Rabidity (Jane Loft-series #1)

Chapter 1

I blow out the candle on my windowsill and close the door when I walk out of my room. When I descend the stairs, I hear Cedric, my evil foster dad, yell.

"You call this food, woman?" he roars. Cedric Fugger is a grey, slightly overweight man who doesn't talk to me, who comes home from his work and falls asleep on the couch and complains about everything.

I hear Fenna's, my lovely foster mom, snort. "If it's not good enough for you, Cedric, you can make it yourself next time." Fenna is the opposite of Cedric. Of course, she's a woman and he's a man, but that's not what I mean. While Cedric is ugly and fat, Fenna is a beautiful woman with big brown eyes and a lovely smile. She's like a second mother to me. She married Cedric when she was in high school because she got pregnant of his child. She always tells me that was the biggest mistake she has ever made. She lost her niece in the accident that killed my parents and that made our bond even stronger. We are family. Best friends, even. She's my only friend, actually, and we talk about everything. She even gave me her niece's motorcycle after her death and I fixed it. It was a black, strong, heavy thing that was really old and needed a new layer of paint, a new saddle, a new tank and so on, but I did it, and that's the vehicle I go to school with every morning.

Cedric doesn't reply to Fenna's retort.

"That's what I thought," she decides, and that's the end of their row.

I smile. I like Fenna. She may have been incredibly stupid by marrying Cedric a few years ago, but she's not the woman who will start crying in a corner when yelled at. She will stand up for her opinion and bury the opponent. In this case, Cedric.

She hasn't always been this brave. She used to be an obedient, easily manipulated wife, but when Cedric hit her six months ago, she crawled out of her shell and started defending herself. I'm happy she did, because Cedric doesn't listen to my pleas, as he has been ignoring me since I arrived here. When my parents died, I was put into this household. Fenna was nice to me from day one, but Cedric didn't even look at me. He still doesn't. Not that I care, though. I just want Fenna to walk away from that swine and to be happy.

"Good morning, sweetie," the fair haired woman says when I walk in the kitchen. "Did you have a good night's rest?"

I shake my head, my uncontrollable dark locks flying everywhere. "Not really. I had a weird dream."

"Woman, give me a glass of water," Cedric demands. Fenna throws a glass bottle of water at his head. "Ow."

"Did it hurt?" she asks.

"Yeah," he replies, angrily rubbing the sore spot on his head.

"Good," she nods, satisfied with herself. "Now, Jane, tell me. What was your weird dream?"

I shrug. "I don't remember, but I know it gave me the creeps."

"That's because you try to remember it too much," she says, handing me a bowl of cereal and a bottle of milk. I wrinkle my nose and she smiles. "Right, no milk. When will I ever remember?"

"That's because you try to remember it too much," I wink and the sound of her laugh sounds through the little kitchen. It's a warm sound and it makes me feel like I'm home.

"Go on, then," she says after half an hour, wiping her hands on her apron and handing me my jacket. "School starts in ten."

I make a face, but take the jacket she's holding, anyway.

I hate Mondays. I absolutely, incredibly hate them. After a weekend of tinkering at my motorcycle, helping Fenna in the house and riding around town, I hate going back to school. Not only because it's always cold there and it smells terribly, but mostly because I can't move when I'm there. Eight hours a day, the first boring lesson followed by another, sitting on the same hard, wooden chair, locked inside while I want to be in the cool fresh air outside and all of that has been going on for me for 16 years. I'm eighteen years old now, a senior at my school and you'd think the school would let us make our own decisions,. But the school council of K.A.Z. doesn't think it's a very good idea to let her students out.
K.A.Z. stands for Kingly Athenaeum Zickenbridge and it's the only school where pupils aren't allowed to go out during lessons. Not even during breaks. They say it's still too dangerous. Well, if you ask me, that's absolute nonsense. The Second Big Bang was a hundred years ago, so if the air was still toxic, we would've all died a long time ago.