Flight of Life (Essence Series #1) (5 page)

“
Knock it off,” Breccan
snapped. “You made your point. Is that the only insults you can
think of?”

Hawk narrowed his eyes at him. “I
wasn’t talking to you, Poverty Boy.”

Breccan sighed. He knew that was going
to be his nickname for the rest of the semester. Hawk walked up to
Breccan and shoved him backwards.

“
Stop this now,” Calloway
said.

Hawk shoved him next and he staggered
to the side. “Why don’t you do something about it?” Hawk
sneered.

Calloway and Breccan were both silent.
They just wanted this confrontation to end. Why was the period so
long today? “Just back off,” Calloway said.

“
I think I just pissed my
pants.” Hawk laughed. He turned his gaze to Breccan and the camera
that was dangling around his neck. He nodded to his two friends and
they pounced on Breccan, holding him down. Hawk tore the camera
from the strap. Calloway realized what was happening and he tried
to steal the camera back, but Hawk smashed it to the ground before
Calloway could intervene. The expensive camera shattered into
dozens of pieces and the lens broke in half. It was
destroyed.

Hawk stepped on the camera and smiled
at them. “Hope you guys can afford food this month.” His friends
laughed with him as they turned around and walked back to the room.
They gave each other high-fives, chuckling the entire
way.

Calloway and Breccan stared at the
camera in misery. The camera was checked out to them so it was
their responsibility to replace it if it was destroyed or damaged.
The teacher would call Breccan’s parents and force them to pay for
the equipment. Calloway shook in anger then punched the metal
trashcan violently, bloodying his knuckles.

“
Girls are never worth
it.” Breccan sighed as he gathered the pieces of metal in his hands
and carried it back to the room.

Calloway walked beside him. “We’ll tell
Mrs. Ezquibel Hawk broke it,” Calloway said. “It isn’t our
responsibility to replace it.”

“
Aren’t you forgetting
about the other two witnesses?” he asked. “It’s three to two.
There’s nothing we can do. And even if we had evidence, she
wouldn’t do a single thing—you know that.”

“
I can’t believe this is
happening,” Calloway said as they came back into the classroom. He
wasn’t sure how much the camera would cost to be replaced but he
knew it was more than his aunt and uncle could afford. This entire
situation was his fault because he stood up to a bully when he
should have just let it go. Now his aunt and uncle were going to
suffer the consequences of his hasty decision.

Breccan carried the pile of rubble to
the teacher, and when Mrs. Ezquibel looked into his hands her eyes
widened in shock. Calloway stood next to his cousin with his hands
in his pockets.

“
What happened?” she
yelled. “What did you do? It’s broken into dozens of pieces—it’s
destroyed!”

The other students looked up from their
computers at the sound of her cry. Calloway glanced at Beatrice and
caught her staring at him. The whole class, including Hawk and his
gang, were watching them.

Breccan sighed. “Hawk broke it,” he
said.

Calloway closed his eyes. He knew there
was no point in blaming Hawk. They had no proof.

“
Is this true?” Mrs.
Ezquibel asked him.

Hawk shook his head. “I’ve been here
the whole time.” He smiled. “Just ask the class.”

The entire class knew he wasn’t but no
one spoke up. It was obvious he was guilty but the teacher was so
ignorant of her students that she didn’t know what to think. And
she didn’t want to be the one to discipline the principal’s
son.

“
I’ll have to call your
parents.” she sighed. “They’ll be expected to replace the
camera.”

Calloway dropped his head. “If we gave
you the money could you not call them?”

“
Do you have two thousand
dollars?” she snapped.

Calloway’s eyes widened. He knew the
camera would be expensive but that was ridiculous. His family could
never afford that.

“
I didn’t think so,” she
said as she opened the contact information in her binder. “I’ll
call them after class,” she said as she glanced at the clock. “The
period is almost over.”

When Calloway and Breccan returned to
their seats, the bell rang. They grabbed their backpacks from the
floor and walked out the door.

“
Hey,” Hawk said to his
gang. “Let’s order from the value menu at McDonalds,” he said
loudly so Calloway and Breccan could hear. “Let’s eat like poor
people.”

Calloway stopped and was about to turn
around when Breccan grabbed him by the arm. “That’s enough for one
day.”

Eternal Night

“
I thought this day would
never end,” Calloway said as they walked to the parking lot where
they were supposed to meet Easton.

“
For the first time I’m
glad I don’t have a cell phone,” Breccan said. “Now my mom can’t
call me.”

Calloway sighed. “Do you think they
know?”

“
I’m sure Mrs. Ezquibel
already called.” He sighed. “We’ll find out our punishment when we
get home.”

“
This isn’t your fault,”
Calloway said. “I’ll take the blame. If I hadn’t defended Beatrice
then none of this would have happened. It was a bad
decision.”

“
No. It was a
stupid
decision,”
Breccan said as they stopped on the sidewalk and looked for Easton.
“But it isn’t your fault. Hawk stooped really low—even for him.
We’ll tell my parents the truth—they’ll listen to us.”

The wind blew through their hair and
made them both feel the full effects of the cold winter. The sky
was blanketed with clouds and made the day overcast. It looked like
it would rain again. Calloway tightened his jacket around him as
they searched for Easton. They didn’t know what car she drove so
they hoped she would approach them.

“
Calloway,” someone called
from behind them. They both turned around to see Mr. Avey, their
English teacher, walking toward them. “I wanted to make sure your
paper was ready for tomorrow.” Calloway stared at him for a moment,
unsure what he was talking about. Mr. Avey read his look. He rolled
up a piece of paper he was holding then tapped Calloway lightly on
the arm. “I look forward to reading it,” he said before he walked
away toward the main office on campus.

Breccan looked at him. “You have a
paper due tomorrow?”

Calloway sighed. “I can’t catch a
break, can I?”

“
What are you going to
do?”

“
I don’t know,” he said.
“Now I obviously don’t have time and we don’t have a computer at
home. Nothing is what I’ll do.”

“
Well, I hope you get a
perfect score on the SAT,” Breccan said. “You are going to need
it.”

“
He’s your English
teacher, too, Brec,” he said. “And you didn’t do your paper
either.”

Breccan sighed. “I forgot.”

“
Now
you
need a high score on the
SAT.”

“
Damn.”

“
Hey,” Easton said as she
drove up to the curb. She was driving an old mustang with the
window down. “You guys coming or what?”

Breccan stared at the car with wide
eyes. “You have a classic car?” he asked in a surprised voice. “A
1967 Mustang?”

“
That was restored,” she
added. “And the paint isn’t original either. But I still love it.”
She smiled. “That’s enough with the small talk. Let’s hit the
road.” She opened the door and pulled up her front seat, allowing
Calloway to fit in the back. Calloway let his cousin occupy the
front seat since he was obsessed with muscle cars—anything that was
expensive.

“
Your parents bought you
this?” Breccan asked as they drove out of the parking lot and onto
the main street. “Are they rich?”

“
Brec,” Calloway said. He
was trying to remind him of social decorum. The question was
inappropriate.

“
I don’t care,” he said to
Calloway in the backseat. He turned back to Easton. “So are
they?”

“
Well, my father is rich
in godly jewels and angels, but my mother is middle-class,” she
said as she turned left at the street light.

Breccan stared at her for a moment,
unsure of the meaning in her words. “What?”

Calloway rolled his eyes. His cousin
could be really dense sometimes. “Her father passed away,” he
said.

Breccan looked back at him. “How did
you know that?”

“
She just said
it.”

Breccan looked back at Easton. “What
about the jewel part? What did that mean?”

“
My father is with the
angels of the father,” she said. “He died a few years ago and I
inherited his car.”

“
Oh,” he said awkwardly.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“
No, you’re not,” she said
as she continued to drive. “But it’s okay.”

The three of them fell silent as Easton
drove them to her sister’s house by the state college. Calloway
wanted to say something to Easton in acknowledgment of her loss but
he decided to leave it alone. He knew what it was like to lose a
parent—two actually—and he preferred not to talk about it. They
drove down the main street until Easton drove in a neighborhood of
old homes on Berkeley Road. A two-story white house stood in the
yard with a long driveway. It was elegant and beautiful. Calloway
wondered how old her sister was.

She parked the car and they emerged
from their seats. Easton walked up the driveway and passed the
front door of the house. Breccan and Calloway both glanced at each
other, unsure where she was going. They followed her until a small
one-story house came into view.

“
Where are we going?”
Calloway asked.

“
To my sister’s,” she
said. “Like I already said.”

“
Doesn’t she live in the
house?” Breccan asked.

“
Well, not that mansion
over there,” she said. “She lives in this guest house. The rent is
dirt cheap. She’s in college and she can only afford so
much.”

“
Is she home?” Calloway
asked.

“
We’ll find out,” she said
as she took the key from her necklace and inserted it into the
lock. The door opened and they walked inside. Easton turned on the
lights and they looked inside. There was a small kitchen that
connected to a dining room with a small coffee table. The living
room and bedroom were one tiny room.

“
And where are we going to
do all of this?” Breccan asked sarcastically. “There’s no
privacy.”

“
You seem to think I’m
stupid when I’m not,” she said to Breccan.

“
No, I just know how weird
you are.”

She shook her head and walked to the
corner of the living room. There was a string on the ground and she
pulled it up to reveal a staircase down to the underground
basement. “We’ll have plenty of privacy,” she said.

Breccan inched forward and looked down
the stairwell. “It’s dark.”

“
There are lights down
there,” she said. “Are you scared?”

“
No,” he said
quickly.

Calloway walked to the opening and
placed his feet on the ladder. “I’ll go first,” he said. He climbed
down the dark stairs, and when he felt his foot reach the cement
floor, he pulled his glowing orb from his pocket and squeezed it
gently. It illuminated the room until he found the light in the
center of the room. He pulled the string and it lit the basement.
Calloway extinguished the ball and returned it to his pocket before
Easton climbed into the room.

There was one long table in the center
and a few random chairs surrounded it. Some were reclining chairs
while others were wooden and old. The only window in the room was
obscured by the grass growing in the yard above the basement. An
old sofa was pushed against the wall with a pile of blankets
stacked on top, like someone had just slept on the couch, and there
were a few cabinets that contained old bags of chips and bottled
water.

“
Is this a natural
disaster room?” Breccan asked as he looked around.

“
No,” Easton said as she
pulled the door closed form the inside, giving them privacy from
the living room and the rest of the house. “This is where my sister
has her parties. That way the property owners can’t complain about
the loud music.”

“
How old is your sister?”
Calloway asked.

She’s a freshman in college,” she said.
“I think she’s nineteen.”

“
You
think
?” Breccan asked.

“
You are annoying,” Easton
said as she sat at the table in the middle of the room.

“
And you’re weird,” he
argued.

Calloway rolled his eyes. These two
never got along and he was tired of listening to the bickering. He
was always the mediator but he didn’t feel like interfering now. He
was exhausted from the horrific day he had.