CHAPTER FOUR

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“That’s new,” Guiseppe drawled as she stopped by my locker.

I turned and looked. Sure enough—Scott, Luke, and Pete were walking down the hallway. Both Scott and Pete had their arms on Luke’s shoulder, leaning in as if sharing a joke.

We weren’t the only ones watching. Everyone in the hallway stopped to stare.

“It’s the talk in school,” Gus informed me. She flipped her golden curls over her shoulder and hugged a book against her blue tank top. She eyed me, knowingly, “It’s almost like someone magically told them to be friends.”

Rolling my eyes, I retorted, “Shut up. I already got an earful from Kellan this morning.”

“Yeah, well, you should listen to him. You changed their life lines permanently. That’s serious, not something I could pull off. I know that much. But still, Shay, there are others who are tuned into that stuff. They’ll know a big player’s in town now.”

I scoffed at the idea of being a ‘big player’. “I’m hardly that, Gus. I just…it’s not that big of a deal. He’s not getting his underwear stuffed into his mouth anymore.”

“Whatever. It’s kind of funny, though.”

“What is?” I was wary.

She gestured around the hallway as three slim silver bracelets jangled around her wrist. “Look at them. They don’t know what to do. Two big jocks are now buddies with one of the nerds. Classic, Shay. Classic. It’s like all their asses were turned upside down.”

I wasn’t sure about the imagery, but Gus thought it was funny. Just then, as my sister continued to laugh uproariously by herself, Leah and two other girls approached us. Or, well, Leah approached us, cautiously. The other two stayed back, a few yards away.

Gus immediately stopped laughing as she eyed Leah down, hostile.

Leah fidgeted with the sleeve of her top. She wore a violet wrap-around light cloth shirt and kept tugging down the end of her sleeve, only to push it back up, and tug it down once more. The girl was terrified.

“Um…” She eyed us, nervously, and pushed forward, bravely, “I was wondering…do you know where your brother is?”

Gus stood to her fullest height, all five feet and ten inches. Comparing the two, Gus was the supermodel with her willowy figure, but I knew that Leah was popular among the school. She was shorter by a few inches, slim, and her hair hung in two brunette braids that rested over her shoulders. There was a reason why Kellan had chosen to sleep with her, more than once.

“If he doesn’t call you, I wouldn’t go calling him,” Gus warned, thickly.

Leah backed up a step, but remembered her need, “I just…I need to talk to him. He wouldn’t talk to me yesterday and I really need to talk to him.”

“Why? If you’re pregnant, it’s not his. I guarantee that.”

Leah flushed, “I’m not…that’s not what this is about. I just really need to talk to him.” She glanced over her shoulder. I saw both of her friends give her supporting smiles, but neither of them budged forward. Leah was on her own.

“If you think you’re dating him, you’re not.” The hostility increased in Gus, but before she could say anything else, I intervened and pulled my sister behind me.

“This would go a lot easier if you told us what you wanted from Kellan. We might help you.”

Gus growled, which drew attention from every male in the hallway… that wasn’t already watching.

I elbowed my sister as Leah tugged her sleeve down again. “Um, well, Kellan said that he’d help me with this thing if I needed it. And, well, I guess…it’s like, it’s now, you know?”

“Not in the least,” Gus muttered through gritted teeth.

I rolled my eyes, resigned. I understood Gus’ reluctance to help. Bradens didn’t help, not usually. And no one ever sought Kellan out, much less for us to help in his stead. Still…I’d started the day out with a theme of helping. I might as well continue…?

“What do you need help with?” I willed the girl to bolster her courage and just blurt it out.

“Um…,” she still faltered and then rushed out, “my stepdad just got home from a business trip. He’s a drunk and he…”

And everything clicked. Even Gus perked up. We both knew what Kellan had offered to do. I finished for her, dryly, “And Kellan offered to rough him up if your stepdad hurt you, didn’t he?”

She nodded, grateful.

I felt Gus’ glee as she asked, “What’d he do to you?”

“Kellan?” Leah asked, confused.

Both of us flinched. “No, you idiot. Your father. What’d he do to you?” Gus cringed again.

“Oh, uh, he…he just…he did some stuff. Could you call Kellan for me? I don’t have his number. I don’t even know if he has a phone, but…I…it can’t happen again. Kellan said he’d stop him.”

“We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.” Guiseppe was all smiles now. It wasn’t a sight Leah was used to do, nor myself, but I’m pretty sure it shocked Leah the most as she instinctually retreated three steps before she stopped. Her friends quickly moved backwards with her.

“I…,” Leah wasn’t sure what to say. Her eyes skirted between us again.

I smiled, or tried to smile though I was a little apprehensive about what Guiseppe had in mind. “He’ll be taken care of by tonight.”

“You’ll talk to Kellan?”

“We’ll do it ourselves,” Gus muttered underneath her breath.

“He’ll be told. Promise,” I tried to reassure her.

“Okay.” Leah jerked a nod before she quickly melted among the rest in the hallway.

“We’re not telling Kellan, right?” Gus asked, anxiously. She was the one to eye me nervously now.

“I just told her that he’d be told.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t say when. Let me handle this, Shay. Please. I haven’t had fun in awhile.”

I tried to figure out what my sister intended to do. I stared her down, despite the innocent look she flashed my way. I knew my sister and I knew she wasn’t going to pray for him. I warned, darkly, “Do not kill him. Do not do anything that’ll bring attention to us.”

Gus rolled her eyes and retorted, nastily, “Right, Shay. You should be the one talking after what you did today. And no, I don’t intend to do anything like that. But the guy will leave his stepdaughter alone after I’m done with him. Promise.”

“You’re not going to kill him.”

“Promise,” she repeated, forcefully.

“Fine,” I relented and was rewarded with a flash of perfect teeth. As she turned to leave, I called out, “And no Vespar involved.”

Gus braked. Didn’t turn around. And then continued, but not before I heard a few choice words.

The bell sounded and I heeded. The rest of the day was like usual. I watched, silent, as everyone else played their social games. The quiet ones stayed with their cliques and sent furtive glances at the popular ones. The geeks did their own thing and managed to avoid all contact with any jock. The popular girls are whispered together or hung off the arm of their boyfriends. I caught sight of Leah one time and she managed a tight smile my way. All of her friends looked my direction and then bent their heads over their table. The guys looked and quickly averted their gazes.

I wasn’t a part of their social hierarchy. According to my bloodline, I was supposed to use them as pawns.

I knew Guiseppe and Vespar did. I knew they loved the game. They loved the ‘mind screwing’, how they put it. And I knew Kellan did it, but his appetite seemed a bit deeper. I wondered if he was happy with the shallow mind-playing with the Leahs in our school.

I’d never wanted to do that. I’d never felt compelled and, if anything, I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to stop it.

I felt a burning on my wrist and felt through my sleeve. I felt the tattoo burning on my skin. I wondered if it was rotating or staying in place. It moved at times, like when it knew I was paying attention to it. And other times, it was just there, like a reminder for something.

I just didn’t know what.

When I got to Humanities, the tattoo had stopped burning. Thank god.

I dropped my books and slumped into my usual table. We sat on the left side, by the windows, and in the middle. The populars liked to sit in the back, which was fine by us. It never mattered because I was surrounded by my siblings.

Vespar and Guiseppe slid into their table, just in front of me, and bent their heads close together. Kellan dropped his books beside me and slid into his own chair. He turned, studied me intently like he always did, and then lounged back in his chair.

Just then, Mr. Hawkins strode into the room and dropped his lecture book on the table before he took up a marker and turned to the board. “Okay, class. Tell me what you know about religion.”

Silence scattered over the class and their conversations. And then, after a beat of silence, Leah spoke up, “I’m Catholic. Is that what you mean?”

Another girl raised her hand, “Was this part of our reading? I thought we were supposed to read chapter seven in our book? I don’t remember any discussion on religion there.”

Mr. Hawkins ignored her and looked at Leah, “Yes, Leah. Catholicism is a form of religion. You’re correct. Now tell me about being Catholic.” He smiled encouragingly and pushed up his thin wire-rim glasses. He tugged down one of his sleeves from his white polo shirt. His bicep muscle flexed, momentarily, and then it relaxed as Leah spoke up, falteringly, “Uh…I guess…I give confession.”

“Purgatory!” Scott yelled out, laughingly.

“Yes, Mr. Lorrells, but there’s more to Catholicism than purgatory. There’s so much more to religion than Catholics. Tell me something more class, please.”

Kellan looked at me, long and hard, and then spoke up, clearly, “It’s the intellectual battle for a soul.”

Everyone was shocked, just as myself. The Bradens didn’t talk in class discussions. We weren’t called on and we were never even required during a class reading. And now, here Kellan spoke up, the leader of our crew.

After another beat of silence, Mr. Hawkins gathered himself and rasped out, “Yes, Kellan, but I was looking for something more. Can you say more on that?”

Kellan shrugged, “It’s the idea of where the soul goes after death. It’s about if the soul can be corrupted during life or not.”

“And what do you think?” our teacher challenged.

Kellan smiled, tightly, and glanced sideways to me, “I think everyone’s already corrupted, but there are some who don’t agree.”

Mr. Hawkins caught the glance and trounced, eagerly. “Shay, what do you think? Do you think souls can be saved? Not corrupted?”

“I…,” I was furious with Kellan, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I was caught off-guard, “I…I think souls are just a prize…to some. I think they can saved, yes.”

Guiseppe and Vespar both turned around in their chairs, wide-eyed, as they looked at us, at me. I refused to flush underneath their scrutiny. Kellan had baited me, for a specific reason. I wasn’t going to back down.

“Do you think they’re worth being saved?” Kellan challenged me further.

Everyone in class listened raptly. Never had a battle between the Bradens, much less Kellan and myself, been publicized. A pin could’ve dropped in the silence between our dialogue.

“Am I being worth saved?” I asked him, no one else. I didn’t care the class could hear.

Kellan shifted, uncomfortably in his seat, but he replied, monotone, “Any soul has a choice, Shay. What do you choose?”

I grinned, faintly, “Do I choose hell now and heaven later, as a reward? Or do I choose heaven now, for the pleasure, and get hell as my reward? What would any sane person choose?”

“But that’s the issue of this discussion. No one is going to choose hell first. Everyone wants the easiest, the quickest. Everyone wants to be gratified now. You know they’re going to choose heaven first.”

“And get hell as their reward?” I asked lightly, a little hoarsely.

“That sounds like my diet,” one girl exclaimed.

“Bethany!” Mr. Hawkins laughed, a little relieved from the intensity in the room. “What does your diet have to do with our discussion?”

“Nothing, really, but it’s the same,” she piped up, brightly. “I can choose to eat Dunkin Donuts now, heaven!, or choose to eat my one serving of cottage cheese—hell—to get heaven later. What do I want to choose? The donuts, of course. What should I really choose—the cottage cheese.”

“Is that what you want, Bethany?”

“Hell no. I want to lose ten pounds, but those donuts taste like heaven.”

“It’s called discipline!” One of the boys shouted out, cheerfully, “I might want to get laid now, but I’m hoping heaven is all sorts of sex!”

Another boy laughed, “That’s got nothing to do with discipline, Kent. That’s called rejection.”

“Well, if you’d put out, Brian, I might be going to hell right now,” Kent laughed, good naturedly.

The insults flew between the two. Before long, the class had separated into their own conversations. Mr. Hawkins was called over to a table for personal questions and it was soon chaos in the room. That was, until Kellan suddenly spoke up, another first—to initiate a discussion—when he asked, “What if there was heaven or hell? What if it’s all to play with our minds?”

Silence descended the room. A pin could’ve dropped as all eyes turned towards Kellan and then to Mr. Hawkins, who narrowed his eyes, pushed up his glasses, and folded his arms. His toned arms bunched underneath his shirt as he asked me, “What do you think, Shay? The two of you seem like you’ve put the most thought into this. Do you think there’s a heaven and hell?”

I closed my eyes a moment. I felt my siblings’ gazes. I felt their own intensity at what answer I’d give. And then, as my tattoo started burning again, I snapped my eyes open and said strongly, staring into my brother’s authoritative gaze steadfastly, “I know there is.”

“Well.” I felt Mr. Hawkins excitement at an actual debate, especially one between two Bradens. “Can you explain more on your matter-of-fact statement, Shay?”

“Yeah,” Vespar scoffed, his yellow buttoned-down shirt ruffled at the collar and annoyance in his hazel eyes. “Those are big words coming from a high school girl.”

Someone sucked in their breath, dramatically. Someone else whispered, “Holy cow…” And still, everyone else, straightened in their seats. Never had a Braden called out another Braden.

I felt Kellan’s anger brimming beside me and knew it wasn’t directed towards me. I also saw how Vespar glanced at his older brother in the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t repent, not one bit.

Guiseppe was rarely still, almost like she was paralyzed.

I leaned forward and spoke clearly, assuredly, “We both know I’m more than a high school girl.”

Vespar snapped his mouth shut, but not before he snuck another nervous look at Kellan. And then he turned back around in his chair. The short challenge was officially closed and I was the victor. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to be, but I felt the change coming in the wind.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX