The Marked One (The Marked Series Book 1)

by Chevoque

  Thereafter, the day consisted of Madeline lazing about until she conked out. Aaliyah didn’t bother to cover her mouth as she yawned. She was working on the conclusion of her report.

  Her cell phone rang and in an attempt to not wake up Madeline, she ran to the bedroom. It was who she had been waiting to hear from all day.

  “Hello, Tristan,” she said cheerily as she fell back onto the bed.

  “You sound utterly pleased, which is a good thing.” He sounded relaxed.

  “I’ve been dying to hear what you wanted to ask me.” She didn’t hide her curiosity.

  “I decided I’d rather not.” She hoped to hell he was teasing, so she kept quiet. “I take I’m not getting off that easy.” Again she held her tongue, enjoying the mischievous smile creeping onto her lips. He chuckled. “So, here goes. Would you like to accompany me to a fundraiser? I know you aren’t a fan of crowds, but I would rather want to attend, knowing you’d be with me.”

  It was the last thing she expected, but she understood why he must’ve been uncertain to ask her. Her smile had fallen, but still the thought of going to a fancy soiree with him was making her mind runaway in wonder.

  She sat upright, her finger tangling with the crochet throw at the foot of the bed. “When is it?” She delayed to decline, while still knowing that on the one hand she really liked the idea.

  “This Friday, and I know you won’t like me saying this, but I really would like you to be my plus one, so I’ll take care of all the trimmings for you.” Her mind went loopy, so she made a sound to express her confusion. “A dress, to have your hair done and makeup and whatever else you need.”

  “Oh, uhm, damn, I didn’t even think of those things. Would there still be time to get a dress?” It was the USA, not South Africa, let alone Cradock, where an evening gown was usually reserved for matric farewells and weddings. “That was a dumb question, but are you cer—”

  “Aaliyah, obviously I’m sure.”

  She bit her lip, afraid to say the next thing on her mind, but she gave in and did so anyway. “Isn’t it too early for you to be seen with someone else at an event with photographers?”

  He was quiet for a moment, possibly trying to figure out what she meant, with her wide-angled attempt to say what she didn’t like to think about. “You being with me won’t change anything. People already know about me and…Valerie not being together anymore.”

  How did I get to this point in my life? was her first thought, but she knew it was simply because she really wanted to be with Tristan and she understood the situation. It might have been odder than anything she had heard of, but it was what it was.

  “Sorry, it’s just a little strange.”

  “If you really aren’t comfortable with it, I will completely understand.” He meant every word, which made her feel relieved, but then also made her realise she wanted to be there so he would know she meant to give their relationship her all.

  “I will go with you, but what is the event even for?”

  “An animal shelter is having a benefit.” She could hear the building excitement in his tone.

  “That sounds nice. Well, then I suppose I will try find a dress tomorrow,” she said more enthusiastically.

  “There is a designer that wants to sponsor a dress.” Aaliyah felt a little high. “It is just how these things go,” he added when she stayed quiet for too long.

  “I get that. It just made me realise again how different our worlds are. I ate cup noodles this evening and Friday I’m going to a fundraiser.” It sounded a little mean, but it was the truth.

  He gave a chuckle and added, “I want you to be happy.”

  She belted out, “Real smooth, Tristan.”

  “Well, prepare yourself for much more of that to come.” He didn’t seem to realise what his words intended or he maybe did, but Aaliyah knew he meant it in a reassuring way.

  Then Madeline walked into the room, winked at Aaliyah, and headed into the bathroom.

  “Hold on for a moment.” She headed back to the living room, feeling a little shy, knowing Madeline would hear. “Anyway, I’m at Madeline’s still, going to stay here for a few days, which would likely please you.”

  “And here I thought I might have to worry about rats breaking into your place and keeping you hostage,” he said jokingly. She could only smile. Then Isabella began to bark ferociously in the background.

  “What on Earth is happening there?” Aaliyah worried for a moment, but Tristan was quiet. “Tristan?”

  “God damn it, Ivan,” he cursed from the other end of the line.

  “What? I was just making sure you were awake,” she heard Ivan’s reply with an ever-cheerfulness to his tone.

  “Just wait,” Tristan said. “Sorry, Ivan has made it an awful habit to freak Isabella out every time he gets here by coming in through the sunroom.”

  “It’s a shorter walk.” Aaliyah only just made out Ivan yelling, which caused her to giggle softly as Madeline plopped back down on the sofa next to her with her ear against the phone.

  “Well, I need to go. Ivan brought papers that need to be signed and sent before the end of the day.” Ivan again gave a snippy remark, but this time he was too far to be heard on her side of the line.

  “That might be a good thing, because Madeline is kind of listening in.” Aaliyah pulled away, which made Madeline laugh at her.

  “The people we need to deal with,” Tristan said.

  “Menaces, I say.” Madeline stuck her tongue out. “But I actually do need to get back to writing my report anyway.”

  “I believe it’s going well?”

  “Pretty much. I just hope Prof. Li approves it,” Aaliyah said, worried.

  “You’ll be fine,” he reassured her and it made the fuzzy feelings inside her grow. “Good luck with that and I’ll send the details of the designer to you, so you guys can work something out. Goodbye, Aaliyah.”

  “Thank you, Tristan. Miss you,” she said without thinking and saw Madeline all but having a little celebration on the other side of the sofa.

  “Miss you too, bye,” was the last he said with utter glee. He ended the call.

  “I miss you, baby,” Madeline teased with a very sexy tone. Aaliyah threw her with a throw pillow, which didn’t do anything to stop Madeline from moving closer to begin her inquisition, “Sooo…”

  Aaliyah gave Madeline a sideways look, but she couldn’t contain her smile as her excitement spilled over. “He asked me to go to a fundraiser with him.”

  Madeline seemed momentarily indifferent, but then she freaked out. “That is so fucking awesome! Damn, we need to go get you a dress right now.” Madeline bolted off the sofa.

  “Already done. I suppose being who he is, everybody would want their name associated with his, so—”

  “This is like movie star treatment shit.” Madeline was looking much more like herself, which only showed how she used it all to distract from her own issues, but, at least in Aaliyah’s mind, it was something. Madeline sat back down on the sofa. “This has to be the coolest thing ever!” She gave her a hug around her side and leaned her head against her shoulder. “Total fairytale.”

  ***

  Time flew by over the next few days. Aaliyah had gotten her report in, began a new project on the aquatic insects of two marinas in Pittsburgh, and she had already done her final fitting of her dress on Wednesday. But before any celebrating was going to be taking place, she first had to go see Prof. Li with her zoological project’s results.

  Professor Li was to leave on Friday to do a project at the Arctic Circle with some of the greatest minds out there, so trying to figure out why there were anomalies in the data had Aaliyah a little jittery. Her results all seemed to have failed, and she had decided to not ask Dr. Ramadan and Prof. Dennis-Patrickson for any help, which was likely why she had no idea what the results meant. It made her feel a little unworthy of the opportunity she had been given, because she was certain that handling a project on her own was part of the te
st.

  She knocked on the door. “Come in,” Prof. Li said from the other side. Aaliyah entered the office and Prof. Li sat behind her desk, looking as stern as ever, but something in her eyes reflected expectation. “Take a seat and get your notes ready,” she said and took a sip of tea.

  Aaliyah gave a half-smile, sat down, and took out all of her things. Straightening her shoulders, she took one last deep breath. “I think I failed the project completely.” She placed the results table on the desk, searched for a graph she had printed out, and looked Prof. Li in the eyes. “I know I was supposed to find out how abundant the aquatic insect life on the shore of the Sharpsburg Islands Marina is compared to Peggy’s Harbour and how the different locations from where the river basically enters the city and exits it influences it all…but I kept getting anomalies. It was all just a fail,” she said, afraid of what Prof. Li was going to say next.

  “I heard you hadn’t asked any of the mentors for help with this,” she stated and Aaliyah knew the prof would’ve talked to the other mentors, but it still made her feel uneasy, so she kept quiet. “Well, that is something you need to get used to, Ms. Labuschagne. We are all here to help, so give me the results so I can see what you came up with.”

  She handed over her very confusing notes, trying not to cringe, as she saw the Prof’s brows rise. Swallowing the lump of fear in her throat, she said, “I tried to keep all the data as categorised as possible, but after identifying up to genus when it just came to the mayflies, I was losing track of it all and—”

  Prof. Li began to laugh out of her belly, which made Aaliyah’s confidence plummet as low as it could get. “Oh, dear.” The professor shook her head. “You only needed to identify up to order. If you go too deep into species, it has far too many changeable factors and then you’d need to do a lot of other measurements of the water variability of both locations. It is far too complex. What you attempted to do was something you’d need to do for a master’s or doctorate. Calm your soul and look at the data again.”

  “Oh, okay,” Aaliyah mouthed. She wanted to get up, thinking she should go do it and then come back.

  “No, stay here, but do you see now that asking for help or just making sure about things isn’t so bad?” Prof. Li was smiling at her kindly.

  “I didn’t want people to think that I wasn’t doing it by myself or that I needed too much help,” she whispered, quite ashamed of herself, but she knew the prof wasn’t being malicious.

  Prof. Li smiled at her. “There is nothing wrong with needing help sometimes.”

  It nearly had Aaliyah uncomfortable, but she looked over the data again, with just the orders of the insects in mind. “Prof, but if I look at it that way, many of the species within the orders aren’t even properly taken into account.”

  “That would be normal, as species found upriver won’t show up downriver and vise versa,” she easily explained easily the simplicity Aaliyah was ashamed to admit, that she hadn’t really taken in account, as she had been stressing over what was going to happen to her due to the mess of her project.

  She looked over the water measurements of both locations and tried finding things that made sense. “Because of the slightly higher pollution at…” Then it clicked. “That’s it. On an overview, the change only shows in order numbers due to the influence of human activity, the river bank compositions, and obviously the water temperature, alkalinity, and turbidity changing.”

  Prof. Li gained a bigger smile.

  “Which then only indicates fewer insects appearing, because there aren’t as many plants to attach to and thus the point of the entire experiment. It wasn’t supposed to have a full conclusion, as the areas are environmentally unstable and aren’t exactly what these animals need to survive throughout the year or during their reproduction cycles. The plants are removed by humans, and just that change causes their life cycles to be interrupted and the numbers to be inconsistent.”

  “See, this is why you should ask questions,” Prof. Li stated again. “Then this entire project would’ve caused far less stress and you would’ve enjoyed it more. You would have realised it wasn’t about just data collection, but rather about what it means as an environmental impact study.”

  “If enjoying the activity of sorting though critters I’ll have nightmares about for the rest of my life, then maybe,” she joked. “But yes, it all seems so simple now.”

  Prof. Li smiled back at her. “I think you will do great here, and I’ve already read your report on the diatom project of last week. You have done excellently, for having done it all in such a short time.”

  Aaliyah was holding her breath. Is this it? Am I being approved?

  “Now, while I won’t be here to see you settle in with us and become part of the Gerardo Labs family, I want to say congratulation on your degree.”

  Aaliyah’s mouth felt like it was dragging on the floor. “You’re serious?”

  Prof. Li smiled. “Yes, the dean at the university approved your degree this morning, so hopefully by the time I’ve returned from my expedition, the physical document will be here.”

  Aaliyah had to fight the tears teasing on her eyelids.

  The professor smiled. “Now, with that said, I would like to know if you still want to continue here, or is that too presumptuous of me?”

  “No, I want to stay here, very badly. This place, the people, everything is just amazing. I’m just trying to not ugly cry,” Aaliyah said honestly.

  “I’m glad to see you appreciate it so much. Now.” Professor Li rose from her seat behind the desk and rounded it, causing Aaliyah to jab all her notes and things back into her bag. “I believe we are expected in the cafeteria.”

  “Why?” Aaliyah wondered if this was going to be her first meeting to see what all the projects were, or if it meant they thought she needed something to eat.

  “We all knew you got your degree, so it is time to celebrate before I go away and miss out on it.” She was overwhelmed by a number of feelings. “Welcome to the team.” Prof. Li shook her hand. Aaliyah was in a state of euphoria.

  Silently, she followed Prof. Li. In the cafeteria, everyone was there to congratulate her. It was like she already was part of the group, and their kindness and acceptance was something she thought mythical. Yet, as she stood there and finally got a chance to call her father with the amazing news, the words “Your mother would’ve been proud,” caused her tears of joy to finally spill over. She had made her dream a reality, and she’d never felt happier.

  ***

  Madeline

  Madeline stood in front of the portrait named Butterfly and wondered how she could make it look like more than just two oddly shaped things connecting. She turned around and looked at the other pieces, which were brought out of storage for next week’s show, and that didn’t help her much either.

  “Why? Why? Why!” The frustration began to get to her, so she moved the canvas off the easel, placed the half finished portrait with the rest, and silently cursed it. She grabbed her cell phone and fell onto the couch, grunting in frustration. She checked her phone and called her grandfather.

  The old man had made it a rule that she had to call every week, since he and her grandmother had moved to live in Florida. The amusement of old people always retiring there was never lost by Madeline, as she imagined they played bingo, pestered springbreakers, and joined clubs she would rather not know about.

  As the dial tone continued to make its annoying little sound, she wondered what they would think of Aaliyah’s basic transformation from the mostly shy girl into the now more confident and comfortable woman she was showing more and more every day. It only caused Madeline frustration, as that was supposed to be the message of the butterfly portrait, yet she couldn’t find a way to bring it to life with her paints.

  Her granddad still hadn’t picked up the phone and she wasn’t feeling like leaving a voice message, so she ended the call and tried again. Somehow the moment reminded her of the awful memory from when her parents had
gotten into a car accident and she couldn’t get hold of them.

  Ending the call, she jumped up and headed for the kitchen wanting some water, but as she passed the stacks of portraits leaning against the wall, her foot nicked one’s corner, causing a domino effect of paintings falling over. She paused, took a deep breath, counted to four, opened her eyes, and began stacking them again.

  As she sat Lover’s Hope upright, she grabbed Butterfly and before she had set it down, inspiration hit in a different way. She found Mark Me, the black and white portrait of Aaliyah with the birthmark in red, and held Butterfly in front of it.

  Rearranging things so that they were more stable, she grabbed a new canvas and began with a rough sketch of Aaliyah’s face. She had drawn it so many times, she had the basics down in a few minutes, but then came the fun part, as she worked on replacing the birthmark with a butterfly instead. It was turning out to be one piece she would never forget. She almost didn’t want to add it to the collection when she began adding the brilliant colours.

  It burst with twirls and swirls and pretty little things to show that that was exactly what the birthmark was. Beautiful. Madeline painted and played with the colours, seeing something as perfect as The Marked One coming to life.

  “Wow!” Aaliyah’s voice nearly caused her to ruin it all, as she was startled.

  Madeline turned around, confusion most likely smeared across her face—along with some paint she felt where her skin was tight—and asked, “What are you doing back already?”

  Aaliyah’s brows knitted together. “It is way past five o’clock. It took ages to get here from the supposedly closest bus stop. And I’ve been calling all day. It seems your grandpa is also worried. He called me like ten minutes ago.” Aaliyah sat her bag down and came closer to look at the portrait.

  Madeline peeked at the oven’s clock in the kitchen and realised she had been painting for more than five hours and spacing so much that she hadn’t even realised she was starving. “I did this,” she cheered.