Eclipsed Star

Chapter Four

ROMAN POV

Insult to injury.  That’s the human phrase right?  Insult to injury.  I finally understood it as I waited in ridiculously short shorts surrounded by an entire class of similarly dressed teenagers.  Gym class has to be the single cruelest thing they’ve done to us yet.

“These shorts are riding so far up my ass they’re about to sprout cyper.” Drake muttered next to me.

“Oh, they aren’t so bad.” Sophia said, her optimism was starting to grate on my nerves.

The seven of us had to change in a small storage room instead of using the lockerroom with the humans.  I guess we were good enough to suffer through class together, but you wouldn’t want to risk any contamination during changing clothes.  I hadn’t been able to help but notice Teri hadn’t worn a bra.  It’d been almost a year since we hooked up, but that didn’t make her any less hot.

Knowing she was batshit nuts was the only thing that kept me from getting back together with her.

“So do they have, like a meaning?” The blonde girl from class earlier asked, laying her hand on Drake’s bicep.

“They’re not actually Tattoos.” Teri spat.

“I know, but they’re just so intricate.” She ran a finger along the markings running down Drake’s arm.

“You should see the rest of them,” Drake flexed his arm as she continued her investigation.

“Careful Jessica, you wouldn’t want to get some Tattie disease.” A human boy with blondish red hair said.

Before I had a chance to offer up one of the well crafted retorts I’d been practicing in my head since Dad told me we were going to start coming to school here, a deep voice spoke from behind me.  

“Why don’t you fuck yourself in the ass, Eric?”

I turned and found the boy from earlier, the one whose shirt I was wearing right now, standing tall, fire burning in his eyes.  His comeback didn’t have the subtlety I’d been working on, but it made up for what it lacked with sheer ferocity.  Why would he be so mad?  

“Says the Rez Rat. Why are you even here redskin?”

Jacob’s eyes burned even blacker and he clenched his fists so tight I could see the lines of muscle running up his arms.  He looked like he was about to explode, his arms shook violently.  

“Ho there big guy,” I soothed, stepping between them.  “No sense getting all worked up about some punk who can’t keep his bigotries straight.”

He didn’t acknowledge I’d spoken, just kept staring right through me, so I stepped closer and placed my hand on his shoulder.  “Jake?”

He shook his head, as if clearing it by an act of will and stared at me.  His brown eyes deep and mesmerizing.

“Hey, Jake, are you in there?” I whispered, calling back the young boy who’d been so disoriented in the bathroom earlier today.  I could feel his body shaking under my hand, his wide shoulders vibrating with a wild intensity that scared me.  More than being in a room full of humans awaiting a gym teacher who may well issue them bats and let us get beaten black and blue all in the name of sport, I was unsettled by the gaze of one boy.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling himself together.  He leaned toward my touch so gently, I almost doubted it happened, but the grin that broke out on his face assured me it was real.

***

JAKE POV

Once inside the locker room, my nerves settled. Changing really wasn’t what bothered me, it’d be the showering afterwards. I rolled my eyes at the thought. Dread still clung to the edges of chest and stomach. If only I’d gone through this whole ‘locker-room awkwardness’ when I was younger. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been so shy now at sixteen. It’s probably no big deal, but I still felt sick about it.