Chapter Nineteen

Amaryllis Lexington

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I was two seconds away from committing my first murder, but when I remembered that my parents wouldn't appreciate that very much, I decided against it. Why the bitterness and anger, you might ask? Maya Lexington.

Apparently, the devil in disguise is even worse than the one with visible horns, aka Allison. Today was the camping trip and dad volunteered to take the three of us to school. I went up to my room so I could grab my bag and I saw Maya walking out. I was quite glad she went into my room because I thought she missed me and she wanted to check on me, till I entered into my room! ALL MY CLOTHES WERE ON THE FLOOR! She turned my box inside out!

"Amari, get down now. Your dad is about to leave." I heard mum yell and I groaned, wondering what to do about the mess that was on the floor. I had meticulously packed everything I would need into that box. Heck, I even arranged according to colour patterns!

Going on my knees, I managed to squeeze everything into the box but it wouldn't close. I sat on it so I could press it down till I could finally zip it. Mama Burton would probably have goosebumps back in Halloway because of this packing atrocity I just committed, but I didn't have the time to fix it and do things right.

I managed to get out before dad could send out a search party for me. I didn't miss the smirk on Maya's face and if dad wasn't in the car, I would have dragged her by the hair till everything fell out.

"Darling, what took you so long? I watched you pack everything up yesterday." Dad asked me immediately I got into the back seat, unfortunately beside Allison. The other devil was in the passenger's seat.

"Yeah, dad. A pest tampered with my box." His hand dropped from the ignition switch as he turned to stare at me with a bewildered expression. It wasn't surprising because anyone would be alarmed to hear that there was a pest in the Lexington mansion, but he didn't know I was referring to a human pest.

"A pest? How did a pest get into your room? Why didn't you tell me and your mum anything, darling?" His concern never ceased to make me feel special and I felt bad for worrying him unnecessarily.

"It's nothing to worry about, dad. I was just messing around." Relief flooded his expression, and he turned so he could start the car. My eyes met Maya's in the mirror and she smirked.

"Trouble in paradise, I see." Allison whispered and I turned to glare at her. I must have committed some kind of atrocity in my past life and my punishment was to be thrown in this family. No offence to my wonderful parents.

"I'm surprised you can actually see anything with all that eyeshadow weighing heavily on your eyes." Her makeup wasn't actually heavy, in fact, it was perfect but I would rather lose my limbs than tell her that. She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"I'm actually impressed. It didn't take you long to unravel the mystery behind her fake good girl act. You must be tougher than I thought. Color me impressed." She said in a volume only I could hear. I had to say, I was starting to really wonder who exactly Maya was.

I decided to keep quiet throughout the journey to school and not over familiarise myself with Allison. We might have a common enemy at the moment but that doesn't make her someone I wanted to be friends with. As I placed my head on the window, my thought went to Carlson and a small guilt settled in the pit of my belly. The worst part of this kind of guilt is that I felt like I wasn't supposed to feel like it. We've thrown worse banters at each other without any of us getting mad. For goodness sake, the human tried to kill me once by throwing me down and I didn't give him so much attitude.

Technically, he didn't really give me attitude. I mean, he actually smiled at me and he didn't say anything mean to me, but that was the problem. A normal Carlson would never pass up an opportunity to run his mouth and make me feel like ripping him to shreds, and I happen to like that... a lot more than I should, really.

"Alright, girls. We are here." Dad announced as he parked his car properly. I happily got out of the car and was on my way to the trunk to pick up my box when someone ran into me, pushing me roughly against the car.

"Oops. Didn't see you there." Maya! She had a sinister smile on her face that disappeared as soon as Dad came around. He obviously didn't notice anything out of the ordinary because he was still sporting his relaxed expression. I decided against telling on her because that was too childish. I would deal with the situation all by myself in a way mum and dad would never dream of. Revenge, after all, is best served cold.

Ignoring her attempt at making me crack, I picked up my box and wheeled it over to the huge tour bus that was sitting pretty outside our school. Talk about fancy. Back at Halloway high, we never had the luxury of even getting to see this, talk more of getting into it. A lot of people were inside the bus already and it felt awkward having all eyes on us as we walked in. I noticed that almost all the chairs were taken, some had humans on it and some had bags or jackets and all. It made me remember how Rose would always save me a seat and glare at anyone who tried to argue with her. I miss that girl like crazy.

I finally found two free chairs close to the back, but I groaned when I realized it was just in front of the despicable five-O. There were three chairs in each row, and one of the rows was occupied by three of the group, and one of the seats on the row I wanted to seat was occupied by the fourth person. As expected, Carlson wasn't in attendance and I felt even more disappointed.

"Alright, guys. We leave in five minutes. Get seated and make sure you have everything you need within your reach. If you want to get anything from your luggage, go for it now." I heard the principal announce as I walked to my seat. When I reached my destination, the guy beside me smirked and I rolled my eyes. The trio behind us were lost in their conversation to even notice anyone had joined the party.

"Well, hello. Fancy meeting you here, seat partner." The familiar guy whose name I do not remember or care about said and I sighed. I made sure to leave the seat between us empty while I took the one beside the window.

"Technically, we are not seat partners because we have an empty seat between us. So, bye." Why so rude, you ask? Well, I clearly remember now they connived with that son a gun and left me in a chocolate marinated car. I hold grudges beautifully.

"Fiesty. Just the way I like it. Heyyy, that rhymed." He grinned like a Cheshire cat, feeling proud of his failed achievement. I couldn't believe I would have to ride with him for four hours! Oh dear Lord, might as well cause me to fall into deep sleep. I wouldn't mind getting a handsome guy made out of my rib also.

"Is there something I can do to get you to stop tal..." I wasn't done with that sentence when I felt someone punched my chair from behind. My eyes widened as my head made a one-eighty degree turn to stare into the face of the culprit. Rather feel apologetic about it, he only had an amused smile on his face.

"Oh. It's you." Really? It's me? Who would have thought? Even I didn't know it's me.

"Thanks a lot for the identity verification, which I didn't ask for or care about by the way. What I do care about is an explanation as to why you wanted to take my life. This is the second time an attempt has been made on my life by people from your occultic group." The amused smile deepened and I wanted to rip his lips off his face. Let's see how cute he looks when his teeth are all bared out with no covering whatsoever.

"I didn't know someone was seating there. In my defence, you're quite a little too short and sometimes unnoticeable." Wait, what? Unnoticeable? With all this beauty? Unnoticeable?

"Are you kidding me? Have you actually seen me? I'm far from unnoticeable! I'm that girl that walks into a room and leaves broken hearts on my trail." I'm not conceited, I am just well aware of my identity. Someone scoffed among them and I glared.

"Yeah right. Wonder why the hearts are broken. They must be quite shattered to find that someone actually looks like this. I bet they feel bad for you." Now I know why they are friends with Carlson. Monkeys of the same specie flock together after all. I would have said birds, but they are far too pretty to be used in comparison for these primates.

"You know, it's a total waste of time talking to all of you. I haven't forgiven either of you for locking me in that stupid chocolatey car." As if controlled by some kind of remote, they all erupted in laughter. Evil minded creatures.

"Well, you looked absolutely delicious." The monkey beside me said, winking and I narrowed my eyes at him. I hate when people wink at me. I count it highly degrading and annoying and infuriating and UGH!

I took a deep breath, chanted a few mantras in my head that I've heard Rosa chant sometimes, then I turned to them with a fake smile on my face.

"Talking to you guys is taking a toll on my IQ so let's just end the conversation here, alright? We can go through this four hours pretending the other party doesn't exist." I ended with another sickly sweet smile and turned to the front, plugging in my earpiece.

Poke.

Another poke.

Another motherblasting poke.

That's it! I'm going to rip off those fingers and marinate them in soy sauce. I've never actually had human fingers but I bet they would taste better than chicken. I was about to turn towards the person poking me when the door of the bus opened and he walked in.

All thoughts of having fingers flew out of my head as Carlson walked in, looking way too dashing. I wonder why there are no laws against pretty humans. Soon enough, all the saved seats became free. Bags and jackets kept disappearing as though his presence screamed 'Abracadabra'.

"Hey, Carl. I saved this seat for you." I could swear over five girls said this very same thing and my eyes widened. I wonder how other boys don't feel bad that he gets so much attention. Well, boys have easy lives. If Carlson were to be a girl, he would have so much female enemies who wanted him dead from brain aneurysm.

As he walked in, he sighted his friends and he smiled. The smile soon turned to a smirk when his eyes landed on me and I felt my cardiac muscle go weak. Alright then, heart attack, might as well take me away now.

He fist bumped all his friends then took his seat in the empty space between the winking primate and I. His cologne wafted into my nose and I wanted to hug him. Oh no, I have it real bad, don't I? I caught the bug.

"There goes the happy look. Aren't you always a little too happy to see me, Cielita?" He accompanied that dashing British accent with a wink and I died. Whoever said winks were degrading, annoying, infuriating, and Ugh.

They are, by far, the best thing that has ever happened to planet Earth. I love getting winked at.