My Personal Hell, D. Richardson [ebook reader browser txt] 📗

was an alpha that was of no blood relation to me. Regardless of what the paperwork might say, she was not my daughter. But I had to keep up appearances. When neighboring alphas started mentioning that she was close to the right age, I didn’t have a choice or risk looking weak.

I didn’t even know how she knew about the custom, and Asher claimed not to have told her. But I was impressed with the way she had handled it. If only I could get her to except the school closing. I understood that she wanted a stable life, and that meant a school close to home, where she would graduate. But after looking over the evaluation that described the school’s state. It would be better off to bus the kids to a different school and use the space to further help the town. It was a situation where I would just have to trust that she would eventually understand.

“I haven’t seen the girls spend time together like that since they were little,” Becca said as she sat down next to me.

“Mm, has Asher gotten any closer to gaining her forgiveness?” I asked.

I was proud when I heard that the two were dating. She was a fine alpha female, and it was wonderful that Asher seemed to finally be ready to settle down. But their fight over his keeping the knowledge of her ball from her seemed to have created a rift. I hadn’t even seen the two in the same room together since.

“It doesn’t look like it. Though I think she’s being obstinate,” she answered.

“She feels betrayed, it’s understandable.”

“Yeah, but I think if he just waits long enough and makes a lengthy apology it’ll blow over. She doesn’t seem to be that hard to please.”

“Perhaps.” It was the only answer I could give. She may be easy to please, but I had the feeling that her forgiveness was not easily attained.

“It didn’t help that she threw the purse he bought her out of a moving car.” I chuckled.

“She’s not a fashion diva. She’s made that perfectly clear.”

“Yeah, but the bag alone cost him nearly two hundred dollars. And I found the dress in the garbage can.”

“I think we all should just let her pick out her own clothes.”

“I would feel better about that if she ever actually picked out any clothes. She’s still wearing the same things that she bought on her first day.”

“Are you complaining that she’s not draining us dry by shopping?”

“No, it’s just that she’s been working for months, where is all that money going if not on herself?”

“Well, that’s her business.”

“I know, I just have this feeling that something’s going on with her.”

“Just give her some space, Love. She’ll come around.” She sighed.

“Okay, at least she’s stopped doing all of the housework,” she grumbled as she made her way out of the room.

 

 

 

 

 

Ailith

 

 

 

 

A couple of days after our unintended sleep over, I found myself cornered by Asher. I had been avoiding him for almost a week and a half. The thought of talking to him didn’t make me angry anymore, but I still hadn’t gotten around to doing anything about it. It still stung that he had known about that ball and had deliberately kept it from me. But now I stood in front of the sink with him just a few inches away with both arms framing me against the counter.

“I need to talk to you,” he kept his voice low. It was early in the morning, just before everyone got up to get ready for school.

“Then talk,” I answered. At least I had put some effort into not snapping at him. It wasn’t a lot of effort but it was some.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I know I should have, but I knew you would be upset.”

“You had no right to keep it from me.”

“I know. But my dad only set it up to keep the other packs from sniffing around. He had no intention of actually marrying you off. I’m sorry, and I swear it’ll never happen again.” His eyes and tone were sincere.

I believed that Drake didn’t actually intend on following through with the marriage custom. But as Asher leaned in to hug me, and I hugged him back, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he would never keep anything from me again. Not even if I had the right to know.

That dragged at me all day, all the way up until I reached the theater. When I could throw myself into preparing for the benefit. Patrick, one of the members from the chemistry club had wanted to meet with me. Shockingly, the shop students had come through for us, making exact replica’s of the seats for their projects. They looked amazing as they had managed to even upholster them to match.

They said that when the teacher had noticed that they all were making the same thing, he had gotten suspicious. But when they said that they all wanted to make something to match since it was their last year together, he let it go.

We had managed to get all of the cleaning done in the first week. Everyone taking shifts so all of us weren’t missing at the same time. Since Camilla couldn’t start working on the sets until we had all of the details and knew our limitations, she had started painting murals on the lobby walls. She said that since we couldn’t afford to buy expensive paintings to hang on the wall, she’d put them on there herself. So long as they initialed them to make it apparent that they were replicas we didn’t think it would be a problem.

So far we had two major problems. The first was funding for all of the equipment. The tech club wanted to buy some high quality technology. So we could all communicate with each other from one side of the building to the other. Not to mention the sound system and good quality cameras so we could sell copies of the performances after they were done. Add in the wireless microphones and every thing needed for the instruments themselves and it added up to a very steep number.

And we couldn’t forget everything we needed for the performances themselves. Jen still needed fabric for all of the costumes, and she didn’t even know what all she needed yet. Camilla and the art club needed new brushes and mediums, as well as everything we needed to build the actual sets. Again, we still didn’t know what all we needed yet. The math club couldn’t give us a grand total until we knew what all we were buying. And until we knew exactly what we were doing we couldn’t tell them.

“There you are,” Ricky huffed as I made my way down to the stage. He was a scrawny kid with a habit of being impatient. Lucky for him Christine and Stacey were with him, also squirming with impatience.

“Yes, I’m here, what is it?” I asked.

“Wait until you see this, it’s amazing,” Stacey breathed, barely containing her excitement.

“Yeah, the geek squad really outdid themselves this time,” Christine added with an added grin for the geek in question.

“Check this out,” he cut in, probably before Christine could offend him any more.

He held a small metal box in his hand connected to what looked like a gas tank that sat at his feet. In his other hand he held a small box with a switch. He hit the switch and flames erupted form the metal box. “Isn’t it great?” he asked, his face lit up with excitement.

“Uh, yeah, what is it?” I asked, not entirely sure what I was looking at. His expression turned to one of absolute indignity.

“It’s a heatless flame, go on, put your hand in it.” I did as he asked, moving quickly just in case. When I didn’t feel anything I let my hand sit in the fire.

“How did you do that?”

“It’s a gas, all it takes is a spark to ignite it, but when it’s lit it doesn’t give off any heat.”

“Isn’t the gas dangerous?”

“Well yeah, if your not careful it can explode, but you won’t have to worry about any actual fire damage.”

“What about the gas though? Is it safe to inhale?”

“Oh, it’s made out of completely organic gases, it’s harmless.”

“How does that help us here?” This time I directed my question to the girls that were dancing on their toes.

“We were thinking about the song, ‘Burn’. This would be perfect for it. We can have all of the dancers separated into different groups and surround them with the fire. No one will get hurt and the effect will be amazing.”

“Can you make enough of it?”

“I can make enough for the performance and one rehearsal. It’ll take a few tanks to spread it evenly along the floor, and make it burn for the duration of the song.”

“How are we going to spread it though? We can’t just poor it over the floor.”

“Derrick said he can put in false floors that sit on top of the original. We can run ducts underneath them and just cover them with loose floor boards until we need to remove them,” Stacey replied.

“Okay, sounds awesome.” It was the only thing I could think of to say. It was their project really, but they danced around like I had just given them permission.

The harder I tried to be a non entity in all of the preparations and planning, the deeper they pulled me in. Until eventually, no one did anything without my approval. I continued working full time, and several of the others ended up getting jobs. Between all of us we ended up with enough money to buy all of the equipment and supplies that we needed.

Shockingly, the biggest contributor besides myself was Christine. After I watched her drop two thousand dollars for Jen’s fabric, I asked the math club how much she had donated so far. They kept a record of every cent that everyone gave, and they had no qualms about telling me that so far she had given over ten thousand. So I cornered her.

“Hey,” I said while she was off to the side writing down some notes about whatever performance she was working on.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked absentmindedly. I wasn’t exactly sure how to ask her how she had gotten all of that money, so I decided to be blunt.

“Colleen told me that you’ve given over ten thousand dollars so far.”

“And?”

“How do you have so much money? I know you aren’t working,” I added before she could use that particular excuse. She sighed and dropped her pen on her notebook.

“It’s not a big deal,” she tried to shoulder past me, but I blocked her path.

“Yes, it is. You aren’t stealing it from your dad are you?” I asked, concern edging my tone.

“God no, I’m not stupid.”

“Then how?”

“It’s my collage fund,” she finally answered after a few minutes of silence.

“That’s even worse,” I snapped, and she jumped. “You need that for your future.”

“No, I don’t,” she snapped back, I just leveled my gaze at her. She tried to stare me down, but after a few moments she backed down. “I have a full ride scholarship, I don’t need the collage fund.” I felt my eyes widen.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Look, don’t tell anybody okay? My parents don’t even know.”

“Why not?” I asked, incredulous. “You should be proud, that’s a huge accomplishment.”

“I know, and I am. But it’ll totally ruin my image if everyone found out that I was studying when I could have been partying.”

“Why does that matter?” I asked, completely confused. This girls logic made no sense to me.

“I’m supposed to be the carefree, queen bee. If everyone found out, I’d be labeled a geek. And I’d rather go out popular, than an outcast.”

“Why is popularity so important to you?”

“You wouldn’t understand. You walk into a room and everyone wants to get to know you. I’ve spent my entire life living in the shadows because of my grandfather. When