Anyways, if you're bothering to read this, I really appreciate it. If you can, PLEASE leave me any feedback-- good and bad and random. Any feedback is more useful to me than you could imagine. Even if it's just a simple, one-word review, that alone is motivation to keep writing. Again, I'm posting this story live as I write it. Which is precisely why I'm starting over with a secondary draft. I'm ditching first person POV and retelling this story in a slightly different light. I think it's really for the best. But if you've read my other version, please let me know which you prefer.
THANKS FOR READING. :)
--
Villain
Chapter 1: Miscalculation
"Don't
worry. I'm sure everything is
fine."
Those words of
reassurance went completely unnoticed.
Esperanza was too overwhelmed by her growing anxiety to remember the
three other women in the room. The
impending pressure of the day had already been hard enough, but she had at
least hoped to have all this nervous waiting over by now. They were nearly three hours late, and with
every passing minute, Esperanza grew more and more scared of the idea that they
may never come at all. If that were the
case, all of her hard work and preparation leading up to this day was for
nothing.
After all, she left
everything she knew behind to be a part of this renowned government
project. Out of thousands upon thousands
of applicants, Esperanza, a thirty-five-year old pediatric nurse from El Paso
was one out of four women chosen to live out the next eighteen years of her
life on a top secret base in the middle of an unknown desert. She left behind her family, friends, and her
beloved church community. Many of those
loved ones criticized her for taking a job that would isolate her for so long,
but it had been her dream for at least half her lifetime. On top of that, it would give her a rare opportunity
she would never have otherwise, and that was to be a mother. It certainly didn’t get any better than being
named the guardian and caretaker for a future national hero.
The three other
women watched Esperanza as she nervously paced back and forth. The short, plump woman hadn't been able to
sit still for the last several hours, and nothing seemed to calm her.
"Worrying so
much isn't going to help anything," Charlene spoke again, only this time a
little more loudly. "I'm sure
everything is fine," she repeated again with a bright and friendly smile.
Esperanza tried her
best to return a smile to the younger woman.
She appreciated Charlene's optimism, but the young girl was just barely
twenty-two, and Esperanza could not help but think that her optimism came
mostly from her youthful naivety. She had seen many births go very wrong at the
hospital where she worked, and she feared something terrible might have gone
wrong.
Charlene could see
that no matter how hard she smiled, it wasn't enough to convince
Esperanza. Perhaps a different approach
would work. She walked over to the
nerve-ridden woman, who was now needlessly fidgeting with things in her
kitchen, and led her back to the living room where all the women had been
gathered for hours. She guided her to an
empty seat on the lumpy, green sofa between the other two, Sarah and
Cindy.
“I love the
furniture in here!” Charlene smiled big.
“It’s so cozy and warm! Not at
all like the hard, new modern stuff they gave me in my home.” If reassuring wasn’t helping, maybe a change
of subject would distract Esperanza from her fears.
Charlene looked to
both Cindy and Sarah for some help, but they either did not recognize her game
of distraction or just didn’t care to join.
The young brunette continued in her bright, bubbly voice: “Do you think I could ask them to redecorate my
housing unit more like yours?”
Esperanza smiled
weakly, “I’m not sure. I told them I
preferred to bring my own things from home.
They gave me a hard time at first, but they eventually let me.”
“Well, I really
like it,” Charlene smiled as she sat down across from her on an antique rocking
chair. “I especially want one of these,”
she giggled girlishly as she rocked the chair.
“That was my
mother’s,” Esperanza frowned a little.
“I remember how she would sit in it and sing my brother to sleep when he
was just an infant. I always hoped to be
able to do that same thing one day….”
Her soft voice seemed to trail off towards the end and Charlene quickly
sensed she was losing Esperanza’s attention yet again.
“It’s going to be
fine, Esperanza,” Charlene knelt down in front of the woman and held her hands
and she looked into her eyes. “She’ll be
here any minute now and she’s going to be beautiful! You just wait and see. Everything will be great.”
"But it's been
so long past the time they said she'd be here, and she's not here,"
Esperanza frowned. "They haven't
even called to say what's keeping them..." her voice grew quiet as she
suddenly realized how dark it had gotten outdoors.
"Something's
definitely wrong," the sudden harsh tone pierced through the tense atmosphere,
shattering the last bit of hope Esperanza clung to.
Esperanza looked to
the eldest woman to her right, Sarah. Her
eyes widened by her worst nightmares.
“Do you really think so?"
Sarah's face was
serious, as it usually tended to be. She
wasn’t the type of person to be caught smiling very often. The permanent frown lines on her face, and
furrows on her forehead, were so deep, one would guess the fifty-three-year-old
had to have been in her early seventies.
Her thinning gray hair was also the likely result of her taking life too
seriously. "This is my second time
as a caretaker here on the base, so I think I know a thing or two, young
lady.” Her voice was dry and cold, and
had a pinch of condescending attitude that made Charlene shutter with
disgust. “When Derby was born,” Sarah
continued, “they had her at my home within the hour, and the same was true for
Aurora this time around. Wasn't it the same for Astro, Cindy?"
Cindy simply
nodded. She never spoke much, except
usually to just echo whatever cold opinion Sarah had to share.
Sarah raised an
eyebrow as she looked to Charlene.
"And what about your Autumn?
How long before she was delivered to you, Charlene?"
Charlene ignored
the question. "No situation is
completely perfect," she said, focusing her attention on Esperanza. "Artemis will be here soon, and
everything's going to be just fine."
At long last
Esperanza's prayers were answered as she noticed a car's headlights shine
through her living room window. Before
anyone could say or do anything, Esperanza was on her feet and rushing for the
door.
A tall man stepped
out from the silver Buick parked outside.
He was a larger man, probably in his late forties. He moved slow, or at least too slow for what
Esperanza's anxiety was in the mood for.
"Are you Professor
Walden?" Esperanza asked eagerly as she descended the front porch's
steps. "Where is Artemis? Is everything alright?"
“Yes, that would be
me,” he answered firstly, “She’s here at long last. As it turns out, everything is... fine,"
Professor Walden said as he shut the driver's side door behind him.
"You say it
with such hesitation. What do you mean as
it turns out?"
Professor Walden
could not help but smile at the woman, which only confused her further. He was touched by how deeply this woman
already cared about her assignment.
"She is fine," he said with more affirmation. "Would you like to meet her?"
A giant grin swept
Esperanza's face. She glanced back at
the other women who waited by the front door to her home. Charlene also grinned big with excitement,
while the other two remained emotionally unmoved. Esperanza watched as Professor Walden walked
around the other side of the car and opened the rear door. He carefully unbuckled and retrieved the
infant’s car seat. He held the carriage
closely as he made his way over to Esperanza.
"Now, there's
been a slight change. We decided to
rename her,” he said as he stood before her.
"Rename
her?" Esperanza blinked. "Why?"
"There was a
slight miscalculation in her design. Nothing
serious, just a little unexpected.
However, we've tested her and everything else is otherwise fine. She's a healthy baby girl who will grow up to
be a strong and powerful super hero. But
when you see her, I think you'll agree that the new name idea is much better
than the old one. Everyone else so far
seems to agree."
Professor Walden stepped
closer to her, propping the seat up so that Esperanza could at long last see
the infant, "Esperanza, I'd like you to meet Angel."
Esperanza held her
breath as she pulled back the purple fleece blanket that covered the newborn’s
head. Her eyes widened, and at first she
thought she had to be looking at a finely crafted porcelain baby doll rather
than a real-life child. Angel's skin was
as fairest snow white she had ever seen.
Her hair was so thin, and so light, it was nearly translucent-- pure
white with just a slight silver tint to it.
Her tiny, soft pink lips had the only bit of pigmentation or color to be
found.
"Well, would
you look at that," Charlene breathed first as her eyes fell upon the
sleeping baby as she came to Esperanza’s side.
"She's an
Albino," Sarah interrupted with a scoff.
She stared at the child with a look of disgust. "Our heroes are supposed to be symbols
of strength and perfection. You call
this a slight miscalculation, Professor?"
Esperanza
immediately shot Sarah an angry glare.
"It's not a miscalculation," she defended proudly. She carefully scooped the fragile, little
bundle from her car seat. Esperanza’s
deep brown eyes grew soft again as they fell on Angel once more. She brushed a finger softly along the
infant's face. "This is a sign of
something good. I can feel it,”
she smiled at Professor Walden.
“How is that?” he asked
curiously.
Esperanza held the
infant close to her bosom, closing her eyes and enjoying the moment she had
dreamed of forever. " How can
something so sweet and beautiful be accidental? A miscalculation would mean she is somehow a
mistake. No. It
has to be a good omen. I think the word
you're looking for is miracle. She is most definitely an Angel, Professor."
The Professor could
not help but smile. He knew then that he
had made the perfect choice in selecting Esperanza to raise his newest and
greatest of all his creations.
--
The day was
Saturday, but not just any Saturday, but the final Saturday of the month. These days were increasingly becoming the
worst days of Angel's life. Too many teachers sitting there in front of her and
telling her what she had been doing wrong, and giving too many, unattainable
and unrealistic demands to complete in too little time.
The skinny teenager sat outside the door to the conference room she was
forced to report to on evaluation days.
There was no seating around, and had already been standing there for
about twenty minutes, so she sat cross-legged on the cemented ground. She tried her best to keep patient, but it
was pretty annoying that they always seemed to run so late with her evaluation
time.
“If I was the one who was late all the time, they’d have a fit,” Angel
muttered to herself.
Her super-hearing could pick up on what was being said inside, but she
tried her best not to eavesdrop. There
was nothing moral about this; it was just that she’d heard it countless times
before. Aurora’s evaluations always fell
before her own, and they couldn’t be any different sounding. All Aurora ever received was endless praise
and worship, Angel on the other hand always received less than ideal feedback.
The fifteen-year-old groaned as she checked her wrist watch for the
hundredth time. The boredom of having to
sit there and wait was awful. It wasn’t
as if there was anything to do while she waited. She had overslept and didn’t have time to remember
a book this time. Not that it would have
mattered considering they were always late, but the last thing she needed was
to make yet another mistake in the staff’s eyes.
Angel watched her surroundings for anything remotely entertaining, but nothing
worth noticing ever happened on the base.
After a while a small group of soldiers on their late morning jog came
down the road, trying their best to survive the heat on this already scorching
summer day. There were no paved roads on
base, only gravel ones. They kicked up
dirt as they ran. Angel lifted the
collar of her t-shirt, shielding her nose and mouth from the cloud of dust left
behind as they made their way past her. She watched them until they disappeared
over a hill in the distance. Once they
were gone, there was nothing else to watch but the deserted gravel road and the
miles of empty desert.
Finally, Aurora emerged from the building.
The young heroine didn’t notice Angel as she walked past her, but then
again, she rarely ever did. Angel watched
her as she moved past her and could not help but notice a somewhat sad
expression on the girl’s face. Usually Aurora
came out of her evaluation looking as if she single-handedly slayed a dragon,
but today her bright blue eyes were glued to her evaluation record and she
studied it with a troubled frown.
“Good afternoon, Angel. How are you,
today?” the Chief greeted her as Angel stepped inside, closing the door behind
herself.
The staff of the base sat before her, gathered on one side of a large conference
table. The room was large, but mostly
empty. It existed purely for these
evaluations, and so there wasn’t much need for anything other than that giant
table. Across from it was the hot seat
that Angel came to loathe, and it’s where she took her seat. “I’m fine,” she answered the Chief as she sat
down.
There were five of them in all, or at least they were the five Angel had to
directly work with. At the very left was
Dr. Crown who was the heroes’ primary physician. His only job was to monitor the heroes’
growth and development. It was a pretty
easy job considering that children born with super capabilities, and kept
locked away in a high-security location, rarely were ever sick or injured. He was a younger man, and had not been
involved with any other generation of heroes.
He still had much to learn and relied heavily on the guidance to his
right—Professor Walden. The Professor
was the original designer and creator of these super-powered children. He also served as an academic tutor for the
heroes, teaching them everything normal children would learn in school and
more. Directly in the middle was the
Chief who was in charge on base and the man with final say in anything. To his right was Speed—an ex-super hero and the
physical education tutor for the young heroes.
Speed was a part of the country’s first team of super heroes, known as
Generation X. Finally, to his right was
the children’s therapist, Dr. Diane.
“Finished with all your homework for
the weekend, I bet?” the Chief smiled as he gathered some papers in front of
him.
“Yes, Sir,” Angel answered with a single nod.
“Good.” The old man looked to the
faculty members beside him. “Well, who
would like to go first?”
“I’ll start first,” Professor Walden
cleared his throat to begin. If you were
to ask Angel, which of her teachers she respected the most, it would have to be
him. In fact, he may have been the only staff
member whom she ever respected. “Angel continues to perform very well in my
classes this term. Straight A’s,
completes all assignments, and studies very hard. She is my most enthusiastic
student and probably the most knowledgeable amongst all of her peers.”
“Perhaps your academic classes are too much of a priority to her, Professor,”
Speed interrupted. Speed's eyes narrowed
as he leaned towards Angel from across the table. “When are you going to understand, Girl? Unless you have the physical skill on the
battlefield, no knowledge about any enemy will come in any use. Not if he blows
your head off before you’re able to use it!”
Speed sorted through some papers and laid them out on the desk. He pointed
here and there and shouted: “C, D, D, C
minus, C minus, D plus, C minus, D!” he paused. “Now you know you haven’t
always had these grades, Angel. You performed just as well as the others, but
then A’s turned to B’s and B’s have become C’s and now it looks like those are
slipping into D’s. There’s no lower grade to go to after this, you realize
this, my girl? An F isn’t a grade. An F is a ‘fail.’”
“I know, Sir,” Angel refrained from looking directly at him. It was always a sure way to get her blood
boiling.
“No, I don’t think you do,” Speed’s voice echoed loudly in the big empty
room. “Maybe good grades in science and
history are what counts out there in the real world, but that’s not you. In here, what counts is your ability to
protect and fight. And I ain’t seeing
it.”
Speed's hand came down hard on the table as he slammed down the student's
grades in front of her. An awkward
silence fell on the rest of the faculty.
Nobody said anything for a long while. Finally, the Chief spoke up. He cleared his throat loudly, and then tried
his best, forced smile on Angel. “Why don’t you tell us, Angel, what you think
the problem may be? Are Speed’s courses just too hard? Would you like some
extra private tutoring?”
Angel shook her head immediately at the idea. She had tried additional tutoring with Speed
after classes. It was miserable. “I'm
not sure. I really am trying, I swear.
It’s just… some of the stuff I can’t do.”
“Well, like what for example?” asked the Chief.
“Her power sensing is all wrong, her reflexes are just awful, she's
terrible with all styles of one-on-one combat, she can’t render any protective
force fields bigger than a doorway, which does little to no good at all--”
Speed went through his long list of Angel's failures.
Ever since the old hero had to retire and relinquish his super
capabilities, he seemed to have a bit of a grudge against the younger heroes he
had to train. Nobody was as good as he
was "back in the day," but Angel had to be the one hero he nitpicked
the most. To him, she was the sorriest
excuse for a super hero that he had ever encountered.
“Now you look at Aurora and she can make a protective force field that
lasts nearly a full minute and that can encompass an area big enough to shield this
entire building if she tried hard enough! She’s almost as good as Dee is! Angel?
Ha! Angel’s little laser shows
last for maybe nine or ten seconds, tops!
Tops!”
Professor Walden leans forward and places his folded hands on the
table: "Speed, I think we understand
your point well enough—“
"I haven't even scratched the surface, Professor!" He glared at
his fellow faculty member, challenging him to interrupt again. "How about her healing capabilities?” he
snarls. “She ain’t got any! Not a damn sign of the power, and that’s what
she was designed to be—a healer! A
healer who can’t heal? Unacceptable! That’s what that is!”
“Speed, I’m sorry if this insults you, but Angel here is at least twice as
strong as you ever were. I designed her
to be this way. It’s a part of her
genetic make-up; there’s simply no denying it.” Walden remained calm and kept a
gentle smile on his face as he spoke. “She
may need a little more time to perfect her abilities, and tap into that power,
but I’m convinced she’ll get there.
Perhaps what she lacks is the proper guidance from her teacher?” His relaxed style of speaking only seemed to
fuel Speed's frustration and anger.
“You saying this is my fault?!” Speed shouted, enraged, and now on his
feet.
“Sit down,” the Chief ordered
without looking at him.
Angel couldn’t help but smirk to herself as she watched Speed grumble
angrily under his breath, forced to be obedient.
The Chief caught the look on the teenager’s face and raised an
eyebrow. “Young lady, while you may find
this amusing, I assure you that this is a very serious matter.” His gray eyes were serious and powerful
enough to rob the smile from Angel’s face.
“Either you need to seek extra tutoring, or study harder on your
own. If you fail Speed’s courses, you
will not graduate this academy, do you understand me? You have one month until you are scheduled to
begin training with the Deltas, but before then, you must pass your final
exams.”
Angel nodded, “Yes, Sir.”
“So what do you plan to do to prepare for this?” The Chief pressed on.
Angel bit her lip as she thought for a moment. “I’m not sure yet, Sir. I’ll have to think about it,” she answered
honestly.
Speed couldn’t help but laugh to himself.
“I’ll tell you what you need to be thinking about, Kid. Early
retirement.”
“Speed—“ Professor Walden began, but it was cut short by Speed.
“No, I’m telling her what she needs to hear!” Speed is back to yelling again. “You all baby these children too damn much,
and that’s the problem! They aren’t children anymore; they’re teenagers now and
practically adults! The kid’s fifteen
now, and set to start training on the field with the Deltas, and she’s just not
ready! She’s nowhere near ready! Professor, you claim to have designed her to
be a certain way and she ain’t living up to it!
Let’s not forget that you also designed her to be a pretty, tanned
brunette with brown eyes, and somehow we got a pale-faced accident instead!” He
returned his attention to Angel. “Now, Angel, either you aren’t trying like you
ought to be trying, or well, you just aren’t fit to be a superhero is all. And
well, if that’s the case, I think we might have to start thinking about getting
you set on a new path for life. That’s
all I’m saying, alright? Let’s be
honest! We should be thinking about
early retirement! Am I right?”
The teenager's icey blue eyes immediately widened. Was he really suggesting, what it sounded
like he was suggesting? Give up her
powers now? Being a hero was what she
had been made to be; it was what she had been training for her entire
life. For as long as Angel could
remember, this was the goal, and now he was saying she might not ever reach it?
The young hero turned her gaze up to the ceiling and took a long, deep
breath, trying to contain the sudden wave of emotion that hit her fast.
“What are you thinking, Angel?” Dr. Dianne intervened.
“I don’t know.” Right now, what she was really thinking was how much she’d
like to punch Speed’s head right off his shoulders, and illustrate to him what
an apparent weakling she was, but that would never be an acceptable answer. “I don’t
know what you all want me to do. I’m trying. I said I was trying, and you just
don’t seem to get it. It’s as if I’ve
hit a wall… and I just can’t get past it.”
“I get it,” Speed said. “And I said
what we should all be thinking about at this point. Angel, early retirement
might just be the answer. There were obviously more miscalculations with your design than what we originally thought.
It’s not your fault, Kid, but I just don’t think you have the stuff to be a
superhero. That’s all.”
Silence fell on the room and it's clear that everyone else is silently
agreeing with him. Anger began to grow inside of Angel. Don't have the stuff to be a
superhero? She certainly had more than any other human out there, so what was
the big deal? She could fly, and she
could fight. What else could they
want? So what if she wasn't necessarily
the best? It wasn’t as if she had to be
in order to get the job done. She was
trying her best. Who were they to tell
her that it’s not good enough? It was
infuriating, and she just had to get out of there.
“Can I go now, please?” Angel forced herself to ask in the calmest voice
she could manage, but the kid still noticeably shook with anger.
The Chief simply nodded, handing Angel her evaluation record. She stood, took the paper and rushed out of there,
ready to explode.
--
Angel rushed out of there, and was gone with a flash of bright light. As soon as she was outside, she quickly
noticed that her evaluation sheet had caught fire. She quickly threw the piece of paper on the
ground and stomped the flames out, shouting angrily: “Again?!
You got to be kidding me!”
She held up her hands in front of her and noticed that they were completely
engulfed by green colored flames. She
gritted her teeth as she tried her best to extinguish the fire. She found the best way to do this was by
closing her eyes and trying her best to calm her nerves by clearing her mind of
nothing but happy memories. It took a
full minute before the flames disappeared, and before Angel could open her eyes
to confirm it, she was startled by a loud voice from behind: “Wow!
What was that?!”
Aurora’s sapphire blue eyes were wide and staring at Angel’s hands, which
were now returned to normal. She had a
bright pink hair ribbon in her mouth that now fell to the ground as she stood
there across the road from Angel, mouth agape.
Angel could not believe her luck. Of
all people who had to see her, it had to be Aurora. This green-fire problem was yet another
miscalculation Angel discovered about herself recently. It seemed to happen uncontrollably whenever
Angel got too angry. She thought at
first it might be a powerful tool she could finally use to prove herself, but
so far all the fire seemed to do was drain herself of energy. She needed to keep this hidden until she
figured out how to control it. The last
thing she needed was adding another failure to the staff’s list of reasons to
retire her early.
Angel picked up her partially burnt evaluation record and continued down
the road, as if she hadn’t noticed Aurora.
Aurora quickly scooped up her hair ribbon, tied her long jet black hair in
her signature pony-tail, and hurried quickly across the street. She stopped in front of Angel’s path. “Hey, Angel!
What was that you just did?”
Angel rolled her eyes and moved past her.
“Did what? I didn’t do
anything.” She couldn’t stand the
girl. She was always too good to ever
talk to her or Autumn. She kept to
herself on the east end of the base and only ever seemed to socialize with
Astro. Worst of all, she was Speed’s
star pupil and teacher’s pet.
Really, Aurora was the entire staff’s dream. She was the proud example of
everything heroic, righteous and perfect. She was at the top of the class, and
no one came close to beating her. The smartest, the fastest, the strongest—the
absolute best. Everyone who met her
seemed to instantly fall in love with her.
“Yeah you did! You set your
evaluation sheet on fire!” Aurora exclaimed as she hurried alongside Angel as
she walked.
Angel shook her head, not bothering to stop. She fished a lighter from her jean pockets
and waved it for Aurora to see. “It was
this, OK?” she lied. “Can you leave me
alone now?”
Aurora stopped in her tracks and gasped:
“You shouldn’t deface base property, Angel.”
Angel laughed, “It’s a piece of paper, Aurora.”
Aurora followed her again. “Did you
get a bad mark today, too? I’m sorry,
Angel.”
Angel stopped walking. “Why are you
still following me?” she demanded from the girl. She pointed towards the east, “You live that way, remember?”
Aurora giggled girlishly, “I never knew you were so funny, Angel.”
Angel stared at her for a moment while Aurora continued to laugh in a way
that seemed suspiciously forced. Angel
raised an eyebrow before asking the obvious:
“Aurora, you never talk to me.
What are you trying to do here?”
Aurora’s fake smile disappeared and her big blue eyes began to immediately
water with tears. She covered her face
shamefully as she handed her evaluation record to Angel.
Angel took the sheet from her and stared at it for a long while. “What?
What’s wrong with it?” She spoke
in an abrupt and sharp tone.
“Under ‘Teamwork,’” she sniffled sadly.
“C,” Angel read aloud. “So what?
It’s not an F.” She shoved the sheet back into Aurora’s
hands.
“The Chief said that I have managed to completely separate myself from the
rest of the Alphas, and don’t know how to work well with others. He said that I know nothing about my fellow
teammates, and until I work on strengthening my relationships with my fellow
heroes, I won’t stand a chance to be named Leader.”
Angel shrugged indifferently, “He’s right.
You don’t’ know anything about me.”
“That’s not true! I may not know
everyone on the best of levels, but I think I know at least the basics!”
“Oh yeah?” Angel couldn’t help but laugh.
She continued walking towards home, but Aurora hurried alongside
her. “What’s my favorite color then,
Smartie?”
“…White?”
Angel stared at her with a serious face.
“No.”
Aurora frowned. “Well, what is it
then?”
“Black.”
“Really? ”
Angel stopped walking. “Look, I need
to get home and work on some sort of plan to not get forced into early
retirement, OK? So are you done here?”
“Early retirement?” Aurora gasped.
Without permission she plucked the charred sheet of paper from Angel’s
grasp. Her eyes frantically read the
grades on the report. “I had no idea you
were doing so poorly, Angel,” she stared at the bad grades in disbelief.
Angel snatched the evaluation sheet back.
“Again, that’s because you don’t know anything about me, Aurora.”
“Maybe we can help each other!” Aurora quickly shouted as soon as the idea
came to her. “I can tutor you! I’ll train with you and help you in whatever
you’re struggling with! That will give
me the chance to spend time with you, get to know you better, and—“
“And look good for the Chief so he names you Leader?” Angel finished for
her with an unpleasant tone. “Yeah, but
no thanks.”
“Please, Angel! I need to prove
myself somehow! If I don’t get named
Leader, then all that I’ve worked so hard far is gone forever! I’ll just die if he names Astro instead.” Aurora clenched a fist and narrowed her eyes
muttering under her breath: “That jerk.”
Angel’s eyes widened and then a slight smirk crossed her face. She shook it away before Aurora could notice,
“I thought Astro was your best friend?”
“He is,” Aurora answered. “But he’s
also a jerk. Especially when it comes to
competitions, and he and I have been teasing each other over who will be named
leader of the Alphas since… birth!”
Aurora frowned. She clasped her
hands together and pursed her lips, staring with big pitiful and pleading eyes,
“Pleeease, Angel! Don’t let me lose to Astro.”
“Relax. You may not know me very well, but I don’t
think Astro knows me or Autumn any better.
Autumn would cry at the thought of having to be leader. Me?
I’m pretty much on the brink of flunking out of the academy, so that’ll
never happen. So all that’s left is you
two, and you’re the best at everything, so naturally they’ll choose you.”
Aurora blinked at Angel for a moment.
“You really think I’m the best at everything?”
Angel shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
Aurora immediately embraced Angel in a tight hug before the poor girl could
ever see it coming. “Oh, Angel! That means so much coming from you! I’m so sorry I never took time to get to know
you! Sarah always said to keep away from
you! For some reason she thought you’d
be a bad influence on me, and judging by the fact that you’re the type of girl
who carries a lighter on her, she’s probably right, but that’s OK, because I
don’t care, because you just said the nicest thing I’ve ever heard!” Aurora’s
words ran so close together, Angel could barely understand her.
Aurora finally released Angel from her tight embrace. “Can I please tutor you? We can do it on Sundays when we have no
class! It’ll be fun!”
“I go off base on Sundays.”
“Really? Where?”
“Church.”
Aurora stared at her for a moment.
She made a weighing motion with her hands, “On one hand: She’s an arsonist. On the other hand: She goes to Church.” Aurora stared again at Angel, “You’re an enigma,
Angel! I have to know more!”
“Yeah this will probably make me sound even lamer, but I really don’t want
to miss Church to train with you, OK?”
“What time is Church?”
“I don’t care about Church, I just care about Church picnic. That’s at 10.”
“Perfect! We’ll start at 5!”
“In the morning?”
“Yeah!”
Angel shook her head in disbelief.
She searched the deserted gravel road as if she could try to find any
other option. She knew she had to do
something to improve herself, but she couldn’t think of where else she could
find the help. She had tried everywhere
else already. Defeated, the teenager
hung her head in shame, feeling as if she were about to make a pact with the
Devil himself. “Fine,” she muttered.
“Yay!” Aurora exclaimed , clapping her hands together. “I’m going to go home right now and get
started preparing our plan of attack!
With my help, you’re going to really impress the staff, Angel!” She pointed to Angel’s evaluation sheet, “Can
I borrow that so I know what areas I should include in our lesson plan?”
Angel sighed heavily, already regretting everything. “Sure.”
She threw her arms around Angel, giving her one last hug. “See you tomorrow morning, Angel!” she
shouted as she quickly disappeared down the road.
