing pale blue jeans, his combat boots again and a long sleeve dark blue henley shirt, the top two button undone showing just a little smooth flawless skin, and the sleeves were hitched up a little on his forearm so I could see half of his weird tattoo, all in all, he looked comfortable and pretty darn irresistible to be honest, which was shocking to admit because while I could appreciate man hotness and admit someone was hot, I never had any kind of attraction. He was different.

          “Haven’t they already told you?” He asked, bringing me out of my mental rambling.

          I frowned at that. Didn’t he know how the rules worked? Maybe he wasn’t really some kind of suprahuman, just a very, very attractive human. “They can’t tell me, only you can.”

          He chuckled soundlessly. “What?”

          I looked around, making sure Magnum P.I. was still engross in his summer reverie. “Isn’t that the rule?”

          “But who follows it?” he asked me, earnestly.

          Wow, okay I probably had the reason why Semyon had been screaming at him the other day. “Well, Pavel keeps rearing my ears about it.”

          “Hmm, you’re right, Pavel probably wouldn’t tell you that,” the boy admitted.

          “Because he follows the rules,” he shot back, kind of proud of my family suddenly.

        “No, because he didn’t follow them,” the black haired boy chuckled and casually looked around again, making sure no one was listening. To me though it seemed that if he didn’t want people to look they wouldn’t look, but if he wanted them to look, then damn us all. “Last year, he had a nice girlfriend who kept asking him what everyone around was. One night she was a little friskier, and he told her about me. Next thing you know she’s out the door and trying to rip my face off. Which is a shame because I have lovely face.” True.

          “What happened?” I whispered, curious.

          “Well, obviously, I still have my face.” He motioned to it. I rolled my eyes. I also hadn’t realized I had slowly dragged my chair a little closer to his. I pushed it back the second I realized this though. “I killed the bitch. But then Pasha got in trouble because he put me in danger.”

          “Are you that important?”

          “You have no idea.” He replied, and for a second, the way he looked at me, I was scared, genuinely scared. Who was he?

          And that’s when the teacher coughed, trying to get everyone’s attention back to him and started to speak louder.

            During the rest of the class, I was hyper aware of the boy sitting beside me. There was definitely something about him. I would have to check in Semyon’s book for “eerie presence” later tonight. Or maybe just asked Matvei point blank. Obviously that boy was dangerous and probably powerful, unless he was just a lying sweet talker.

            When the class finally freaking ended, I had already gathered all my things, because I had kept on glancing at the clock every ten seconds till the end, so I got up quickly and tried to rush past the tall intimidating boy, but he grabbed me by the arm stopping my track.

          I ripped my arm out of his grip, ready to punch him in the face a couple of times. He obviously saw this because he raised his hands in a piece gesture. “Just hear me out.”

          “Why do you care so much?” I whined.

          “You have noticed we live in the middle of nowhere?” He snorted. “Plus, I need to watch my back.” All reasonably explanations, but not enough for me.

          I tried to walk around him again but he kept stepping in my way. “Well, if you can get whatever you want then I’m sure you can ask them who I am,” I countered.

          And after I had talked, I quickly realized I had said something wrong, because he looked triumphant. “You said who I am,” he beamed.

          “Yeah…” I trailed, confused.

          “Not what I am… you’re new, aren’t you!” He was entirely too happy with the realization. I wonder what kind of trouble I’d be in now, and how much time it would take him to kill me, because surely that’s what he wanted to do, right?

          Oh fuck. “Define new,” I asked in a small voice. There was no point in arguing. I tell Pasha in the next class and maybe he’d be able to kill him or something, important or not.

          “My god, this is epic!” He all but exclaimed and grinned at me. “What happened exactly?”

          “Look dude, I don’t even know your name, so leave me alone,” I tried to step around me he stopped me again, but was careful enough not to grab me this time.

          “Kostyantyn Brahe,” he introduced himself. Why couldn’t people around here have normal names like Alexander or Simon.

          “That’s a mouthful,” I snorted.

          I think he was repressing himself from saying something naughty, and I only had myself to blame, I kind of brought that call on myself, but instead he asked, “So, new one, who are you?”

          At first I was going to tell him something random like Cunty McShitballs, then I thought about just not answering and kneeing him in the balls, but then I realized I had a weapon in my hand—he would find my name soon enough, but for now, he didn’t know who I was and I could see his face when I realized it. So after three second I answered, “Oksana Matveyevna Faustina.”

          The face he made—priceless.