Love Bites

Chapter 20: An apple a day

20.

They wanted to keep Susie in the hospital for a few days to monitor her. After spending nineteen hours straight by her mothers' bedside, Ruby was finally kicked out of the hospital room to get some sleep and go back to school. She tried protesting to Annette and Miles but when Susie jumped in to agree with them she had to listen. How could she possibly just waltz back into school as though nothing had happened and sit a math test? If she was being forced to leave the hospital the only thing she wanted to do was find Fox and see what information he'd uncovered about the prophecy.

Unfortunately she found herself sitting in class hours later staring up at Gideon as he preached about something unimportant. Well unimportant in the scheme of things. She ignored the worried and pointed looks Serena and Alicia were throwing her way and focused on the blank notebook in front of her. She knew members of the council were speaking to her mother today to get an official statement. They wanted every single memory Susie had of the past four weeks as they started to put a plan together to find Viktor. She also knew, from Rose, they were interrogating the Purpuriu man who had led them to the camp where they'd found Susie. They wanted to ensure he didn't know where the camp had moved to. So whilst, to the average person, it appeared the council had this in hand; Ruby couldn't just sit at school and waste time. She wanted to help in any way she could.

'Hey,' she approached Gideon after class waiting for the last of her classmates to exit the room. She saw Serena pausing at the doorway to wait for her and waved her on.

'Hey Ruby, how are you going?'

'I was wondering if you could excuse me from the rest of the day, I'm not feeling very well.'

Gideon paused and looked up from where he was marking some papers, 'What's wrong?' He sounded like he didn't believe her.

Ruby had to think fast, and there was usually one thing males didn't ask further questions about. 'I have my period, really bad cramps.' She winced and clutched her stomach.

Gideon's face drained of colour, 'Of course, I'll let the administration know.'

'Thanks,' she smiled gratefully pulling out her phone to call for a ride feeling slightly bad for lying to Gideon.

*********

'You're actually going to be the death of me.'

'I thought you creatures were immortal?' Ruby deadpanned.

'We can definitely die, and if I help you do what you just asked me to do my brother will personally oversee my death.'

Ruby rolled her eyes, 'I feel like you are exaggerating just a tad.'

Rose glowered back at her, 'there is no risk in this for you, he's smitten with you. I am going to take all the heat if he catches us.'

'I...wait what?' That was ridiculous! 'He absolutely is not!' If Rose thought Fox's behavior toward her was his being smitten with her she was seriously concerned for her future relationships.

'Oh please, if Fox came home and found us snooping through his office do you think he'd actually do anything to you?'

Ruby leant against the doorway of Rose's bedroom deep in thought. She'd been trying, pretty unsuccessfully, to get Rose to help her break into Fox's home office for the last fifteen minutes now and was about to go to plan B. She thought she'd hit the jackpot when she realized Rose was also home from school, although taking in the bright red nose, tissues strewn about the room and the giant fluffy bathrobe – she wasn't too confident in the assistance.