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

had known the man, he didn’t look happy to see. Regardless, the interruption was intriguing.

“Ailith,” Drake said, keeping his tone soft, as most males did around females. “we’re in the middle of a territory negotiation. The girls are in the backyard.” It was obvious that he was telling her to leave, however, she looked at him as though his words confused her. After a moment she shook her head, and took a step forward. One of my men gave her a warning growl. She simply looked at him, her eyes hard, her tone stern when she spoke.

“Hush, I‘m no threat to you.” He backed down. I was more surprised that he growled at her at all, rather than the way he immediately obeyed. She was an alpha after all, but my men only give warnings to those they sense as a threat. And this was just a young female. But she turned back to Drake. “Actually, I was hoping that I could speak to you for a moment.” It was nearly unheard of for a female to interrupt negotiations.

“Unless it is of the utmost importance, it’ll have to wait.”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t important,” she answered, keeping her tone level and neutral. He gave a heavy sigh, showing how much of a burden she was being before looking up at her.

“What is it?”

“It’s about the school…” He cut her off after those few words.

“I will not discuss this with you, Ailith. The sale is going through,” his tone said it was the end of the topic. But she took a deep breath and tried again.

“I understand that, but there’s something you need to know about the man buying it.” He slammed a fist down on the table. Either she was a major nuisance to him or she hit a nerve. It wasn’t common for anyone to act so harshly towards a female. But instead of jumping at the sudden sound she merely stood up straighter.

“I said, I will not discuss it!” he snapped, his eyes blazing as he looked back down at the papers in front of him. A clear dismissal. The entire room held their breath, waiting for her reaction. But she just leveled her gaze at him. Taking in his entire demeanor, before finally folding her arms behind her back and making a slight bow.

“Very well.” As soon as the words left her mouth seven pairs of eyes snapped to her. Sadler was the most noticeable. He had been gazing anywhere but in her direction. Though his were the sharpest that went in her direction. All of the enforcers eyed her with caution, and I understood why.

Anyone with that much resolve in two simple words, was not going to be shut down quietly. She had something going on. Some way to take care of whatever problem she saw. She was a very intriguing young woman. When she turned and stepped back out the door, I sent a text to one of my drivers.

‘Follow her’

If Drake would not heed her words, or take her warning, then I was certainly going to find out what was going on. It was a dangerous game I played. Being caught roaming around another’s territory. But my curiosity would not allow me to walk away.

 

 

 

Ailith

 

 

 

I didn’t even get the chance to make it all the way to the stage before Jake and Chris ran up to me.

“So what did he say?” Jake asked, I shook my head.

“He wouldn’t even let me get it out.” All three of us slumped our shoulders.

“What do we do now?” Chris asked, it was the first time I’d ever heard her sound unsure of herself.

“We keep going with the benefit. We don’t tell anyone what we know, and we get his attention,” I answered.

“Why can’t we tell anyone?” Jake asked.

“Because if the pack knows then they won’t be able to focus on the benefit. We have to keep them calm and sure of themselves. If we add any more pressure most of them will crack.” They both nodded, and we set to work.

A couple of hours later I realized just how far Chris was willing to push me passed my comfort zone. She had come up with a ridiculous stunt routine for the song ‘Titanium’. They realized that the floor lifts reached all the way up to the fifty foot ceiling. And once upon a time she had decided she wanted to learn how to bungee jump.

So I stood at the top of center stage. Way, way up at the top. And a man that had trained Chris had hooked one of my ankles up to a long elastic rope. Her goal was for me to sing the lead, and when we got to the right part, I would ‘fall’ off the platform. Only to do some impressive moves in mid air. She said that they had measured the ropes so that I would bounce back about five feet from the floor. But in order to be sure they had to test it. And for it to be tested properly they had to use my weight.

Over the next week everything went to hell in a hand basket. It started on the following Monday. Joey, a well known school nark, was called into the office. If anything was going on, he was the one that they called. He was also the one they got their information from. Luckily, I had already gotten him on our side.

It was easier than I had anticipated. Turned out he had a cushy thing going on in this school. No one messed with him because they knew that they would get nailed for it. If he had to go to a different school he wouldn’t have that protection. So I was the one he sought out when he stepped out of the office.

I was standing at my locker, organizing my books for the day, when he leaned on the other side of the open door. He spoke lowly his voice barely reaching my ears. He told me that the teachers had noticed the students getting along a little too well.

Different cliques that normally wouldn’t have anything to do with each other, were suddenly racing across the cafeteria to talk to each other. He told them that he didn’t know anything, but that wouldn’t last too long before they started to put pressure on different students. I thanked him for his help and he went on his way.

I leaned against the lockers to survey the halls. Half way down Jason and a small scrawny guy, who was carrying way too many books to hold, were walking side by side. The other one dropped a book, and without thought Jason bent down and picked it up, carrying it for him as they continued down the hallway.

Not too far from those two was a cheerleader and a girl from the chess club. As I watched the cheerleader handed the chess player a tube of lip gloss, while she pointed out a problem in a text book. That was how most of them were keeping their grades up. The smarter students were helping them study.

I couldn’t help the small smile that played on my lips. But when I turned to go to class I noticed Sadler leaning against a wall of lockers, watching the students, and me. So far those of us that needed to had managed to stay behind the scenes. Sadler was bound to put things together, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I should have.

In retaliation to the school faculty meddling with our activities, we decided it was time to start the rumor. Putting flyers in all of the lockers, including our own, when no one was around. Lucky for us the school couldn’t afford a surveillance system, thanks to replacing the windows the year before.

Over the course of the next two days, they pulled several students into the office. Some of them weren’t involved, so naturally, they didn’t know anything. But every time they brought in someone who was directly involved there was a lot of nail chewing. But me, Jen, Camilla, and the Wilt twins were never suspected. And everyone else said the same things. They didn’t know anything, they just found the flyer in their locker.

Somehow, someone found out where we were holding the performance. On Saturday several of us walked into the auditorium only to freeze in our tracks. The place was trashed. We had sets sitting around until we could get them completely finished and set up in order in the back room. Only one was still standing, and that was because it was huge. It didn’t stop them from pulling all of the boards off and breaking them into pieces.

Everything was destroyed, and we ended up having to call as many people in as possible. No one could breath right for a while as we sat amongst the mess. Many of them wanted to just pack it up and leave.

“How did they get in?” Stacey asked, as she picked up this piece of debris or that.

“The lock on the back door was broken,” Jake answered.

“Well, that’s it, there’s no way we could get it all back together before the performance,” Patsy announced, and I spun on her.

“No, that’s not it. We can’t just quite now. Look, they didn’t touch the seats, or the lights. In fact, they completely overlooked all of the electrical equipment.” It was true, they never traveled passed the stage. “All of this can be remade, probably in a week or so, if we pool our resources.”

“What resources?” Tiffany snapped. “We already owe a dozen people favors.”

“We are the resources. Look, we built all of this once, it shouldn’t be too much work to put it all back together.”

“She’s right,” Camilla said from the back of the stage. She was surveying the damage to the sets. “Most of the damage they did was pretty mediocre. On some of them they just ripped off big pieces, didn’t even bother to fully destroy it.”

“That’s insulting,” I growled. Several people looked at me like I had lost my mind. “They looked at this place, at all of our hard work, and thought that if they just made a big mess, we’d give up and go home. They’re not taking us seriously, even now.” Several people looked like they were digesting that for a moment. Then they started getting angry.

“I’m sick of not being taken seriously. Of just being written off as a frilly little teenager ruled by my hormones,” Jason grumbled. He got several murmurs of agreement.

“So, let’s do something about it. Let’s pick ourselves back up and make this place shine again.”

“Yeah,” Stacey said and then took charge. “Okay, so everyone that was supposed to rehearse today get on the stage. Everyone else can start on the clean up. When you’re done rehearsing take the spot of someone who needs too. We can keep up with the performance, and still get this place back into shape.”

After three hours we had the place clean, and took stock of everything that needed to be done to rebuild anything that needed it. The false floor was still in tact, as were the ducts that ran underneath it and the gas tanks. I guess we did a good job of making it look real. I was up on the lift rehearsing the bungee portion when things got worse.

 

 

 

 

Sadler

 

 

 

 

It was time I found out what the hell was going on. First she interrupts Drake’s negotiation, next all of the students start to mysteriously get along, while she watched. And now half of the teenagers that littered the mall on a Saturday, were absent.

It didn’t take a whole lot to figure out where she was. Especially when her boss informed me that she had called in, and that she had been spending a lot of time at the old dilapidated theatre. He spoke with pride when he mentioned it, that meant that he approved of whatever it