Safer This Way

Chapter 4

Not totally happy with how this one turned out, but it is what it is :) I hope you enjoy it anyways, 'till next time, happy reading! 

*Luke*

I've never seen my brother act like this.

Loud, brash, overprotective, angry, brooding, gruff...now those are all words I would associate with North Taylor, so to have him fall quiet and contemplative is like seeing a pig fly in real life. To be honest, it actually scares me a little to see him this way as we all stare in the direction of the car that disappeared with Shaw Sorenson not even a minute ago.

A quick glance around me shows the others are just as discomfited by his silence. He was was so clearly worried about Shaw after Mr. McCoy nearly knocked him over in the hallway, but there was a weird intensity to the following interaction, almost as if North was trying to see into the guy's soul, or like he already had and it confused him. In fact, even I had a strange reaction to the new kid, there's something different about him beyond the fact that he had manners and purposefully avoided drawing attention to himself, which in a school like this is practically unheard of.

I have a feeling our ragtag group of misfits will be looking further into the boy that caught every last one of our attentions in a matter of minutes, even Owen and Sean had texted asking about Shaw.

"North, you okay man?" I finally ask him when the silence becomes too much, but it's like he doesn't even hear me, standing with his jaw and fiss clenched tight staring at the spot where the Sorenson's car had been.

"Oy North! You in there?" Gabe jokes, waving a hand in front of my little brother's stoic face and it seems to do the trick.

Blinking rapidly, North seems to come back to himself before scowling at Gabe, slapping his hand away when he moves to wave it again.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He growls, and I breath out a sigh of relief. If he's growling then everything is as it should be.

Raising a hand to his chest like he's been fatally wounded, Gabe scoffs at him. "What am I doing? What the fuck were you doing? We've been trying to get your attention, but you were off in fucking outer space or some shit," his tone is playful, but the serious glint in his eyes shows his worry and uncertainty.

"Fuck," North groans, his head dropping as he grabs at the back of his neck, working out some invisible stress, "I don't fucking know, there's something about that kid. His fucking voice too, even as fucked up as it seemed he sounded so much like the girl from the woods I probably freaked him the fuck out with my questions." He sounds so un-North-like, genuinely concerned that he's scared Shaw off, but it's the mention of his singing forest fairy that piques all our interests as we gather around our cars on the far side of the lot.

"Familiar as in his sister could be the singer, or as in he is her, and just has a more feminine singing voice?" Nathan asks, voices my own confusion and I look to North for an answer, only he looks as lost as the rest of us.

"No, it was definitely a girl's voice, too high to just be a girly sounding guy, and his sister sounds nothing like him so that can't be..." he kind of mumbles an answer to himself, and I can see the wheels begin to turn in Kota's head, running through the possible reasons for this confusion.

"We may need to have another family meeting about what exactly to do in regards to Sahw now that we've made contact, as for the sister does anyone have reason to believe she could be the singer?" He questions, counting quietly under his breath as he waits for a response.

Victor, surprisingly, is the first to answer. "I heard her speaking in the line earlier, her voice is very nasally, not likely to be the kind of clear musical voice that North described," I'm actually a little relieved at that, couldn't have our little tree nymph turn out to be the evil stepsister.