BlackMoon Beginnings (11 page)

David stops me, “You don’t have to continue,
Ryanne.”

“Yes, I do. I need to get this out. I didn’t
know what to do, so I tried yelling out again, but he punched me in
stomach. I couldn’t breathe. Then he tried to kiss me. Long story
short, I bit his lip, drawing blood. He jumped backwards. I kicked
him in the balls and then ran away. He told everyone at school that
I came onto him and Lily made it her long-term goal to humiliate me
from then on. I went from being the school loner to the school
freak.” I stop talking. I can feel tears falling down my face.
Embarrassed, I try to turn away and wipe them off my cheeks.

David exhales crossly, “I should have punched
him harder.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Colton get
up from the couch and walk towards me. He pauses in front of me and
looks down, his eyes searching my face. His strong arms envelope me
in a fierce hug. I tense for a moment, then relax, leaning into
him. I can’t help myself. I wrap my arms around his waist, put my
head onto his chest, and begin to sob into his shirt. Within
minutes, his shirt is soaked.

When I am finally able to calm myself, I take
a small step back, rubbing under my eyes with my sleeves. I’m sure
I look like a raccoon. I catch a glimpse of his shirt and grimace.
I ruined his shirt. The front is soaking wet with mascara stains on
it. His arms are still around me. I drag my eyes from his shirt and
open my mouth to apologize, when he starts vigorously shaking his
head.

“Don’t you dare apologize to me, Ryanne. You
didn’t do anything wrong.” He stops talking and looks towards
David, “If only I knew. I could have done… something… anything. He
shouldn’t have gotten away with that.”

“No one would have believed me if I said
anything. It would have been my word against his,” I whisper. “He
was the quarterback. The jock. One of the popular guys and I was
the class freak, remember?”

“You weren’t a freak and it doesn’t matter.
He still shouldn’t have gotten away with that.”

“It happened a while ago,” I say. “I’ve moved
on from it.”

He looks down at me and can tell that I don’t
want to talk about it anymore, so he lets go of me.

“Are you hungry?” David gets up from the
couch, grabs the boxes of pizza, and heads into the kitchen. Colton
walks over to a cupboard and brings out a couple of plates.

“Could either of you tell me where a bathroom
is?”

David points towards the door. “Go out this
door and take a left. It’s the second door on the right.”

“Thank you.” I walk out of the kitchen and to
the bathroom. I stand at the bathroom sink and look at my pale
reflection. My eyes are bloodshot and my face is puffy from crying.
I splash some cold water on my face, trying to get some color to
return to my already pale complexion. I grab some Kleenex and dab
under my eyes, trying to get rid of the mascara stains. When I
finally feel presentable again, I walk out of the bathroom and back
towards the kitchen. The closer I get, the more I am able to hear
the whispers going on.

“I heard those rumors, David. I was with Adam
when he told everyone. I couldn’t believe it. This shy, quiet girl
that I had crushed on for over a year threw herself at the school
jerk? I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but I got mad at her. I
didn’t spread any of the rumors or anything, but I didn’t stop them
either. It’s partially my fault.” I listen to the whole thing, but
could think about one thing: Colton had a crush on me? How is that
possible? I had never met him until a couple weeks ago.

“Don’t blame yourself, Colton. There…”

I put on a blank face and decide to enter
back into the room. “Why is Colton blaming himself?”

“Colton broke one of Claire’s favorite
plates,” David says quickly, while pushing the pizza box towards
me. “Here, have some pizza.”

I grab one piece and eat it slowly. I’ve lost
my appetite. The guys inhale a whole pizza by themselves.

When I finish eating the piece, I wipe my
hands off with my crumpled napkin and turn towards the Colton, “Can
you teach me how to fight when you are done eating?”

“Yeah, just wait a little bit, so our food
can settle.”

I nod and walk back into the living room,
grabbing my notebook to start a new drawing: Liam. I’d never been
very good at drawing people, so I don’t know why I feel compelled
to draw him. My hands start moving on their own accord. I draw his
crooked nose, his full lips, the way his eyes seem to look at you
and see all your secrets, the faded scar above his eyebrow, and the
way his hair falls across his face. I don’t know how I did it, but
I drew a perfect likeness of him.

David walks over and sits beside me, “Is that
Liam?”

I look intently at my notebook, nodding.

“He looks familiar, like I’ve seen him
somewhere,” he pauses, his eyes remaining fixated on the drawing.
He blinks rapidly and touches my upper arm, “Are you ready to
train?” When I nod, he continues, “I’ll walk you back to your room,
so you can get changed and then we’ll walk up there together,
considering you still don’t know where the room is.” He smiles. “We
wouldn’t want you to get lost again.” I can tell that he isn’t
going to let that go anytime soon.

We walk to my room, well the guest bedroom,
quietly chatting on the way. It is easy to talk to David. He is
funny and witty and doesn’t say anything that makes me second guess
their meanings. He is straight forward and to the point. We stop at
my door and I walk in, confused. New outfits are scattered across
the bed.

Claire.

She knew I would need more clothing. I know
that I didn’t grab anything that would work today. I was more
focused on getting out of the house quickly than finding matching
outfits.

I walk over and sort through the work-out
clothes. Everything is way more form-fitting than I would have
grabbed for myself. I know that I am not fat, but I don’t
necessarily have the confidence to wear something like this. I grab
an outfit and walk to the bathroom, trying not to think about how
ridiculous I’ll look in this. After changing, I walk over the sink
and search the drawers underneath until I find a small container
with a bunch of hair ties in it. I grab one, put it on my wrist,
and leave the room.

I open the bedroom door and find David
standing on the other side, hand outstretched, ready to knock. His
eyes widen as he takes in my appearance.

I cross my arms self-consciously and look at
the floor, “I know I look stupid. There wasn’t anything else to
change into.” I grab the bottom of the shirt and pull it away from
my body, trying to stretch it out, but it only sinks back into the
previous shape.

“You’re not reading my mind right now, are
you?” he asks.

“No, I decided I’m going to try and not use
that unless it is absolutely necessary. I feel like it is an
invasion of privacy.”

David exhales in relief, shakes his head, and
rolls his eyes. Before I am able to ask what that was about, he
grabs onto my wrist and starts walking down the hallway.

“I’m going to have to talk to Claire when she
gets home.”

“Why?”

He turns towards me with a look that screams,
seriously?
“Never mind.”

“This house has three floors?” I ask as we
head up another set of stairs.

“The third floor is the training room. It
used to be an attic, but we converted it when we moved in.”

Colton is already in the room setting up the
mats when we walk in. This is the biggest attic I’ve ever seen. The
room is in the shape of a square, with large red mats outlining the
bottom half of the walls. A long rope hangs from the ceiling in the
far corner. Looking up, my eyes stop at the high ceiling. Wooden
beams overlap each other in an interesting cross work pattern. I
drag my eyes from the ceiling and turn towards Colton who is
staring at me with eyes the size of saucers, mouth slightly open.
My eyebrows rise in confusion. When he catches me looking at him,
he coughs and averts his gaze.

“Are you okay?” I walk towards him.

“Fine.” He looks past me at David.

“Yeah, I know.” David agrees. I look between
the two brothers wondering what they are talking about.

“You know I could just read your minds,
right?” That knocks them back into their senses.

“Ok, Ryanne, we’re going to just teach you
some basic self defense moves, how to defend yourself if you are
ever attacked without a weapon,” says Colton.

“Will I get to learn how to fight with a
weapon too?” The thought of fighting someone in general scares me,
but I want to know what to do if in the situation. I know it will
probably show up again.

He smiles at my eagerness. “One step at a
time.”

Nodding, I listen to what he is telling me:
how to block my body if someone comes towards me from the front,
how to deflect punches from the side, what to do if someone grabs
me from behind, etc. After about ten minutes, I put my hair into a
high pony tail, because it keeps falling into my face, blocking my
vision.

“You’re pretty small, so your opponents will
almost always be larger than you. You have to look for their
weaknesses. Anything that will give you an advantage on them.” I
listen intently to everything that he is telling me. Colton
pretends to attack me, slowly, to see if I can deflect his
advances. After each move, he would stop and tell me what I did
right and what needed to change. David would come up and correct my
stances if I was off. This is harder than I thought it would be.
They teach me how to use my arms and legs to incapacitate someone
and ways to knock someone unconscious.

“From now on, if you can, you’ll probably
want to tie your hair into a bun, or something close to your head.
You have long hair and anyone can come up behind you and pull your
hair, knocking you down.” To demonstrate, Colton steps closer and
reaches behind me. Grabbing the end of my pony tail, he wraps it
around his hand and gently pulls it down. I arch my head back and
stare up at him. I can feel his breathe against my face as he looks
down at me—his green eyes staring into mine. My heart starts racing
and I can feel a blush creeping up into my cheeks. Seeing it,
Colton clears his throat and releases my hair, continuing on with
the training session.

Two hours later, I am lying with my back on
the mat, sweating and trying to catch my breath. “Why didn’t I get
a power where I could just think of what I wanted someone to do and
they would do it? Fall down. Run off that cliff. Punch yourself. Do
the hokey pokey.
That
would be convenient in a fight.” I say
breathily. Both guys are sitting beside me, barely winded.

“I think that is enough for today. You did
well, Ryanne,” says David.

I attempt to laugh and sit up, but both prove
to be too much work. I am more comfortable where I am. After a
couple minutes, my breathing returns to normal, but the ache
remains in my muscles. I am definitely going to be sore
tomorrow.

“How long have you guys been training?” I
ask.

“Since we were five. Uncle Tom…,” I laugh.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Oh gosh, I’m delirious. This is why I
don’t exercise anymore. David stops talking and glances at me,
silently asking if I am okay.

“Sorry, continue.”

“He would come over every weekend and teach
us random moves, usually martial arts. We didn’t know then that he
was training us. It worked out though, now we are always ready in
case something should happen.”

“Do you still talk to your Uncle Tom?”

Colton answers, “Yeah, he comes over
occasionally. He’s stopped training us a while ago, but still helps
train other mages. I bet you’d like him.”

I look towards him, smiling. We drop off into
a comfortable silence. When my muscles finally stop aching, I sit
up into a seated position. David and Colton both get up and stand
around me. Colton extends his hand, offering to help me up. I
gladly accept it and let him exert himself trying to get me up.

I feel a hand fall on my shoulder, and
unfamiliar deep voice says, “Who’s this?”

Startled, I scream, jump around, and end up
bumping into Colton. He reaches out and steadies me; all three guys
start laughing at me. I bend down and grab my heart, trying to slow
down the frantic beating. My heart is beating against my ribcage,
like a steady drum.

I straighten up as David turns towards me,
“What a coincidence, Ryanne. This is our Uncle Tom. Tom, this is
Ryanne Arden.” Tom smiles and extends his hand. I reach out and
take it. Still holding his hand, I look at him and have to stifle
the giggle that almost escapes my lips. Is it possible for anyone
in this family to not be good looking?

Standing at over six feet, Tom has a stocky
build, similar to David. He has dirty blonde hair, falling around
his face with subtle waves, touching the slight stubble that
appears on jaw line. His warm eyes are surrounded by soft wrinkles.
Full lips pull back into a smile, revealing a perfectly straight
set of teeth. Despite being in his forties this man is obviously
fit. He looks very…Brad Pitt-esque – similar to how Pitt looked in
Troy.

“Nice to meet you,” I say lightly.

“It’s very nice to meet you too.”

So this is the infamous, Ryanne. Claire’s
description doesn’t give her credit. She’s beautiful. I’m sure she
already has these boys wrapped around her fingers.
I giggle and
close my eyes, concentrating on pushing his thoughts back into the
locked box with the others.

“She’s trying to lock your thoughts away. She
feels it’s an
invasion of privacy
to hear other people’s
thoughts.” David explains to Tom, trying to imitate my voice.

“That’s understandable,” he replies
sincerely. “It’s kind of a blessing in disguise. Burdening, yet
helpful.”

When I get them pushed back, I open my eyes
and see Colton walk up to his uncle and give him a manly hug,
patting him on the back. “What brings you here?”