Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (4 page)

Kaiser might
know
, Aradia thought to herself. The idea
seemed to have some merit but then Aradia realized that before he
left he had forgotten to give Aradia his number.

It sucks not having
connections
, Aradia concluded
bitterly,
but maybe I can ask
Dax
. She quickly shook her head, rejecting
that idea.
He would be no help. He thinks I
am crazy to try to promote tolerance in the first place furthermore
he would hate the thought of my putting myself in
danger.

She sighed heavily, which
was what Bane chose to comment on. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she grumbled, "or
everything if you really think about it."

"What?"

Aradia shook her head.
"Nothing."

Bane, however, smiled. "I
guess the rumors are true. There is trouble in
paradise."

Aradia felt frustrated
because for months she had bottled up her feelings of anxiety,
insecurity and so much more. She couldn't talk to Dax, Rhonda was
busy with D, and Melina practically spent every waking moment with
Roy. She wanted to talk to her parents but ever since they found
out that she had to repeat her junior year there had been animosity
growing between them. Her father had been pressuring her about
school work, college, and so much more. Her mother had nagged her
about money, listening to her father, and making the right choices.
Throughout the summer she had felt pressure everywhere she went
from her home, to the club, and the rest of Salem.

She hated it but most of all
she hated not having someone to talk to.

"Trouble in paradise?"
Aradia snorted, "More like trouble everywhere I go."

"What do you mean?" Bane
asked.

"For God's sake Bane, I am
swamped with work, and stress. In fact it's a surprise to me that I
haven't had a mental breakdown by now."

"Do you want to talk about
it?"

Aradia stared at Bane in
shock but then her eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to talk to me of
all people?"

"Because," Bane stated, "you
need to talk to someone so it might as well be me."

Aradia's good sense screamed
at her to leave right now and avoid Bane like the plague. However,
her desperation for conversation and companionship kicked
in.

She sighed heavily and sat
down on a nearby piece of equipment. "I don't know where to
start..."

Bane just smiled, walked
closer to her, and sat cross legged on the floor. "How about at the
beginning?"

Aradia should have expected
it, but finding out that Bane had blabbed about all her troubles
was still very hurtful. The stares she got at school had always
been bad but come Monday they were now enough to make her want to
crawl into a hole and die. It wasn't just the stares though, the
pointing and the whispering worried her as well. In fact some
people even glared at her maliciously while others
smirked.

After slamming her books
inside her locker, she leaned in and pressed her head against the
cool metal. It felt good to ignore the harshness of the world if
only for a few seconds.

"That's it." She moaned
under her breath.

As much as she wanted to
ignore the whispering and what it was about, Aradia knew she had to
find out the truth. Not just what Bane had told people, but what
everyone had been saying before as well. So with a heavy sigh, she
decided that after school she would go to the one person she knew
would tell her everything and enjoy how much pain it caused
her.

It was at the mall when she
finally cornered Tristan. Titania was sitting in his lap and
nuzzling his neck while he sat nonchalantly.

It was him, however, that
spoke first. "Ah Aradia, I was just thinking about you."

Titania paused until Tristan
went on, "I was just thinking of contacting you and wondering if
the horrible rumors about you were true." She then continued her
nuzzling.

Aradia sighed. "Depends on
what the rumors say exactly."

Tristan raised an eyebrow.
"You don't know do you?"

Aradia sighed again. "If I
did why the hell would I be talking to you in the first
place?"

The next day, Aradia sat
very still in her math class, so still that with the look on her
face and the paleness of her complexion one would think she was a
walking corpse. In the whole of one hour, Tristan had explained in
vivid detail what people were saying about her. The fights with Dax
were just the mild ones, the rumors about her repeating her junior
year were worse. Some said it was because she was in rehab, others
said it was because she had a mental defect. Then there were the
stories about her being the Witch Queen and using her influence to
usurp the other members on the council. Some even blatantly said
she was trying to take over Salem entirely!

However, the worse rumors
(if that were possible) were of her cheating on Dax. Ironic when
Aradia had been worrying about Dax screwing around people had been
swapping stories about her stepping out with other guys. Some said
they had seen her kissing other guys, freak dancing, and even going
into the back room of the club. One horrible rumor was that seen
someone had seen her having sex in the woods!

Aradia wanted to scream, she
wanted to cry, and she wanted to die. Once again she felt pressure
but by now it wasn't just that. She felt humiliated, scandalized,
and discouraged. She thought she had been trying to do the right
thing by choosing a consort. However, that had not even satisfied
everyone's demands. The past few years, she had tried so hard to
please everyone but it never seemed to be enough.

"I give up," Aradia
muttered, "I just give up entirely."

"What do you mean you give
up?"

Aradia sighed and glanced
back at Melina. Ever since she had announced at the dinner table
that she was giving up the club and everything else involving the
hidden world, Melina hadn't stopped interrogating her.

"What do you think I meant?"
Aradia demanded.

Melina just stared at her in
surprise, and then slowly shook her head. It had been a very
unnerving couple of days not only had Aradia been acting weird but
now she was acting downright mean. Melina knew that a lot had
shaken her in the past years but she had never seen Aradia act so
surly. It was almost as if her personality had completely
changed.

Case in
point
, Melina noted as she stepped into the
rundown house. It was a party with Enter Sandman by Metallica being
played in an unseen sound system but it was not like the parties
Aradia usually went to. People wearing black clothing were hanging
around everywhere staring at them in animosity. Smoke completely
filled the room, drugs were passed around as freely as the booze,
and couples openly had sex to an eager cat calling
audience.

It had surprised Melina to
say the least that Aradia had decided to come to this type of party
located in the shabbiest suburb of Salem. What had surprised her
even more was that Aradia had not even bothered to tell their folks
or anyone else for that matter. It had been a sheer miracle that
Melina had seen her while she was waiting for Roy. They had been
planning a date but that had been before he backed his truck into
his father's van.

Although it was an accident,
his father had sentenced him to dishwasher duty for the next six
months starting that very night. Melina had just found all that out
a few hours ago when Roy called her. Not wanting to go home, Melina
had been debating what else to do and that was when she saw Aradia
stepping off a bus. She remembered the shock she felt when she saw
Aradia out on a Monday night but most of all what she was
wearing.

Melina then glanced back to
stare at Aradia and once again marveled at how different she
looked. She was wearing black lipstick, hair woven into a long
braid tied behind her back with a black ribbon, a black mini skirt,
fishnet stocks, a leather jacket, a black crop top, and thick black
boots which Melina suspected were actually her's. After getting
over the shock, Melina had confronted Aradia in the street who just
shrugged. Melina had then followed her to the party, all the time
pestering her with questions. Aradia's temper was already hanging
by a thread so having Melina around was not helping. She had been
surprised to say the least to see Melina but after finding out that
why made her just plain irritated.

"I don't see why it should
really concern you," Aradia snapped. "After all the only reason you
are here is because your boyfriend is a no-show so basically, I am
just a second choice to you like always!"

Melina scowled but only for
a second. "Is that you have been acting so weird lately? Have you
and Dax been fighting?"

"Only for the past four
months," Aradia muttered.

The song that was now being
played was Angels Take A Soul by Fuel. Aradia's mood lifted a
little because she liked this song, but it didn't distract her from
her goal. After realizing Bane had blabbed, and finding out from
Tristan what people had been saying Aradia's anger had reached a
pinnacle point. Too many times she had ignored Bane and his
constant taunts, now she was going to teach that bastard a lesson.
She had been crying in the bathroom earlier that day when she
overheard that he was going to this party. She knew that since it
was a school night there was no way in hell she could ask her
parents' permission so she decided to forgo the whole
process.

As for the
clothes
, Aradia glanced down at
herself,
if Bane is anything to go on
these
people dress in black so I couldn't
show up wearing pink now could I? Besides,
she shrugged to herself,
I was feeling
depressed anyway so I might as well dress to suit my
mood.

Closing her eyes, she used
her summoning power to sense Bane. A few seconds later, she found
him in a corner with his boys smoking a joint.

"Game on," she
smirked.

"Hiya Bane," Aradia said as
loud as she possibly could.

He coughed loudly before
turning to look at her in shock. "Aradia! What the hell are you
doing here?"

Aradia shrugged casually.
"It's a free country, I can go anywhere I want."

"And," she added, "I can do
what I want to people who piss me off. People like you!"

"Me?" Bane sputtered, "What
did I do?"

"It's funny," she said,
"guys like you are suppose to hate snitches and yet that is exactly
what you did. I told you stuff and you blabbed it all over the damn
school!"

He grinned with satisfaction
at least until Aradia said, "the thing of it is though, for years I
have been suppressing the need to smack you down. Well guess what?
I am done with suppressing anything."

"You can't do anything to
me..."

Aradia wove her fingers
together and cracked her knuckle bones. "Watch me."

She started to move
dangerously close to him. His gang instinctively jumped up to
defend him, but Aradia was ready. She grabbed Gunther by the throat
and pushed him against the others. Without any hesitation, Aradia
lifted her leg and kicked Gunther in the stomach with such force
his entire crew flew across the entire room. Several people were
also caught and flew backwards as well, but Aradia hardly lifted an
eyebrow. She then turned back to Bane who started
cowering.

"Now, now, Rai," Bane
started to say, "we can talk this out..."

"Want to bet?" Aradia
growled.

However, it was as she
reached out her hand with smoke steaming from her palm when Bane's
look of worry started to turn into a smirk.

"What the hell are you
smiling about?" Aradia demanded.

"It's funny," said Bane,
"that you are mad at me when there is someone else who really
deserves your wrath."

"What are you talking
about?"

He didn't say, instead he
nodded in its direction. Aradia then swiftly spun around. There in
the next hallway was Dax with another girl.

Her arms around his neck and
his lips upon hers.

Aradia's eyes grew wide with
shock and rage while Bane used this moment to sneak away. Furious
denial was racing through her mind until she heard the girl he was
holding break the kiss and moan, "oh Dax."

"Hesper, me amorè," Dax
seemed to croon as he took both her hands and pressed her body
against the wall. He trailed kisses down her neck as she wrapped
one of her legs around him. Aradia still wanted to deny that it was
really her Dax, but when she saw the golden watch upon his wrist
she could no longer deny it. It was the very watch that she had
bought him for his birthday. The one that she had saved up to buy
for three whole months.

The anger and humiliation
seemed to radiate off her like UV rays from the sun so much so that
several things around her began to shake. Dax didn't seem to notice
until a nearby hall table began to shake as well. He then lifted
his head, curious.