Cora

Chapter 9: "I wanted to watch the sunset."

I pushed past the door to the balcony because all I wanted right now was some peace, quiet, and a beautiful view to get my mind off of things. The door creaked open, and I beheld five boys all leaning on the railing. Due to the creak of the door, all five of them looked back towards me and I recognized one. It was Fin. The one who originally found me yesterday and told me I could come up here whenever I wanted. These must be his friends, I realized.

"Cora!" Fin walked forward and pulled me into a hug.

"Hey, Fin," I mumbled into his sweatshirt. I wasn't that comfortable with the way the other four guys were looking at me.

"Back so soon?"

"Um, yeah. I wanted to watch the sunset." A small lie, but they didn't need to know how sucky my life was right now.

"You can join us."

"Oh, no. That's okay, I don't want to intrude." I tried backing up and opening the door to leave, but Fin put an arm around my shoulders and pushed me to the railing where space had opened up for me.

"You're not intruding. I said you were always welcome. Now to introduce you. Boys, this is Cora the Freshman. Cora, this is Agnus. He's a demon and is unusually moody every day, but he is a real sweetheart." Agnus grunted and turned away. I noticed how he was heavily muscled like everyone else here. His eyes were a striking gold that glittered in the glittering sunlight and stood out against his dark brown hair and tan skin. Curled indigo horns came out of his hair, further proving how he was a demon. "This is Leo. He is an aasimar which is half human and half celestial." Leo gave me a wink to go with his smirk as a greeting. He had chin-length, shaggy blond hair that went with his almost glowing blue eyes. The golden and white feathers added to how he was an aasimar.

"Fin, I know what an aasimar is."

"I'm just checking." He elbowed me as I laughed. Maybe these guys weren't so bad. "This is Ozmaral, but he hates his name so we call him Oz. He is also an aasimar." Oz rolled his eyes but gave a nod in acknowledgment. He had short blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes that glinted in amusement although he didn't say anything. His black and golden wings stirred in the calming breeze. "And, last but not least, our very own griffin. Raven!"

"Pleasure," Raven said, a grin on his face as he shook my hand. He had white hair that covered one half of his face. The one eye that I could make out was so dark brown it looked black. Neat. "How do you know Fin?"

"This troublesome freshie was exploring yesterday and wandered out onto our patio where I caught her a few moments later," Fin answered, messing up my hair.

"Hey! Not the hair!"

"Or what freshie?" Fin's eyes glinted with mischief while his smile was contagious.

I smiled back wickedly and joked, "Well, you're going to have to do it again to see." Immediately, he tried to give me a noogie and further mess up my hair. I didn't let him get far, however, before I side-stepped him and doused him with water that I created with a spell. Everyone laughed at Fin and how drenched he was now. All thanks to me.

"Uggghhhh. What'd you do that for?"

"I told you not to touch the hair." I mentally willed the water away from me and leaned against the railing with the others.

"Yeah, she'll fit in just fine," Raven laughed. I smiled happily, finally forgetting about all the awful moments that had led to this. As we watched the sunset in peace, it almost felt like all my bad thoughts and memories from the last two days were setting along with the sun.