Page 4 of The Daughter of the Devil

“I have never seen you two before. You must be new. I’m Annabelle, captain of the cheer squad and student body representative. And you are?”

I stop walking and turn to look her in the eye, making sure my face is completely reflecting how bored I am of this conversation already. “Morgana, and this is Alistair. We just transferred here from San Francisco. It’s our first day.” My tone is as dead as I feel having to talk to this mortal.

“Oh, Alistair. What a nice name, never met someone with that name before. Well, it’s nice to meet you both.” This time the smile turns to a more sincere one as she looks behind my shoulder to make eye contact with Alistair, all while looking at him lustfully.

Alistair blinks at her in his typically stoic demeanour. “Hi.” The cold and short reply was not what she was expecting and the way her smile is slowly slipping off her perfect complexion is evidence of that, and it took a lot more effort than I expected not to crack a smile at her expression.

She’s confused at the lack of reaction from the opposite sex. She must be used to human males falling over each other at a mere flick of her long blonde hair. Well, she will need more than that to rile up a demon. Despite Alistair's other half, he's much better behaved than most. Annabelle shakes off her confusion and in a matter of seconds she composes herself, her bright smile is directed at him once more. “Not much for talking, are you? That’s alright. There are better ways of getting to know each other.” She winks at him, words dripping in sexual innuendo but Alistair doesn’t react, he just stares at her blankly. I was expecting as much, he is not the type to get flustered easily – I've seen disengage with adolescent succubi, a mortal isn't going to persuade him with a wink. I took the awkward silence as an opportunity to intervene in the staring contest.

“Yeah…nice to meet you, I guess. Well, we better get going. We have to find our lockers before class starts.” I say, while starting to walk forward again. But unfortunately, she has other ideas.

“I’ll help you find them. I’m the representative after all. Can’t have the new kids getting lost on the first day, now can we?” She claims before ripping the printout with the information out of my hand without permission. Before I could say anything about it, she took off walking waving for us to follow. I see the rest of her cheerleaders following her before sighing and following the group as well with Alistair close behind me.

This place really is hell…

We take a different hallway and stop at the lockers Annabelle points to and I thank her as dryly as possible, so she gets the hint and leaves already. It doesn't work, she stands next to Alistair as he sets down both bags on the floor, opening both our lockers which were side by side and starts taking out books. In the bags, he left the ones for the first period only and stored the unneeded books for later, doing so for both of us. This is a normal sight for me and I think nothing of it until I see all the cheerleaders stopping to stare at him in confusion.

“I’m sorry, am I missing something here? Are you two dating?” Annabelle asks Alistair who in turn stops what he was doing to stare down at her since he’s almost a good two heads taller than her.

“No, we’re just family friends,” he replies coldly before going back to his task.

“Oh, then you two have an odd relationship if you’re carrying around her backpack and organizing the books for her,” she states, sounding skeptical. Not that either of us care. I start to say something, an excuse of some sort but before I can utter a sentence she is talking over me. “But since you say you aren’t dating anyone, we can get to know each other.” She bats her eyelashes at him again but Alistair doesn't glance in her direction. He simply finishes putting the books away before closing both bags and lockers, then finally turning to me in wait. I smile internally at his actions as it causes Annabelle to go from confidently flirtatious to stunned for a second time at his rejection in less than ten minutes.

Smiling smugly at her I reply in his stead, “Sorry, he’s shy with strangers. But yeah, we’re very close. He doesn't mind helping me.”

“Hm, where did you say you guys where from again?” She asks cautiously and in a far worse mood than before.

“San Francisco, we just moved to Los Angeles recently to live with relatives.” I explain our practiced cover story. Annabelle stares intently at me as if she’s trying to discern if I’m telling the truth. Just as the warning bell rings, signaling that classes will commence soon.

“Well, we better get going. We don't want to be late,” I exclaim sarcastically before turning on my heels and walking towards our classroom, which was easier than the lockers to locate since these were just in numerical order.

As annoyed as I was at her flirting with Alistair, I couldn't pinpoint the reason as to why that annoyed me. I’m glad Alistair ignored her, otherwise I would have had to step in and that would make things worse. I scowl at the memory of her disgusting flirting, taking deep breaths before calming down by remembering there is a special place in Hell for cheerleaders.

We reach the classroom and sit down next to each other in the only two empty seats at the back of the classroom as we wait for the rest of the sweaty and loud humans to trickle in.

"I still don't understand why father wants me to endure this. It's like he's punishing me." I mutter toward Alistair. I can tell he wants to say something. "Spit it out, you're the one that suggested to keep up appearances, you can't wait for permission to speak all the time."

He turns to me, whispering, "I don't think he wants to punish you, he just knows that as a mortal you'll have to adapt, learning about them is the best way to do that." I could gag.

Soon enough the teacher begins and thus, my first experience in a human class commenced.

The dungeons really don’t look like a bad alternative after all…

5

A Cafeteria

Morgana

The classes are as boring as I expected them to be. I’m just glad to take a break by walking into the cafeteria, even though I’m less excited to try mortal food. I am more looking forward to escaping the monotony of classes. The cafeteria itself is a large hall filled with benched tables and a counter where some middle-aged women wearing hairnets hand out the hell dogs' feces humans consume for sustenance. Many teenagers form a line, waiting for their turn to receive the aforementioned slop. As much as I miss surviving off blood and souls, I have no choice but to join the queue, as those two options are no longer viable sources of nutrients for me.

After receiving the meals, if you could call it that, we grab our trays and start walking between the tables, looking for an empty seat. Most of them are full of loud and annoying teenage mortals, and as I am less inclined to join in their obnoxious conversations, I ignore the empty spots at their tables.

Scanning the room, I see a table with no occupants except for a girl I recognize from our homeroom seated at the very back of the mess hall. The only company she has close to her are the trashcans and the almost bare white and red walls behind her with a couple of announcements and posters. It looks like the perfect place to take a seat, as there are fewer kids the closer we get to the back. I stride confidently toward her and stare directly at her as I set my tray down on the table and sit gracefully on the bench. Maintaining eye contact before looking her up and down, I let out an exasperated sigh.

“Leave, we’re sitting here now,” I order her firmly, expecting her to get up without a fight since she looks small and pathetic. When she just looks at me in confusion, making no move to leave, I get annoyed.

Before I can bark at her again, Alistair speaks up from behind me. “My la…” He clears his throat to cover his slip-up. It was determined he was to address me by my first name when in the presence of mortals to maintain our cover story. “Morgana, why don't we just move over to the end of the table? She was here first, so we shouldn't bother her.” Alistair suggests before making eye contact with the girl and apologizing for my words. I look over my shoulder and up to meet his eyes, just so he knows how annoyed I am at him defying me in front of a human. The pleading look in his eyes makes me soften my glare. I sigh loudly, annoyed, but I relent and move to the other end of the table, farther from the girl who just stares at us in surprise before continuing to steal curious glances every once in a while. The glances turn into outright staring once I start complaining about the tasteless food and boring classes we attended this morning.

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