I heard another groan coming from beside me. It was the ninth one in twenty minutes.

Jimhaya was sitting beside me in English class looking as board as ever. Her feet were popped up on the desk as she was holding her chair on two legs. Her hands were dangling to her side and her head fell backwards so she could see behind her.

Only twenty minutes had passed in the course and Jimhaya was bored. In fact, it started the second she walked into the room. The only problem was that she was making everybody around her uncomfortable. Being in a school of mystical creatures had its perks. Most of the students knew something was wrong with my lover the moment she stepped foot in class. The teachers were taught to notice the change in people and knew when to leave well enough alone. One glare from Jimhaya had the teacher speechless and on guard. He ignored the horrible attitude he would normally criticize and let her be.

Twenty minutes was what it took for the teacher to kick her out and me along with her because Jimhaya had been staring at the poor girl behind her in a predatory manner for five minutes without blinking.

“Miss. Bane, why don’t you bring Miss. Hundale out for a walk, she looks like she needs air” The teacher said. Jimhaya raised her head in interest. That had caught her attention.

With a sigh, I picked my books and threw them into my bag. Jimhaya was by my side within seconds. We walked out into the empty hallway but couldn’t help but hear the students start breathing properly again.

“Damn” Jimhaya whined beside me. “I thought it would never end. How can you listen to that bullshit for so long?”

“It’s interesting if you take the time to listen” I told her. She scoffed before looping her arm around mine. I was surprised by the physical touch but I remembered that she was not Jimmy. She was someone totally different.

“Now that the boring part is done, what are we going to do to kill the time” she grinned at me. Her smile gave an unsettling response to my stomach.

“Well” I cleared my throat “we have dance lessons after school but if you don’t want to go-“

“Of course we can go, I love dancing”

I smiled. “All righty then, how about I take you out and you can tell me about yourself and then we can go the dance lesson afterwards”

“Mhmm, sounds like a date. You’re on”

-

We were sitting in front of each other in a small friendly café in the village. Coffee and pie sat on the table in front of us. I had to ask Jimhaya to keep her sunglasses on her face to keep the other customers from freaking out because she thought it would be funny. I think it will take time for me to appreciate her humor.

“So” I said trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen on us.

“What do you want to know?” she asked me with a smile. I thought for a while before asking.

“Why are you so different from Jimmy? And how did you come to be?”

Jimhaya laughed darkly “Such hard questions. Don’t dates usually start with some small talk and easy questions?” She cocked her head to the side as she looked at my reaction. I was not laughing. I was serious. I didn’t know this girl in front of me and the only thing I have ever heard of her was negative or borderline psychotic. “Relax Angel, I can control myself”

“Yeah, like you controlled yourself against John Cho” I spat. I didn’t mean to be judgmental but I couldn’t help myself. But seeing Jimhaya’s expression hardened, I should have kept my mouth shut.

“You think I’m the one who killed that vampire? Do you think so low of me Angel?”

“I don’t know what to think at all Jimhaya. I don’t know anything” I replied sharply. Jimhaya took a deep breath.

“Ok, I’m psychotic but not that psychotic. The one who killed the vamp is totally out of her mind. I mean she couldn’t even form a decent sentence without ‘Mommy said this, Mistress said that’”

“Wait, what?” I asked confused. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying “There are more of you?”

Jimhaya slammed her hands on the table shutting me up quickly. She didn’t look happy and I could tell she was trying to control herself. Her red eyes were darker and her barring teeth longer. I sat in silence, forcing myself to be relaxed so she wouldn’t have any wrong ideas and waited until she was calm enough to talk again.

“Everybody has a dark side, and how we control that side determines who we are. If a child is taught that killing is normal, they feed on that dark side or if someone is taught that compassion is a good thing then those people control the dark side of themselves for the better.

When Jimmy came into puberty, her inner beast bloomed enormously and because she was never taught how to control it, it just fed and grew until it took more than half of Jimmy’s soul. Jimmy being a good girl never liked that part of herself so she tried to supress it and created me. My job was to help Jimmy control the beast inside us and feed it accordingly so that it does not take control. Now that would be bad” Jimhaya chuckled

“Then, when John got his hands on us, everything went haywire. Jimmy lost the will to fight and the beast woke up more hungry than ever. Imagine Jimmy and I as prison guards: Jimmy is the goody two shoes and I’m the more flexible one. I’m the one that feeds the beast and in exchange I take a little of its power. The amount of power we have at our disposal if phenomenon, so why waste it?”

“If you are who you say you are, why do you keep driving her crazy by talking to her?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be in a body where you have no control over? Where you can’t move any limbs nor say what you want to say? It’s boring as hell” Jimhaya waved the waitress over and asked for a coffee refill. Once the waitress was gone, she face me again “I used to be in stasis, like a comatose state and only woke up when Jimmy was scared or angry. But, now that she is depressed like the shit she is, she does not have enough energy to keep me asleep and therefore the awesome intrapersonal monologue speeches in our head”

A headache was starting to form in my head. I was trying to comprehend all the information thrown at me. So Jimmy had at least three personalities: a suicidal one, a psychotic one and an even more psychotic one. That’s just great. At least things cleared up a little. My lover was a tiny bit more complicated than I realized.

We finished our lunch and paid then we left the café. I tightened my coat around myself as the cold December wind blew through the air. It was not a warm afternoon at minus fifteen degrees Celsius but our bodies were getting used to it. Jimhaya on the other hand had a simple light jacket and a hat that covered her ears. The vampire and werewolf blood in her must keep her warm at any temperature.

Jimhaya noticed me snuggling in my coat so she surprised me once more by throwing an arm around my shoulders and I almost moaned. She was so warm; I could feel the heat piercing through my coat. I couldn’t help lean into her a little. We walked in silence all the way back to the school. We had taken the long road there to pass the time until we had to go back for our dance lesson. Dancing is a great way to know somebody because it is an activity of trust and teamwork. Trust is a crucial thing because the members of the dance must be sure that the others will be doing their part properly. In a duo, the follower must trust its team member to lead properly and the leader must trust the other to follow.

By the time we entered the school, everybody was in their last class of the day. I walked to my locker to pick up my gym bag and Jimhaya followed me. I heard my name being called and turned around to see Red and Jessica rushing our way.

“This will be fun” I heard Jimhaya chuckled beside me.

“Be nice” I warned her but she just grinned at me. When the sisters were by my locker, I could see what stated Red was in. She had bags under her eyes and looked worried. Her hair was in a messy bun and her uniform was wrinkled.

“Ah Jamie, before you do anything I need to tal-“she stopped talking once she saw Jimhaya correctly “You!” she spat her worries vanished from her eyes and replaced by anger.

“Me. Good to see you again sissy” Jimhaya answered.

“I want to talk to my sister”

“No can do, sweetie poo. Jimmy is unavailable right now and she doesn’t want to talk to you. By the way, you really hurt her feelings last night” Jimhaya shook her finger “naughty, naughty of you.”

“It was not her fault, she didn’t mean what she said” Jessica intervened.

“Of course she meant it, once and word is out, you can’t take it back” Jimhaya looped her arm around mine and touched Jessica’s nose with her finger “Now you, you were always my favorite. Always sticking to what you believe. I never understood why Jimmy never trusted you. Ah well, too bad. If you will excuse us dear sisters of mine, but Angel and I must go to our dance lesson”

With a salute, she dragged me by the arm and led me away but she didn’t get far. Red stepped in the way and glared at her sister. Her eyes were a blazing blue and I could feel magic building up around us.

“I want to talk to her” Red repeated. Jimhaya, unfazed by her sister smirked and leaned closer to Red without letting my arm go. I had a feeling I was her anchor and I hoped to hell that she wouldn’t let go.

“She does not want to talk to you. You fucked things up pretty baldly Jasmine and I’m the one stuck to pick up the pieces. Move”

Guilt flew through Red’s eyes before disappearing and refused to move. Jess touched her arm and slowly brought her to her body. “Let her go Jazzy, she needs to cool off”

Red reluctantly stopped her magic and let Jess take her away from us. She suddenly looked tired and twice her age. Poor girl shouldn’t have so much on her shoulders. I felt bad for not helping my best friend make amends with her sister but I also knew it was not the greatest idea at the moment.

We walked into the dance room where the walls were covered with mirrors. Our teacher, M. Gates, welcomed us and told us to start stretching. Ten minutes later we were ready to dance. We had to learn three choreographies: waltz, tango and hip hop with acrobatics. The last one was quite fun but prefer the sensual dances. I’m a horny woman, I am not to blame.

The differences between Jimmy and Jimhaya were outstanding. While Jimmy was passive, gentle with her touch and gladly let herself be led across the floor, Jimhaya was straighter and rougher, in a good way, and dominated the dance. She pulled me and led me where I was supposed to go without missing a beat and I frankly didn’t care. As much as she was different from Jimmy, she was still part of her and I accepted that. The way Jimhaya touches me, which was often, brought shivers down my spine in anticipation and she knew what she was doing to me.

Today we were practicing the tango and halfway through the dance, M. Gates stopped the music to correct something Jimhaya had done wrong.

“That was okay girls but there is something missing. Jamie, when come in I want you to move your arms like this” he said as he stepped behind Jimhaya and grabbed her arms. Wrong move.

In an instant, Jimhaya had the teacher off his feet by his neck slowly choking him.

“Do not touch me” she growled furiously. Quickly, I reached for the brown haired girl and grasped her wrist.

“Jimhaya, let him go, he didn’t mean to touch you” I said hurriedly. Jimhaya dropped M. Gates and he fell to the floor coughing. “I am so sorry M. Gates, Jimhaya is a little on edge these days what with Lena and the prisoners escaping”

“For some reason, I do not think that is the main reason Miss. Hundale is anxious” said a female voice behind us. Mrs. Adams was standing by the door with books held to her chest. Her big glasses lay on her nose comfortably and her hair was neatly tied in a professional bun.

“Adams” Jimhaya greeted happily. She waved to the teacher before hopping her way to her while I helped M. Gates on his feet. Once I was sure our dance teacher was fine, I followed Jimhaya to the door.

“Long time, no see” Jimhaya grinned. Somehow, the grin was not as dark and creepy as it usually was. I knew they had private sessions together but I did not expect Jimhaya of all people liking someone other than her family. And me, to which I think I am considered family to them.

“It is good to finally meet you in person” Mrs. Adams said.