Ruthanne Georgeson High

💎 •One-on-One Encounters•

Yvonna's head pivoted to face Luyanda.

Hera asked, "Are you seriously sure of what you're saying? Like, how is that even possible? Ren? Who sees him? Like--?" She looked to Yvonna helplessly.

"I'm sure a hundred and one percent. It's him. There's a video. And that's not all. But Renee was involved. I think she got to see them, the girl and Ren, and things just blew up. It was mad."

"Woooah."

"Believe me, sis."

"Talking. to. a. diadem?"

Yvonna was extremely silent. Sickeningly silent. But a silence different from earlier. This more raw, laced with bitterness, and depthless, anger. Pain. Pricking all the more because of her crush on Ren.

She's never spoken to him. Like, sitting and chatting, having a conversation with him. And a nameless entity was just barging in, charging up the ranks to bring him out in the open like it's no feat at all? All they've had were passing comments and greetings, at the Media & Publicity they both worked in. He's never considered her someone more than just the other girls, students.

He was so high, up on the social ladder - at the seventh, zenith - the Diadem, and she was on the fifth, Sapphire. It takes a lot, more than funds to climb up the Gems' Empire. ''You say she's a scholar?''

''Uh huh.''

''Get me info on her. Right now.''

Luyanda nodded, and picked up a tablet from a table mat. She began to work on it. After a while, she handed the gadget to her boss-student, having completed her search.

Yvonna absorb her findings, her greenly mascaraed eyes fixated on the bright-screened tab. ''Science student. Sophia's scholar. On the Rubie & Glints timetable formation. First class: biology, nine oh five a.m.''

Vonna raised a shiny glassware to her lips. It was painted a flashy lemon. Sipping a drop of water from the tumbler, she pointed to the phone. ''Our first stop for today is decided. Her.''

Her order was clip, and left no room for opposition. And herr minions always, always followed mindlessly.

Minutes later they cruised on asphalt, out of a secluded estate blanketed by a turquoise-hued air. Yvonne drove the convertible with its top down, her friends occupying the remaining seats as the wind whipped at their treated hair extensions and slapping against the shades over their eyes.

---

Biology Lecture Room, 4th Floor, Classrooms Block.

"Hey." Yvonna flicked shut Demi's book with force. She rested her hips backwards on a desk; Hera and Luyanda stood guard on either side of her, forming a triumvirate arc-like before Demi who sat lowly before them. "It's 'nice' to have this meeting, finally," she went on, and turned to her subordinates, condescendingly: "Is this her?" Because she could not for the life of hers believe how bland and unadorned the girl was. "Ren," she drawled out the syllable, "was. talking to. . .," juggled the thought in her mind.

The girl was even way below the people she normally dealt with. Way empty than the emptiest. But that's not enough to lit a spark of mercy in Yvonna. The girl had crossed a line, and she'd roast her raw. She was going to be stripped to having yet nothing - an empty shell. A thread. A dried body with no trait of nutrients.

Yvonna rolled her attention back to Demi. "So - you're the one who dared getting talked to by a god? What are you?"

Pin-drop silence.

"What are you?!" Yvonna lurched forward over the desk separating her from the girl, eating up the distance between their faces.

Demi jumped back, her eyelids fluttering in reflex, all tints washed away from her countenance.

"What is your name?" Yvonna asked even-toned now, but brimming with lethality.

"D-Demi."

"Demi who? Rockdale? Callaghan? Animashaun? Leoni?"

"N-o-o..."

"Then who?"

"I-I." Demi swallowed hard a bile unformed lump. "I-lori."

Yvonna inspected her submission like an alien. A foreign and dirty name she has never heard of in all her life. She knew everything. Knew the rich, every single one from each part of the world, and the girl's revulsive surname was not among.

Demi watched pop-eyed, fearfully from a student around her, including all the rest beside her to another in the lab kind of class. Her mind fished back to hours long long long ago, at the auditorium, a replica of what was happening in the moment and the twin brother coming to 'save' her. She felt lost, utterly. Didn't know what to make of the situations she's been finding herself in oftentimes than not. 'Who is he? Your Dad?' rang in her perception world, and pulled her consciousness back. She refocused on the present. Who is her Dad? What- does that mean? She kept quiet on having no tangible answer to the query.

"Can't believe how dumb she is!" Hera exclaimed, shifting from one pump-clad foot to the other. The pumps were of net and costed two hundred U.S dollars.

"Doll, I'm not going ask you again. This'll be the last time, and you'd better give me a satisfactory response. Who is your father? What does he do? Which family do you come from? What do they do there? Any reputable investment?"

Demi shook her head vigorously. "N-nothing. Nothing of such. We- don't do any- thing!"

"Just imagine that," Luyanda chipped in, albeit unwillingly, not wanting to just stay observant for Yvonna's sake. She began to amble around the class, anything to not have part in the grilling. Her soul was torn, for deep reasons within her, and went unnoticed by the rest.

Yvonna imitated Demi's nodding with a bitter one of hers. "So, you're basically a pest, nonentity allowed through the gates of Ruthanne."

Hera said, too, "And you had the guts-"

"Vonn! Vonn." Lu came skipping back from her wanderings, after stopping at a wide window and spotting someone through it. The rest of the students in the classroom and those outside, at the balcony, lurking at doors scampered, too, in fright - to avoid any collision, and just because of their in-built behavior, fashioned in Ruthanne to the higher ranking gems.

"What?"

"What's it?" Hera echoed.

"IVIE! She's approaching. And she's coming right here. Like, right here, directly..." Luyanda rattled.

"Oh- " The air's weight landed before Yvonna could complete her statement.

And.

Ivie Okoye.

Along with Carolyne Higgins, Ellen and Rahama, walked through the door.

The latter two carrying a bowl.

-

*decided to post one a day earlier! Tomorrow's original is still coming.*