Cinder: A Close To Normal Life

Chapter 7

Kai's POV

Cinder and I just finished with a pretty big chunk of our project, so I was feeling pretty good. I carried the rather large box up to a wooden bench where 'Advisor Torin' seemed to be stalking me from.

"What do you want?" I sighed as I placed the box on the ground and sat next to my stalker.

Torin raised an eyebrow, "What do you thi-" he started to say, but I cut him off.

"And please, nothing about Cinder, we were just working on a project. Please don't tell me that's all you wanted to talk about." He gave me a skeptical look, but dropped it, moving to another topic, one that I was probably dreading even more.

"It's your dad." He said looking straight ahead at nothing.

I looked down, a lump formed in my throat. I still couldn't believe that it was happening. My dad was - I mean is everything to me. He was-is-my rock, my anchor, that kept me strong through everything, and he was always there for me, but apparently not anymore.

"How is he?" I asked looking down at my shoes. Torin always knows everything, he has all the information, all the gossip at school, all the news clips from the newspapers and late night tv shows. He's like my walking encyclopedia. Plus, I gave him all of my family's information (you might think I'm crazy for doing that, but honestly, it just works better that way, so he can get all the info he wants, and I won't get all the nagging), so he knows all about that too.

Torin sighed, "Not well. He's pretty late into the first stage. The doctors said maybe another week before he moves into the next phase."

I closed my eyes. This was the news I was expecting, but even so, it hurt. I know that there aren't any survivors of the plague, I know that there is no cure yet. I've pretty much accepted those facts, but the one that I would not yet believe is the one that my father will die.

"You should go visit him." Torin said, turning his face to look at me.

I scoffed, "I don't count staring at someone behind a glass wall that's a foot thick 'visiting'."

"But don't you want to see him? I mean at least one more time before, you know, he's gone."

I sighed, this is why he's Advisor Torin, "I'll go, but not yet, I don't think I'm ready to see him again..."

Torin nodded, "I understand. But before we drop the topic, there's one more thing we need to talk about. Gatches. Once your father passes, his ginormous company will be passed down to you. We need to get you prepared for all of those responsibilities, if things go wrong this country's economy is looking bleak. "

I leaned forward and but my head in my hands, "I know, I know, it's just so many things happening at once." I took a deep breath in, "Hey Torin, when Gatches gets handed down to me, my first action of business, will be to hire you as my official advisor" I said smiling.

Torin, smiled too, "Yeah, you do that."

Then we just sat there for a while in silence, both of us staring ahead, with a box of android tools sitting at my feet.

Cinder's POV

After I closed up the shop, I went back home and started making dinner. Everyone was sitting at the table waiting for the food by 7:00.

"Hurry up, Cinder! I'm starving!" yelled Pearl from the dining room.

I rolled my eyes, "Coming!" I yelled back.

My step mother looked up from her magazine as I walked into the room with plates of food, "Cinder! You know the rules! No yelling in the house!"

I sighed, "Yes ma'am, sorry."

Pearl and Peony were both texting on their phones. Even though, no one was paying attention to it, the T.V. was on playing the news. After I put the food on the table, I made a move to turn it off.

"What are you doing?!" Pearl shrieked giving me a snarl, "My friends told me that now, since Kai's dad is probably going to die, Kai's going to to run Gatches. Do you know what this means? He's handsome and going to be a big powerful businessman!"

I couldn't believe just how inconsiderate Pearl was being. Kai's dad is dying and this is all she can think about. My face started to turn red with anger. I knew that if I didn't leave now, I was going to explode. Peony glanced at me and I knew she didn't like what Pearl said either. But knowing that I wasn't the only sane person in the room still wasn't enough to calm me. "I got to go" I said, running upstairs and away from my obnoxious family.

After leaping onto my bed, laying face down for a while, I started to cool off. I decided to text Cress, to see if she had an explanation for the weird purple screen on Kai's phone. She said that if I could give the phone to her she could take a look at it. So I decided to just ask Kai if I could take his phone back for a little while. He'll probably think that I'm crazy, but this purple screen thing was seriously bothering me.

Soon I decided to get up and wash up and get ready for bed. I had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be a long day.