Flames of the Night

Chapter Three

"Jonathan, dear, you'll never believe what we got in the mail today." Mother announced.

Dad looked up from his steak – none of that vegan diet crap in this family. He finished chewing in those slow, deliberate bites that'd had most of my sister's boyfriends sweating and gulping before dryly replying to Mother. "Not another fashion subscription?"

"Oh, no! This was about our little feather."

Dad's eyes drifted his eyes slowly to me, using that particularly terrifying glare of his that had corporals shifting from foot to foot. "Three weeks, my feather, I knew it couldn't last. What did you do this time?"

I couldn't help it, I snorted. The "scary dad" technique had never worked on me like it had on my brothers. "I got second in the battlefield riding competition."

Dad's eyebrows rose as he whistled. "Nice, don't tease Nick too much about it, will you? He only got fourth last year."

Mother put her spoon to her wineglass in the classy way that was only ever done in movies. "You two, concentrate here!" She glared at us both, before locking eyes with Dad again, "our daughter got into the Mystic Academy."

Dad spat his wine. Mr control freak, always prepared four-star general spluttered as his wine soaked into the black tablecloth. After seven kids, my parents had given up on white. "When did you sign up for that? You practically cursed your cousin when he was accepted."

"I didn't." I mumbled, crossing my arms and sinking into my seat.

"Oh, hush," Mother waved her hand at me. "You know that human school you go to has the application as one of the exams."

"They WHAT!?" I screeched.

"Stop sulking. It was in the school contract you signed when you entered the school."

"But I didn't sign that part because I'm not human."

"You're half and that's enough."

Mother and Dad then launched into their weekly lecture about politics and the human-paranormal equality movement. And how it was really important for hybrids like me to do what they could.

It went blah, blah, blah. Your duty. Blah, blah, blah. Everyone's expectations. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah. Blah. I'd heard it my whole life and had actually recited it back to them one time a couple of years ago.

It was boring and I knew it already, so why listen? That nerd wimp Jamie with his weird card games was more interesting.

On the last day of school, he'd been dared to run around shirtless. The only people who had laughed as Jamie had swung his baggy shirt up the flagpole were the people that had looked at the cheerleaders' faces. Brit the... well, you know (female doggie) couldn't seem to close her mouth. Even when her flavour of the hour Brock the Jock had walked over to her.

His laughter had stopped when he looked at her face, and with possessive, caveman anger, the scowling sports star had turned around and stomped over to Jamie and punched him in the arm. If it hadn't been for the nerd's wince and the jock's scowl, the punch would have looked like one that the airhead sports players gave each other.

Then it just got weird. Jamie had chuckled and turned around to Brock, giving him a nookie.

"...and you know only those with human blood can work with mystics."

I had to stop myself from shaking my head. Mother's responsibility speech had never ended that way before. I didn't manage to stop the "what" that came out my mouth, though.