HEART OF THE CHOSEN (CASTE BOOK 1)

Chapter 4

Sport is my favourite lesson. With Sam, I had practised almost all types. He thought that a life without sport was death at 50. So I had the chance to try many activities, from martial arts to volleyball and dancing. At the moment, I practised tai chi with him twice a week. According to my adoptive father, it was an essential exercise to channel your energy and control your breath. I loved it, but I needed more action, so I added a cardio session every Saturday and jogging on Sunday morning on the banks of the Thames, training that allowed me to have a slim and athletic body. I could afford to eat whatever I wanted, another pleasant benefit.

Physical education lessons took place in the gymnasium next to the school, and the icing on the cake, Olivia had the same weekly hours as me. I passed the door when I noticed my friend talking to Eric Panchak. Stranger still, Sophia Chang stood beside them, her face flushed and stricken with tears. Olivia seemed at her wit’s end. It must have been months since they had spoken to each other, and clearly, the conversation wasn’t going in a peaceful direction. Now Olivia was brandishing a menacing finger two centimetres from Sophia’s face, which was turning crimson. With a gesture, she twirled abruptly in my direction. Eric remained standing in front of my enemy, staring at her with a contemptuous look that would freeze you with fear, the latter had lost her legendary composure, and I thought I saw Eric’s lips moving as well as the pale and anxious expression of Sophia who immediately lowered her eyes.

That should have alerted me, and I should have felt some semblance of compassion for her tearful display, but I hated her so much that I was delighted to see someone shut her up, finally! What could have happened to make this exchange seem so strong and especially why my best friend and, what’s more, Eric were talking with this leech? I was going to ask Olivia, who had just come over, outraged, but she gave me a furtive “I’ll be back in five minutes” before leaving the gym. I then noticed all the pairs of eyes trained on me. They were rather numerous if one considered the forty students in the gymnasium. The whispers were getting louder, and I would have been foolish to think I wasn’t the object of them. Something was wrong. Eric stood beside me and spoke to me seriously.

“You should come with me.”

After appreciating the general and rather hostile atmosphere in the gymnasium, I followed Eric at a run.

Eric sat down on the bleachers overlooking the football stadium. I stood in front of him and questioned him immediately:

“What happened?”

“I think your girlfriend will explain it to you better than me, Everliegh.”

He knew my name, and how he said it affected me more than I would have liked. His brown-green gaze pierced me through and through, and I had a terrible time keeping my composure in front of him.

“How do you know my first name?” I said in an almost natural voice, “Olivia told you?”

“Who?”

“Olivia. My friend. That you seemed to support five minutes ago against that b***h Sophia Chang!”

He guffawed with a tenor laugh that transported me. I couldn’t help laughing as well before controlling myself.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t insult someone you don’t know.”

“Don’t apologise,” he said. “After all, I understand she doesn’t really like you either.”

“But what exactly happened?”

“I’d rather your friend tell you about it.”

“Well… Okay.”

I sat down next to him. I was concerned, and it seemed serious, according to the events. I should have worried more, but I thought about what I’d seen in that gymnasium: Eric, a stranger, standing up for me. I watched him in profile for a moment. Contrary to his dangerous appearance, I felt safe with him, but my instinct told me there was something strange about him, just like his brother.

“It was my brother who told me about you,” he suddenly told me.

“Oh, good? Well, I hope!”

In response, he gave me a look that electrified me. A wave of warmth crossed my chest. Olivia interrupted us before I had time to blush.

“Eve, I need to talk to you. Excuse us, Eric, please.”

“Sure.”

He descended the steps of the bleachers and disappeared at the entrance to the gymnasium.

“What the hell is going on, Olivia? Another rumour, right?”

“Eve…,” Olivia whispered before she paused and her eyes filled with tears, “Cedric is dead.”

At the time, I thought my heart had stopped. Everything around me went hazy as my vision blurred, probably from the tears I was trying to contain. I tried to say the words, but they stuck in my throat. For several seconds, I couldn’t make the slightest sound. Even my ears couldn’t hear anymore.

“How?”

“We don’t know. Sophia got a call from her mother in the gymnasium, and when she hung up, she screamed in tears that Cedric’s murder was your fault and that there was only one… well… crazy like you who would do such a thing! You understand, in front of everyone! I almost jumped on her, but Eric stopped me. He tried to calm things down and came to your defence. Sophia then pulled herself together and explained that he was found on a seedy street in Soho last night. He was allegedly tortured and had more than forty broken bones. The police could only identify him from the student ID he had on him.”

“So maybe it’s not him? Maybe it was a homeless man who had stolen his ID. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not Cedric!”

I would have liked that so much. I had indeed wished Cedric a thousand deaths. In my imagination! But I’d never have wanted something so terrible to happen to him. Nobody deserved to end up like that.

“His body was identified by the family based on his birthmarks. Sophia shouted in the gym that you had something to do with his death, and seeing the heavy silence, everyone heard. I think that b***h was still in love with Cedric, and she’s so upset that she’s speaking nonsense. Even if I can’t stand her and she made me angry, I felt a bit sorry for that bitch.”

For a moment, neither of us dared to say a word, and we didn’t go back to class. All the students had left within the grounds of the school, not without throwing accusing glances at me and sometimes even insults. In the end, it wouldn’t be the year of renewal. But for now, I didn’t care. I felt so sad for Cedric. I remembered all the moments spent with him, his smile, the way he squinted when he thought, his perfectly white teeth and his bright smile. So this is how we think when someone is gone? Do we only remember the good times?

Olivia and I were so downcast that we decided to go straight home. Sam wouldn’t be here all night, so I asked her to stay home for the night. I didn’t want to be alone. Olivia agreed and went to get her things. She lived with her mother in a nine-story building, just a ten-minute walk away. As soon as she could get out of she took advantage of it. Since her divorce, her mother was a notorious alcoholic and spent entire evenings denigrating her only daughter. When we first met, she called out to me and told me in an alcoholic voice: “You don’t mind being around a tramp!” Charming welcome. Olivia was furious. Of course, she didn’t suspect her mother would be there when I arrived, so she apologised for hours while I tried to make her understand that it wasn’t her place to be sorry. In the end, knowing more about her family helped me better understand the gleaming character she showed off every day in high school. Moreover, I had no parents, so I was in no position to judge those of others. This event finally brought us closer.

I prepared a salmon quiche and salad for dinner. Olivia had already been gone for over three-quarters of an hour, but what the hell was she doing? With what had happened to Cedric, I didn’t feel at ease. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer while declaring:

“You stress me out, Olivia! What took you so long.”

Olivia had arrived all smiles and not alone.

“Look who I brought!”

Thomas and Eric Panchak stood just behind her. Thomas displayed his crooked smile that couldn’t be more destructive and Eric, looking jovial, stared at me with his sparkling eyes. Bewildered, I couldn’t feel my legs again, and my words were stuck.

“Come in, uh... sit down... Anything to drink?” I stammered miserably.

Olivia, however, had no problem.

“I met them on the way. They were going for a drink in the city. Would you like to go with them?”

No, did she care about me or what?! I had put on my plum pyjamas. Luckily I hadn’t put on the purple ones with the teddy print. I would never have been able to speak to them after that! My hair was up in a misshapen half-bun, half-ponytail. Moreover, I felt low because could she have forgotten Cedric’s murder?

“Olivia, I’m already dressed for the night, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“So what? Change! Five minutes then we go. What do you say?”

Did I think the pyjama excuse was going to stop her so easy? Might as well be direct, I told myself.

“Listen, I don’t want to sound like a killjoy to you, but the news about Cedric has stirred me up a bit, and I’m not in the mood to go out tonight. Now you can go, Olivia. I don’t mind at all.”

“No way!” said Thomas, who immediately softened. “We’re not going to spoil your plans for the evening.”

“Well, let’s stay here, then!” Olivia decided. “You don’t mind, do you, Everliegh?”

I hadn’t missed her emphatic way of saying my first name in full, what’s more, which she never did, and her accusing gaze meaning if-you-tell-them-to-leave-I-kill-you!

“Not at all,” I yielded, embarrassed, “there’s salmon quiche and green salad. I can open a bottle of wine if you want.”

“Gladly!” approved Eric.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’ll take Diet Coke, please, my darling that I love!”

“Of course, Olivia! Come and help me in the kitchen.”

No sooner had I passed the central island which separated the kitchen from the living room than I whispered in her ear.

“But what got into you? We don’t even know them. Sam is going to kill me!”

“Oh, dear! You’ve become stuck since this drama last year. Tell me straight. When did you last find yourself alone with a guy in the same room?”

“But I’m not alone with him since you’re here, and whoever the guy is, his brother is present. It’s creepy!”

Suddenly we remembered that our two guests were a few metres away. We turned our heads ninety degrees to find our whispered bickering amused them. My first idea was to flee upstairs, but leaving them hanging in the living room wouldn’t have been the best effect. Olivia giggled and I, faced with this burlesque situation, did the same. That calmed me down a bit, and I was almost relaxed as I set the cutlery on the coffee table.

The discussion wasn’t the liveliest during the meal. My dish should be okay, yet I felt embarrassed. Maybe I had to talk first? I was the host, after all.

“The quiche is good?” (pathetic, I know)

“Delicious,” Thomas replied kindly.

“Eve prepares the meals all the time,” Olivia testified with her big go-between clogs.

We could always count on Olivia to introduce you delicately. Anyone could read between the lines, and that was the goal.

“Indeed,” Eric agreed, “so you live with a guardian? Where are your parents?”

The dreaded question. Normally, I dodged it quickly. I knew if not for the boys, I would have spent my evening moping beside Olivia, and she had already suffered from my gloomy mood for a year. The announcement of Cedric’s death had upset me, and their company prevented me from thinking about it. What’s more, Olivia had found her smile again, and obviously, Eric would be the victim of her charms. So I couldn’t shorten this evening otherwise my best friend would be angry with me until the end of her days. After all, I owed them honesty, if only to thank them for being here.

“They’re both dead. My mother died in childbirth, and my father committed suicide. I have almost no memory of him.”

It was clear that my family story wasn’t going to brighten up the evening, but I thought, strangely, that it was time to confide. It had been so long since I’d had any conversations other than those with Olivia. And something told me that I could trust them. Maybe another mistake on my part, but at the point where I was, anyway.

“I don’t remember them,” I continued, “I only know what Sam wanted to tell me, and you can’t say he’s very talkative. I prefer it. I’m afraid to discover other unacknowledged tragedies.”

“What makes you say that?” Olivia asked, frowning.

“I don’t know. More and more, I have the feeling he’s hiding things from me.”

“Do you think they are important things?”

“No… I don’t know. He’s the best adoptive father and does everything to treat me the best he can. We even do tai chi together.”

“Tai chi? That’s not trivial,” commented Thomas.

“He says it helps channel my energy. Sometimes, I feel like he sees me as a pressure cooker ready to explode.”

“Like all those idiots in school!” said Olivia; “In the end, you may be a psychopath, Eve!”

She burst out laughing. I imitated her, the better to conceal this old anxiety that had been gnawing at me for some time. Olivia ignored all the questions that nagged at me. The stories of the past year and the tenacity of the rumours about me had only increased my confusion. After all, my father had committed suicide. I would understand if this tragedy had happened the year after my mother’s death, but why three years later? Perhaps it was a slow mental agony that had led him to make this decision. Or maybe he was sure, at that moment, that he was leaving me in good hands when he died and had taken all this time to prepare for it. I wanted to convince myself that he hadn’t abandoned me intentionally because, if he was sane, he must have been aware that he was leaving his 4-year-old daughter behind, alone and without a father. Anyway, I had concluded that something had to be wrong with me. Thomas snapped me out of my thoughts.

“You’re far from crazy, Eve.”

Did he read my thoughts, too? Was I so easy to read? Nevertheless, his observation touched me. I needed to hear those words from someone other than Olivia and Sam. I found them biassed when it came to me.

Eric and my best friend were talking on their side. Olivia monopolised him and played him like never before. Thomas, meanwhile, stared at me with his wolf eyes. I could have drowned in that stare so clear. I could examine him even better. His face was perfect with his curved nose and a mouth whose lips seemed to call mine, not to mention his fine and firm musculature. Watching him was a test for the nerves. He bewitched me.

“Did you know this Cedric Fabre well?” he asked, pulling me out of my contemplation.

“Yes,” I replied in a whisper, “I went out with him last year. But because of him, I now pass for a cuckoo clock.”

“What happened?”

“Oh! Uh. I don’t know. We’d been together for a few weeks. He called me all the time, left messages and emails, and wanted us to see each other more and more often. He was quite nice.”

I lowered my head sadly, noticing in passing that Eric was straining to listen to me without taking his eyes off Olivia.

“And one evening, we were here, and I had decided not to make him hang around anymore… er… wait.”

Thomas was smiling with his devastating lips. How handsome he was! Uh, where was I?

“Anyway, we ended up kissing. After a while, he backed away with terrified eyes. I still can’t explain it to myself. He turned around and left without a word. The following morning, everyone at school saw me as the new pariah of the moment. I wanted to understand, but he never wanted to talk to me again.

Thomas burst out laughing. I was furious. Why did I have to tell him this? But he was the culprit with his body of Adonis. He was pulling the words from my mouth before I had time to say phew! He leaned toward me with a serious look.

“You don’t think a simple kiss could cause such a reaction. I’ve never heard anything so stupid!”

I was mortified.

“Don’t get me wrong, Eve. I don’t think you’re stupid, and I don’t think you tried to crucify him with a drill either (hey, I didn’t know that one). What I’m trying to say is that something else must have happened to disturb him. No man would be foolish enough to run away after… well, trust me.”

“You think? But what else can there be?”

“I don’t know, but I know a way to find out.”

“I remind you that he’s dead, poor thing.”

“That’s for sure. But there may be another way to find out.”

“And which one?”

“You have to kiss me.”

Here we are! Although his proposal seemed most attractive, I remained unsatisfied. It would have been far from torture to kiss Thomas. I also wanted to. But the transition between “Cedric is dead” and “You must kiss me” didn’t seem to me in the best taste. Besides, I finally thought he was finding a solution for me to put together the puzzle of a year-old story that had been eating me away from the inside, and instead, I stayed with this idea that something was wrong. Frankly, Thomas had been downright simplistic on this one. Also, I could have sworn Eric was fuming. Did he also think that his brother was capable of anything to take advantage of the situation? I should consider myself happy, he was sumptuous, and I was ordinary, and… in pyjamas.

“I’m serious,” he went on, “it’s a rather theatrical way of solving the problem, but it’s the only one that comes to mind. I’m not flirting with you if you want to know… well if a little, I’m not going to pretend not to take advantage of it either, but let’s face it, have you ever tried it again with someone else since?”

“No.”

“So it’s the only way. If you’re disastrous, I’ll tell you, I promise.”

I was embarrassed and amazed by his revelations. Did he say he was hitting on me or not? Finally, his proposal no longer seemed so far-fetched to me. It required thought, all the same! But Olivia and Eric were sitting two metres away from us, and the situation was far too dangerous for me to get it on with Thomas right next to them. Nevertheless, this was when Eric chose to get up on the pretext of wanting to get some fresh air with Olivia, who wanted to smoke a cigarette. They needed privacy, too, since Olivia rarely smoked.

Having locked the door with a key, I accompanied them to open it. After closing it behind them, I barely had time to turn around when Thomas pinned me against the wall. He looked me straight in the eyes, and my breathing stopped short. He kissed me full on the lips.

A burst of electricity shot through my body from bottom to top as a blazing fire rose to my head. Instead of pushing him away, if only a little, to make the mystery last a little longer, I put my hands around his neck and tried to pull him closer to me as if that were still possible. He imitated me, his hands buried in my hair, I could feel the pressure of his fingers, and his mouth only became more insatiable. I felt like molten rock when he grabbed my waist and swung me to the couch. I could feel the effect of his arousal as if it were projected at me by some kind of sonic pulsation. I didn’t understand this new sensation, but I found it so pleasant that nothing seemed more normal to me than to find myself astride his lower abdomen. Time suspended. His mouth was tender and voluptuous as our kiss became more and more bubbling under the passion of our mingled tongues. His warm breath bewitched me, and I couldn’t suppress a growl when his right hand grabbed a strand of my hair. With a wave of his arm, he turned me around and was now above me. Our bodies intertwined to such an extent that I could feel, through my clothes, the most masculine part of his body, furiously bulging and ready for use, which proved to me that he didn’t find our embrace so disastrous. I was liberated and let the feelings of joy, envy, gluttony, and excitement invade me. I wanted his body right now.

Eric and Olivia chose precisely this moment to appear behind the door, and I presume they had already tried to attract our attention. Luckily you needed a key to get in from the outside because they were going to break my handle!

“Hey! Oh! Someone there?” shouted Olivia.

Thomas slowly pulled away from my mouth and stood up, biting his lower lip, his gaze still locked in mine. I would have damned myself for such a vision, but the door was about to give way under the assaults of my best friend. I took ten seconds to comb my hair and put the straps of the top of my pyjamas on my shoulders. For my crimson cheeks, there was nothing more to do. I was cooked.

“I’m coming!” I said.

Before grabbing the handle, I turned to Thomas to discover him smiling with satisfaction and sitting casually, one arm placed across the couch. He gave me a wink, and I opened the shuddering door, struggling to hide a nervous smile.

“Sorry.”

Olivia looked suspicious and then walked in as if nothing had happened. Eric, meanwhile, was not fooled. He looked at his brother silently.

“We have to go, Thomas.”

“Now?” Olivia said, looking disappointed.

“Yes, now,” Thomas agreed as he stood up, “thank you again for inviting us to your home, Eve.”

“Uh... okay.”

“Yes, thank you again,” adds Eric. “See you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Olivia replied happily.

“Okay, so see you tomorrow.”

I accompanied them. In the doorway, Thomas turned toward me.

“I want to start over,” he whispered before closing the door behind him.

I was leaning against the wall, listening to their voices recede, still confused by our embrace.

“So?” asked Eric.

“It’s her. We have proof of that now.”

What were they talking about? I couldn’t hear anything more, and my mind was too muddled to concentrate. The living room was in a bad state. I hadn’t realised the mess caused by our little evening. So I had carefully put everything away before joining Olivia, who I found in the upstairs bathroom brushing her teeth. I imitated her and then got into bed. Olivia lay next to me, her eyes narrowed, and she questioned me again.

“What happened behind that f*****g door?!”

“You’ll not believe me!”

And I told her everything. Her face beamed. She was happy. She had been waiting for this moment perhaps longer than I had.

“Finally, a man who notices how sublime you are! A little longer and you’d have been on to the next level, my dear.”

“I don’t know, but I wanted to,” I confessed candidly, “I had never felt such relief. My whole being wanted him, and I no longer had any barriers. It was strange.”

“Yes, well, you should marinate them a little, guys. Don’t forget what I taught you!”

“Promised,” I nodded, unconvinced. “And Eric, was he sensitive to your deployments of charm?”

“I’m ashamed to admit it, but, at times, he seemed to be elsewhere. He still said that I was superb and that he would be delighted to take me out to dinner one evening. That’s not bad, is it? After what you told me, I suddenly find that my little moment together wasn’t as exciting. No, but in what world do we find ourselves if Everliegh Burberry kisses a guy barely an hour after he walks through her door!”

We giggled at the same time. Fatigued, we decided to go to bed. The lights off, I thought only of Thomas. I was happy and delivered, and I gradually regained the esteem I had lost, I felt like I could lift a mountain, and my whole body was still bubbling from this hot embrace. If Olivia hadn’t been here, my hand would gladly have slipped under the blanket, leaving me to fantasise about what might have happened if no one had knocked on that f*****g door.