The Deadly Rose, Amber Jonas [read along books TXT] 📗

tension. Kendra, of course, had no issue making a statement, “the teacher pets should go first,” she said snidely, as we reached his desk, I could feel myself getting angry, but I couldn’t understand why I wanted to punch her in the throat so bad.

I rolled my eyes, as I waited for Mr. Bryon to finish looking over Cosette’s work and to begin looking over mine, Kendra was behind me, kicking my shoe just enough to where she knew it would annoy me, “so teacher’s pet, what’s it like being The Shadow? Does that mean you’re cursed?” she asked, snickering. I ignored her comments as I turned my papers over to the teacher, Cosette was walking back to her seat when Kendra grabbed her arm, and pulled her close, “You know Cosette, you really need to learn to shut your mouth, before it gets you hurt.” She threatened, Cosette rolled her eyes, “Kendra, you don’t stand a chance at getting an A, much less fighting me, you don’t have the smarts or strength.” Cosette said as she showed off her grade and went back to her seat smiling smugly at Kendra.

“Wow Bella, you seem to know your stuff about Greek History, you’ve even added more than what was required. Maybe I should move you into AP Greek History.” He said smiling as he handed me my now graded papers. I felt a sense of nervousness and panic as I walked back to my seat, AP History? There was no way I could take on that high advanced class.

“Did Mr. Bryon tell you to?” Cosette asked as we were sitting at lunch, I was picking at my triple layer ham and cheese sandwich, while Cosette ate her super peperoni pizza from the cafeteria. “He’s placing us in AP Greek History!” she seemed super excited for the move up; I was a different story. “Yeah he told me, I just don’t think I want to go through with it…” I said, biting off another piece of sandwich before Cosette could ask why, “I think I’m fine being in a normal class, where I can keep up with the pace.” Cosette rolled her eyes, and glared “Belladonna Abraxas! We both had more information than any of the other students on our papers and all the extra notes we had, none of the other students will even be learning, not even in AP History, so we will still be ahead of the class, no matter where we are put, but in AP we will be able to do more work, so we aren’t sitting there bored contemplating skipping to Mrs. Montague’s room.” I smiled at the last part, and shook my head,

“I like Mrs. Montague though; she’s like another mom to me.” I said. Cosette rolled her eyes and pretended that she was choking me, “fine, then we will set up a very secret schedule to add your skip days in so you can visit Mrs. Montague, now will you join AP with me, please?!” I laughed at her begging face and nodded in agreement, “but I better have a lot of skip days.” I said as the bell rang for us to go our separate ways.

“See you after school!” I called out as I headed up the stairs to my Honors English class with Mrs. Montague. 

Part One: 6 Fiery Chaos

English; it’s probably the only subject I look forward to in school, it’s the only time I feel like I am really being myself. Walking in the class, there were about five other kids sitting around the desks talking before class began. Mrs. Montague was a new teacher at the school, and a lot of the kids were already beginning to take advantage of that by sitting with their friends and moving name tags around. I sat in the back and started to doodle on my notebook, already adorned with rose vines and stick figures sword fighting.

As the bell rang, a medium height woman with long hair walked in smiling, everyone else didn’t seem to notice her, but something about her made me want to pay attention. “Hello class. I am your Senior English teacher.”  No one seemed to be paying attention; they were too “busy” making plans with each other to care. “I want you all to write out a short essay today, on your life. It will be due in 15 minutes.” I slowly pulled out a piece of paper and began writing, but I didn’t know what to write. I couldn’t possibly tell this woman that I don’t know that well about my abusive past or my alcohol problem I had. She would send me to child services before she even finished reading my paper. I sat there doodling and daydreaming, before I knew it, I only had five minutes to write. I quickly jotted down something about my future, and how I wanted to open up my own daycare and become a published author as well. I hoped that one day I could leave a mark in this world. I quickly scribbled my name and the date and turned it in. Mrs. Montague smiled at me as I walked back to my seat.

"Yep, there is definitely something different about this teacher." I thought as I sat down and opened up a book to read while the rest of the class slowly turned in their papers. Zoning into my book I forgot about everything else. It was like I was transported into the book and I was living the story out on my own. Someone bumped into my desk, shaking me from my thoughts, looking up I saw Ethan and Sterling devilishly smiling at me,

“What do you two want?” I asked a little perturbed that they interrupted my reading and made me lose my focus. They looked at each other then stole my book bag and ran to the other side of the room. Rolling my eyes I got up from my seat to retrieve it. “Belladonna, would you mind sitting down please? We are about to discuss the book that we are going to read.” I looked at her, then back at Ethan, who was still smiling while Sterling put something into my bag. Sighing I sat back down and rested my head on my hands.

Mrs. Montague passed around the books we would be reading, The Lord of the Flies, the name seemed interesting enough, but the title seemed very strange. After she passed them around, she had her back to the class, Ethan snuck back over and tossed me my bag before winking and running back to his seat before he got caught. I glared at them before reaching into my book bag, curious to what they stuck into it. There was a little note attached to a box.

“In three minutes, the fire alarm will sound, take your bag and go the opposite way down the stairs and out of the back door into the woods. No worries, you won’t miss any of class, this will last the rest of the period.”

I looked over and began shaking my head no, but it was too late Sterling had already raised his hand and asked to go to the bathroom. Within seconds the alarm sounded and all hell broke loose after that.

Part Two: 7 Hidden Past and Secrets revealed

While everyone else ran through the halls, looking for their friends and chatting about the disruption from class, even though none of them really cared cause it meant they would be missing most of the period anyways. I snuck through the halls silently avoiding teachers as I made my way to the back entrance closest to the woods. As I reached the door I saw Sterling saunter out of the boys bathroom, like nothing had happened. Winking at me he walked down the hall to catch up with the others.

I opened the door to the stairwell and slowly started walking down, trying to be as quiet as possible. Then I heard voices from the first floor, heading towards the stair case. I climbed over the rail and hid “I don’t understand, there wasn’t supposed to be a fire drill today. Why did it suddenly go off?” I heard Mrs. Kaminari babble while they walked up. I held my breath as they passed. After two minutes, I jumped down and grabbed my bag, running out of the door and into the parking lot, there were students and teachers scattered everywhere; teachers were searching for their students, and students were hiding from their teachers. I ran along the fence and climbed over hopefully before anyone could see me.

I slowed myself down, panting I sat my bag on the ground, wondering what the hell those two have gotten me into. Looking around, I tried to recognize my surroundings, to figure out where I was. The sun was slanting, burning through the trees. There was a small, old looking cottage. Walking up to the stairs I looked in the dark space, it looked as if it had been empty for years. I sat on the stairs and reached into my bag to pull out the box. Opening it I saw documents that dated back to the 1960’s, curious I began looking more thoroughly through the pile of papers.

There were newspaper clippings, birth and death certificates, and almost burned up journal entries. I began reading them, wondering what importance they had in my life. It wasn’t until I saw a news clipping with the title

“The Shadow: Protector or Enemy of Grand Council?”

I began looking at the pictures of burning bodies and children that were hanged. There was a loud crashing sound, jolting me back into reality and out of the nightmare that was laid before my eyes. Shoving the papers back into the box, and into my book bag, I took off back towards the school, figuring that whatever happened was already over with and I could go home to do more research about this “Shadow” figure that gave apparent fear to everyone around.

Getting back to the school took no time at all, Ethan, Sterling, and Cosette were all in the parking lot, sitting in a circle sharing a bag of Skittles. Jumping the fence I walked up to them, keeping my body language guarded. “What was your master plan you guys?” I asked as I took the box out of my bag, “are you trying to tell me that I have some mystical evil power in me and I’m going to burn people and hang little children?”