The Broken Destiny (5 page)

“Should we run?” Sam whispered jokingly.

I rolled my eyes.

“Are we supposed to be scared?” she sniffed.

“No,” I responded, shrugging with annoyance.

The rider handled the throttle and the bike’s motor roared up again. He continued to keep his gaze on us.

“What’s he doing?” Sam asked.

“Having fun?” I ventured.

He let the bike’s engine idle for a while, his hand toggling the throttle. He was teasing us with the roar of the engine. I could, unmistakably, feel his intense gaze on me as we neared. The pressure of his gaze left me quivering inside. My stomach was turning with anticipation, making me feel very awkward, uncomfortable and frustrated. I drew in a deep breath, trying to shake the feeling off.

“Just breathe and walk past him like you don’t even notice him,” Sam said, picking up on my tension. She knew about the day I was raped and I guess I would always, in some way, have a situation that brought back the feeling of helplessness. This time I wasn’t going take it.

“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” I said, grinning.

I could distinguish the writing on his gear as we closed the distance between him and us, and I could make out the mischievous, and taunting, crooked smile on his face. Somehow it felt somewhat familiar, but the tint of the visor made it difficult for me to see the rest of his face. Tilting my head and narrowing my eyes I snapped out, “What’s this guy’s problem?”

The smirk on his face only grew. I stopped, took in the deepest breath and looked straight at him with every ounce of courage I could muster. “See anything you like?” I asked him, my heart pounding against my chest.
What was going on with me?

I tried to hide the nervousness in my voice, but his smile never gave. Confidence streamed out of every pore on his body. I turned my head the other way and tilted my nose toward the sky in an attempt to ignore him. He opened up the throttle and pulled off with a wheelie like he was some sort of dark prince. A shot of adrenaline pumped though my heart as he flew past us – leaving dust to billow in his wake – us being in the way of that wake.

“Ugh, dust!” I exclaimed, patting wildly at my navy hockey skirt.

The tension broke as Sam and I burst out in howling laughter at my reaction.

“It’s that damn short skirt you’re wearing,” Sam laughed, teasingly pulling my skirt down toward my knees. “You know men can’t resist those killer legs,” she said, eyes rolling.

I felt my ears flush and my cheeks turn scarlet. Sometimes, I was just like the girls I hated in that I also used my looks to get some attention. I sighed, disappointed in myself. I wasn’t built like any other sixteen year old girl. I fervently wished that I was tall and slim. Instead, I stood a meager five-foot-two and had short, curvy legs and an apple-shaped bottom. In addition, I was somewhat small busted. I quickly turned when the bike came to a swift stop between a group of boys, who were all highly amused, shouting and laughing. Sam ground her teeth together. I knew what the set in her jaw meant. I grabbed her arm to settle her anger. The dark prince continued to stare in our direction, and without removing his helmet he dismounted from his bike. I turned away.

“I won’t satisfy him that easily,” I said out loud.

“Well, that would be a first,” Sam mocked, opening her eyes wide.

“Hey, that hurts,” I sneered.

“The truth always hurts,” she said, staring me square in the eyes.

It really did.
Did I give in to my rapist?
The horrible thought brought my guilt to the surface, my chest threatening to explode. I shoved it far down again. I could not think like that, even if it might have been true.

“What?” I heard a voice behind us say.

It was Maya, who was suddenly at our side. I glared at Sam. My anger at her comment twisted like a wire around my heart, squeezing the life out of it.

“Touchy, are we?” Sam said as she glared back.

She wasn’t joking anymore. The sarcasm in her voice was clearly noticeable. She looked away, saying to Maya that it was nothing, but I didn’t believe her.

Maya raised her hands. “Did I interrupt something?” she asked, stepping backwards.

“No, of course not,” I remarked, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her toward us. Sam had something on her mind – I wasn’t ready to hear it. I was thankful Maya was there to defuse the tension, before I told Sam how she could sometimes be the biggest bitch ever. I held on tightly to Maya’s arm, making sure she didn’t back off. Okay, so I cowered behind her, but Sam was a vicious girl; I didn’t stand a chance. Grateful that she was on my side, I gave her a slight smile. Sam then interlocked her arm on Maya’s other side. Maya was Minoan and approximately a year younger than we were. She played for one of the other schools’ hockey teams. Poseidon only had three schools: the Military School, the Arts and Agriculture School (which we attended), and the Science and Medical School where the English students resided. I often thought, with a good measure of sarcasm, how appropriate it was that our hereditary languages divided us. Maya had dark, silky, shoulder-length hair and was also a curvy girl. She was half a head taller than I was but half a head shorter than Sam. We resumed walking toward the exit, which lead us out onto the wide main street. This street was constructed of compressed dark soil, but years of traffic had given the soil the appearance of hard shiny rock. It ran alongside the western wall of the teachers’ quarters, bordered a small road that ran parallel to the boys’ apartments, and followed an orchid of apple and peach trees into the shopping district made up of a short row of cafés and clothing stores. I missed the pink orchid blossoms that bloomed in spring, the crisp smell following a downpour and the fresh taste of sweet dew on my lips. We had to clone our fruit because there hadn’t been a warm spring in ages. This robbed us of the rewards of beautiful blossoms and, to be honest, I could taste the difference between the reproduction of our natural fruits and the real thing. The road curved toward a string of modern containers that held most of the shops and small businesses. The Minoan folk hired some of these from the Council. Trading was what they called it. I heard the boys whistle and shout behind us as we walked out of the gate. A loud howl rang through the air followed by laughter and a dull thump. The three of us turned simultaneously. The dark prince had his back toward us, and lying flat on his back between his legs was a red-headed boy. I felt something inside me move. I am not sure if I was scared, proud, turned-on or grateful, but whatever the feeling was, it was strong and paralyzing. No one had ever defended me like that.

“Boys,” Maya joked.

“Tell me about it,” said Sam, as we walked away.

“Shopping?” Maya asked as we headed through the gates, leaving the boys staring after us.

“Hungry,” Sam said, pointing to her stomach.

Sitting on the cold steps of a café, Maya and I exchanged sandwiches. Neither of us was sure if we felt like tuna or chicken, so we had half of each.

“Look,” I said to Sam.

“What?” Sam snapped, crumbs falling from her mouth as she spoke.

I swallowed my food and pointed toward the sky.

“Sky, yeah,” Sam said. “I see it.”

I tapped her on the shoulder.

“Clouds, you smart-ass.”

Sam shrugged.

“You’ve never seen clouds before?”

I bumped against her with my shoulder.

“Not like that!”

The clouds seemed heavier and darker than usual, swirling and spiraling over Silverwood Forest. I drew in a deep breath as an old, yet familiar smell made my senses tingle.

“Oh,” Maya interrupted. “My brother says there’s been a change in the skies. We thought we saw lightning last night.”

Last night,
I thought inquisitively. My mind took me back to the night before when the stranger had been in our kitchen. I felt slightly guilty at how rude I had been to him.
It was deserved,
I assured myself.
How
dare he openly mock me like that?
I wasn’t sure why I had acted the way I had acted the night before. Usually, I would have shied away from confrontation. It was the first time I had felt alive with fury, automatically saying exactly what was on my mind.
Good for me
, I nodded to myself.

“The atmospheric pressure, you mean,” I heard Sam say.

“OMG, Sam! Get over yourself. There is no one here to impress with your scientific weather talk,” I said irritably.

Sam cocked her head toward the café window. François was sitting inside with a bunch of his buddies. Sam, literally, drooled over François. I thought he was nice, but I would never date him or any of his friends. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in any of the boys from our school. I looked through the café window and scanned each one’s face. I rolled my eyes at Maya, who smiled in acknowledgement. I didn’t know what Sam saw in those boys.
English boys
, I thought to myself. I recalled the dark prince on his motorbike and felt warm with excitement. I knew he was English as no Afrikaans boy would have had so much freedom, so much sex appeal, or held so much danger in his stare. Somehow our school felt more militarized than the Military School. A repetitive tapping on the window, and an annoying voice calling for Sam, caught our attention. It was Werner, a blond, sharp-faced, wide-shouldered obnoxious boy who always ran his mouth off. Sometimes, he talked so much, it gave one the impression that his mouth was growing wider with each word and would eventually swallow him whole. I hoped he would swallow himself and save us all from his stupid babbling.

“Poseidon to Sam, Poseidon to Sam! They’re calling you,” Maya teased Sam, while she rubbed the crumbs from her mouth.

I stood up and threw the crusts of my sandwich into the decomposer next to the recycling bins. Sam got to her feet, wiped her mouth and pulled her ponytail tighter.

“I’m going in!” she said excitedly.

She stood in front of me, her chin tilted upwards, and I wiped the last lingering crumb from her chin.

“You’re good to go,” I declared, patting her on the arm. “Go get ’em soldier!” I mocked.

“See you later!” She waved and half skipped toward the café entrance, her ponytail bouncing from side to side.

“Ta-ta!” I yelled as I waved back. I envied her social skills.

I held Maya’s arm as we walked down the café stairs, across the road and past the heavy iron gates as they stood open for a few more hours, proceeding down a narrow path. I could smell the strange yet familiar scent on the breeze and as we headed into the forest, I noticed that the dark clouds above us had made the trail a little dimmer than usual. The contorted branches overhead were intertwined, forming a tunnel of dark branches that hugged us onto the rigid path.
Spooky
, I thought. The path always appeared abandoned and unused, but I knew that wasn’t true. It was the only path between the town and their village, probably used every day. I stared at Maya absently. She turned her head and smiled, her smile then turning into a frown.

“Hey, I never noticed the color of your eyes before,” she said.

“Oh, they have a mind of their own,” I said bashfully, averting my eyes to the ground. Not many people knew about my eyes. Sam promised never to tell anyone and I guess that perhaps that was the reason I distanced myself from others. I felt a strange sense of shyness wash over me as I responded to her odd remark. Usually, I was the one who noticed these things about others, not the other way around.

“I thought you had blue eyes,” she said softly.

“I did.”

“Oh” was all she said, as if she didn’t want to intrude.

“They changed color a while ago. I just woke up one day and poof!” I flung my hands into the air. I could tell Maya couldn’t decide if I was joking or not.

“They’re extraordinary,” she said, still staring at me.

I stared back at her. “It doesn’t bother me, if that’s what you want to know.”

She kept silent.

“Hey, no big deal, right?” I declared, shrugging my shoulders.

“I guess not,” she replied quietly.

She fell silent once again, but I could sense she wanted to say something. She bit down on her lip.

“Oh no, you don’t believe that nonsense about changing, do you?”

“Well, yes. It’s not just a story you know,” she said, nervously peering into the forest.

I swallowed hard, remembering Errol, the boy who had raped me. They said he had
changed
. It was said that some of us would give in to the
Change
, but genetic enhancement had its faults. Our recipe of genes was incomplete, so even though we were the third generation of The Broken, something special awaited us upon changing.
I have to see it to believe it
, I decided. I had thought only Sam and I knew about it as we had read it in my mother’s journal. It was clear from Maya’s remark that the Minoans also knew about it.
Maybe that’s why we were discouraged from mingling with them
, I thought. Maya was still staring at me.

“Broken. I get it,” I said, and immediately my mind started to wander again. My thoughts turned to my dreams of wild cats and the ocean.