[Editing Hiatus] Fallen Hope

Chapter Ten

My eyes went to a girl with hair the colour of honey. She stood behind the table with her hand grasping papers and a pencil case under her arm. She was smaller than Daniel, about my height-five-foot-four-give or take an inch. 

"Cass, what are you doing here?" Dan panted.  

Her crystal-like blue eyes rolled as she set her things down and pulled out a chair. From there, she plopped herself down. "It's four o'clock Dan." Her head lifted from the papers, eyes narrowed. "Who is she anyway?"  

"Right..." he sighed, cheeks flushing. "Cass this is my... friend, Liara. Liara this is my sister Cassidy." 

"She looks a little more than a friend to me." 

Dan scowled as his hand went around mine. "We're not yet up to that. Can't you do your homework in your room?" 

"No," Cass groaned. "You know I come out here to do my homework."  

"Fine, whatever," he murmured, shrugging as he stood with me. "Don't mind my sister, Liara. She's going through that teenage attitude phase." 

"And take the dog-I don't need my homework eaten, again..." 

Dan snickered. "Come on Jack."  

I glanced around him to see what was so funny. With all the room that dog had in his cage, he was upside down, jamming his head in the crate's corner. Panting, Jack swivelled around with a whimper and trotted inside with us. 

The coolness of the house was a relief after being outside. I hadn't realised how humid the air had turned. 

Stepping behind the couch, Daniel took a remote from the wall. A second later, partitions were folding back, revealing another floor to ceiling window. I gasped at the view unfolding behind them. A massive red-pine deck looked out over a white tiled pool and spa. 

Dan pulled back the glass door. "I think this will be enough privacy." He returned my smile as I went through the doorway. 

I looked up to the deck's white ceiling. Small orange lights ran in a single line. A dinner table, the same toned wood as the deck, sat to the side, further up was another lit up fountain. Wooden beach chairs looked out over the city and pool view. 

A basic wooden railing lined the white marble stairs, leading the way down to the glass pool gate before joining more decking around the spa and pool. 

As Dan levered the gate's lock, clouds darkened the sky. Coloured lights of green and blue flicked on inside the bubbling spa, followed by average lights on the inner pool walls, reflecting patterns in the pool's depths.  

"You don't only live here with Cass, do you?" 

He snickered. "No. My adoptive Mother lives here, too." 

"So you're adopted," I stated. "You only have a Mum?" 

"I was fostered first then adopted by her. I did have a Father, until he kicked us out after Mum found out he only agreed to foster us for the money to fuel his hidden drug addiction. Before her, I had been separated from Cassidy until I was twelve-hence why she had an attitude with you. She doesn't like sharing me, in case she loses me again." 

"I understand." I smiled. "How old is she?" 

"Almost, seventeen..." 

"I guessed fourteen." 

Dan nodded. "That's about as old as she acts at times." 

Motion detector lights flicked on over the pool and to an uncover shelter, where beach chairs laid out. The shelter's roof was also covered in foliage, Balinese style.