The Zodiac Trials

Chapter 3

Tara disinterestedly pulled splinters out of her fingers. Sidney lay at her feet, unconscious, being tended to by Leo and Jemima.

Of course nobody cared.

She fucking pulled an unconscious girl out of a pile of shrapnel after being crushed by a falling dumbwaiter full of two insolent cretins!

She looked over to the blonde boy, who was enveloped in a hug by the girl with the constellation of Aries on her cheek. The short girl was looking on, jealously. Did they even care that they nearly killed someone?!

Tara looked back down at Sidney as she groaned. She watched as she tried to sit up, wrenching one murky brown eye open. Sidney swayed for a moment before grabbing onto Jemima for support. Tara went back to picking out her splinters as Leo laid Sidney back down.

"Should we introduce ourselves?"

Tara looked up to see the girl with blue hair and spotty dark and light skin. Everybody fell silent.

"That's a good idea!" the Aries girl cried. "I'll start!"

"Go ahead!" The blue girl nodded.

"Okay... so, I'm Aria! Hello..." She stopped to wave at everybody. "I like cartography. As in, the study of maps. Draw them, read them, whatever. They are my passion. Hmm, what else... oh! I'm eighteen and... I'm really competitive." She fell silent for a moment. "That's it."

Wow, Tara thought. How comprehensive.

"I'll go next!" the blue girl cried. "My name is Penn, I use they/them pronouns and I love to draw. I am also eighteen."

Okay, so not a girl.

Penn gestured to a small girl with dark hair and thick purple glasses. She seemed to shrink for a moment, before speaking in a voice that was uncharacteristically bold for her size and stature.

"I'm Violet, I like to read, I enjoy systems, I base all of my choices off of logic and I am sixteen."

Everybody turned to Tara, who was next. Shit, she thought.

"Hey... my name is Tara. I'm eighteen. I want to be a police officer. Or a detective. Or a firefighter. Something like that."

A few people looked surprised, but Penn and Aria just nodded before gesturing to the next person.

"Quentin," the boy with beige hair and red streaks grunted. So that's the greasy little motherfucker's name.

"I have a motorbike."

Penn raised an eyebrow. "Anything else?"

The little creep grinned. "I'm sixteen."

How could he have a motorbike?

Tara's blood began to boil. That little cretin had found her asleep on a bed in the north wing of the mansion. He seemed kind at first, but after they had found some other people, he had tried to make a grab at her ass. Long story short, he had a black eye that, luckily for him, was covered up with his shaggy hair.

"I'm Samael."

Tara looked up at the next person. He was a small boy with light brown hair and big green eyes. "I am sixteen, I like to write and I am claustrophobic."

Everybody turned to the next person.

"I am Lydic, heir to Strathford Enterprises." This guy was Lydic Strathford?! This black-haired, green-eyed mister who had tried to take control of the entire situation after that dumbwaiter had fallen on the brown-haired girl?!