Chapter Thirty Six

As promised, the next day I awoke that day with my body feeling perfect. There wasn't a single sign of the previous day's toll on me as though I had done nothing that day. I got ready and went downstairs for breakfast, "GOOD MORNING, FAMILY," I greeted my mom and dad with much required vigour while expecting the whole family to be at the breakfast table, but they were one member short. I was in a good mood compared feeling relieved on having had all my injuries healed by Ciara the day before though the sleeping spell was still mean.

"Good morning," they replied, "Kevin, would you go and wake up your brother, please? It's not like him to wake up after you," mom asked and continued acting like she had not just insulted me. I was in too good a mood to care. I abode by what she had said and went up to my brother's room. Our parents had put our rooms on the upper floor while they slept at the lower one which made it difficult to sneak out of the house without them knowing. We had sneaked out a few times before and each time we had succeeded. But that didn't mean our parents had not heard us sneak out. They simply wanted us to experience the life to the fullest we could and that included sneaking off to parties. Well it was mainly Gary who was interested in that. I just tagged along each time to supervise him.

Knock, knock, knock…. I knocked at his door and waited a minute and got no reply. I knocked again and still got no reply. I tried calling him, but there was still no reply. I turned the door knob and thankfully the door clicked open. I pushed the door open and was greeted by a draft of warm air. The room was absolutely dark and the curtains had been drawn shut. I looked for the light switch and flipped it on before letting go of the breath I didn't know I was holding this whole time. He was okay.

Gary lay in his bed sound asleep. But why was he still asleep. I came closer to him and felt my nerves start up again. Something was off. As I got closer the air was getting warmer. I reached out to touch him and quickly pulled back my hand regretfully after being singed. My brother was impossibly hot, it was a miracle that the room had not yet caught fire. 'No one should be this hot,' I thought.

"Gary, wake up," I called out loudly and gasped awake.

"Kevin," he said slightly disoriented, "what are you doing in my room?"

"It's late bro. Get up," I said. He looked up at his wall clock before swearing and rushing to the bathroom. I could not deny the thick lingering feel of magic in the room. Something was definitely going on and I had no idea what it was.

…....….

We ate breakfast quietly that morning. I kept looking from one family member to another, but they kept quiet. When we were done with breakfast, we got into the car and drove to school quietly. The tension in the car was almost suffocating. I knew one thing was for sure. I had no part in whatever was going on this time. I also badly wanted an explanation for why I had detected magic in Gary's room, but I couldn't just spring onto the issue. It was well established between my mother and I that we were artras and we both knew about magic, but we had never talked about it and we both still treated it like something that we were never going to talk about. Either that or mom had simply chosen to keep quiet about it.

I got to school and bid my parents farewell before turning around to go to the main school building. Once again my eyes came face to face with a pair of deep blue ones that were complimented by tanned skin and black hair. Sonia stood right in front of me with a goofy smile, "Cool parents," she said. 'What does this girl want from me?' I thought.

"Good morning to you too," I said in a bored tone and walked past her.

"Oh, sorry, good morning to you too. Would you mind slowing down a bit?" she replied quickly catching up to me and matching my pace as I slowed down. I hadn't even noticed that I was moving that fast. "You're looking way better than you did yesterday before training. I thought for sure you would be limping today."

"Very observant of you," I replied.

"You don't even try to hide it. Someone may think you're on steroids," she said. I knew she was implying that magic was the only way I could be walking this well after the day I had yesterday. Much as I hated to admit, she had a point. But still, I was a pretty bad actor which meant pretence wouldn't help me much in this situation.

We walked to the lockers and found everyone there. Kendall was in the middle of falling for another one of Isaac's magic tricks. For this one he had his eyes closed and his hand clutched around a piece of paper. The moment we arrived he opened his eyes and abandoned the trick after noticing Isaac was seizing the moment to look through his locker. "Isaac, what are you doing?" he asked.

Isaac froze when he realized his victim had caught him. Ciara and Jacob had given them a distance and could hardly contain their laughter as they watched a perfectly crafted plan shattering to pieces. "So Kendall, have to tell you something, but promise you won't tell a soul," Isaac begun.

"Uh huh, I am listening," Kendall said squinting at Isaac suspiciously.

"See now, I may have wrote Mr John's homework assignment at the back of your math book," he continued.

"That sounds extremely vague. You're a bad lair. Come to me for lessons," Kendall said before forcing the locker closed and smiling relishing Isaac's failure. They all then turned to us who were also smiling having arrived at the good part of the cinema. My guess was that Isaac hadn't done his homework at all and was trying to steal Kendall's book so that he could copy everything in it.

Ciara and Jacob then turned to us when the scene seemed to have concluded, "Morning," they greeted. I went straight for my locker but was pulled back before I could get there by Kendall and Isaac who I hadn't noticed were no longer arguing. They were smiling suspiciously while they pulled me away from the other three.

"What is it?" I asked them somewhat irritated by their sneaky display.

"Is it true?" they asked me as though they expected me to know what they were talking about.

"Is what true?" I asked.

"That you and Sonia walked each other home?" they asked. I had a bad feeling answering this question truthfully would be a bad thing, but I couldn't pin point why it was.

"Yeah, kind of," I said and they almost immediately burst into laughter. Not wanting to get caught in whatever web they were trying to spin, I rushed to my locker and picked out the books that I needed for the next lessons. "Guys I need to speak with a teacher real quick before class, so see you guys later okay." I quickly said before jogging down the hall. I needed to talk to Mr Bergstrom before class started.

As I pushed towards the teacher's class absentmindedly, I barely noticed the two Purgers that started jogging besides me flanking me from both sides. I had let my guard down and I knew they weren't going to spare this opportunity they had got. Before I could even think of increasing my speed to get away from them. They rammed into me from both sides and forcefully guided me into an empty classroom.

More Purgers continued filing into the room and took their place in a semi-circle surrounding me against a wall. The Purgers attached a specific emblem attacked to their clothes that had words inscribed on them from another language that I couldn't recognize. It was mainly the one way you could tell an ordinary football player from a Purger. They were mostly huge guys who you really never wanted to mess with.

But today for the first time, I stood there and watched as guys who weren't even Purger material enter the room dressed in the same attire. They all now looked like an ordinary group of teenagers. I looked through them for the number of them that were actually well physically built and looked like bullies and could only count up to five of them. The rest of the people in the room looked normal. I heard the door lock and the last three people made their way to the centre of the semi-circle right in front of me.