Dark One: One for Sorrow... (The Khiara Banning Series Book 1) (3 page)

Pushing the voice out of the way, I smile back at him apologetically and say, “I’m sorry Damien. I’ve been feeling off lately. Maybe it’s lack of sleep. I don’t know. I usually feel off anyway, but it’s been worse lately, you know?”

He seems to understand, and shrugs as if to say,
what are you gonna do?

He reaches over, and grabs my hand squeezing it lightly. Victoria notices, and shoots him a look of annoyance from across the table though.

He waves her off with a small smile, and something passes between the two, something unspoken. My heart pounds wildly in my chest, and I notice that the light squeeze has turned into something much more firm – almost painful, and he’s looking at me with that strange look from earlier.

I get chills on the back of my neck leading down to my spine in two seconds flat.
Okay, so I wasn’t imagining the weirdness.
There is definite weirdness coming from him.

“You’re very hard to figure out Khiara.” He says, letting go of my hand, but something flashes behind his eyes and my heart gives this little flip-flop into my throat in a very not-so-good way.

Victoria seems pleased that he’s let go of my hand, and she turns away from us as if it never bothered her in the first place, but the look in her eyes as we make eye contact for a split second says otherwise.

She’s pissed.

So I look at him. Take a real good look at him.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to see, but I’m not sure I like it. I nod my head at him to acknowledge the conversation as being over as he walks back to the other side of the table and sits down next to Victoria, who looks ready to burst into flames.

“
Don’t
touch her,” she hisses at him so quietly I almost miss it. He frowns, seeming genuinely confused. Damien says something under his breath in a musical language I’ve never heard, but makes my heart stir in a way I can’t explain.

Victoria instantly pales, but tries to hide it, placing her hand on his arm lovingly, replying in that same language.

It doesn’t fool him though, and he shakes her off.

Something hits me in the head but I ignore it as I keep staring at Victoria, who begins yelling at Damien. I don’t know why it’s affected her so much, it’s not like we made out or anything. I turn to find that the thing that hit me was celery from Cara. I throw it back at her with a small smile.

“What was that for?” I ask.

Damien storms off, Victoria trailing after him in a hurry.

She laughs it off and everybody at the table follows suit, but my eyes linger on Victoria’s retreating form.

To get my attention back on her, Cara swats at me with her hand in playfully like a kitten. “We were just talking about the party. Did you know about a hundred people are coming? Maybe more! That’s amazing isn’t it Kiki?”

There are only about six hundred people in our town, and most of them are adults. How is that even possible?

“Yeah. I guess, though I bet most aren’t even from here.
Caroline.
” She’s called me Kiki since we were kids, and I hate it. In retaliation, I call her Caroline.

“The name is Cara, look at my birth certificate.” She says to me, her eyebrows drawn together in fake anger. She hands me one of her cookies and mouths
I love you Kiki,
giving me a little wink and making an obscene gesture with both hands to get me to smile.

I laugh and she goes back to talking with Janie, who’s prattling on about some fashion show they watch.

After the lunch bell rings I stop by my locker to get all of my things for music and accidentally bump into a girl from a lower grade as I turn to walk to my class, knocking all of her things to the floor.

She’s got long blonde hair and a cute spattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Her eyes are a beautiful green, and her skin is the same peaches and cream colour as Cara’s. Her glasses are small, square and practical, but the frames are a shade of beautiful gold.

“I am so sorry!” I say as I bend down to help her pick up her things.

“It’s okay! Really. I’m used to it by now. I’m always in the way of other people. I’m not good at anything but falling down and bumping into people.” She says.

I’m shocked at this statement; she shouldn’t feel this way, hell she’s gorgeous, and seems really nice. But I too know what that feels like. I was called Klutzilla until seventh grade because I tripped over my shoes in the hall one too many times.

I sigh and hand her some pencil crayons that fell out of her pencil case as she gathers up her papers. “Don’t feel like that. Believe me, I know how it feels to be called annoying things and it is
not
fun. But don’t worry, you’ll get over it and people will get over making fun of you once they get to know you.”

I reach out my hand, “I’m Khiara Banning.”

She stares at me for a second before extending her own hand. “I-I’m Lisa Foster. You’re in grade eleven right? I’m only in grade seven; I just started here not long ago.”

My school is a middle school/high school combo. The younger kids get the lower levels of the building while we get the higher levels. We don’t share a lunch.

“Well Lisa, it’s nice to meet you. And if you get into any trouble you can talk to me okay? Come and find me sometime.” I say as I hand her the last of her things and pick up my own.

She nods her head and beams, “Thank you. Really, I appreciate this so much! You’re the first person to be nice to me in the whole school!”

I smile at her and for the first time today, I’m not worried about feeling watched or creeped out by somebody. I’m just happy that I’ve managed to make somebody’s day.

Three

I’m looking into a really old mirror. It’s all cracked and the sides are rusty. I stand in darkness, not sure where I am and not liking it. I’m afraid of the dark, I always have been.

I keep staring into the mirror, unsure of what force holds my gaze. I certainly don’t want to look at myself right now; I’m a mess of tangled, bloodied hair, cuts and scrapes. Just as I’m raising my hand to touch the mirror, a man who looks a lot like somebody I know but whose name I can’t recall appears, holding out his hand.

“The Dark is calling,”
he whispers.
“We will win the war.”

And I’m jolted awake by the school bell.

“Ugh!” I groan.

I must’ve fallen asleep in French. This is how it goes every time I’m in this class. I just can’t stay awake because Madame Belle, her real name Miss Amanda Florence-Belle, just can’t speak the language well enough to hold my attention. I think she’s actually Russian, or something.

My father was born in France, so I speak French fluently.
Proper
French, that is, not the stuff that they teach in school.

I pick up my things and slowly walk out into the hallway towards my locker. Thank god I get to go home; I think I’m just going to go to bed when I get there.

As I trudge through the hallway, I get the sense that I’m being followed. I turn around and see Lisa, the girl from before, standing behind me with a sheepish look on her cute freckled face.

“I’m sorry to bother you Khiara, it’s just…I was wondering…I’m having trouble in French and I see that you just came out of the advanced French classroom and I was wondering if you could tutor me sometime. It doesn’t have to be soon.” She says.

I nod my head and reply, “Oh yeah, sure. No problem. Listen, I have to go now. My friend is waiting for me outside so I’ll talk to you later okay?”

She smiles and runs off, happily skipping to her locker, but she turns around halfway there and yells a series of numbers at me, which I realize a little too late is her cell number. I’ll try to remember it later, or I’ll catch up with her and ask for it again.

Once I get outside, I head straight for Cara’s car. Much to my chagrin though, she’s talking with some random boy in the front seat when I get there. I knock on the window of the shiny blue convertible and they both jump ten feet in the air as if being awakened from some sort of spell.

Normally Cara is kind of promiscuous. I mean, she’s a big flirt and when she dances at parties she gets a little too close and personal with whoever she’s dancing with, but she never
usually
acts on anything, though I have to admit she has in the past.

Awkwardly, I slide into the front seat as Mystery Boy slides out. He has a look of shame on his face and I can tell he’s extremely embarrassed. He’s kind of cute, with his giant thick-rimmed black glasses and a mess of red curls on his head.

“Hey, dude. It’s no use being embarrassed. Be proud. Being caught with me is an honour, really,” says Cara, reapplying her lipstick in the driver’s side mirror as if she were making out with him instead of just talking.

As Mystery Boy runs off, I say, “Cara, you
ass
. He looks so sweet, and he’s got to be a member of the freaking chess club or something.” It sounds mean and presumptuous on my part, but pocket protectors thick glasses and the innocence of Bambi don’t lie.

“His name’s Paul Virtue. He is indeed in the chess club, the captain of it in fact and he’s in grade
twelve
. Sorry okay? I got bored waiting for you. He was cute though wasn’t he? He tried to say no to me, but I’m just so irresistible. He made for a good companion while waiting for you. We talked about math.”

“You were
only
talking right? Nothing else? Cara this isn’t like you…well it is, but not this far. You looked like you were going to eat his soul or something…”

Cara turns to me and rolls her eyes but nods her head. “Let’s get you home so you can rest up before the party. It’s not like I was doing anything wrong, we were just chilling, talking about the wonders of trig since he’s in my class, and okay, maaaybe I turned the charm factor on a bit high, but I needed to know if I was on the right track on my homework.”

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m friends with her at all; we’re so God damned different.

As soon as I get home I head straight for bed. I don’t bother looking for my parents; they’re never home unless it’s absolutely necessary, sometimes making me feel like I’m really not important enough to them, which though I know is ridiculous I can’t help feeling some days. They’re always at work or out at the latest party they don’t know they can’t afford. It’s not really bad though, it just leaves me to take care of Pug and entertain myself.

Pug is curled up on my bed, waiting for me and wagging his little curly tail like crazy. I’m glad we can’t communicate with words. If you could talk to your pet like you would with a friend, the bond would be less strong, I think. I depend on him for comfort and company and he depends on me to just make sure he’s alright; we don’t have to talk. He’s not a social little dog and he hates most people.

I can see why though, he was beaten and left for dead by his last owners when he was just a newborn puppy. I found him and took him in a couple of years ago.

“Hey, buddy!” I say, patting his head and lightly pulling his tail.