She watched as Ella dashed out of the room and could hear her running quickly upstairs. The sounds of drawers being pulled open and shut and Ella’s amusing mumblings filtered down through the ceiling. Caia wondered what on Gaia’s green earth she was up to. It was a few minutes before she came sauntering gracefully back into the kitchen, something clasped tightly in her hand.
“Really,” she explained, “You should have had these before we placed you into hiding. But everything was done in such a rush... anyway, you should have them now.”
Caia took photographs from her hand. She gasped, gazing at the first one. It was of a toddler standing in between a man’s knees as he bent down to huddle her close. Their green eyes matched, twinkling mischievously.
“Is this... my father and me?”
“Yes.”
Goddess, her father had been just as gorgeous as the rest of them. She snorted as she looked at herself. Even as a toddler she had looked scrawny and weird, her head just a mass of blonde curls and her eyes too large for her face. There were two other photographs; one of her father by himself, gazing into the camera with this weary sadness in his eyes. The last of her and her father again, except a younger Magnus was in this one with them. Magnus had her on his shoulders and her father was trailing at the back of them, seeming to protest at her being up so high. His eyes were happier with her, his love palpable even in these old pictures. For the first time in years she felt that searing stab in her chest at the pain of his loss. She blinked, a tear falling onto the picture.
“Oh!” Ella jumped, and Caia looked up to see that the kitchen tap had come on full blast, splashing water onto the floor. She ignored it as Ella rushed to switch it off, muttering under her breath.
“Thank you.” She smiled at Ella, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “This means a lot. Ella?”
Ella looked back her distractedly. “Yeah?”
“Do you have photos of me with my mom?”
Ella seemed to blanch. “Uh-”
“Hey, party people!” They both turned to see Jaeden bouncing in the doorway.
“Hi honey.” Ella smiled brightly at her. She looked almost relieved by her appearance. “Well, I’ve got errands to run.” She strode towards the kitchen door, brushing an affectionate hand down Jaeden’s cheek. “Look after her.”
She was gone before Caia had spoken another word.
Jaeden talked non-stop in the car on the way to school. Having learned that Ryder had made an appearance at dinner the night before, she was full of questions.
“And you... what... spoke to him?” she asked in awe.
“No, we had conversation through the power of thought,” Caia answered sarcastically.
Jaeden rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean?”
“The guy is really not that intimidating. Not compared to Lucien.”
“Pfft. Ryder makes Lucien look like a border collie.”
Caia didn’t believe that for a second. “He really is cool, Jaeden. You should try talking to him. Mention movies.”
The girl shook her head in disbelief. “Here for two days and you managed to speak more words to that guy than I have in a lifetime.”
Caia glanced sharply at her, worried that she may have annoyed her new friend already. She knew girls could get weird about guys, and Jaeden had kind of warned her. But no, she breathed a sigh of relief, Jaeden was smiling at her, her eyes laughing. “Movies huh?”
“Movies.”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
“Class, this is our new student, Caia Ribeiro,” the overly enthusiastic English teacher sing-songed. “Why don’t you find a seat, Caia.”
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. There were a few seats available in the classroom, but the problem was that one of the vacancies was beside Alexa. Everyone had seen her sit in the cafeteria with her yesterday, so if she didn’t sit with her now it would look like she was snubbing her. Enter the real problem: Alexa’s dislike of her. Crap, she thought, as she teased her lip between her teeth, nervously walking towards the seat. This was why she was a loner at her old school. She gave Alexa a small smile. The dark beauty almost snarled back at her. Groaning, Caia slid into the chair, fully aware of the students looking at her. It seemed like forever before the teacher finally started doing her job, and the class was once again preoccupied.
“You don’t mind too much, do you?” Caia mumbled under her breath, aware that Alexa could hear her with her sensitive lykan ears. “About the seat?”
“You can sit wherever you want. It’s a free country.”
Caia let that go, listening to the English teacher as she handed out copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as part of the American Literature curriculum. She sighed. English Lit was her favorite subject, and she had sort of been hoping the class would be interesting enough to take her mind off the she-devil sitting on her left side, but she’d read that one already at her last school.