Rise of the Fallen 1 - My Soul to Keep (7 page)

Jenny focused in on me and caught me staring. Her right eyebrow raised
in a good impersonation of Mr. Spock.

I pretended nothing was wrong and gave her a quick smile. I tried not
to laugh when she made a disgusted face and turned back toward Beth, completely
ignoring me. I guess it was better she thought I liked her than thought she was
a vampire. I don’t think she’d eat me for finding her attractive. More like she’d
eat me if she found me attractive. Sometimes plain can be good.

I shuddered at the thought of why anyone would want to be a vampire
and the answer hit me. People were afraid to die. I wished to be one of The Fallen,
but it had been an attempt to save my soul. I don't know if it actually worked.
I may not end up being a dead human working for them, but I still ended up working
as one of them. The Chosen sounded like a severe band of assholes. I just hope I
picked the right team.

Mr. Parker, our lovely principal, came over the loudspeaker to read
the morning announcements and say the pledge of allegiance. I kind of zoned out
on both ends. I remember standing and vaguely muttering something that might have
been the pledge, but I couldn’t say with any certainty. I might have declared my
undying love for the Soviet Union and not have known.

The one thing that did catch my attention was Mr. Parker calling my
name and telling me to report to the office. The entire class, in unison, said,
“Ooooh.”

I blushed furiously and tried to think of a reason I would be called
to the office. I drew a blank. I gathered my backpack and headed out the door without
so much as a nod from Mrs. Flack, my homeroom and literature teacher.

About halfway down the hall, the bell for first period rang and the
rest of the students of Underwood High exited through every door and made their
way to class. I had algebra first period, so whatever I did, I hoped it took at
least an hour to straighten out. I utterly loathed it in all its various forms.
I also sucked at it and had been forced to take pre-algebra as a freshman. I considered
it a two year sentence with no chance of parole. The fact that I had been doing
algebra homework when I got into this whole Fallen mess made me hate it just that
much more.

I pushed my way through the mob and made my way to the stairwell. I
managed not to let anyone shove me down the stairs as I traversed them, too slowly
for my tastes. The sound of hundreds of pairs of feet striking the linoleum simultaneously
echoed through the stairs and halls. Thank God there were only about four-hundred
students. Anymore and the building might have been shaken apart under the onslaught.
Rickety didn’t begin to describe the brick and mortar hundred and fifty year old
building. My family moved to the area within the last few years. Otherwise my grandparent’s
grandparents might have once walked the halls.

I opened the glass door leading to the front desk of the school. The
receptionist, Mrs. Rhodes, stood behind the counter filling out tardy slips for
the ones not lucky enough to have been picked up by a pink Beetle. She usually had
a somewhat perky personality. Filling out a line full of tardy slips made her look
a little angry. I took a seat on one of the two benches in the waiting area while
she finished.

I looked over on the other couch and caught my breath. A girl around
my age sat quietly wearing a pair of sunglasses. I figured she might be hung-over
until I saw the collapsible white cane next to her on the couch, neatly folded up.
She was beyond cute. My heart started to beat a little faster as I looked at her.
She wore a flowered dress. It looked simple, but beautiful on her. I imagined she
would be beautiful in anything.
Or nothing.
I mentally slapped myself. 9:30
in the morning was a little early for perving.

Her hair hung over her shoulders in waves of red. Not gaudy, fake looking,
or the color of an apple, but auburn. The fluorescent lights above us made it shine
perfectly. I wondered if her eyes would be green to match. I figured it would be
impolite to ask. Her skin looked like cream without a hint of freckles like you
would expect. For someone in her young teens, she didn’t have one blemish either.
She looked, for lack of a better word, perfect, except for her eyes. Maybe God made
her too perfect and taken away her sight to balance her out. As soon as the thought
crossed my mind, guilt made my heart hurt.

“Hi, I’m Jessica.” It took me a few seconds and a quick look around
the room to realize she was talking to me.

“Hi, I’m Connor. Haven’t seen you around school, are you new?”

“Yup, my dad and I just moved here. I begged him to let me stay home
and start school on a Monday, but he figured the sooner the better. What are you
in for?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. The principal called me down.”

“Well, good luck with that. I’ll see you around.”

I gave a little smile at her choice of words, knowing she couldn’t
see me. I sat there feeling a little weird because she still faced me with her head
tilted to the side as if listening to everything. Just before I built up enough
nerve to strike up another conversation with her Mrs. Rhodes called me up to the
counter. I gathered my bag off the floor and walked up with a confused look on my
face.

“Come on through, Connor. Principal Parker’s waiting for you in his
office.

I nodded meekly and let her open the gate separating the admin offices
from the waiting room. I walked through and she let it go, letting it creak slowly
back in place with a little
click.
I turned and walked down the hallway fighting
down the panic that seized me every time I made this trip. Fear of my parents kept
me from getting into too much trouble. I hadn’t done anything I knew of, but life
wasn’t always fair.

I peered around the doorway to Mr. Parker’s office and saw him sitting
there typing something on a very archaic looking computer. The one we shared at
home looked light years ahead of the cream colored beast he worked on. Cedar Hills
didn’t have a lot of money, and it looked like county education budgets had gone
from a trickle to a stop. I knocked lightly on the doorframe. He looked up from
his screen and gave me a somewhat angry glare.

“Come in, Connor. Have a seat and I’ll be right with you.”

I nodded and slid into the green leather chair in front of his desk.
I gently set my book bag down on the floor in front of me and waited. I tried not
to stare at Mr. Parker, but I couldn’t help it. He wasn’t fat, but he wasn’t skinny
either. I figured he was about the same age as my parents, but Mr. Parker had one
huge thing that severely tarnished his reputation with the students of Underwood
High. Mr. Parker had the absolute, quintessential, no margin for comparison, take
every last award, worst comb-over in the history of mankind. He looked like he took
the hair growing out of his neck, combed it upward, and forced it to spiral around
the top of his head several times. Very few could look at him or have a conversation
with him and not laugh. I tended to concentrate on his caterpillar like eyebrows.
It helped.

“So, Mr. Sullivan, do you know why I called you down here?”

“No, sir. I haven’t got a clue. Did I do something?” I tried my best
to look innocent, which in this case I was, or at least I thought so.

“I personally took your mother’s call yesterday morning letting me
know you were home sick. I tend to have lunch at the mall, so you can imagine my
shock when I saw you having lunch with a girl...”

Time stopped, my mind stopped, my heart stopped, and I managed to croak
out an, “Oh.”

“That’s exactly what I said when I saw you, Mr. Sullivan. Now how do
you think your poor mother is going to react when I tell her I saw you yesterday
on a date? Do you think she’s going to be happy?”

I could only imagine how my mother would react. My father would probably
high-five me when he found out I had lunch with a girl while ditching school. Mom
was sure to go thermonuclear. I meant to tell Mr. Parker that it wasn’t me he saw
at the mall. My mouth opened and I said, “It wasn’t a date.”

“I don’t care if it was a bar mitzvah. The point is, young man, you
were supposed to be in school. What do you think I should do with you?” I could
tell he was getting angry, because the amount of saliva spritzing me the farther
we got into the conversation increased rapidly.

I looked up and pretended like I was really considering what he should
do to me. I love it when grownups ask us moronic questions. They know we’re going
say something like, “Let me go,” or “Forget the whole thing.” Why on earth they
would expect us to say, “Punish me to the full extent of the law and your power,”
is beyond me.

I did however say something that shocked the hell out of me. “She’s
my girlfriend, sir. We had a little pregnancy scare, so we met at the mall to get
a test from the drug store inside …”

Chapter 7

Mr. Parker’s mouth dropped open like a toddler had crawled under his
desk and whacked him in the giblets. I tried not to giggle as he slowly closed his
mouth and stood up from behind his desk. I expected him to start shouting obscenities
about the stupidity of pre-marital sex, but he walked around and closed the door
behind me. I could practically hear the phone call he would make to my mother in
my head.

“Connor, I hope I don’t need to give you a lecture about how dangerous
it is for someone of your age to engage in such activities?”

“No, sir. Trust me when I say, it was an accident and won’t be happening
again for as long as I live my life as a single person. Such activities are best
left to those with more experience and have joined their lives in holy matrimony.”
I fought hard to keep my face sincere and deadpan. I didn’t know what the hell was
going on with me, but I liked it. Not only had I come up with the most unbelievable
lie in the universe, I sounded heartily sorry for it too.

“Good. Tell you what. I won’t get involved in this at all. If you’ve
learned your lesson, no harm has been done. Just be grateful it was a scare and
not the real thing, young man. To help you learn even more from this unpleasantness,
I have an idea. You’re going to do something for me I hope will teach you how to
be a little more responsible in the future. We have a new student here at our school.
She has a disability requiring the help of other students. She has a visual impairment
and will require assistance getting from one class to the next. Would you be interested
in helping her as sort of a penance for your errors?”

My mind focused in on Jessica, sitting out in the waiting room and
I nodded enthusiastically. I definitely wouldn’t mind spending more time with her.
I hate to admit it, especially after the lie I just told Mr. Parker, but I hadn’t
even kissed a girl let alone done enough to get one pregnant. I definitely wouldn’t
mind kissing Jessica if the chance ever came up.

“Good. Mrs. Rhodes has her schedule, and I believe most of her classes
coincide with yours. Please make her feel at home here at James Underwood. I’m counting
on you. Mr. Sullivan, please be a little more careful in the future?”

“I plan on it, sir.”

He nodded and I stood, collecting my belongings. I refrained from running
down the hall to introduce myself again to Jessica. I rounded the corner and saw
Mrs. Rhodes sitting with her talking about her classes. I walked through the gate
and made my way over to them.

“Um, Mrs Rhodes?”

“Yes, Connor?”

“I just talked to Mr. Parker. He asked me to take Jessica around to
her classes….”

“Really? That’s good! Jessica, may I introduce you to Connor Sullivan?
I guess he’s going to be showing you around our wonderful school.”

“We met briefly before. Thank you, Mrs. Rhodes,” she said and gave
a dazzling smile. My heart dropped into my stomach.

She stood and I tried very hard not to notice the amount of leg visible
as she slid forward on the plastic couch that had been made decades before I was
born.
Why did every piece of furniture in our school have to be green?
Politely,
I kept my eyes riveted to the crack on the cushion a full seat to her left. I won’t
lie. It was more for my benefit than hers. If I hadn’t averted my eyes, walking
down the hall in a few moments would be pretty embarrassing.

“Hello again,” I said with what I hoped to be a measure of sophistication.

“Hi, yourself. Which way are we heading?” She flipped her cane with
her wrist and it went from a mass of jumbled pieces to a complete cane in a split
second. I guess she'd been blind for a while.

“Can I see your schedule?” Mrs. Rhodes handed it to me with a brief
smile before heading back behind the counter.

I glanced through it and smiled as I realized almost all of our classes
matched up. I briefly wondered if I'd been set up by Mr. Parker. The only difference
was fourth hour. I had PE and Jessica, study hall. Would they let me drop PE? I
doubted it, but it would be nice.

“Looks like we’re off to the wonderful world of algebra,” I said and
got a groan from my new partner. Guess she felt the same way I did about it.

“Joy. Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Who?”

“Never mind,” she said with a giggle sounding vaguely like music.