“When I walked in and caught you? Mrs Phillips I can assure you I saw no-one leave the bathroom before I entered it.”
Stung by the accusation, tears filled my eyes.
“Jasmine?” Mrs Philips asked, “Do you want to be here?”
I looked at her and almost answered no. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be at home with the Greene’s, where people are nice and didn’t push you down stairs. They also didn’t slap you across the face and growl at you for no reason, but I caught Mr Stevenson’s eye; they were almost black and his mouth was drawn in a tight line. I knew that I would have to lie. If I didn’t things at their home would be very difficult.
So I lied and my heart felt like it would break as I muttered “Yes, of course Mrs Phillips.”
“Well, ordinarily I would have to suspend you, but since Mr Stevenson assures me that this will not happen again we shall let it go and put this down to a bad start. Nathan will now escort you to your classes. We shall begin fresh tomorrow. However, I must warn you now that smoking has not ever been and will not ever be permitted for students within the school. If anyone catches you smoking again I will have no choice but to suspend you. Do you understand?”
“Yes miss.” I answered, beyond furious that she didn’t believe that I hadn’t been the one smoking. What a great start this was.
“Ok, go and wait outside. Morning classes are almost over and we shall send for Nathan to escort you to break.”
As I waited I began to recall all the incidents from the morning and wondered why these things kept on happening to me. A huff of breath from beside me interrupted my musings. I glanced around in surprise, having not heard anyone approaching, and noticed Nathan’s eyes widen as he took in my face. He didn’t say anything, just gave me a quick once over before turning and staring at the floor until the door opened.
Mrs Phillips spoke quietly to Nathan for a few moments. I couldn’t hear what she said to him, but his face looked tense as he turned towards me.
His eyes burned with a fire that threatened to engulf me as he spoke,
“Jasmine, come with me.” He spat the words out at me but an unbidden thought snaked into my head when he spoke. It came with a strength that surprised me, as I thought anywhere, I’ll go anywhere with him! We walked along a green corridor with pictures and posters of Aiming High on the walls. I barely glanced at these, focused completely on Nathan as he walked in front of me. The air crackled around us and that magnetic pull flowed through me. I couldn’t explain it; I had never been like this with a boy before. Why now? Why him?
We continued through two sets of swinging doors and into a large dining hall. I realised I should have been paying attention to where we were headed, but instead I was too busy thinking about that errant thought and Nathan’s proximity.
The bell sounded loudly and Nathan and I stood at a back door. No-one came in the door we had entered through. I stood quietly by his side and didn’t look up until I was sure the hall would be full. The only reason I looked up was due to the noise and scuffing of feet, but as I looked up I noticed that only a number of people had normal faces. Everywhere I looked I saw rough, brown/green faces with long mouths and terrifying black eyes. I looked around the room, my breath coming in gasps as I struggled to understand what was happening, when I heard Nathan mutter something incoherent under his breath. I turned quickly to look at him and was relived he seemed to have a normal face.
He motioned for me to go and sit at a table. The people at the table had, on my cursory glance, had the horrible faces and I was scared, but he smiled at me leading the way to the table.
When we reached his table the people there were chattering away about some game at the weekend, but it didn’t make much sense to me. I just stood fidgeting with my cardigan and felt like a spare part as Nathan sat down and joined in the conversation. I started to back away from them as I was getting a bit of a bad feeling about a few people in the group when I felt Nathan’s eyes on me. My eyes sought out his, but as soon they connected he stared determinedly away from me. I just stood still for the remainder of the break.
While standing there I managed to get a good look around me and noticed something odd, some girls and some of boys were sitting together looking thoroughly depressed, and there were other groups of boys and girls smiling and laughing about something, but I couldn’t tell what. I felt eyes on me again and peeked around anxiously trying to place who was watching me, but as I looked around the dining room I noticed lots of eyes flit away as my eyes reached different tables. Just as I thought it couldn’t get any weirder, I noticed a group of adults at the back of the dining hall, all staring avidly at me, but none looked away as I looked at them. If anything their interested gazes became more and more hostile until the bell finally rang and I looked away.
Nathan said to another boy through his teeth and not quite under his breath,
“I have to show her where to go, come with me?” They both got up slowly and ambled over to me without looking so much as looking in my direction.
The boy Nathan had spoken to glared at me and made me feel like a complete idiot for not knowing my way around. I was barely paying attention; the tone of Nathan’s voice had shocked me into total submission because he sounded livid when he spoke to me.
“Come on Jasmine, we have to go.”
I just followed like a lost puppy trying to figure out why everyone seemed to be so angry with me, fidgeting with my sleeve as I tried to focus on where we were going.
Two sets of stairs and two corridors later we arrived at an English classroom. Nathan walked in ahead of me and I froze outside the door as the teacher Mrs Burnside asked who I was in a very brisk manner. My thoughts flitted to my last school where I had English with my friends and a truly wonderful teacher. At that moment it hit me how much I missed my friends and the hellhole I was now attending had already began to get me down.
“Jasmine Johnstone.” My voice was hoarse as it whispered out my name.
She walked towards me, “I’ve been expecting you. In you come. There’s a seat beside Lisa.”
I followed her into the classroom and spotted Lisa straight away. She was the only girl with a vacant seat beside her and I knew I had seen her before though it took me a moment to place where. Of course, she was one of the bathroom girls and had been at the party in the Stevenson’s. Her long wavy blonde hair lay down her back, her pale face was made up to perfection and her lips were pursed as I walked over to take my seat. Lisa never even looked at me, but as I went to sit down she pulled the chair away from me. I fell banging the back of my head loudly as I went down.
The teacher came over to see what had happened, but Lisa played all innocent and smiled sweetly at the teacher as she said was that she was trying to help me, but that I missed it. Mrs Burnside took her word as the rest of the class giggled. I could see their chests heaving as I got up, pulled my chair in and looked at my desk with my face now burning.
When the teacher turned her back to the class to write on the board Lisa turned to me and said,
“That’ll teach you to flirt with my boyfriend.”
Her comment left me stunned as I had no idea who her boyfriend was or how or when I could have flirted with him.
The class passed quickly. The bell rang and Nathan walked through the door. My heart stuttered and I struggled to act unaffected as Nathan came over to our desk. He ignored me completely and gave Lisa a kiss on the cheek before whispering something in her ear. Finally he looked at me and said,
“Let's go, we have to get to Maths.”
As I moved to go after him Lisa caught my arm, digging her nails in,
“I’d stay away from him if I were you.”
I stared at her thinking about my answer, but my filter was broken and I said the first thing that came into my head,
“Well that’ll be hard considering we live together.”
I didn’t mean to sound cheeky, but I must have because the next second she slapped me hard acro
ss the face, exactly where the teacher from earlier hit me and my head started spinning. I drew my hand back to hit back when it was caught by another girl in the class, one who sat behind Nathan and his group at lunch.
“Come on,” she said pulling my hand and leading me towards the door, “I’m Danni and you’re in my maths class. We’d better hurry. If she comes out and sees us she’ll flatten you. Mr Finchley doesn’t like people being late in his class either.”
We walked quickly along the corridor and I had the sensation that there were eyes on me all the way to class, but I didn’t turn around. As we walked through the door she muttered, “Lisa Q and her mates are following us, Louise, Lauren, Debi and Sally. Just ignore them, keep your head down and you’ll be fine.”
I was shunted from behind as I made my way into the class by one of the girls. I turned around to say something to her and I noticed that her face was horrible, brown and green in colour with black eyes and rough ragged skin. I blinked as she glowered at me,
“See something you like freak?” She pushed past me and slammed her bag onto her desk as she reached it. My Finchley spoke to me quietly and directed me to a seat beside a quiet, geeky looking boy.
After a torturous hour of equations it was finally lunch time and Danni came over to me,
“You should come and sit with me and my friends at lunch, there are five of us and I’ll introduce you.”
We walked to the dinner hall in silence. We didn’t even speak as we went to the counter and got our lunches and headed back to the table. The table was the one that I noticed the group girls sitting dejectedly at earlier. As we reached the table Nathan came over with his friend from earlier and asked if I’d found my way around ok. I looked at his gorgeous green eyes as I answered and noticed some brown hidden in the depths of the green. I nodded and turned away because my heart was thundering in my ears. I noticed Lisa’s eyes on us as we spoke. I watched her out the corner of my eyes and saw Nathan go over to her. When he reached her she leaned forwards kissing him full on the mouth.
I turned towards the table and noticed Danni watching me. I shook my head and began to peal the wrapping of off my sandwich as her friends joined us. She introduced each one in turn.
The first to arrive was Lisa, a pretty brown haired girl, about my age with blue eyes. The next girl to arrive was blonde Allison with ocean blue eyes, bunches and braces. She smiled as she sat down and asked Danni, “you picking up the strays again Dan?”
Danni laughed and shook her head. “She was gonna hit Lisa, I had to save her. That bitch is lethal.”
Allison was followed by red headed Denver who just nodded at me when her name was mentioned. The last girl to sit was Kathryn who was dark haired girl with green eyes. She sat down and started chatting with Danni about some guy Danni was crushing on.
Lunch went quickly, too quickly in my opinion and was the most fun I had in days. I still missed my family and friends but these girls were fun, easy going and made me laugh. At the end of lunch time Nathan and another boy came over, Marcus was his name was according to Danni.
Nathan informed me that he had PE next but that Marcus would show me how to get to my Chemistry class. I looked at Marcus and instinctively there was something I didn’t like about him. I had a really bad feeling about going with him and was struggling with it when I felt a prod in the back and someone stamping on my toe. As I stood up I looked at Nathan but he ignored me and I moved to stand next to Marcus.
None of the girls moved and when I looked back at them gathering their things they were all deep in conversation. Lisa looked worried. I started to think to myself what could happen next? I made my way out of the dining room and followed Marcus up a flight of hidden stairs. He hadn’t spoken to me at all, and when the stairwell emptied he threw me up against a wall and hissed a warning in my ear, “Stay away from Nathan. Do not talk to him and do not look at him. If you go near him again, I will come after you and you will regret it.”
I couldn’t breathe, his huge arm was crushing my throat, but he let go just as I thought I was going to pass out. He let go so suddenly that I fell gasping to the floor. My hands grasped at my throat and he looked at me in accusation, rubbing his arm as he spat out,
“Your class is at the top of these stairs, better hurry.”
And out the door he went while I picked myself up and headed up the stairs, rubbing at my throat. I made it into the room just as my classmates were taking out their books. I strolled over to the teacher’s desk. She was the teacher who had slapped me in the office. My heart rate sped again and I began rubbing my cardigan between my thumb and forefinger.
She said nothing to me but pointed to an empty seat and watched me as I made my way towards the seat.
“I hope you have all done your homework and are prepared for the test today on molar volumes.”
She was walking around the class handing out the test. She reached my desk and slammed the test down onto the desk before moving away with a smirk on her face.
I had done molar volumes in my last school though, so I managed the test without too much difficulty, and when I handed it in I saw her face go from a smirk to anger, but she still didn’t say anything to me. On the break Nathan came to get me as I had to go to the office and he was due to take me, so I followed him out of the classroom. As we left I smiled, glad to be getting out of that oppressive room. I knew I would have to come back and that thought made me anxious. I felt calmer when Nathan was beside me, which surprised me.
I struggled with the silence between us as we made our way to the office. I went to ask him why he looked so torn but decided against it. I wanted to ask him why he looked upset, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask that so I closed my mouth and kept on walking. After a few minutes we reached the office. It was pretty unremarkable and looked like almost every school office I had ever seen, with three desks, a large room through doors to the side and a wall of little cupboards. The room was perfectly normal apart from a wall at the back that looked as though it was shimmering. I rubbed my eyes and glanced back at it, but upon my second glance it looked normal.
Nathan didn’t say anything, but he turned and stood waiting for me a little away as I inspected the office. We started walking back towards the classroom, not speaking again, but the air was crackling with tension. I wanted to touch him so badly it hurt. My fingers twitched as I fought to keep them by my sides. We continued to walk back towards the classroom when suddenly Nathan stopped. I turned to face him; my heart started hammering as he reached his hand towards me. When his fingers touched my skin I felt as though I would catch fire. My breath sped up as his fingers moved towards my lips.
I stared into his eyes for a moment, watching the green in them dancing with flames. He gasped, “Jasmine, you should go back to class.” I shook my head as he dropped his fingers, leaving just one on my lips. My heart was hammering and I couldn’t think. I wanted more from him, more from this boy I didn’t know. I couldn’t explain why I felt this intense pulling sensation towards him. Flames raged inside me every time he touched me. He dropped his hand as I shook my head. I moved forwards, hearing his breath speeding up as I leaned in and kissed his cheek. The moment my lips touched his skin my body zinged with energy and we were connected in a way I had never been with anyone, ever before. I turned and ran up the stairs, trying to control my heart beat. I made it back into class, but as I sat down I stumbled and hit my head. My thoughts were all over the place as I tried to remember what I had been doing. I remembered going to the office with Nathan and him ignoring me completely on the way back, but that was it. Why had I fallen, why was my heart thundering in my chest and why were my lips burning?
I had no answers for these questions so I focused on the quiz in front of me, and after a while the bell finally rang. My first day in this hellhole was over and it was a day I was sure I would never forget.
I walked home after meeting with Nathan and his sister just outside the school. My first day was over and I didn’t
want to speak to anyone about anything that happened. When we got back to the house, Nathan’s mum was waiting for us.
Mrs Stevenson’s hair was in a bun and she had on what I assumed was cleaning clothes since the smell of bleach hit me as we approached her. She greeted Nathan and Jenny with a smile but grimaced at me. When she spoke she sounded angry,
“It’s time for you to do your chores. Go in, get changed and meet me back here in ten minutes.”
I walked into the house feeling completely exhausted. I was so tempted to curl up in bed, but I knew I would have to do the chores. I headed to my room and shrugged into old jogging bottoms and an old t-shirt. The t-shirt brought back fond memories since I had bought it at a boy band concert one of Mrs. Greene’s daughters took me to when I was 13. I reminisced for a moment, tears filling my eyes as I thought of the family I had left behind. The band was Westlife, but since I was more of a rocker I thought the concert was just ok, but it was nice to be out with someone who wasn’t moving me homes or trying to beat me, bully me or threaten me.
I shook myself as I pulled on my old Nikes and went downstairs to find out what I would be doing. I was still half smiling when I walked downstairs, but stopped when I heard my name mentioned. Jenny had her back to me and was complaining to her mother about walking me to and from school.
Luminosity (Escaping Demons Saga Book 1) Page 4
