The Elemental Night School, The Dawn of Echoburne: Book 3 ♛

Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

~Toby~

"First of all, I only know one of the people here. Second, I am not going to beat you up, not because I would rather spend a year working as a janitor than sit in a room with you, but because I am not going to lower myself down to your level. Just look at you, you're so lost already. Spending time at attempting to make every student's life miserable instead of working with your studies. In fact, why don't you just leave is you obviously consider education a worthless minority?" I demand of him, smiling with satisfaction as I give him such a factual answer and anticipating his next answer to be a careless sarcastic reply that is not even valuable enough to listen to.

~valarie~

Aidan raises an eyebrow. "Maybe I manage to study /and/ make people's lives miserable," he replies cockily, bouncing a little fireball up and down with one hand. "I might be good at keeping a balance with my daily activities, for all you know." He grins sadistically. "Besides, I already know most of what I need to in order to take over my father's business and continue becoming filthy rich for decades." He leaned against the nearby wall, expression smug. "Most of the stuff we learn here is irrelevant to me. I'm a businessman, not a chemist or a ruddy artist."

James regards Aidan with an expression that is hard to describe. It is thoughtful, yet at the same time, acts as a mask to hide whatever it is he is feeling. "You know, one of these days you're going to get yourself into a situation where your big wealthy daddy and all his riches won't be able to help you," he notes flatly.

Aidan merely chuckles. "I doubt that, my good cousin," he says sarcastically. "You can buy just about anything these days. That's the beautiful thing about being rich in a world full of corruption and greed," he walks right up to James and gets in his face, an almost maddening look in his gaze, though James doesn't flinch and holds his ground, "everything is at your fingertips." Aidan holds his hand in front of his face and moves the digits to emphasise his point, before flicking James on the nose, who merely stares at him, but does not budge. There is something subtly condescending in the way he looks at Aidan.

When Aidan realizes that he is getting nowhere with annoying James, he rolls his eyes and turns back towards Toby. "See, as much as you might wish to make me feel offended, or might want to make me feel bad for lacking some great appreciation for our marvellous education system, the fact of the matter is....I just really don't care. Sorry." He grins. "Not really. I'm never sorry."

~Toby~

I narrow my eyes as I wait for him to finish. "Now, just because you claim that you are a good student does not give me an exact fact to rely on. I suppose that I could talk to your instructors and see how much of an attendant student you really are, or if you really waste valuable time around the clock and are here because your rich parents sent you in an attempt to teach you some kind of discipline because they could no longer stand you." I reply, using a matter -of-fact expression. "And now, if you will excuse us, we are going to finish our shopping, because Iris and I clearly have important things to do, unlike you." I say, turning and taking Iris's hand before leading her back to the store.

"Look Aidan just leave us alone. We all have better things to do than banter and argue with you." Valarie says flatly, stepping out from behind James and approaching Aiden directly.

~Rhiannon~

"Oh, my parents happen to be very proud. I'm a chip off the old block," he says with a dark grin. The sad thing was, it was true. When it came to doing business, Aidan's father was even more ruthless than he was. "Waste time trying to insult me via my academic records if you really need to, but people like me just aren't bothered by it. Try and be a little more creative with your insults next time, yes? Otherwise this just gets tedious." He yawns casually and inclines his head as Iris and Toby walks away. "Try not to burn down any more trees while you're gone!" he calls after them with a smirk, before turning to regard Valarie with amusement. "Oh really? I was rather enjoying myself," he says dryly.

Toby stops in his tracks, as he hears Aiden's remark, and turns around again.

"Why Aidan? I think that spoiled, childish rich boy suits you best. After all, a more gruesome insult might be too much for you to handle." Toby says, smirking as he turns back to Iris.

Ooooh, burn. Take that, you jerk!

"That is enough!" Valarie exclaims, turning to James. "Can you please get rid of this nuisance?" she asks him.

"Why, thank you," Aidan chuckles, taking Toby's insult as a compliment. "And I doubt anything you could say would 'hurt my feelings' as they say.... Actually, I've been informed many times that I have no feelings. Which I'm fine with. Emotions are for the weak," he says, his tone sharp. He seems to genuinely believes what he said. He turns back to Valarie. "See here, James isn't the boss of me. Nothing he says is going to make me just magically disappear."

James sighs, thinking for a moment. Then without warning, he grabs Aidan's shirt and yanks his cousin towards him, whispering something in his ear that nobody else could hear. As he speaks, Aidan's expression slackens, then twists into an unpleasant scowl. "How did you know about that?" he demands acidly.

James smirks lightly. "You forget, dear cousin," he says smoothly. "I'm a hacker. You may have money at your fingertips, but I have information. Now, I'm going to ask you one more time: sod off Aidan, before I repeat that again out loud."

Aidan growls, his expression darkening. Then he chuckles unexpectedly. "Fine. Though just know that things are going to start getting nasty for you and your little sister here. You're an embarrassment to the whole family empire and a terrible reminder of your good-for-nothing parents...and I look forward to the day when everything comes crashing down around you....and this pathetic school as well." He turns and begins to walk away, whilst James instinctively sticks an arm out to prevent me from doing anything after hearing such a remark. Aidan turns back to face us again for a moment, walking backwards, with a wicked grin on his face as he gives us a mocking salute. "Later, orphans!" he yells to James and me down the corridor. James is careful not to react, but I instinctively winced. "Oh, and James?" Aidan begin, before tapping his chin and smirking, "check it." Without explaining this ambiguous statement further, Aidan turns the corner and is gone.

Valarie looks up at me and James, a puzzled expression over her face. "What's he talking about?" she asks.

~James~

I am lost in thought, my mind racing a mile a minute as I try to decipher what Aidan had last said. It didn't take me long to figure it out. I am so absorbed that I don't hear Valarie's question, or Rhiannon's answer of "I don't know." I turn to face Valarie, a light frown creasing my brow.

"Aidan grabbed your chin before," I murmur, noting how Aidan had purposefully tapped his chin before he left, "but why bother drawing attention to that?" I continue, mostly to myself. I gently cup one hand under Valarie's face and tilt it from side to side so that I can see it from different angles under the light, being soft and careful with my movements. Suddenly, I find what I am looking for, my expression slackens as I realized what my cousin had done.

"Oh-no."