Anyway, I will hopefully have a couple of shorts out this week and possibly another chapter of Hero's Core as well. But I make no promises.
Here's chapter 11 of Hero's Core, Enjoy!
Chapter 11
Adoptions and Dates
Raven
“ You can’t say a word about this to Harry before dinner,”
Dean told me as I walked with him to the zeta plate. He had told me that the
agency had called today saying that my adoption was final and that I was now
his daughter.
“Of course, I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise would I?” I
asked whilst smiling. As soon as Dean/Omega had told me that he had adopted
Harry/Scar I was over the moon and had accepted him as a part of my family.
“ No, I don’t suppose you would. Anyway, I asked Simon to
make a roast tonight to celebrate,”
* * *
“ I’m your sister!” I yelled it out as I jumped up from my
seat. I saw Harry’s eyes flash as I said it. I knew he had been pestering Dean
for a while now trying to get him to adopt me. Grabbing my new official brother in a giant hug and
swinging him around a little as I did so. I could hear him laughing in my ear.
“ Calm down will you, I don’t want to have to deal with this
all the time,” Putting him down Dean’s stern voice came from the side.
“ Dean, let them be for a minute. They are excited,”
“Of course Simon I just thought the sooner we all ate dinner
the sooner we could discuss Cassie moving in here and going to start at
Crystost High with Harry and Becca on Monday,” Logic was pouring from his mouth
at this point but I don’t think I could have eaten I was too excited.
That's how I came to be sitting in the lounge room with Scar
and Omega right now discussing where I wanted my room to be.
“ Honestly Dean, I don’t mind where my room is. Besides,
I’ll probably stay at the cave a lot anyway, you know, me running the team at
the moment,” I was trying to state that I didn’t need a massive room here
because I already had a larger room at the base.
“Nonsense, you will be living here from now on. There are
plenty rooms here and I want you to be happy here. The room next to Harry’s is
large and has its own bathroom joined on. Why don’t you take that room?” Dean wasn’t one to give up on an argument.
Besides, it would be nice to have a nice room here.
“ Sure, that would be lovely thank you,” I went to stand as
Harry grabbed my hand to pull me down the hall and to the stairs again. Knowing
that he was pulling me to my new room so he could help me decide how I was
going to set it up.
As we were standing in my soon to be bedroom I could see
exactly how I would want it. Currently the walls were all and light olive-ish
brown, but I had a picture in my mind for them to be painted white and have a
bright ocean blue feature wall where my bed would be pushed against. I would put in
silver and white furniture and have teal accents around the room. Some
greys as well. I would want a glass vase on my dresser and it to have a single
white rose in it everyday.
“ I know what your thinking and it would be perfect in
here,” Harry stated as he went to the wardrobe. It was huge, just by the double
door on it I could tell it was going to be. It was a walk-in wardrobe and was
the size of a small bedroom. I might have it but in a make-up table or
something because there was so much room. Perhaps
a set of weights or a practise dummy? I thought to myself forgetting that I had
company in 1the room.
“ Cassie?” I turned facing Dean. He had something behind his
back. I could see the reflection of a small parcel behind his back. I gave him
a smile and pointed to the door behind him. It was made of glass after all.
“ Right, of course, sometimes its hard to believe you aren’t
one of my protégés. You are very resourceful,”
“ Yeah, but that's was simple, your standing infront of
glass doors, there’s a reflection”
“ Even so, it was resourceful. Anyway, this is for you,”
passing my the small package I took it in my hands. It was heavier than I was
expecting. It was wrapped in a purple cloth, much like the purple on my hero’s
uniform.
Slowly I turned it over in my hands to unwrap it.
“Thank you, but what is this for?” I continued to unwrap it
slowly taking in the feel of the cloth. It was so soft and velvety that I
didn’t want to put it down.
“ Just finish unwrapping it would you?” Harry seemed rather
impatient now that the gift was in my hand. He was looking over my hands and
looking up at my face, his eyes darting between my hands and my face every
couple of seconds. I was guessing that he want to see what my reaction was.
Finally the small package was fully unwrapped and there was
a key as well as a small long box, the kind you would find at a jewellery
store. Slowly lifting the lid of the box my breath was caught in my throat.
It’s beautiful, I
thought to myself. It was a silver anklet with moon and arrows on it as well as
small purple and blue gems.
“ Thank you!” I went and hugged my new father and my little
brother giving a large smile to show just how much I liked it.
“ It’s an anklet, that way you can wear it when your at
school,”
“ I guessed that, bracelets clips are usually smaller than
the ones on anklets. Thank you so much,” I noticed Simon standing in the
doorway, giving a heart warming smile. I had a guess that he had helped pick
out the anklet. There was no way Dean
and Harry could have chosen it on their own.
“Are you going to stay here tonight?”
“ No, I should go back to my room in the base, besides,
don’t I start school?”
“ NOOOOOOO!” I saw Harry run from the room shaking his head.
He had probably forgotten to do some
assignment or something.
“ Ahh, I almost forgot its your first day at Crystost
tomorrow. Well, in that case you should probably get going. But make sure
you’re here nice and early so we can drive you to school,” Dean was walking me
down to the zeta plate he had had installed in the old gardening shed.
“ Don’t forget Dean, Cassie’s uniform and books are here.
Shall I run inside to get them or do you wish to get dressed here in the
morning?”
“ Thank you Simon, it would be much appreciated if you could
get the uniform for me. I’ll get dressed back at base so I have more time to
get ready and eat, but if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to leave my books
here otherwise I will forget them tomorrow,”
“ Of course I will be back in a minute then,” Simon turned
and walked back inside to fetch the uniform. It was here because he had to
alter the skirt so it wouldn’t be too long for me to wear.
I turned in an awkward sort of silence because I didn’t
really know what to say to Dean at this point. Sure, he was going to be my dad
now, but that didn’t make it any less awkward standing here.
“ Thank you, again,” I finally had decided to speak the air
was getting too thick and uncomfortable.
“What for?”
“ Well, for always being there for me and now your adopting
me. And for the anklet and for giving me a room in your house, and welcoming me
so well into your life so many years ago,”
“ Of course I would! You are a lovely girl and any person
can see that. Besides, Harry loves you like a sister he never had and I didn’t
want to keep the two of you apart. Sure, you two spend more time together than
what most people would call normal, or in some cases healthy,” I openly laughed
at this because we had been called in the past to have a weird relationship.
One time, Harry and I were kidnapped and Dean came to rescue us and Omega, even
the villains who were holding us thought we were bonkers because at the time,
we were just having so much fun that we didn’t really notice that we were
hostages until Omega came.
“ But you were always like a daughter to me when we first
met, it was only going to be a matter of time before I adopted you too,”
“ Awww, who knew the almighty Omega could be so mushy and
emotional?”
“ Yes, well only around the three of you,”
“ And of course your favourite super hero,” I couldn’t stop
myself from giggling as I said it because he was just so oblivious to the whole
thing that was going on around him.
“ What are you talking about?”
“ Phoenix of course, or are you on a first name basis with
the fire bird these days?”
“ Yes of course I call Leila by her first name, what else
would I call her? I can’t call her phoenix all the time,” Dean just rolled his
eyes in a way that was so much like his super hero self.
“ Ahh, here you go Cassie, your uniform, and book bag. I
figured you might want that seeing as you will want to put the necessary items
in it ready for tomorrow,” Simon appearing out of nowhere handed me my things
and turned to leave. But not before I gave him a hug and whispered a thank you
in his ear.
“ And by necessary items, I would hope he means your extra compact
bow and some arrows, as well as your communicator,”
“ What else would he mean? A cheat sheet for the final exams that we are
yet to be told about?” I roll my eyes at my new dad. Dean laughs and gives me a
final hug, soon following Simon gives me one too. I programmed the base into the plate and left
for the night.
* * *
As soon as I walked out of the transport room I was welcomed
to the sound of a soft music. A song by Ed Sheeran, give me love. Surely I was
imagining things but I could also hear the quiet whimpers of Tahlia in the next
room. What’s going on? Why is she here so
late, crying no less? I thought to myself as I went in to consul the poor
girl who I found curled up in a tight ball on the couch. Quietly, I crept over and sat down next to
her and pulled her into a hug as she cried.
“ Tahlia? What’s going on?” I whispered quietly as she
continued to sob into my shoulder. Sometimes it was hard for me to take into
account that people who smile all the time can also be hurting to.
“ My parents, we had another, f-fight about me d-doing this.
They still d-don’t understand w-why I need to do t-this,” She was barely
getting the words out through the sobs. “ T-they don’t care about why. T-they
just w-want me to s-stop. I need to d-do this, f-for me,” I was patting her
back and still holding her in a hug.
“ Do you want to sleep here tonight? I could get Becca to
come, have a sleep over?” I smile a little to show that I was being serious,
and wanted to make sure she was okay.
“ Thanks,” Tahlia took a deep breath and sat up a little. “
That would be nice, but don't you start school tomorrow?”
“ Yeah, but come on, with our lives, we barely sleep anyway!
What’s one more night going to do?” Tahlia laughed at this and stood up heading
over to the kitchen.
“ Okay, but if we’re going to have a sleep over, we need ice
cream,” She held out two small tubs of choc-mint and cookies and cream ice
cream.
“ Of course,” I say with my false posh accent laughing.
Quickly firing off a text to Becca to come over for the night, I go to the
kitchen to join Tahlia in eating the choc-mint ice-cream.
Ping, ping.
From Becca:
Be there in a min, get
me my ice-cream ready!
Laughing I show the text to Tahlia and head to the freezer
to get the honeycomb out for Becca. Just as I head over I hear the computer
announce Becca’s arrival and go to hand her the ice cream as she walks into the
room.
“ Okay, lets get things started. For tonight, I brought the
sappy rom-coms but first, I want to know what’s got Scar so happy?” Becca said
sitting down next to me at the kitchen island. He must have texted her about
the news.
“ Well, you guys know how I was put into the foster program
after my parents died because no one wanted to adopt me?” I wait for them to
respond getting them both to nod their heads. “ Well, I told Scar early because
he was there and I was bursting with anticipation, but I got adopted by Dean Carrile!” The girls started screaming at me “ No way!”
and “ I don’t believe it!”.
“Wait how did that happen?”
“ Well you guys have heard of his adopted son Harry Cain? He
and I have been friends since he was born. Our families we’re both really good
friends. Then my Family was murdered and a few years later the same happened to
him. Anyway, he got adopted and I was put into the foster program under a false
name but they still let me keep contact with him. Anyway, he and I have been
friends since forever and I have been close with Dean for many years,” I slow
down to see if there are any questions so far. Seeing that they both nodded
their heads once again I went on with my little story. Leaving out the parts
about Harry actually being Scar.
“ So, over the past month Dean had been working on getting
me adopted into his family, because he was basically my dad now anyway. But tonight, we found out that all the
information and paperwork had gone through and I was officially a part of his
family now,”
“ That's amazing news Cassie, after all these years you
deserve a little happiness,”
“ Yeah, and now you and Harry and brother and sister. Hang
on, does this mean that your coming to Crystost High?”
“ Sure am Bec’s!”
“Yay! I can show you around tomorrow and meet up with you
outside the front gates. You can eat lunch with me and some of my mates, you
could bring Harry too. He already knows most of my friends anyway,” Becca continued to talk away but I had slowly
drifted into another daydream.
* * *
I was standing in the
restaurant where I saw my family get slaughtered before my eyes. Standing in
the centre of the room was Harry and Dean. As well as the rest of the team and
my mom and dad.
“ What are you doing
here? Mom? Dad? I watched you die!” I started to feel tremors through the
ground. A face appeared at the far end of the room. Riddler’s face, he was
laughing at me as all of my friends and family started to dissolve away.
“ No! Don't go! Stay
with me! I don’t want to be alone!”
The scene faded away
and I was now standing at the beach, watching the waves come crashing into the
sand. The team was there having a barbeque picnic and playing beach soccer.
They were all laughing and asking me to come and join them.
“ Cassie? Cass!?”
* * *
“ Cassie? Did you hear me?” Tahlia’s voice shocked me back
into reality. I shook my head a little and rubbed my eyes to take the fuzzy
vision away.
“ No sorry, I was day dreaming. Not even that good to start
with. Um, sorry, do mind repeating your question?” I felt bad because I was
here to cheer her up and help her forget about her fight with her parents.
“ I asked if your still going to be living in the cave now?”
“ Nope, I’m moving into Dean’s place. He and Harry have
already had me pick out my room earlier tonight, Dean is hoping to have my room
set up by the weekend,”
“ Do they know about your, activities?”
“ Yeah, they know. Harry worked it out a few years ago, soon
as I became Raven. Said that the way I fight gave it away. Also cause I rescued
him from a kidnapping, and well, we have known each other since well, forever,”
“ So when you said you would be moving into Dean’s place, I
take it you meant his Mansion in Crystost, the one down the road from ours?”
Becca cut into Tahlia’s questions.
“ Yeah, that would be the one,” I rolled my eyes at her and
took another mouthful of my choc-mint ice-cream. I use to eat this stuff by the
gallon, before Frostfire pointed out that I really needed to cut back on the
sweets if I wanted to be at my best when I was out fighting at night.
“ Hang on, have you been adopted as Brooke or as Cassie?”
Tahlia asked quickly, sticking her spoon out to silence Becca before she could
ask another question.
“ Um, well, I don’t really know. I’ll ask tomorrow when I go
over to the mansion to go to school,” We hadn’t really discussed this when we
were setting up the adoption.
“ That would probably be smart seeing as you are going to be
introduced to a lot of people tomorrow, can’t have you slipping up and saying
your Cassie, if your meant to be Brooke,” Becca and Tahlia had a really good
point about that.
“ Well, I don’t know about you guys, but how about we go to
my room so we can get ready for the movie?” Getting up and putting my left over
ice-cream in the freezer I turn to head down the hall again.
* * *
Beep, Beep, Beep!
“ Uhhh, somebody hit the snooze,” I heard Becca groan from
beside me. I slowly turn to hit the button, only to find that Tahlia was in the
way. I hit her shoulder to get her to do it.
“Thanks, uh guys, it’s 7 o’clock. We have to be at school in
an hour,” I quickly move to a crouching position so I can jump over Tahlia to
get into my shower.
“ I was meant to be back home an hour ago! See ya at
training later!” and with that Tahlia was out of the room and gone from our
sight.
“ I got to go have a shower, I’m meant to be at Dean’s place
in like half an hour, and I still have to do my hair and get dressed as well,”
“ Don’t worry, you got plenty of time, school doesn’t start
until twenty past anyway, but I should probably go home now too. Mum wants to
have a family breakfast, Jenny came home for the week,” Becca followed me out
of bed and headed out the door. Obviously wanting to not talk about the whole
sister coming home thing.
Five minutes later, I am drying my hair and putting it up
into a tight pony tail and wrapping the top centimetre of it in a thin white
ribbon and tying it in a small bow. I
got dressed into my uniform, a light blue and dark grey pleated skirt, white
short sleeved blouse, with a dark blue-light blue tie and sweater vest. We had
the option of the blazer but it was too hot to be wearing it today. I grab my
messenger bag off of my desk and head to the kitchen to grab some breakfast
before I head off.
Grabbing an apple I ran through to the transport room.
Pinning in my info and destination I jump on to the Zeta plate and head off.
Apollo
The kiss was perfect. And now we were going on a date. Sure,
I didn’t have the details yet but I don’t doubt that things were looking
anything but up from now on. I had told
everyone about my family, and still they didn’t throw me out. And even now
Cassie still likes me. More than likes me. It was amazing. I felt so alive. So
I did the natural thing. Went to go and take down some baddies. I went and
zetaed to Sluggrave city so I could bash some heads.
* * *
Half an hour into my patrol from the night I had taken down
about 10 robbers and gotten them to the nearest police station. I was now
sitting on top of the apartment building near the city’s main bank. I knew that
there was usually an attack around this time of night, so it made sense for me
to sit here and rest before going back down to the streets below
I wonder what Cassie’s
doing now, I couldn’t help the fact that I was thinking of her again. She
had been on my mind the whole night.
Ping, Ping
From Mum:
Can you come home for a bit? We need
to talk about something.
To Mum:
Yeah, I’ll be there in a few
I turned to
jump off the roof, once again making sure no one was trying to break into the
bank. Heading down the streets until I reached an old apartment building.
Heading up the stairs I tried to work out what my mum could possibly want to
talk to me about. Unless of course it had something to do with todays attacks
on the cities.
* * *
“ Mum! I’m
home! Where are you?” I start to walk around the apartment until I could smell
dinner in the oven. Wandering through to kitchen I saw my mum sitting at the
table reading a book. No wonder she didn’t answer me, I laughed
to myself.
“ Hey mum,
what did you want to talk about?” I shook her shoulder slightly before bending
to kiss her cheek
“ Just wanted
to know how you went today, I saw Gavin and a few of your other cousins
rampaging through the streets. Then I saw Coiler and Clockwire down in the
streets, so I assumed that something big must have been going down because they
don’t look after this city. You and Lumos take care of this place,”
“ Um, yeah,
the whole family took out several attacks around the continent. The HHC called
the core in so we could help take them down,”
“ Did you
see…” her voice trailed
“ Yeah, I saw
Bethany and Aaron. We fought, obviously
I won, but at a cost. I had to tell the HHC and the Core the truth about my,
our family. At first it seemed bad but then they kind of just let it all go,” I
smiled down at mum to see she had tears in her eyes.
“ What’s
wrong Mama? Everything is good, Aaron and Bethany, the whole family will all be
locked up by now. Everything is fine,”
“ I am just
so proud of you, ever since the accident where your father… you know, and you not
following him in the family business. You suit this life Locky, saving others,
you fit it perfectly. I could never be more proud of you than I am now, I love
you so much”
“ I love you
too Mama,” I kissed her forehead and went over to the kitchen to get dinner out
of the oven.
“ Pork roast!
Mum, its my favourite!” Mum laughed as my face lit up and helped to set the
table and get drinks for the both of us.
“ So,
anything exciting happen today? Apart from the obvious of course,” Mum
continued our conversation as we sat down to eat.
“ Actually,
yeah,”
“ Well, are
you going to tell me?”
“ You know
Raven? Ugh, I mean Brooke,” I tried to remember that I couldn’t let others know
Cassie’s real name, in case someone had bugged our apartment or if some of my
family got that info and tried to kill her. “ Well, we kissed,” Mum gave a
little squeal of excitement.
“ Oh,
Lachlan, I am so happy for you,”
“ And we are
going on a date, don’t know when yet but it will be soon,” I finished telling
mum about my news. We had nearly
finished eating by now.
“ Well, I’m
glad. And I can’t wait to meet miss Brooke. She sounds like a lovely girl,”
“ You’d love
her mum, she cares about others so much. The first day the team came together
at Heart Hall, she took down Riddler. Practically killed herself doing it,” I
couldn’t help but smiled as I talked about her.
“ And you
should see the way she looks after the people around her. Scar, Whitenoise, she
cares about them so much. You can tell just by the way she looks at them,”
“ I love her
already. I’ll clear up in here, and you go and get ready for bed. You have
school tomorrow and I don’t want you to be called into the office on your first
day from falling asleep,” I laughed at this openly. Last year, I had fallen
asleep in science in first period on the first day back. Mum was not happy at
the time.
“ Sure thing
Mama, I’ll see you in the morning,”
* * *
Beep, Beep, Beep
Ugh, I don’t want to wake up yet.
Beep, Beep, Beep
“ Lachlan!
Don't make me come in there and pour water all over you!” I heard mum scream
from down the hall. Hitting the off button on my alarm I climbed out of bed and
jumped into the shower. Feeling the warm water run down my body I started to
wake up and remember all that had happened over the past few days. For once I
was actually looking forward to school just because it was something normal.
Something an ordinary teenager would do, go to school to learn for six hours of
a day.
Dried and
dressed. Thankfully, my school had my no uniform, just a dress code. I grabbed
all the stuff I would need for school and headed out to the kitchen down the
hall seeing that mum had laid out breakfast for me. I quickly ate it all and headed to say
goodbye to mum before I rushed out the door.
