Sang and Her Choir

Chapter Four

Sang's POV

     They boys quickly herded me out the front doors of our school and brought me out to the parking lot and pointed to a huge, and I do mean HUGE black truck. I started second guessing myself almost immediately. I tried to tell them that I could walk home, that it was no big deal, they needn't go out of their way to help me. All I got were some chuckles and a few smiles. Finally Gabriel pointed out, after they found out where I lived exactly, that their ranch bordered my parents land. I, of course, said nothing about the fact that I knew that already. I mean, how does one tell four incredibly handsome boys that you accidentally stalked them the other day?!
     After getting a boost from Gabriel and a hand from Luke, I finally managed to get up into the truck that I had silently dubbed Monster. "Whose truck is this?" I ask without thinking. 
     "My baby brother North, would be the owner of this beast." Luke's happy voice answers me quickly from the back seat. I look at Kota, who is driving, Nathan, who sits behind me, and Gabriel, also sitting in the back seat, and I wonder how they know each other.
    "How did you guys all meet each other?" I question the guys as my curiosity gets the better of me. There was a moment of silence as they look to each other and seem to have a whole conversation with just their eyes. "Well, we are a family of sorts. There is a grand total of nine of us, the four you see here and then there is North, Victor, Owen, Sean and Silas. We all kinda grew up together and decided to become a family instead of just being friends." Nathan's serious blue eyes meet mine in the rear view mirror as he tells me about his family.
       "Owen and Sean have been best friends since they were like 10 or something, they are 3 years older than us. They kinda found the rest of us. Luke, Kota, Gabe, Victor, and myself have been friends since we were all in diapers. Silas and North moved to the states when we were all 11 or so. Silas came first and then North came about 6 months later. Since then we've all stuck together and became a family. None of us had the greatest childhood and decided to cut all contact with the remaining biological families we had left. We moved out here about a year ago and Owen and Sean bought the ranch."

     Kota takes up the narration at this point. "North and Silas run the horse training program we started. Sean is a doctor, Victor is a classically trained pianist but doesn't like to play anymore so he started to learn veterinary medicine, Owen is a financial genius and runs a stock brokerage over the internet and uses his profits to support the ranch. The rest of us decided to go back to school." His soothing voice has helped me relax and between him and Nathan I feel much more comfortable with these boys than I did just moments ago.

     "Okay, so Im not trying to be rude or anything, but you are most definitely new around here. I mean, come on! I would have for sure noticed you if you'd been here any length of time. So where'd ya move from? How long have ya been here? What's your favorite color? What's your favorite food?" Gabriel started to fire the questions at me so fast that I couldn't possibly try and answer one before the next came flying at me. "Ummmm....we just moved here the other day from Illinois; my favorite color, let's see, I guess its a tie between a pale pink and a bright teal color. My favorite food, well that is the easiest question yet;" I start to giggle, "Chocolate chip pancakes with butter, whipped cream, and syrup." Luke starts to do a happy dance in the back seat as he crows "Me too!!" I can't help but start to laugh even more from his antics. 

     "Okay guys relax! We are almost at your driveway Sang. Are you sure you don't want us to drive you all the way down?" Kota asks one more time. My face pales, I can actually feel the blood drain from the veins that bring color to my cheeks, and the shakes start up again. At least this time I don't think the boys noticed. I quickly shake my head no, knowing that I can't use my broken voice to say anything right now. My throat is tight, and I can taste the vinegar and lemon juice mixture, like a ghostly reminder from my mother. Once Kota brings the Monster Truck to a stop at the top of my driveway, I give the boys a quick wave and hurry back to the house. I know that I will be punished as soon as I enter the house. I made my father wait for me, I wasn't ready by the time he left and to top it all off, I got home much to fast to have walked the distance from the school to our house. Which, according to mother, will mean only one thing: I was a bad daughter...

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Nathan's POV:

     As we all sat in North's truck, watching the new center of our universe as she quickly disappeared behind the large spruce trees, something in the back of my mind bothered me. I couldn't lay my finger on what exactly is was, but I knew something was wrong with my Peanut. I turned to Kota, "Brother, somethings not right here..." I wanted to tell my brothers about how my stomach was turning and my head was throbbing, but as I had no idea as to why these things where happening I couldn't bring myself to say anymore. But I was closest to Kota, he would know with out words what I was trying to say. He would know how very worried I was for her. 

     Kota just looked at me and nodded his head. "Luke later tonight I want you to come over here and look around see if you can figure out why she was so against us dropping her off at the door. Please don't get caught, we need her to trust us." Luke gavels a simple "Gotcha" and we started to drive to our ranch. I knew that there would be much mayhem at the house waiting for us. There were nine of us in our choir and now four of us had received our choir marks, only moments after meeting one little, quite, and yet, heartbreakingly beautiful girl. 

     As we pulled up to the house that had become our refuge and home, our other brothers waited for us on the front porch. Silas, silent and watchful, North, angry and loud, Sean, confused but trying to be the comic relief, Victor, worried and stand offish, and Owen, unreadable as always. I wasn't so worried about everyone else, it was Owen who worried me. It had been almost a century since my brothers and I had found each other and yet, still to this day Owen was the most closed off. I don't know what will happen when he finds out that Sang could be our one.