Monarch: A Contemporary Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 2)

by Schow, Ryan

  3

  “Gem.”

  “Yes,” the woman’s voice said. Her tears finally dried, and there was a steadiness about her voice that could not have been achieved while the host personality held the body.

  “Mission.”

  “Find Savannah Van Duyn.”

  “Secondary mission.”

  “Upon completion of the primary mission, initiate contact with Shelton Gotlieb, then await instructions for the elimination of the target.”

  “Any other parameters I need to be aware of?”

  “No.”

  “Are there any other parameters I’m not to be aware of?”

  “Yes. Keep watch on you.”

  If he was mad before, he was ready to come unhinged now. Warwick and Monarch were spying on him. Spying on him!

  “Why did Autumn refer to me as Dr. Green?”

  “Because that is how you are known.”

  “I am known by many names,” he said. “But here my name is Wolfgang Gerhard. One more slip from you or any of your alters and I promise I will throw you from The Freedom Train. Do you understand that, Gem?”

  The Freedom Train was termination, death.

  “Yes. But we are still useful.”

  Pacing the room, his animal instincts flaring, he felt homicidal, charged. He stopped and glared at the woman. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in her panties and tank top. The top was too large for her small frame so it hung open, exposing her breasts.

  Need suddenly coursed through Wolfgang’s body on a hungry, tenuous current. He turned away from her, but he could not stop seeing her.

  Putting the two warring sides in him to rest, he turned back around and said, “Kitten, rise.”

  “She is asleep.”

  “Kitten, rise,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt, loosening his belt.

  “I’ll wake her.”

  “Kitten,” he said slowly, deliberately. “Rise.”

  And she did.

  And then everything about her went from calm and poised, to seductive and sexually charged. Smiling, lowering her head and purring ever so lightly, Wolfgang watched as she pulled her tank top over her head and crawled on all fours like a panther across the bed toward him. He couldn’t stop the smile at the corners of his mouth.

  As he took her into his arms, he knew two things for certain: Warwick was right about the fringe benefits of this woman—which irritated him—and there was no way in hell this asset would ever know about Savannah Van Duyn, or Abigail Swann.

  Janine’s Ugly Four

  1

  All week long, me and Maggie and Brayden are locating Astor’s “new girls,” starting up conversations, trying to get to know them. Almost all of them are friendly enough. But none of them scream out Georgia, Bridget or Victoria.

  Making introductions was phase one, but since this yielded no tangible results, it was time to go to phase two. Now it’s Friday, and while Brayden, Maggie and I are sitting down for lunch, I’m feeling pretty social. None of us have been accosted by the Bitch Brigade, Brayden is happy to have a computer (mine) to flex his creativity on and Maggie seems distracted enough by our hunt for the non-triplets that she’s finding ways to be happy again, even though I fear she might never fully recover from the rape.

  Few people ever do.

  A minute later Damien and Caden join us, but the second they sit down, I stand up and say, “I’ll be right back.”

  Caden says, “What is something I said?” but I don’t bother answering him.

  Two tables down, sitting like brown turds on a white sand beach, are Janine’s ugly four. I go over and introduce myself to these people I secretly already know.

  Laura Downey, whom the Bitch Brigade used to call Downey Soft, was heavy like I once was, but she’s now twenty, maybe thirty pounds lighter. Her boobs are still humongous, but once she hits the forty pound weight loss mark, her mother promised to pay for breast reduction surgery and a tummy tuck to dispose of whatever flab she still has. I know this because she told me this last year when I was fat Savannah and we were in PE together.

  Sunshine Cranston is still as ugly as her last name suggests. And her perfect veneers still creep me out. It’s like seeing dentures on a dog. Where Laura seems to have lost weight, Sunshine seems to have found more. She’s maybe five or ten pounds heavier than last semester, but mostly in her pimpled jowls. She’s a slothapotamus in the making. Big, dumb and ugly. Except maybe not dumb because most of the kids here are too smart for their own good.

  Tyler Dent is chubby and still sweaty, but his pimpled face is the clearest it has ever been, which is saying something. The only kids with worse self-esteem than fat kids are fat kids with rashy, pimpled faces. The kind you just know feels inflamed and itchy all the time. Tyler’s wearing a different style of shirt, a stylish button up, which is a ginormous improvement over last year’s look—hillbilly sheik. Of course, the kid’s from Louisiana, so who can blame him for loving overalls? Even the expensive ones.

  Oakley McAllister, which I think is a very cool name, still appears to be malnourished and of an uncomfortably grey pallor. He’s like a resuscitated corpse. As close to the undead as I’ve ever seen. If only he was as sophisticated as his name sounds, he might be able to manage a smile. When he sees me, however, he’s the only one to meet and hold my eyes. I smile at him, even though he looks so skinny it makes my bone marrow ache to see him.

  “Hi,” I say, “I wanted to come over and meet you guys, since, well, we’ve seen each other but haven’t been formally introduced.”

  “We know who you are,” Sunshine says, indifferent. She’s eating her food so fast and recklessly crumbs are accumulating on the table around her plate. She’s like a starved mutt, this one.

  “I don’t know you, though,” I say, knowing they were a tough crowd. Not because they’re mean or rude. That’s not what makes them a solitary bunch. Whatever parts of themselves they’ve closed off to others comes from years of hurt and ridicule, and that’s never quickly undone.

  Oakley and Tyler introduce themselves, smiling, delighted to shake hands, and Laura says hello and tells me her name. Sunshine, however, grunts out an introduction. I realize that I don’t know much about them, and that sort of makes me sad.

  Laura says, “What’s wrong with Maggie? She was crying last week.”

  Last semester I learned Laura has a caretaker personality, which made me like her. We weren’t friends the way me and the non-triplets were friends, but she wasn’t mean to me for being friends with them when doing so proved to be unpopular. That being said, I’m pretty excited to be around her again.

  Tyler says, “It’s that song, Laura. Her step-sister played it twice in a row, just so it would really get on everyone’s nerves. That was the turning point.”

  “Her step-sister’s a real piece of work,” I say.

  “She’s a real piece of shit,” Sunshine says, not looking up, just continuing to plow through her meatloaf and peas. The way she’s going at it, she’s better off with a trough than a plate and silverware.

  Perking up, Tyler says, “When you threw milk in their faces, and food at Theresa, you just sort of became our unofficial hero.”

  I’m just about to feel good about myself when Sunshine grumbles, “Not mine.”

  “Don’t mind her,” Laura says, “she’s not the most social of the bunch.”

  Looking right at her when I say this, I say, “I appreciate the obviosity.”

  2

  I’m just about to leave when Maggie joins us with my plate of food and hers, and asks if she can sit down. This is a surprise. Oakley says, “Sure,” and introduces himself. Sunshine doesn’t say anything when Maggie says hello, so Oakley says, “Don’t be rude, Sunshine.”

  Sunshine finally looks up at me, then at Maggie and says, “Seems like she’s better company than those other girls, I’ll give you that.” Is she referring to Maggie choosing me over the Bitch Brigade?

  “Okay,” Maggie says, reluctant.


  The boys aren’t far behind. Brayden has the most to lose coming back, because he’s a former member of Janine’s ugly six (or Janine’s ugly five if you exclude the former me), and was exiled last semester for choosing to eat with fat Savannah (version 2.0 of me) and the non-triplets instead of them.

  “Can I join you guys?” Brayden asks casually. Damien and Caden sit down with smiles. Both Oakley and Tyler say yes, and Laura says yes, but Sunshine’s a freaking mute, which was the reaction I expected.

  “Where are all your girlfriends now?” Sunshine finally says to Brayden. I assume she’s referring to fat Savannah and the non-triplets.

  “Best guess?” he says.

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t have a clue.”

  Sunshine looks over at Damien, but it’s when she sees Caden that everything changes. The girl smiles, reaches out with her hand and says, “Hello, I’m Sunshine Cranston,” and he takes it. Everyone looks at her slack-jawed and amazed, like, holy cow, where’d you come from? In this singular moment she is more Sunshine than Cranston and this renews any hope I might have for world peace.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Caden says.

  From me, he gets brownie points not only for starting the Sunshine thaw, but for not hesitating or shying away from taking her outstretched hand. I remember being as ugly as Sunshine and no one wanting to have anything to do with me, and it was debilitating. Even now, looking the way I do, I see people like Sunshine and Oakley and I’m taken back to all the horrible memories of rejection and loneliness of my past. This is why I can never be mean to them, why maybe I want to be friends with them. Just to show the world social segregation is about as useful as an orange with a dick.

  Damien says, “Thanks for letting us join you,” and Sunshine is suddenly all smiles and delight. There’s actually a twinkle in those dull, foggy eyes.

  “No problem,” she says, chipper. She brushes crumbs from her shirt, then discretely wipes the crumbs around her plate onto the floor.

  Looking around, I feel pretty good about myself and my new(ish) friends. I expected more resistance when it came to Brayden’s return, but bringing Caden and Damien along seemed to settle Sunshine. And Maggie and I, we’re most likely the prettiest girls to ever be friends with Oakley and Tyler, so there is no problem there.

  Caden was the biggest surprise, though. I mean, me and Maggie and Brayden were all ugly once (it’s funny how I keep thinking of Brayden as not ugly anymore), and Damien’s step-sister was a real plain Jane before becoming gorgeous, then dead, then alive again. But Caden? He didn’t have to hang out with them. He could’ve objected. He could have been the way Jacob Brantley would be, which is cruel to those less fortunate than himself in the good looks department. Caden isn’t like that, though, and I find myself feeling something more than pseudo-friendship for him because of it.

  Suddenly I can’t take my eyes off him. But if I stare at a guy as gorgeous as Caden for too long, my sex drive kicks in hard, fast and relentless. This is why I’ve become a sixth period mute who never looks up. It’s because of Jake freaking Teller. Ohmigod—just the thought of him is giving me a serious lady boner.

  My thoughts turn to Gerhard for a moment—he’s my safety zone, the cold shower I need right now. When the hell is he going to get me my gosh damn hormone pills?!

  He said two days, not two freaking weeks!

  Emotional Penis

  1

  I’m in fifth period Branding and Media Relations with Professor Justice, who is talking about how to properly line the pockets of certain media organizations to insure only good press when my iPhone vibrates. Text message. Discretely I open it up.

  It’s from Maggie.

  It says: OMFG, THAT BITCH IS AT IT AGAIN! She included a link.

  When I click the link, I’m taken to Facebook where Cameron posted pictures of us lunching with Janine’s ugly four. They’re not pretty. One has me wiping my upper lip with my finger, but the angle is so unflattering; it makes me look like I’m picking my nose.

  The caption reads: PRETTY GIRLS DON’T PICK IN PUBLIC.

  Then there are pics of Brayden and Sunshine, and pretty much all of them make us look horrible. One picture has Caden shaking Sunshine’s hand and the caption reads: THIS IS HOW PRETTY PEOPLE GET UGLY BABIES.

  “That jerk,” I hear myself mumble.

  I log onto SocioSphere, onto Cameron O’Dell’s page, making sure I don’t get caught. There’s a foursquare of pictures. In the upper left corner is a really good picture of me. Below that is a great one of Maggie. To the right, there’s a pic of me opening my mouth to eat and there’s all kinds of chewed up food already in there and it’s gross. In the lower right hand corner of the foursquare photo, Maggie’s got her eyes half closed, like she’s stoned, and she has this really goofy look on her face. The caption sitting over the right hand column reads: PRE-DORK SQUAD, and over the left column it reads: POST-DORK SQUAD.

  Inside I’m raging.

  If only Cameron were here right now…

  2

  By the time I get to sixth period, I’ve worked myself into such a sexual fit I wonder if I’m going to lose my motherfreaking mind. Then Jake Teller calls me to the front of the class to hand me a note. I take it and he says, “It’s from Dr. Gerhard.”

  Looking into his eyes, I’m reminded of that first day of class, when I told him he was hot then ran off like a fool. He’s smiling and I’m smiling at him and suddenly there are sparks between us. At least, that’s what I tell myself because there’s a warm, syrupy feeling churning deliciously in my loins and it has me all hot and flustered.

  “Come see me after class,” he says. “I have posted office hours, and no one comes on Fridays. It’ll give me a chance to evaluate your progress. And maybe not have to spend the hour counting the dots on my ceiling.”

  “Okay,” I say, the word breathy as it floats from my lips.

  When I get to my seat, Brayden is looking at me and Damien is looking at me and I’m officially convinced they know I want Jake in the worst way. Then I see Cameron and she’s giggling and looking over at me. The rage should have come back, but it doesn’t. Right then, I don’t even care about her.

  Only Jake.

  Stuffing Gerhard’s note in my pocket, not even looking at it, I really pay attention in class for the first time since day one and by the time I hurry over to Jake’s office, I know I’m in serious trouble. My hormones so out of control, it’s not funny!

  I open his door, close it. He looks up at me and I look at him and that’s when I cross the room, slide my hand behind his head and pull him into a kiss. Just like in the movies. It’s perfect…

  ….until he pulls away and says, “Whoa, Abby. You’re a student,” and I’m like, “A mere technicality.”

  He kisses me this time and whatever warmth was building in my body all last class becomes a fiery inferno of lust and passion and all the things I should not be feeling. His hands work the buttons on my blouse, and I feel the pulled tension in my shirt releasing with each undone button. I straddle his lap, running my hands through his hair until the last button is freed and my shirt opens wide. He slips his hands inside my bra, cups my breasts, and it’s like heaven unfolding.

  And then it stops.

  He stops.

  “What?” I say.

  I’m breathy, practically manic. My heart is a throbbing, thumping mass of reckless need. I am practically ravenous for his mouth. He removes his hands, but I want them back! God, I want him out of that shirt! Out of those pants!

  “Aren’t you supposed to be seeing Dr. Gerhard right now?” he asks.

  “Who cares about him,” I say, putting my mouth to his again. But he moves back and says, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Isn’t that half the fun?” I say.

  “This is a good job for me,” he explains, “and you’re underage.”

  Then it hits me: I’ve made a fool of myself. Again! Looking down, at my heaving chest, at how one of my nipples
has come out of my bra, I feel stupid. I slide off his lap, put my breast back in place, then button up my shirt and think rationally for the first time since seeing him a little more than an hour ago.

  Gerhard. He’s got my hormone pills!

  I’m thinking, this isn’t me. I’m thinking, this is the testosterone, the male DNA, the thing I should have controlled better! But I didn’t. Is this what it’s like for boys? Is this the rampant sex drive they’re always referring to? If so, I’m only here because my emotional penis forced me to be here.

  “You’re right,” I say, my cheeks ablaze. “I should go.”

  When my shirt is all the way buttoned, he says, “For the record, I like your breasts.”

  “For the record, I like everything about you, but if I act like I don’t for the rest of the semester, it’s because I’m going to respect your ridiculous wishes.”

  He stands and kisses me one last time, and then I hurry out of his office to meet Gerhard. By the time I get to his office, I’m overcome with shame. I’m also swimming in that warm glow of first love. I tell myself, this isn’t real, this isn’t me. Yet it is, but not for long. Hopefully.

  If Gerhard’s serum is ready—and I pray it is—then all this will finally come to a dead stop.

  3

  Nurse Arabelle acts happy to see me, and when Gerhard says to follow him back to his office, he seems happy as well.

  “I trust you aren’t pregnant yet,” he says with a grin.

  “No, but it burns when I pee and I can’t stop scratching my crotch.” He gives me a startled look, then I give a sort of half-smile that would’ve been better had I not just sexually assaulted my Psychology professor. Gerhard doesn’t find my joke funny, but why am I surprised? I don’t even find it funny right now. “Do you have my pills or what?”

  He hands them over and says, “Do I need to tell you to follow the instructions to the letter?”