Strange Aeons [Book 1]

19. A Hairy Situation [part I]

«Hey, it's half-past eight in the morning.» Chico's voice, from the breakfast table, surprised her. She looked at her watch. It only had been an hour and a half, and it had felt like a thousand years. She didn't even feel the time on the bus passing, she was so elated. She had spent the whole time thinking about Killian, and passing memories in her mind.

«So? What?» she asked, only wanting to collapse on her bed and sleep.

«...you had class at 8.15, recuerdas?» stated Chico, dryly.

Banshee froze.

«Fuck!»

«I'll drive.» said Chico, grabbing the keys and exiting, towards his pick-up.

She darted in her room, grabbed the uniform and bag and shot out of the window, air whooshing around her feet to sustain her in the air long enough to let her land beside the pickup, just as Chico was opening the doors.

«No magic in...»

«We'll say I parkour a lot! Get in!» she screamed, slamming the car door.

Changing clothes in the cabin of a pick-up truck wasn't as bad as someone could imagine. Especially for the cars they stopped by the two times Chico couldn't run a red light and got a glimpse of a tall Irish woman trying to fit in a uniform.

«You've been going to school for weeks and you still forget you have lessons!!» Chico reprimanded her. «If you don't like it, why the fuck don't you simply stop going to school? Garaham could pull you out of it in a snap.»

«I'm worried about Irissa.»

«Worried for... are you nuts? I should be worried that you're walking the same ground as that psycho!»

«She's just a girl! She's 18, she's been thrown in the world o' Magic. I was her age when this happened to me, and I had the luck to end up with a tyrannical old man, but that at least never covered me in zombies! Staccato does seem like he cares for her, but I can't still take that scene out of my head.»

«Right, because we don't have enough things to worry about already!» Chico slammed on the brakes, Banshee risked a close encounter with the windshield, but they had arrived.

«Trust me, ok? Ye'll see I'm right.»

«As long as you don't ask me to work more...» Chico shrugged, and Banshee darted towards the entrance of the school.

Chico started to go around the school. The sole thought and remembrance of Irissa had sent cold shivers down his spine. He didn't like it one bit that Banshee was still going to school. Chico's theory was that Irissa was simply waiting to get Banshee alone to take her revenge while shifting suspicions by showing her friendly face all around so nobody would think it was her.

«Al carajo con esto, it's her problem, not mine.» he thought, revving up the engine once more. He looked at the school one last time and then noticed something.

There was a man, standing near the school's fence. He was looking through the bars, down in the low sports field where some students were running around for their gym class. The man had his cell phone out, and it looked like he was taking pictures.

Chico couldn't tell what he actually noticed in him that put him on his guard, but he found himself looking at the man. Maybe just the creepy fact that he was taking photos of students in their sports clothes.

He turned down the engine and decided to wait. It was probably nothing. But he didn't have anything else to do, anyway.

Banshee thought about running into class, but at that point, it was quarter past nine anyway, she should just have gone to the next class, instead.