Hi, this is my first post so make sure you give lots of criticism!! This is the first chapter in a book I'm writing. I'll post more when I can.
1.
I stepped off the plane at Burlington National Airport. Someone bumped into me from behind, I fell over and scraped my hands on the ground. Great, now I was bleeding as well as lost. The man who made me fall glared at me then hurried on through the terminal. Nobody noticed me sitting on the floor, inspecting my bleeding hand while my backpack got trampled.
My name is Sitara Echoes, but call me Ara. I’m 14, thin, have long black hair, pale white skin, and two different color eyes. My right eye is hazel -which means that it strangely changes color (only lightly though)- and my left eye is light gray-blue. I'm slightly shorter than most people and like the taste of blue raspberry. I hate cherries and baggy clothes. I love the color of rust and have been kicked out of too many schools to count. I don’t have much money, because my parents died when I was younger, but I don't want to talk about that.
Right now I’d just gotten off the plane at an airport somewhere in the very remote state of Vermont. Yay for me, I’d get to go to another boring, low maintenance private school for dumb kids, kids who should be in juvie, and bums. And all in the stinking state of Vermont, Green Mountain state that actually has more cows than mountains. The one interesting thing about this school was that it was a school for boys. The government had convinced the school to take me since no one else would. They think I’ll finally be contained in this place. Probably not.
Since no one was going to notice me there, offer me a hand, and/or start sympathizing for me I got up and walked over to a row of hard, blue, plastic chairs. I climbed onto one and looked around for the headmaster. I looked for a man that looked like a lot of other people who ran schools, annoyed, bored, and old. A stewardess came up to me.
“Get off the chairs.” she ordered.
“Geez, someone’s got a bee up their butt.” I retorted.
“Are you looking for someone?” she asked coldly.
“No, are you?”
She glared at me, pulled my backpack so that I fell off the chair, turned on her heel, and walked off.
I landed heavily on my hard, lumpy backpack, ouch. I got up climbed back up on the chairs. As I scanned the vicinity again I noticed a dark blue hat with the word HEADMASTER embroidered on it in pure white. I stepped down from the chair before the psychotic stewardess came back to bother me again. As I made my way toward the man I pushed many people out of the way and sweared as I was stepped on. When I’d finally reached the headmaster my black hair was sticking out of the braid I’d put it into that morning. I tapped him on the shoulder.
He had short, army cut, gray hair, a dark blue t-shirt, and dark jeans. He smelled like the girls locker room after gym and had a black cross tattooed on the back of his neck.
As he turned I saw he only had one black eye. On his right side, where his other eye was supposed to be there was only a socket. He was all around pretty creepy, but I tried to keep a bored expression on my face.
“Hello Ms. Echoes.” he said with a creepily happy smile, his eye stared coldly at me.
I didn’t know why he was smiling. I thought he hadn’t wanted me at the school. I’d have to ponder that later.
“Where is the rest of your luggage?” He asked in his gravelly voice.
“I don’t have anything else.”
It was true, all I needed was the meager amount of clothes I’d obtained by stealing from other girls’ laundry, begging on street corners, and had received as presents from the one friend I’d made. She was now dead.
I was a dangerous person to be around. Melanie had known that. We were friends in the first school I’d started at last year. We had our ups and downs but the one time she made me really mad was the last thing she did. She died because of me. I don’t know how but one minute we were arguing the next my hand was around her neck and she wasn’t breathing. I was still mad at her, really mad, but I was also in shock, I didn’t know what was happening before it was too late. Other people I’d gotten into brawls, or shouting fights, had also died at my hands. But she had been my friend. My Melanie…
Of course nobody knew that I killed people. I covered it up pretty well and pretended to be the innocent bystander while some murderer had just come in and randomly killed a kid.
I snapped back to reality.
Mr. Head Master dude was pulling me along by my wrist. Wow, he had a tight grip, of course it was probably from his enormous muscles. Wow, he had big muscles. How did he get those, he must work out every day. Wow, that must be tiring. Wow, I must seem pretty stupid saying wow all the time.
“Uh…” I said intelligently. “What’s your name again? I think I must’ve missed it.”
“You didn’t, I just didn’t tell you yet, how rude of me.” He said in a disgustingly polite voice.
“Oh.” I said feeling like an idiot.
“I’m Mr. Korbus.”
“Um… Hi?”
“Hi to you too. The ride to the Westmore School for Boys is approximately one hour long, if you have any questions then feel free to ask me, otherwise I expect complete silence. ”
We got in his car, and drove away from the airport.
From the outside his car had looked somewhat like a smart car, but it was lower, more streamlined and was a convertible. It was dark blue, had black leather upholstery, and only seated two people.
He pressed a button and turned on the radio. Classical music floated through the air and I scowled.
Soon I turned in my seat, “What kind of car is this?” I asked, wanting to make some conversation.
“A Tesla.”
“Huh?”
“It’s European, electric, and very expensive.”
I turned away from him and watched the Vermont landscape go by. It was very boring, cows, trees, grass, and a mountain skyline.
“Here is your student handbook,” He handed me a small dark blue book. “Make sure you read it before you go to your first class.”
I took the book and flipped through it. It was filled with the usual rules and dress codes and such, very boring and unnecessary for an experienced School Traveler such as myself.
I plopped the book into my bag and continued staring out the window.
● ● ●
As I stepped out of the car into the dusky twilight I noticed a boy. He was caramel skinned, had dark eyes, was tall, and really cute. As he started towards me my heart fluttered. I’d never had a boyfriend before, ok? I stared as the boy came closer to me.
“Hello.” He said in a soft voice.
I stared.
“This is Sitara Echoes.” Said Mr. Korbus curtly.
“I’m Nero Santino, nice to meet you Ara.” Said Nero.
How did he know I liked to be called Ara?! I looked at his face, searching for the answer to my question. But I forgot it as I looked back into his eyes, they looked kind and lonely, sort of like they were waiting for me.
“Um… Hi Nero.” I said, totally keeping my cool, not.
He extended a hand, I shook it.
“Take care of the car Nero then go back to your dorm.” Said Mr. Korbus and he took my wrist again and dragged me toward a dark building.
“Bye Nero!” I called as he disappeared into the dark.
He seemed like a nice guy.
“This is your room,” said Mr. Krobus as he opened the door to room one-six-seven. “It’s in the same dorm as the rest of the students. I expect you to be in your room after classes. Not someone else’s. Understood?”
“Yeah.” I said wistfully, wondering which room Nero was in.
“Good. Lights are out at eleven. Goodnight.”
He closed the door and left me to explore the small room.
On the left side of the room there was a dark, wooden bedstead that had been turned into a loft bed by being hired six and a half feet into the air. Underneath was a desk, the same color as the wooden bedstead, and a bookshelf underneath the ladder that led up to the bed. The walls were all white with the occasional yellowish spot showing a place where someone had taped a poster or something to the wall. There was a dresser on the other side of the room and a door to the bathroom, I supposed, the dresser was the same dark colored wood as the bookshelf computer desk, and bedstead.
I plopped my backpack down on top of the dresser, brushed my teeth in the white-and-bronze bathroom, pulled out the remains of my braid, climbed into my bed –still fully dressed- and fell asleep.
I woke up around six o’clock, according to my clock, and decided to put my clothes in my dresser. When I was finished with that I dressed, brushed my teeth, swept my hair into a ponytail, and went onto my computer. I played games for a little while but nothing really interested me, I checked my e-mail and had only junk mail. Well, duh, I mean I have no friends so why would someone e-mail me?
I decided to go for a walk before going to breakfast.
As I walked into the sunshine in my black tennis shoes, tight black pants, and light blue muscle shirt I noticed something I hadn’t before. A big gray stone with list of names on it, I walked over to it. I couldn’t read what it said at the top but could see there were over two hundred names on it, more than all the kids, and adults, in the school. I pondered why the rock could be there until someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned and there he was, tall, caramel skinned, black eyed Nero.
“Hey.” He said, smiling at me.
“Hi.”
“What’re you doin’?”
“Um… Looking at this rock.”
He chuckled, “want to do something else?”
I looked at him and immediately knew I did want to do something else, but what?
“Sure.” I said.
“Like what?” He asked.
“I dunno.”
“What do you feel in the mood for?”
“I dunno. What do you feel in the mood for?”
“Spending time with you I guess.”
I blushed, was he doing this to fast? I barely even knew him!
“Want to rock climb?”
“Um…” I wasn’t very good at rock climbing. “I’d epically fail at it, but sure!”
He took my sweating hand in his cool one and led me past the dorms and onto a trail that led into the woods. We didn't talk for a while and soon we had reached the rock climbing wall.
“Um… I guess we can’t do this since no one is here to do our safety straps and stuff.” I said, somewhat relieved I wouldn’t have to make a fool out of myself in front of him.
“That’s ok, I know how to do the straps and stuff.” He replied happily.
I tried to stall before rock climbing, “why would this little school even have a wall, aren’t they not a very rich school?”
“You’re right, they’re not the richest school but they decided to have something since they’re denied access to Lake Willoughby they decided to have some kind of outdoor sport. Which for some reason is rock climbing.”
Nero started tying the straps around our waists.
“Why were they denied access to Lake Willoughby?” I asked curiously.
“Because there were a lot of deaths that started when the school started using Lake Willoughby.”
“Deaths?”
“Yeah, no one knows why. But the town decided it was the school’s fault so they banned the kids from the school from going there.”
“Oh.”
“Strange isn’t it. The deaths didn’t really continue until a few decades later when the town opened a swimming pool and allowed the school access. Every time the school would visit someone would die.”
“Eck.”
“Yeah, so the town banned the school from there too. There have only been three deaths since then. All of them murders.”
“Does anyone know who the murderer was?”
“Nope.”
By then Nero had finished the straps and had attached the ropes to the automatic system that kept the off the ground.
“Alright, just start climbing and every time you go up the electrical puller will adjust it’s rope length to be th right length,” Nero explained, every time he moved his mouth his white teeth flashed in the sunlight. “When you push this button, really hard,” he moved behind me and held my hand to the red button on my harness, his skin was cool against mine and his body behind me cooled me through my clothes. “You’ll go down slowly.”
“Okay,” I said turning to look at him. “I got-”
We were really close, his left hand was still on my waist and my right hand was at his. He smiled at me and leaned his head down closer to me.
“And make sure you’re careful.” He breathed, his breath smelled like peppermint, really good peppermint.
I smiled back at him.
He bent his head down farther until our lips brushed then whirled me around and gave me a gentle push towards the wall.
Ok, I know that I should be freaking out right now, I mean Nero seems a little suspicious but really, the cutest guy on earth just gave me a kiss! My brain is still whirling!!
“Start when you feel like it.” He said, smiling.
I was still dizzy from our kiss so once my head had stopped spinning I noticed he was already climbing up his side of the rock wall. I clambered onto my side of the rock wall and started climbing as fast as I could without falling so maybe we could kiss some more at the top. Once I’d finally reached the top he had been waiting up there for a while.
I noticed he was sitting on the top of the rock climbing wall, as I looked at his seat I realized the climbing wall had a ledge over the back and that was what he was sitting on. I pulled myself up and scooted closer to him.
“Was I careful enough?” I asked him, smiling.
He chuckled then bent down to kiss me again. This time after a few seconds I felt him move down to my neck where his soft, cold lips started smooching my neck. My lips were a little sad at first then I felt a sharp pain in my neck.
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