Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (28 page)

Upon completion of the reading
,
Mr. Brown then assigned an essay
.
We were ea
ch supposed to write an essay p
r
o
posing some solution to the school’s budgetary problems, of course our proposals had to be
satire not actual solutions
.
I was actually really excited to complete the assignment, call me a dork but it sounded like fun
.
Mr. Brown was definitely putting his neck on the line, but that’s what made him such a great teacher
.

Right before the bell ra
n
g dismissing us from class, I heard Mr. Brown’s name called over the loud
speaker requesting his presence
in the principal’s office
.
He looked out at the class and with a sigh told us to complete the assignment for homework he would see us tomorrow
.
The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that he would probably not see us tomorrow, or ever again
.
I watched him disappear down the hall and hoped that I was wrong
.

Chapter 1
5

Revelations: 17; 5
:
And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
colour
, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written a mystery: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE
EARTH
.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully
.
Gabriel walked me home after school, there wer
e no more run-ins with Alex,
and as
a matter of fact he had been missing all day
.
When we arrived at my ho
use Gabriel and I said our good
byes
o
n the porch rather than risk my mother’s reaction to his presence in the house
.
I then went straight to my room and finished my English essay
.
I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling I had; the whole school seemed to have the same feeling all day
.
Never had a high school population been so somber, I was starting to think it had nothing to do with the lack of extra curricular activities and more to do with a certain horseman
.

My English essay didn’t take long; my satirical suggest
ion
was that the school could operate perfectly well without any form of administration
.
I went on to explain that the administration had the highest paying positions and provided the least services to the student body
.
I
continued
my mock solution in some length; I had to admit it wasn’t as satirical as it probably should have been
.
The suggestion didn’t sound all that bad, but I was looking at it from the perspective that the principal was an underling for Satan,
which tends to affect
your opinion
.

The rest of the night was uneventful
.
Dad came home at seven to a dinner of tacos, and he made his same tired joke about it being taco night at casa de Cross
.
I laughed because that was what made him happy
.
My mother was qui
e
t, and after dinner I went to my room to read
.
The even
ing
was almost a normal evening, like the one
s
we use
d
to have before I met Gabriel, but the sense of dread that had followed me all day
just wouldn’t go away
.
I final
ly turned the light off at nine-
thirty
,
hoping to get some extra sleep
.
To my surprise I fell right to sleep and if I dreamed I didn’t remember it
.

The next mo
rning Gabriel was waiting for me
on my front porch
.
Apparently my
run in with Alex had scared him
more than it scared me
.
The day passed in a blur
.
I wish I could say that the student body had gotten over their state of mourning, but everyone was just as somber today as they were yesterday
.
I found myself unable to focus all morning, and unable to eat at lunch
.
I knew what was bothering me, but I didn’t want to admit it out loud, lest I somehow make it true by utter
ing
the words
.
Finally
,
the lunch bell rang, Gabriel and I headed down the hallway to the one class that had been on my mind all day
.

As we walked into the room my stomach sank
.
Mr. Brown was nowhere in sight
.
His desk had been cleared of all his personal affects, the picture of his yellow lab Stella was gon
e along with his grammar ninja-
sneaky, deadly, articulate coffee mug
.
In his place sat a man
probably
in his early sixties
.
He had a gray comb over that was fooling no one, mostly because the hair that was suppose
d
to be covering his bald spot was actually sticking straight up
.
He had a sickly skin tone with undertones of green, and as we walked into class he unceremoni
ousl
y hacked mucus into a ha
ndkerchief and stuffed it back in
his pants pocket
.
I couldn’t believe
this disgusting man was sitting at Mr. Brown’s desk
.
Who the hell did he think he
was
?

We filed into class and he scrawled his name on the board, Mr. Kelly
.
He explained that
Mr. Brown had needed sometime off and we wouldn’t be seeing him for a while
, he claimed it was a mental health issue
.
The only mental health issue I had ever seen Mr. Brown have was being t
o
o damn smart to fall for Principal Black’s bull, but of course Gabriel and I knew that was exactly what had gotten him in trouble
.
Mr. Kelly collected our homework, and promptly turned and threw all our satirical essays in the trash
.
He then walked over to an ancient television that had been rolled in from the library, and pressed play
.
We were watching Romeo and Juliet, and not even the good one, the ridiculous adaptation with Leonardo
DiCaprio
and Claire Danes
.
I suddenly couldn’t take it anymore; I had to get out of this room
.
I stumbled to the front of the room and looked into Mr. Kelly’s cloudy blue eyes and manage
d
to mumble that I needed a pass
.
He wrote me one to the ladies’ room, and I took off down the hall
.
I hit the door just as the tears started to stream down my face, and slammed myself into a stall just as I lost all control and started to sob
.

I cried for Mr. Brown
,
who I was
probably
never going to
see again, I cried for myself, I
cried
like I should have cried weeks ago
.
For whatever reason it all seemed real now
.
Gabriel’s
explanation
hadn’t made it real, the dreams hadn’t made it real, even killing Scarlett hadn’t made it real, but Mr. Brown’s
disappearance
had
.
It was real. R
eal enough that people I cared about and loved were going to get hurt
.
I thought about my teachers, my mother and father, Gabriel, and Cami
.
Oh my God, Cami! I hadn’t done enough to save
her;
I had to think of something
.
She was more than a friend
,
she was my sister and I had let her go t
o
o easily
.
I had
to fight, I had to face this, and I had to get her away from Alex by any means necessary
.

With th
at
firm resolve in my heart my tears began to slow and I gradually regain
ed
control
.
I blew my nose and washed my face, and made my way back to class
.
I knew my eyes were red and swollen and I knew Gabriel noticed, but he never said a word
.
I sat down in front of him, and faced forward to at least pretend I was watching the movie but all I was really thinking about was what I was going to do to save Cami
.
I felt Gabriel’s warm breath on the back of my neck, and I knew
it was his way of comforting me;
he was telling me he was still there and I took comfort in that fact
.

When class ended, I still had no idea what I was going to do
.
Gabriel didn’t say anything until we
were standing outside the girl
s
’
locker room
.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked
sympathetically
.

I shook my head, “No, all I know is that I will not stand by and let the people I care about get hurt.”

I watched Gabriel’s face shift from one of sympathy to what looked like pride
.
“Fair enough,” was all he
said
.
He bent down to kiss me, it had become habit for him to kiss me before heading off to his own class, but at the last moment he also wrapped his arms around me
.
The hug was exactly what I needed at that moment, with his strong reassuring arms
wrapped
around me I felt like nothing could hurt me
.
He squeezed me just enough for me to feel the strength he possessed, but no so hard as to hurt me
.
As far as hug
s
go it was about perfect
.
He broke the hug first, and stepped back still holding onto my shoulders
.
“Whate
ver you need, I’m here,”
he said before
he turned on his hee
ls and started back down the hallway in the opposite direction
.
I was watching him walk away when the
door to the girl’s locker room swung open, but this time I was ready
.
I caught the door before it had a chance to connect with my face
.

Ms. Still
’
s head whipped around w
hen she heard me catch the door.
“For crying out loud
,
Cross, you
’d
think you would have learned not to stand there after the first time
.
Get your but
t
in the locker room and get changed,
let’s
go,
hustle
.”

I laughed to myself
.
It wa
s the first time in a long time
I remember
ed
laughing.

I racked m
y
brain all through g
ym about what I was going to do to save Cami, and I kept coming up with the same problem
.
I couldn’t see Alex letting her go willingly, and I had yet to find a way to eliminate Alex
.

It wasn’t till later that evening after Gabriel had walked me home, and I was bent over the cutting board chopping bell peppers for stir-fry
,
that I had an idea
.
The idea struck with such force that I was lucky not to have cut off my finger.
In the other room I could he
a
r the movie my mother was blindly staring at
.
It was a movie that I had loved since the first time I saw it and it nearly scared me to death,
The Exorcist
.
It was obvious, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, Cami was possessed
.
There was no way my lifelong friend would be treating me this way if she wasn’t under the spell of Alex Chase
.
I didn’t know much about being possessed, but if the movie was any
indication
there were ways of fighting the demonic influence
.