Blood and Gold

Greater Than Man

"Witwicky, you're up!"
Light drifted hazily in through the dirty high school windows as Ivi Lennox covered her eyes. Her brother was about to make a fool of himself with a project he did a few class periods ago. Adoptive brother that is, but she still loved him like he was her own. Ivi's real brother was in some middle eastern county doing god knows what with his team. Captain William Lennox, a guy who had a baby and a wife waiting for him back here in Los Angeles. As well as a little sister who was still pissed he had left her again. They had promised to stick together ever since their parents had died in a car crash nearly eight years ago. Killed, she reminded herself darkly feeling the familiar anger broiling in her eyes. The girl let it go and focused on her time in the system. Of course, the Witwickys came along after a couple weeks or so, a sweet couple with a son her age. Ron and Judy adopted them both, even though Will was only with them a year before he enlisted in the Air Force. She was mad now, but back then she had been down right murderous. Granted, she understood, but it didn't mean she liked it. Eventually, the routine became normal and Ivi started to be fazed less and less. Until this time. He was supposed to be on leave for a bit, just so he could see his baby being born, but no. She shook her head. He was supposed to retire, but he kept pushing it off. "Another year," he would say.
Ivi knee he loved the Air Force, but he did have other priorities now, like raising Katherine. After their mother, it was a cute decision. She had only gone to see her Sister-in-law, Sarah, a couple times, but her niece was already as twice as big as she was when she was born. It was...weird. The girl was pulled out of her thoughts alarmingly as the bell went off, and Sam was stammering out the last of his report. He was absolutely flustered, and it didn't help that Mikaela sat directly in his line of sight. The poor girl, who happened to be one of Ivi's closest friends, had been the subject of Sam's affection since before she had come along, and Mikaela had no idea. The high school student was a typical airhead girl, only interested in tall and buff guys. Not that it was totally bad, especially since Sam was nowhere near any of that and never would be. Her brother wasn't exactly boyfriend material. He had his moments, but at the end of the day, he was still a teenage boy. Ivi patted Mikaela gently and was heading over to her brother when the girl asked, "You're still coming to the party right?"
Ivi blinked. The lake party, right. "If all goes well!" Ivi giggled, smiling brightly as she walked to her brother's side.
The only way she could go was if she had gotten a good grade on the report, as was expected by her parents. "Pretty good, right?" Sam asked, looking between her and the teacher, a bored, middle-aged man that lived to terrorize them.
Uh-uh, Ivi backed away just a bit. She was not helping him out of this one. He already cheats off her homework, there was no way she was putting her reputation in the line for him like this. "I'd say a solid B-"
That was pretty good, considering how Sam had procrastinated, but it wasn't what he needed. Today was the deadline to get another A so he could get a car. Well, their car, but Ivi had already earned her half of the A's. "You were hawking your great-grandfather's crap in my classroom!" The teacher exclaimed.
"Well I wouldn't call it crap," Ivi interjected, hoping to soothe the tension.
It slightly worked, as the teacher was also a history lover and knew the importance of such items. But then Sam had to put himself back into the problem. "Sir, can you do me a favor? Can you look out there at the man sitting in the green car?"
The teacher indeed did so, his face already displaying how tired he was of Sam's antics. "I wanna tell you about a dream. A boy's dream -and girl's dream" he added after seeing Ivi's glare, "and a man's promise to the boy and girl. He said, "Kids, I am going to buy you a car, but first I want you to bring me $2000 and six A's. We got the money and five A's. You're solid B-? Poof, dream gone. Kaput."
"Sammy," Ivi whispered, not sure this was the best tactic, but he pushed her a bit.
"Sir, just ask yourself, what would Jesus do?"
No! Her blue eyes flew wide open and she was about to try and distract the teacher from what had just happened, but -much to her surprise- the teacher sighed and stamped an A- on his paper. "Get out, Witwicky," he groaned, putting his head in his hands.
"Yes!" Sam shouted, taking the paper and heading out the door.
"You better wait for me!" Ivi called, turning her attention to the teacher with a shy smile on her face.
She really hated having to talk to anyone she didn't know very well. "Sorry sir, umm can you tell me what I got in my report?"
In contrast to dealing with her brother, the teacher knew she wasn't a haste, and placed her graded paper in her hands and she said a quiet thank you before skipping out in pursuit of Sam. Easy A, just needed proof.
The girl jumped into the green convertible, smiling at her balding adoptive father, Ron, as he held out a hand for her assignment. He took it, scanned it, then handed it back without a change in face. "This is why you're the favorite, Ivi," he joked as the car pulled away from the school.
"Yes!" She laughed, swatting Sam's hands away as he tried to push her out the car. "So I can go to the petty?"
Then, he frowned, "Yes, but no boys. You know the rules."
That she definitely knew, besides, all the boys around were just...gross. They could never know the real her and Ivi was more than happy to let it stay that way. "I got a little surprise for you both," their father said, pulling into the Porsche dealership.
Sam began to freak out in his normal little girl way, but Ivi just leaned back, face red as people turned to look at them. There was no way their father was getting them a Porsche, not with how little he liked to spend money. Not that it was bad, but he was a little cheap sometimes. After he revealed what she already knew to be true, her father laughed at Sam's betrayed realization. Ivi patted his shoulder. "Are you going to be okay?" She asked, giggling as he pushed her hand away.
"Shut up, favorite."
Touché. Ivi hummed in contentment and got out with them as they pulled into some backwards little dealership, with cars that looked like and old, old person might have driven when they were her age. While her father and brother bickered over Sam staying a virgin for the rest of his life, Ivi smiled at the salesman, who was probably the owner, that came to greet them. "Gentlemen! Bobby Bolivia, like the country, except without the runs!" The man laughed weirdly, ultimately ignoring Ivi.
She frowned, but shrugged it off and explored the car dealership, looking at all the old vehicles surrounding her. Half of her was tempted to convince Sam to get any old one. She loved mechanics, so much so that she wanted to go to college to become a mechanical engineer. If they got a random one, she could get a job over the summer and use the money to make alterations to it. That was the plan, however, before a dirty vehicle caught her eye. A Camaro with racing striped. "Hello!" Ivi whispered, gently placing her hands on the hood to feel the metal.
What the hell? It was still hot, as if someone had recently driven it. No matter how odd that was, Ivi turned for just a moment and located the group of males heading towards her. Sam had spotted it too. "Not a piece of junk," Ivi said to him as Bobby Bolivia started rambling on about the car, until he said something that caught her ears.
"I don't know nothing about this car!"
After that, he called to one of the mechanics, a guy by the name of Manny, and they bantered about the nature of the vehicle for a bit until Sam got into the car. Ivi leaned in the window, breathing in the leather smell and smiling to herself as Sam wiped the dust off the center of the steering wheel. A strange symbol was revealed, almost like an angry face, and Ivi decided she might draw it later, if she was able to sneak onto the roof that night. "It feels good," Sam turns to her, actually seeming impressed by the car.
She was too, it was the type of car she liked to draw, but not necessarily drive. It was very nice and had a certain feeling to it that she couldn't quite place. "How much?" Their dad asked, and a sinking feeling wormed its way into her gut.
It wasn't a piece of work like the others, even if it was a bit worn. "Well, considering the classic nature of the vehicle, and the custom paint job-"
"But it's faded," Ivi spoke up.
"Yeah, but it's custom," Bobby Bolivia deadpanned, waving his hands at the car as if it was obvious.
It was, but that wasn't the point. "It's custom-faded?" Sam asked, frowning up at her.
She had the urge to tell him to shut up before the man ran his mouth again, this time she didn't catch what he said. "Five grand," he said when she placed her arms in the roof of the car.
Awww, her heart sank and she moved away from the car as their father asserted he wasn't paying over four grand. "Kid get out the car."
"You said cars pick their drivers!"
"Well sometimes they pick a driver with a cheap-ass father, get out," the salesman said, starting to get into the car next to them. "This is a classic car right here," he rambled on.
As Sam got out, he must have shut the door a little to roughly, as the passenger side door opened up and slammed into the car next to them. The car the salesman was in. Oh brother, you're in trouble now. "Don't worry about this!" The guy said, climbing out.
He started to lead Sam over to another car and Ivi turned her head thoughtfully to the car. What if she did some sweet talking? Maybe the guy had an inflated ego. Just as the gears were turning in her head and she bit her lip in thought, the girl swore she heard the radio turn on in the Camaro. "Greater than man," it said before an ear-splitting frequency came from nowhere and shattered ever single window in the dealership.
"Holy Mary mother of god!" Ivi hissed, ducking just in time to get out of the path of glass projectiles.
As she stood straight again, glass crunched underneath her white flats. Huh. How did that happen? The girl whipped her head around to the Camaro. It couldn't have been...right?
Whatever her thoughts were heading towards, they were drowned out as the man announced that four grand would work for the Camaro, and a giddy smile lit up her face.
"Did you do that?" Sam asked in the way home.
Ivi frowned. "Absolutely not, I'm not that mean."
"No...freak outs right?"
Her body froze. It had been years since her last episode. Whenever she was upset -extremely upset at that- weird things happened. Light would deep from her eyes like smoke and she became much stronger. There were other things, things she could control, but Sam had no clue about those, and he didn't need to know anyways. Not now at least. "Not for years, Sam, you know that."
He nodded and they listened to music the rest of the way home. Strange, though. She couldn't recall either one of them turning the radio on.