A while week he's avoided everyone. Slipping in and out of classrooms, ignoring Bonnie's calls to literary running away from Stefan. He would just catch the bus straight home after school and do homework, chores and read his spell book.

The book Grams had given him was great when he could read it. If it was just written in Latin that would've made things easier but there's also, Bulgarian, Scandinavian, Russian an a little French. Whoever had written the book didn't like the idea of someone else reading it becuase it was basically written in code.

From what he could decipher hes learnt about elemental magic and some erbs and there uses. There was even a section that he could make out the talked about werewolves.

Linkin was at home getting ready for school when there was a knock on his door and a throat clearing obnoxiously. "Yes sir?" He asked turning around. He knew it was his dad making him a bit nervous. All it would take it one wrong move and he could loose it.

"I'm giving you a ride today." Richard said from the doorway.

"Oh." Link said suprised.

His father furrowed his brows. "What?" He said in a lower tone.

"Oh no, norhing sir. I was suprised is all." He quickly said.

Richard seemed to accept that. "Good. We're leaving in five. Meet me at the car." He said not waiting for an answer as he left.

"Thats was wierd." Linkin thought quickly rummaging his stuff into his bag.

The trip was akwardly quite for Linkin. His father asking the basics questions like "How are your grades?", "Any extra credit you can achieve?", "Have a girlfriend?". He answered them all quickly and as monotone as possible.

"My grades are good.", "I've already finished three extra credit projects the teachers assigned.", "Nope, there's no one." He answered.

They had pulled up to the school and Link was about to close the door behind him when his father spoke. "Carol and I need a favour." He seemed almost pained to ask.

"Yes sir?"

"Tyler's grades have been dropping and we need you to tutor him." Richard struggled to say.

Linkin just nodded.

"Good." His father said and Link closed the door watching confused as his father left the parking lot.

...

Classes were the usual boring routine. Linkin didn't like the fact that he may be enjoying the lack of Mr Tanner around the school.

He had been about to go wait for the bus when Caroline came out of nowhere blocking him. "Hey Linkin." She said all bouncy.

"Hey Caroline." He said with a force smile. "What's up?" He asked her since she was just standing ther akwardly.

"Oh. I ah." She stammered.

"I'm sorry but I gotta catch the bus or I'm walking home." Link said stepping around her.

"Thank you." She called after him and Linkin stoped an turned to face her.

"What?" He asked confused.

"Thank you. For helping me, at your house on founders day." She said sincerely.

Linkin was a little stunned as he just nodded to the girl before getting on the bus before the doors closed. He took a spare seat thinking about the very wierd interactions he was having.

...

Linkin sat at thr dinner table just picking at his food. It's not that he wasn't hungry, it was more that there was this awkwardness in the air.

Carol then cleared her throat looking to her husband.

"Right." The man mumbled feeling for his suit poket before reaching in and pulling out a set of keys. "I've decided to give you your grandfather's old Chevy. It's been in the garage for to long and we can't have a Lockwood riding a public school bus." He said sounding like it was a ridiculous thing holding out the keys.

Linkin didn't hide the suprise as he took the keys from his father. "Thank you." He said in an almost mumbling way.

Richard nodded before straighten out the creases in his suit. "Now I think it's time for you two to study." He added.

That's when Linkin realised that the car wasn't a gift, but a bribe so he would actually help his older brother. "Yes sir." Linkin said deflated. He knew this wasn't going to be easy by any means.

Tyler simply groaned while getting up from his seat. "I'll meet you in your room." He said befor walking off to collect his work.

Carol watched as Linkin left the room before turning to her husband. "Do you think he'll find out?" She asked him.

The man scoffed. "He's just a kid. He wouldn't even know to look." Richard said.

"But the car was your brothers to give to him since it was his after all." She noted taking a sip of her martini. "That man." She said in disguste. "He should've never of giving us that ki-"

"I told you never to speak of this while we are in the house." Richard hissed glairing at his wife.

"He's just like him." She said lowly in distaste so her husband wouldn't hear before downing the rest of her drink.

...

"Your room is wierd." Was the first thing Tyler said as he walked in, his eyes scanning the area. He thought it was wierd that there were so many different coloured candles placed around the room.

"Well the only person usually in here is me."Linkin snarked from the table.

"Whatever." Tyler groaned.

Linkin sighed realising something. "There isn't enough room in here." He said.

"No shit." Tyler replied and Link just rolled his eyes. "Let's just go to the garage." He said.

"Sure." Link agreed.

...

They had been at it for about an hour straight. Linkin had to teach Tyler the basics in geography and mapping before theyoved on to math.

"I don't get this." Tyler grunted snapping another pencil.

Story of your life. Linkin mentally sassed. He had a look over his brothers work. "Thats because x is a negative and needs to be times'd by a in order to make it a positive. Then you can get the figure of y by-"

"Can we just move on." Tyler growled growing more irritated by the second.

"Do you want to keep playing football?" Link asked sarcastically making his brother look at him with wide eyes.

"How do you know about that?" He said acusingly.

"It's not hard to put together. Failing grades usually means you get cut from extra curriculas, aka football. Plus dad and your mom wouldn't want people thinking your incompetent. Hence why they asked me to tutor you. An because my grades are one fo the highest in the school." He half boasted.

"I want a break." Tyler huffed before getting up.

"So do I. But your grades suck an we have alot to do." Link didn't care if he came off rude at this point. He was over this before it even started.

"Im having a break." Tyler growled before walking out the garage and slamming the door shut behind him.

"At leats it wasn't my face." Linkin said remebering the many times his brother has thrown him into the many doors and walls of the house.

Deciding to stretch his legs Link got up and walked around. He looked at the benches with tools and different boxes. He eventually stopped infront of a car covered by a tarp. "This must be it." He said clasping his hand around the loose fabric before pulling it off in one big tug. He didn't expect the cloud of dust that filled his throat causing him to go into a coughing fit.

Linkin finally cleared his throat and blinked the reaming dust out of his eyes and gazed down. He looked at the dark metallic green paint on the 1970 Chevrolet. It had two black strips running down the middle of it's body. It had a few dings and dints, a scratch here an there too but it wasn't to bad at all besidesthe peelin gpaint. He made his way to the back and saw the silver metal writing unter the trunk that read Chevelle SS 454. "I guess that means something." He said to himself. Linkin didn't know much about cars because he never really had an interest. Now he was definetly motivated to read up on the topic.

He went to the front an pulled out the keys to unlock the door. He got in and sat on the drivers seat. The interior seats were leather and beige with black carpet on the floor. The steering wheel was a petrified dark oak wood with a metal centre that had metal chain like links connecting them.

What frew his attention was that the gear stick nob seemed to be freshly painted over. He squinted his eyes and made out some wierd writing on on it. Curious he decided to figure it out, so went back to the study table grabbing a pencil and papper before getting back over an into the car. He put the paper over there gear stick nob befor using the pencil to shade over the spot on the papper.

When he stopped he put the papper on the windscreen so the grage light went through the paper directly. He was confused seeing a heart shape with the letters M.L & Q.P inside it.

Tyler came back grumpilyopeningthe door and slaming it again. Linkinrushedhidingthe papper in his pocket an getting out to finish helping Tyler for the night.

After another hour they stopped and Linkin just went to his room for an early night. As he was drifting off into sleep he couldn't help but keep asking himself one question.

"Who is M.L and Q.P?"

Hey everybody 👋

Kinda a filler chapter that I turned into a semi-mystery plot point lol

As usual I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and if you did feel free to leave a vote and drop comments 😊.

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