Chapter two: Another Day, another Death.

Emily woke groggily from her dream, the transition from asleep to awake coming sluggishly. It was the same one, with darkness and evil pressing relentlessly against something oddly green. She thought she could picture a person from the dream, but didn’t know if he was good, or evil so didn’t know what to do with her supposed thoughts. And then Simba snapped her out of them by jumping on her.

“Hey Simba. Thumbs time?” Emily asked, smiling softly.

“No actually. You didn’t shower yesterday, and so I am here to poddle you until you shower today” Simba replied, which elected a groan from Emily, but after a few minutes of poddling, she threw the covers over him again – he was more prepared for it this time and darted to the edge of the bed before they closed in too much – and headed to the bathroom, putting the shower on and setting it to the right temperature. Before stepping in.

Several minutes later, steam wafted from the bathroom as Emily exited, covered with towels and smelling fresh.

“Magnificent Yesura. You look radiant. And your thumbs are looking very grand as well” Simba proclaimed with his usual grandiose of tone. Emily rolled her eyes but got the hint, and went into the kitchen to prepare his breakfast. The warmth was quickly leached from her body, and she wondered when the cold was going to let up, it was months past its due, and Emily thought that British weather would be polite enough to not overstay its welcome.

Working quickly, Emily got the rest of the meat out of the fridge, scooped it into Simba’s bowl and chopped it with the spoon, before chucking the spoon in the sink, the can in the bin and sprinkling some cat biscuits on top. Simba’s appearance was prompt, and he was smiling, as much as a cat could smile.

“You should grow fur Yesura, that way the cold won’t be so bad on you” Simba teased before digging into his dinner. Emily thought of a few cruel tricks to play, but decided against them and went to the bedroom to change into her school uniform. Seeing her tie, she thought back to yesterday, and was reminded about the nasty bruise forming on her head, so she returned to the bathroom to check it out, but it had gone completely. Not even the slightest mark it was ever there to begin with.

Smiling, having won – however she managed it – a small victory over Catherine, Emily skipped happily back into the bedroom and finished off her uniform, before giving her hair a quick brush and returning to the kitchen to fix her own breakfast. While eating, she thought some more about her dream, but reached the bottom of her bowl before she had any coherent thoughts about that mess, so she put that in the sink as well and picked up her bag, deciding to be early so she could catch up on the stuff from yesterday.

“See you in a bit Simba” she cooed, waving before leaving the house and making her way to school. One advantage of being early was the sparse amount of people on her route, but the chilly bite was probably another reason. Everyone preferred cars in this weather, but something about the cold air made it seem fresh and pure.

With such weird and wonderful thought patterns that where usually prevalent in Emily’s head, the walk to the school vanished into thin air, and she found herself at the gate. She liked it when the walk just seemed to be over in an instant rather than the other times when it dragged out for ages. With yet another small point to be pleased about, Emily walked through the gates and then though the main entrance, but quickly stopped and tried her best to hide in the shadows as she saw Laas talking to someone. At this hour, any conversation must have been top secret, or so Emily thought. The man he was talking to looked very similar to Laas – and now that she thought about it, they both looked very similar to the guy she saw in her dream, but she knew neither of them where him – almost as if they were brothers.

‘The plot thickens! Brothers meet in the early hours!’ she thought, not that the hours where really that early. So she gave up such thoughts and decided to listen in on the ‘secret’ conversation. The man who looked like Laas was leaning on a buffer and doing the opposite of Laas, looking well-kept and dashing in sub-par clothing. Laas was in a well ironed suit and had a look of intent listening on his face, as he always did when he was talking to someone.

“So, how’s the school Laas?” The twin asked, and Emily gleefully realized that the conversation had only just started, so she didn’t miss anything.

“Three, currently. Or though I think we can rule one of them out. Different, but violent. The Daughter has a kind heart no matter the situation, and this person….is a bitch.” Emily shivered softly as she heard Laas’ formal tone being marred by a curse. It was unnatural, but the twin didn’t seem to mind. And also knew who this ‘daughter’ was.

“Well, actually meant the school part of it, but on that subject, do tell; what are your top two girls” the Twin replied, a much more generalized tone, like he had no accent and honey for a voice box.

“Well, I’d say Chaoz’s two Tantric girls, but if you are referring to here…” he teased, purposefully dragging out the conversation and confusing Emily more by the second. The Twin did not look impressed, but to Emily’s slight annoyance, didn’t say anything.

Laas laughed after a few seconds, and it was a lovely, ringing sound. “Ohh, Kaben. You are too easy to annoy. So, Top girl would be Jane Everwood.” Laas started, to which Kaben nodded. Emily’s heart leapt into her mouth hearing him mention Jane’s name, but curiosity stayed her feet. She wanted to know why they were talking about her.

“Yea, met her a few minutes ago actually. Took her to the Garden. She took to it very well. Or though, that might bring someone more perceptive than us.” He commented, before Laas nodded.

“Right, I’ll set some stuff up tomorrow for the undesirables. Second one would be Emily Thorntree. She and Jane get alone very well, and she had a casual way of life. Found her in a rather compromising position yesterday and she just shrugged it off.” Laas told Kaben.

If Emily’s heart was in her mouth hearing Jane, it had leapt from her mouth, hotwired a car, and driven home when she heard her own. It took her a few seconds to realize Laas had carried on talking, and so she missed the first half of it, but intently focused on the second half. “…-about her. Not quite who we are looking for, but a very close. I’ll keep an eye on the two and see if anything changes. But, looking at the time, I should get up to my office and start work. Keep safe Saal, she is nearly here” Laas said, before leaving to the head teacher’s office with his signature wave. One mystery was solved at least, the man wasn’t Laas’ brother – or Saal was not his surname – it was exotic enough to compete, however – and was instead some nickname – but the rest was all just confusing junk. Who was The Daughter? What interest did Laas and Kaben have with Jane and herself? What kind of undesirables would come for her after going to a garden? And who where they looking for, who was this ‘She’ that Saal had to stay safe for?

So many questions and no chance of answers made Emily annoyed, and she kicked the ground, only to realize she was outside, having wandered off in deep thought. Laas was right about the time though, cars were pulling into the park and teenagers where getting dropped off aplenty. Emily kept her eyes to the ground, not wanting to catch the wrong person’s eye and be accused of anything. She had enough of that yesterday with Cat. But, while she followed the herd of students, someone shouted out something and then suddenly snaffled her, making her cry out cutely. It was, of course, the only person she cared about in the school, maybe even the whole country. Standing there in her tall, pink-haired glory, was Jane.

"O..ohh, h-hi Jane" Emily stammered, always being a shy, retiring sort of girl with Jane. She wanted to bring up what Laas and Kaben where talking about, but was also worried about her. However, before she could voice anything, Jane spoke first.

"So, I wasn’t in yesterday, anything happen?" She asked, to which Emily nodded.

“Catherine did. And her friends" she mumbled, to which Jane sighed. Emily didn’t know where all her personality went when Jane arrived, it was just a strange feeling that she got. She wanted to be protected by Jane, and didn’t mind becoming the subservient weakling girl to get the protection. It made her sad, to be using Jane for her own needs, but Jane used her to stay her definition of sane, so it was a lovely, working relationship.

Right. I’ll deal with that at lunch, or so. But, can't let that bother us. We got class to get to. So, let’s get to it" She exclaimed. Emily stood for a few seconds and was amazed by Jane’s ability to brush off everything that came her way. She didn’t care what Laas said, Jane was the one that could carry on going after anything that happened to her. Snapping back to reality as someone bumped into her, she hurriedly followed Jane down the hall way, talking about the girls of today, and how they look as if they put on make-up with a shovel, about guys who have more fingernails than brain-cells, and about general life.

Eventually they got to the tutor room, and there they all had an annoying twenty minutes before school actually began to see who was in and who wasn't. It was the standard thing, Catherine wasn’t in, but would breeze in at first period and no one would say anything. But, Emily had gotten used to it, as much as she had gotten used to Jane getting into fights over her. Jane and Emily where the last ones in, and where subjected to the tutor’s stare of ire, but that to, Emily had gotten used to. Jane and Emily sat, and the tutor blathered about school stuff no one was interested in. Here Emily felt irritated. Not caring about the tutor’s blathering was her thing, and people were stealing it from her.

But equally, the Tutor was making it easy. Ten minutes into this, when the tutor was reeling off up-coming events that no one was going to go to, something clattered into the room. Of course, everyone leant over to see what it was, and where all blinded by the ensuing flash that emitted from it. There were many cries of surprise, some of pain, and then sight began to clear again, but, there were two men, big and ugly looking in the room as well. Emily frowned as her eyesight returned, remembering what Laas had said about undesirables, but there was no urgency in his voice, so these couldn’t be them. It had been no more than an hour since he mentioned them.

The first one spoke, said they were looking for someone important, and then in the most resounding way possible, proved her theories of their undesirability wrong. The shell hitting the floor was deafening, but logic told Emily it couldn’t be. It was just the shot of seeing the tutor get shot. People then started screaming and running for the door, but the two lugs waded through the sea people to get to Jane’s desk, who hadn’t moved at all. He muttered something, and then pointed his gun at Jane. Emily’s brain screamed at her to do something, but her legs wouldn’t move, her arms felt like lead, all she could do was stare at the gun pointed at Jane, and wish. Fervently wish that something was going to stop him from shooting Jane.

The wish came true a few seconds later when his gun jammed trying to shoot Jane, and gave the pink-haired girl a chance, proving to Emily how much better Jane was to her. Jane threw her desk at the man and turned to grab Emily’s hands, to take her away from this place. Emily felt a wave of overwhelming love towards Jane for the act, and then she was sprinkled with something. Her first thought was that Jane had spat at her, but that was not right, Jane would never do that. Then she saw the colour of Jane’s blood. Her mind refused, denied the fact that Jane had just been shot, even past the point when Jane collapsed on her and didn’t move. An anger she had never felt before surged inside Emily. It was a new anger, it felt like it was rising up from the bottom of her, and when it reached her head, a mere second after she had started feeling it, the sheer emotion released itself via the optical nerve.

Direct eye contact was made with the man who had shot Jane, and his smile wavered, before he blinked and dabbed at one of his eyes. His hand came away bloody, and he yelped in surprise, turning to Emily as his brain dissolved into a mass of blood and leaked out of his nose, his eyes, his ears and finally, his mouth. It was a gruesome sight, and Emily would not have been able to stand it if his partner hadn’t screamed in fear and anger, and put a bullet in Emily’s head, killing her instantly.