After reading something new. . .

So after reading some of Jane Austen's books and discussing them in my class, I've noticed that I'm "recycling" characters and situations. SO, I've had a breakthrough in one of my problems. I know Victoria didn't like Angela at all through Jessica's point of view and it was hard to change from Jesse's POV to get back into Angela's. It was the weirdest thing. But, Angela has been revisited in my mind and--although she was sad and felt neglected and felt treated as if she was the bad guy when she very much isn't--has got her spunk back.

I knew I was missing something from Angela even when I was writing the first draft. She was heroic and happy and charming. . . However, she was missing something called a major flaw. Everyone has them, but I couldn't figure out what her's was. As I wrote Jesse's POV, I found that she was far too motherly. Jesse already had a mom, she didn't need another one. Even after their mom died in Jesse's first draft, Angela was trying to fill that role--which there was now space to fill, Angela  felt she was doing the right thing. But even that didn't feel right.

Things have changed. I'm writing it here because I feel no one really ever looks here anymore--it's not like I update things all that often and it's really just been for myself--and it is here because it needs to be written down somewhere and I'd loose it if I actually wrote it down on paper.

Changes:

• Angela's mom doesn't die yet. It won't be until much later that she does die(I really need to remember their mom's name... I think it's Lilly. . .But I could be wrong.)
• Jesse and her mom DO get in a car accedent and Airo DOES pick her up after she runs away. Tobias gets in her head and tells her that her mom is dead and that it's all her fault--even though it was the other drivers fault, he was going around the corner too fast in the dark and wasn't paying attention to the road as he changed the CD's in his truck. He tells her she's a horrible person and she should just kill herself. . .or something liket that. probably not kill herself, but she starts thinking suicide--like Cutting Curtis--is a good thing. She starts cutting while she's with Airo.
• OOOOHHH!!! I so the reason why Jessica looks all punk and has her hair dyed all sorts of funky colors is because of the night her mom died. Her mom was on her way to pick Jessica up from some club down the interstate or something that Cole and his band were at (the whole freezing cop thng where they see Greg--not the deer--and she gets saved by Airo there (that's why she gets in his car after the accident)). Her best girl-friend at this point--not the best of people to be hanging around with--pulls her aside before they get there and gives her a complete make over. She stops just short of practically giving her a tattoo. . . Maybe she gives her another ear-piercing. . . ?  IDK but she goes all out practically.

As for anything else at the moment, I don't really know. I've been stuck at the beginning and I need the beginning to be good so then I don't have to do a complete rewrite, like I'm curently doing right now. *rolls eyes* It's insanely obnoxious. But I like this part right now.

At least this part seems to flow better. (Not to mention I still get to keep kicking Greg's butt over and over and over and over again. It's kind of awesome!!)

Third Try_Gabriel

Chapter 4
Gabriel:

A small, cold finger pokes my nose. My eyes shoot open and I learch forward. The green around me unfamiliar. The growth beneith me is soft, but clings to my hands. It takes my mind a minute to ajust and my memory to return. My little sister Jumps in front of me, a small poof echoes about her as she lands. The air reverberates around her, leaving the wave of the Jump behind. It is sweet to see her smiling face. Any real smile is better than the havok and terror that has followed me around for the past year and a half. None stop blood.

"Oh, don't be sad again, Gabriel!" she says, her smile fading a little, before her balled fists land on her hips. "This is a happy place. My happy place. And there will be no sad places while you're here. That is the only rule. If you don't follow it. . ."

"You'll do what?" I ask, a smile dances behind my words, and I start getting to my feet.

She Jumped just above my head. Gravity pull her down and she lands, dress over my eyes and legs on either one of my shoulders. I sway at the sudden weight, but quickly stablize. The grass hugs onto my boots as if trying to help.

"I'll make you laugh," she giggles. "And as you can see,"--she moves the cloth from my face, allowing me to breathe--"I'm very good at what I do. This is my world and no one can stop me in my world. Not even you, big brother."

"You're world, little sister, is quiet beautiful."

And it really was. There was grass, of a kind, as far as the eye could see. Different shades of green flowed like a river, dancing, changing in the lightest whisp of a breeze. Not three paces away from where I stand with Della on my shoulders is a pool of crystal clear water. It shimmers and the large trees and few animals that I hadn't ever seen before drink from it. A trickling waterfall fed it by way of a little streem that ran on the other side of the oasis. Dusty mountains, a long ways off, encompassed us. The highest peek seemed to stop and flatten, still high above the rest. It almost seems to glow. . .

A deer like creature with black spots dotting his rusty coat and three massive horns walked to the bank and lapped up the refreshing liquid. A red, rabbit sized rodent with a larger tail than it knew what to do with, woddled over and slipped into it, followed quickly by three other much small animals of the same type.

"Oh, look, Gabriel. These are my friends. I've seen them once or twice here, but every time I try to get close enough to touch them, they run. Why do you think that is?"

"Probably because you scare them. You are rather frightening, you know." She start to retaliate, but I stop her with another question. "How did you find this place?"

She smiles above me and Jumps to stand before me. "I can't tell you. It's my secret. If I told you, you could tell other Jumpers. Then it wouldn't be my world."

"I won't tell, I promise. Have you ever known me to break a promise?"

Della thinks it over before shaking her head. "But I'm still not going to tell you." She grabs my arm and suddenly we're gone again. It's like being pulled through a wind tunnel then, without warning, the cord that holds you in place snaps and you fall for the briefest of moments the way Della Jumps. As you land, you land on your feet. When she Jumps with new comers, they tend to be groggy and dizzy, but I have Jumped with her more often than anyone else and I'm used to the thud of landing.

My eyes open again and we are home.

Cole comes to the rescue. . .

So to pick up from last time. . . From Jessica still.

************

I didn't know where I was going. I didn't even make it to the street before I felt someone wrench my arm almost out of my socket. The beating of my heart was loud in my ears. I whirled around, my hand raised in a fist to give my sister the worst black eye she's ever had. My eyes burned, through tears or hate I didn't know. But as I did so I didn't see the bright red hair that looked like flames that normally came from my sister's head, but the short, black spiked cap of Cole's hair.

I couldn't stop my fist. There was too much momentum behind my swing. But, thankfully, he moves quickly and slid gracefully away from my wild strike and he let go of my arm.

"Oh, my. . ." My hands flew to my mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"I hope you thought I was someone else," he said with a slight smile and rain dripping down his face.

"I. . . I. . ." I couldn't get my words out. Stupid. I'm so stupid. . .

His eyebrow cocked and he took me all in with a quick look. "Are you okay?"

My chin started to quiver and I dropped my gaze, not answering. I could feel my mouth opening, but no sound came out. His hands moved upward even the slightest bit, as if to offer a hug. Without realizing what I was doing, I was in his arms. Tears escaped from my eyes and meshed with the rain that fell. Whether his invitation was intentional or if I over stepped my bounds, I didn't know. But I did feel his arms lightly wrapping around me, his cheek rested gently on my head, and his hands ran up and down my spine comfortingly.

I didn't know what I was doing. After the night before, I should have been running for the hills. After the dark, I should have kneed him and sprinted back to the police station. But I just needed to be held. It didn't matter if he'd tried something before, it didn't matter if I hardly knew him. I needed someone. I needed to be cared about and felt like I was loved for even a brief moment. I knew he would probably leave and I would continue running, running from everyone and everything that I knew. But for that moment, I didn't want to be alone.

Then he did something I didn't expect.

"Come on. Do you want something to eat?"

Without an answer on my part, he escorted me to his car, the black one at the back of the parking lot. He opened the door and I slid inside. The seat was cold, but dry. It smelt like it had before. The leather was soft under my wet clothes. I wipped my face dry, and cleaned off the little bit of make up I had. Cole got in next to me and reved his engine.

He drove out of the parking lot and down the road to a fast food resturant that was close by. I could tell he was looking me over closely again, his eyes ever scanning me up and down.

"Do you want to go in or take it somewhere else?" he asked politely.

I glared at the building. I didn't want to be around people. He got the message without me saying anything again and pulled to the drive through. Before long, Cole handed me a soft drink, which I sipped without tasting, and we drove out. We went without speaking for a while before he shifted in his seat to get something out of his pocket.

"Here." He plopped something heavy into my lap and let his hand slide again onto the gear shift in the center console. It was my cell phone. "It must have fallen out of your pocket when you were getting out of the car last night. Some girl called. . . Ah, Kaycee? I think her name was. What?"

My eyes started filling with water again.

"What did I say?"

"It's nothing," I whisper. The words barely come out even then. "Don't. . ." Don't worry about it. Just let me alone. . . NO! Don't let me alone. Please to leave me. . .

He pulls the car over to the side of the road. The rain has let up slightly but there is still a light tapping on the roof of the car. "No, there's something wrong. Will you please tell me?"

This is such a change for him. Why am I near him? I ask myself. After hurting me. . . like he did last night. Scaring me and letting me run like that and not coming after me to apologize? Why did I hug him. . . ? Why does everyone else hate me. . . ? Why did she say those things. . . ? Am I really horrible? Awful? I am. I'm nothing. I'm indecent. I'm awful and horrible and I shouldn't even be here anymore. I shouldn't be sitting here. With him. I should be. . . My own thoughts trail off.

"You should be what?" he asks, his voice soft as velvet and so close to my ear.

I shrink away and he looks me deeply in the eyes. He wasn't supposed to hear that.

FREAKING MALL SHOT!!!

So I've been trying to write this freaking part in the story for forever! It's turing out to be one of the "roof scenes" as Shelby would put it. I don't know exactly what is going to be said, but I do know that Kaycee will turn into a complete jerk in the process. But then it still doesn't seem right. . . Something isn't right with it. Maybe it. . . wow. . . It's supposed to be written from Airo's point of view. That changes a lot of things.

Alright.

I'll jsut skip it for now. I know that Kaycee is going to make a big deal about hanging out with Jessica for now. Many people around them are going to stare and not know what to do when Kaycee actually explodes on her old best friend. Kaycee tells her that she's a liar--Jessica tells her about her brother and the party and the girl that he was making out with--and that she's worthless and flaky, that she doesn't want to be around people with that kind of image. What kind of image? The kind that screams--her voice raises higher and higher by this point--that "I'm loose! That I'll be pregnant within the year and drop out because I'm no use to the world. I probably won't even keep the baby and have someone beat it out of me because I'm to cheep to have a clinical abortion. You're awful, Jessica. You're not worth my time or anyone elses for that matter. You should just leave and never come back. No one likes to be around liars and hos." She flips her blond hair away from her shoulder so it swings down her back. She's a completely self-righteous doosh.

Airo let Tobias know what was going on, and Tobias ran with it and probably ran with it too long.

Anyway, so here we start from Jessica's point of view after Kaycee started to walk away.

* * * * * * * * * *

I couldn't even watch her walk away. I didn't see how she stroad down the food court like she owned the place. Her heels clicked as she went. The whole room was silent except for her leaving. As soon as she rounded the corner all eyes turned on me. The sizzling of the friers and a small wimper of a child were the only things to be heard. Then my chair. It scrapped as I slid it across the hard green and brown tiles. I felt something warm and wet drip onto my hand as I stood. I didn't look down to see how many tears had fallen onto the table.

Without much more of a warning to the people in my path, I spinted to the closest door, my hands covering my eyes as I did so. All got out of my way but a small group of teenagers, probably a little older than myself. The girl standing between the two boys yelped as I plowed into her. Her bags fell to the ground. One of the boys grabbed for my arm, but my hand slipped from his and I ran past him.

My ears roared and my eyes were clouded with tears. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't think. I just ran out the door and toward the road as her words echoed though my head. The hate was still there. The fiery, burning resentment. My feet hit the pavement until I couldn't hear them under the pounding rain.

The noise around me was all but consumed by the rain and her words. Loose. . . Drop out. . . Awful. . . Liar. . . Drop out. . . Awful. . . Loose. . . Liar. . . Awful. . . I passed stop lights, houses, cars, fenses. . . so many thing, all without seeing them.

My knees gave way and I found myself laying on something soft, mostly. There was something pointy in my hip and my arm was pinned under my own body. My fingers started to tingle. The rain fell on me like waves lapping over me, drawing me deeper and deeper into the water. If I was going to drown, let it be now. Get it over with. . . Please. . .

*****

The next thing I knew it was warm. Warm lips move away from my hand and the man standing in front of me bowed. He was tall; with an almost olive complection from spending too much time out in the sun; his eyes wer alight and full of life; a large, crooked nose that looked as if to have been broken more than once sat above full lips that smlied. "Take care of yourself, alright? If you ever need anything" he passed me a card "don't hesitate to call." He winked and glidded down a stark white hall and quickly ducked around a corner.

I blinked after the older. . . well, gentleman that had just disappered. He wasn't ancient and covered in wrinkles as I'd expect someone to have acted like that to be, but he was quiet a few years older than me. Maybe a few years older than Gabriel.

I felt my face fall.

My hand slid under the blanket and hid the card he had given me, which I hadn't even had the chance to look at, and looked away from the corner as my sister sprinted into view.

This is not what I need right now! I screamed in my head and started to stand. The blanket that was wrapped around my shoulders nearly fell to the floor as I stood and started to move down the opposite hall my sister was coming from.

"Well, excuse me for coming all the way over here to bail you out of jail!" Angela yelled, her hands must have flown to her hip that was cocked to one side. I didn't even need to see her to know what she looked like. It seems like she pulled that pose more often than not when she was talking to me.

I took my first look around the building I was standing in. It didn't look like a jail. It didn't even look like a childrens hospital. No hard, metal bars; but also no dainty little pictures of ponies either. It was a paisty white hall from ceiling to floor tile that carried little to no decorations. The only other person down this hall was a rather solitary looking boy sitting in a chair that was bolted to the ground, his wrists in handcuffs. He had scars running up and down his arms and a very sad look on his face. His eyes were dark and lonely. His blond hair messy, almost dirty.

"I really don't think those are nessicary, sir," a cop said as he left the room next to the chair.

"It's nessisary if I say it is. He's my son and I know how to handle him." This man was gruff, with dark brown hair that probably would have been a completely different shade if he'd washed the oil out of it. He wore a wife beater and dirty, baggy jeans that was barely being held up by the whisp of a belt under a rather large beer belly.

The cop, with a lean and wirey frame, looked sadly down at the boy with suicide marks down his arm and spoke to the man. "Well, he's ready to be taken home now, sir."

"I'll say it is." The father grabbed swiftly at his son as soon as the father's handcuffs were off the boy--who was my age--and hauled him down the hall toward me by the nap of his neck. When the coller of his shirt moved, the rope marks were easier to see where the shadows of his scruff didn't shild them. These where new.

His eyes wouldn't stop staring at me, even after they passed me. Curtis. That was his name. Curtis. He was known all around school for being a cutter, for not even being ashamed for his scars. The story was that even the best concelor in the state couldn't help him. He wouldn't open up to anyone. No one wanted to be his friend after what was said he did to his other friends before he moved from Oregon down here to California. About, why his mom isn't there. . . There were some very strange stories about his mom: that she was a dancer in Vegas, she ran off with her therapist, that while they were hiking as a family his dad pushed her off a cliff, that she committed suicide and drove her car off a dock, or Curtis threw her into a revine after she tried to fix his hair for prom. No one knows, but then again everyone knows some truth.
But no one knows for sure or is even willing to ask.

Cutting Curtis Moore's dad pulled him away hard and around the corner. I followed them until they were out of sight and my sister came around the corner with Gabriel.

I should have made my escape sooner, I thought and turned down the hall again to where Curtis had sat before.

"Wait just a minute!"

The cop from before came out just then to see why my sister was screaming. Her red hair probably flowing galently behind her to make her seem like the good guy. And it worked. He stopped me with an outstretched hand as I was about to slip past him.

"Hold on there," he said and tried to pass a smile.

I glowered at him and tried to shake him off. His grip tightened and wouldn't let me go.

My sister caught up to us then. "What do you think you're doing? Dad is worried sick and Mom is frantic. If they were down here now they'd rip you a new one."

The cop at my arm looked at my sister with a cocked eye. I could see the words floating across his face: Not another one of those families. . .

Angela didn't catch it. "I had to beg them to let us come down here so then they wouldn't make a scene."

"And you're doing such a good job at keeping this quiet aren't you? Leave me alone, Angela." I shook off the cop and he released me this time.

"No, you're coming home, now."

"What if I don't wanna come home 'now'? What if I wanna go and hang out with friends or something?"

She scoffed at me. "Yeah, right." I glared at her trying to mask the hurt that just coursed through me.

"Get away from me. My day has been--" I almost swore there, but stopped myself. I hated those words. The fact that I almost did so just then meant it had been a really bad day. "Just stay away."

The tears started to gather in my eyes again. I turned and sprinted away down the hall, around the corner and toward the exit on the otherside of the building. She doesn't understand, I know she doesn't. She doesn't even wanna try. All she wants is to order me around and scream at me.

I reached the door before my sister could come after me. The rain had stopped outside, but in my heart it could stay thundering for months to come.

***********

A weird, strange, and downright creepy dream

So last night, I had a really scary dream. It didn't start out bad at all, but as the time moved on, it got worse and worse.

It started out with a bunch of friends gathering together to watch a movie. We went out and got food for it and met at this modest looking house. I don't remember any kind of movie actually being played, but we all had a great time. My husband-to-be had to drive home or something so I walked him to his car and, after a few minutes, he left. I went back into the house--jumping over a few people that seemed to be asleep on the ground but I got this feeling that they were still watching me, almost waiting to pounce--to clean up the mess everyone had made now that they were all gone.

The strange thing is, when I got there the room was filled with smoke and I could smell the pot that this big group was smoking. I noticed that one of the girls that I'd jumped over on my way there and as high as a kite. I walked through the clouds of smoke and to the back room, there was some big guy behind me who was blocking the door. As I walked to the back, I chose the wrong door and found myself in a closet and the big guy behind me before had followed me there. I excused myself and started making my way around him, ducking my head to not meet his gaze as I did so.

I got just past him when he threw an arm around my neck, half choking me--I don't think he meant to hurt me, although he could have been high or. . . actually he seemed very coherent--and his other hand slid under my shirt and around my waist. His words were eerie as he whispered in my ear, "Do you wanna go have sex in the bedroom?"

Instantly I said, "No," rather forcefully and tried to get away.

"How about on the couch or on the floor?"

My reply was the same only so much more scared. I tried to get away and  he held me back until I got my chin under his arm that was around my neck, it hung a bit loose, and bit down hard. He let go and I started sprinting away. I ran though the house, over people, but I couldn't find the exit. I ran into him twice and the girl I'd jumped over before had grabbed me. They were all screaming at me trying to get me back into the smoke.

Finally, after a lot of trying and almost crying out of fear, I got out of the house. I ran to the place where I'd dropped off my husband-to-be and started sprinting away. Just away. I didn't know where I was going, I just needed to get away. I kept running.

Then I woke to my roommate laughing and typing hard on her computer. I don't think she slept at all last night. At least she kept her earphones in, although that doesn't help much in the mood of the room. Even if I can't hear it, the mood gets dark.

Ideas and potentials

I only have like fifteen minutes before my boss comes back, but I have nothing to do. So just some ideas on where Cassy or Angela's story could be running off too. So. . .

For Jessica right now I have her going to the mall so then her friend, Kaycee, can tell her that she isn't a good friend, she's mean spirited, rude, and that Kaycee thinks that she's going to drop out and be pregnant before she's seventeen. (One of those predictions is correct, she does drop out a few months(?) later), and that Kaycee doesn't want to be seen with her anymore--cuz it hurts her image and the principle pulled her aside to ask if there was something wrong with Jessica, she started assessing her best friend and found too many faults (Tobias helped in that point, stupid guy.).)

Well after Jessica gets blown off by her "best friend," she runs out of the mall into a down pore, its a very rainy season in northern California. Airo follows after her and watches unto she passes out, practially, on the some lawn. She's going in and out of consciousness, because of mental termoil; Tobias isn't helping at all, yet again. She crumpled and started crying. Airo picks her up and asks if she's alright. When she doesn't respond and simply stares out the window with rainy tear-streaks down her face, he drives her to the police station--he doesn't know where she lives at this point.

The police station would be a very interesting place to go. Airo isn't supposed to take her anywhere, but he has the common decency to not leave her lying in the middle of a cloud burst without a friend. As he's driving her here, he gets a really good look at her and describes her. There is an almost facination and a curiosity that comes with her. Why does Tobias want her? And he doesn't want her in the normal ways he wants women--little background on Tobias?-- so why her? What is it about her that makes her so important? Airo wants to know and is asking himself. Tobias would answer but he isn't currently worrying about Jessica at the moment. (He's focused on making Angela's day hell.)

So apparently he's going to take her to the police station. After they find out where Jessica is from at the station, and family comes--who would come to get her? Tony? He already got her from her other little run-in in the rain. Angela? If Angela came could Gabriel accompany her? What would happen between the two of them? Would there be a battle of minds? No. Gabriel and Airo are far too noble for that in the middle of a police station. But now taht Gabriel knows that Airo is there, Gabriel knows that something is up. (When he talks to Alice about it, later after he "left" then came back again after the kids were asleep, she doesn't want to believe it and thinks that maybe Airo was there to see one of his friends in prison or something, to do anything but see her daughter in a police station of all things.(Airo actually gave Jessica a card or something. If she ever needed any help again to call him and he would be there. She almost throws it away, but sticks it in her pocket. She doesn't know who he is. He could be some maniac for all she knew of him. But for some reason she keeps it and uses the card later to get him there after her mom has died and after the club and Greg shows up.))

(Gabriel is there in the first place after being sent by his uncle, the king, to keep an eye out for Alice's family. They are of noble blood, even if they don't know it yet. Gabriel's facade to Angela and Tony is that he is there, with his sister?, on vacation and to simply see old friends. The king knows that something might happen to his cousin, Alice, or her family. He doesn't know the reason, but they believe Tobias is behind it, although there is no proof on the matter. When Gabriel hears that Tobias could be behind something happining to some family friends, he goes quicky to help and scout around what could potentionally be a hazardious happenings.)

Airo only gets out of the station without having his mind blown up because he Shuts his mind, which only makes his mind seem a little less suspicious as compared to all the other Close minded people. He stops to take a drink of water at a fountain around the corner as Gabriel walks by, then briskly walks out of the station. When he reaches the door, he turns around and sees that Gabriel is looking at him, glaring. Airo smiles and waves then quickly gets away while throwing all of his Walls up as he does so.

Jessica, now wrapped up in a blanket and sipping some coffee, doesn't really know what to do now that the man who helped her left. He'd given her a card with his name--Airo-- and number on it. He'd told her to call him if she ever needed help again. She almost threw the card at him and screamed that she didn't need his help, but he scampered away before she could do anything to his face about it. Jessa looks about and sees some of the people there. Sees their scars--arms, eyes, face, ear chuncks missing, tattooes, etc--and wonders why they did to end up here. A guy sits down next to her that she knows from school--Cuttin' Curtis. She almost talks with him and sees the many scars he has on his arms. No one knows why he does it. Some people think it's because he lost his dad, others because he killed his dog, others because his mom tried messed with his head, others because _____--the girl with the ivy tattooes on her legs--dumped him. A police man took him away before she could get a word out. She slipped the card into her bra and sipped her coffee just as her sister came into view.

They don't have a happy reunion. Angela was very worried and the only real emotion the was able to come out was anger. Angela started screaming at her sister and Jessica screams back. Gabriel gets into both of their minds and tries to quiet them. Jessica is too far tramatized after loosing her best friend and all of her other friends that came with Kaycee and just doesn't care or even hear Gabriel in her head. She was just too tired and wanted to go home to her own room and not think. Get lost in a book and think about someone elses life, to see that their lives get better or they die quickly or heroically before the end of the book or series of books is over.

Gabriel drives them home while Angela keeps talking about how worried they were about her and how scary it was to get a call from the police station after what they had gone through the night before, and on and on. Jessica hears none of it. Gabriel listens to Angela's babbling with one ear, one eye on the road, and mostly the attention on Jessica in the back seat. She was looking at her arms, as if she was picturing something, but even at a small glimps of her mind, he could see that it was blank. Three was nothing gone on. It was as if she had vacated the premisis of her mind and walked into someone elses, but he could see her Person inside, standing and doing nothing.

Jessica goes home and reads the rest of the day. Angela explains, still being dramatic, to Tony what happened. Tony says that she needs to cool down and that she needs to be more level headed and that Angela probably hurt Jessica's feelings. Angela says she'll apologize the next day. When Alice and Angela's father get back, things aren't happy either. Jessica takes the verble scolding, but is still lost in her mind. She's still thinking back on Curtis and leaves for her room.

Gabriel needs to talk with his mentor about what's going on. (He has a music teacher (who also helped with his Mind Powers as he was growning up without Tobias as a friend.) that taught him to play the saxaphone? instead of the other instruments that most of the other people around him learned how to play. They learned instruments from Trael, not from other places. And those that did, were normally seen as being unpatriotic toward their home planet. But when he started to play his own instrument--his father let him--it became the thing that they did. They would have one of their friends Jump them to another planet, if they could, and they would buy one of the best and learn how to play it. One of his friends, his best friend, taught himself how to play the bagpipes and be was so good at it so quickly that even the king wanted to hear him play. After that, it became more of a trend as the years past.) Gabriel talks with his mentor for a while. They discuss what is happening with Jessica--Bri cuts in and says something snide then is quickly ushured out--and Angela and what is supposed to happen with her and Tobias. While they talk about all of them, I won't write it down. It'll give it a little bit of suspence for the reader. Hopefully I can get some of the point across without making so much discussion and making it be far too long of a chapter. That may be a tricky part.

Part of Cassy's story_written while I was suppposed to be working. :P

So, yes, I'm at work and supposed to be doing something besides writing on the computer, but I' bored and there is nothing to do. And therefore, hey! Free computer and internet!! Woo-hoo!!

Anyway, so for those of you who actually read this, this is a part of Cassy's story that needs to be written. After Cassy is konked on the head and saved by Cass who runs away so Drae can come in and help Cara--yes, a mouth full, I know--Drae gets Cara and Cassy back to the inn where a Ma'lin?? comes and fixes Cassy up. Drae and Cara are in the inn with her father, Kailik, eating and resting. Cass has ran outside to get together with the Klis and the rest of their party or rogues. Currently Cass is trying to sneak back into the guarded town.

That is where I'm at now and will start.

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His feet found the footholds with relative ease as he climbed the large hackberry tree. The leaves were turning a golden yellow and a few fell to the ground as he made his way to the second and third branches. He was well hidden in the tree that held his light figure.

Stupid people, he thought. They build a wall and let the trees grow over it. You'd think they'd at least prune the branches. Some little miscreant could climb a tree and there could be all sorts of troubles. He couldn't help but smile. He was no little miscreant. A rather large pain would be more like it, or so he was told so often.

The thief slithered up the branch like the serpent he'd seen once by the Moluniah Ocean much farther south than any of these pathetic mountain men had ever ventured. They probably haven't traveled more than three hundred paces from the walls of the city. Build your walls, men, he thought. I will any and all. None of them can hold me. "No cage ever will."

"Did you hear something?" a guard, not twenty steps away whispered to another sensory. The thief had said the last words aloud without realizing it until it was too late.

There was no response or another word from either of them. The boy knew that he would be caught. But he wasn't going to let these fat men actually catch him.  A chase could be fun. Much more fun than stalking that girl. . . Well, maybe. These men won't get as red in the face as she did. He grinned again and slid from the overhanging branch onto the small tower made of feeble and brittle stone. His feet touched softly as he landed in his crouch. The guards had walked past already, one down into the tower and the other along the other wall.

He slid along the wall, slinking in the corner's shadows. The sensory in the tower climbed back up the ladder and went back to his post next to the flag that waved in the light breeze. The guard wasn't well dressed, probably hand-me-down clothes that had gone down in at least five generations. They were patched and faded, even in the moon light. His hair was getting to be long enough to curl under the small, armored cap. There was very little meat on the boy in the first place and his clothes hung on him very loosely. It seemed as though if he were to move too quickly the belt he had would fall as would his leggings. It was probably his first night on the job. The only thing of value on this boy, who was younger than the thief himself, was a bull horn from the southern plains. It was a prize horn that would probably fetch a lot of money, or just look good on his belt.

The thief smiled and glided up behind him. He slid a small dagger out of his sleeve and gently placed it across the young boy’s throat. The knife was pressed ever so slightly into the skin, drawing a sliver of blood. It wouldn't be enough to mortally wound him, but enough to make him know that whoever was behind him was serious.

"If you say a word," the thief whispered hoarsely, "you'll get more than just a little blood on your shirt."

The sensory was quaking in his boots and didn't know what to do. The thief untied the horn without a sound. And stepped away from the frozen guard.

"Now, you may raise an alarm." The thief bowed deeply, horn in hand, then jumped off the wall--his cloak billowing behind him--and into the city street below, rolling as he landed. He sprinted off down the dark alley as the boy above him croaked out a warning cry. Without his horn, he had no real alarm until his partner, who was sure to be in a pit of trouble when his captain found out, found him and got the alarm raised.

The thief slowed down to a leisurely walk and tied his new horn to his belt. It was a prize. A long, decently curved white horn with golden brown tips. When he had a chance, he'd have to try it out. Maybe at two in the morning in the middle of a residential area. Or just outside that girls window at the inn. He smiled at the thought and walked on cheerfully.

There were a few guards that ran by, but none of them seemed to notice him. They were taking all the fun out of his little adventure and he was becoming most put out. What did he have to do? Steel the largest diamond in the city? Walk in on the governor and his mistress? All of this was becoming rather dull very quickly.

The girl. C. Freesmen, I'll go visit her. She's bound to be more interesting than just wondering the streets. He turned at the next corner and headed toward the ____________ Inn where she was staying.