88Closer to the Edge
© Sorraya T 2012
Chapter One: Devil Spawn
Tyler Whitehouse is the spawn of Satan.
I'm being completely serious when I say this. And I'm not the kind of girl to make wild claims over someone's lineage as devil spawn without evidence to back me up. Seriously, I have a prepared statement for the day he finally admits that his daddy sits on a throne made of skulls and shattered hopes and dreams in hell.
What evidence have I prepared, I hear you ask? Don't worry, I'll tell you.
Well, firstly, he seems to excel at making my life a living hell. And my hypothesis is that he is only able to do this as a result of extensive knowledge of what hell is like.
Secondly, he has minions. Who the hell (hah, punny!) has minions these days? Tyler Whitehouse, that's who. Because he is devil spawn.
Thirdly, he has weaseled his way into my life through becoming best friends with my twin brother. Now this may not appear to be a particular sign of devil behavior to you, but rest assured. It really is.
And finally, Tyler Whitehouse is the spawn of Satan because he is currently riding shotgun. In the car that belongs to my brother AND me.
Evil, I tell you. Plain evil.
"Are you still sulking, Pippy?" Archer asked.
"This isn't sulking. This is a silent protest against the devil spawn." I retorted.
Tyler's warm brown eyes met mine as he turned around in his seat to look at me. "Against what?"
I smiled innocently, fluttering my eyelashes. "Nothing, Tyler."
I can't let the Prince of Darkness's son know I'm on to him.
He raised an eyebrow at me before sighing and rolling his eyes. "You're weird, Pip."
"Mhmm." I responded disinterestedly. The devil spawn's opinion of me was irrelevant. I just wanted to get to school, and get away from the thing.
Finally Archer pulled up and began to park. I was out of the car before he stopped, slamming the door behind me. I could already see the minions of Archer Raven and Tyler Whitehouse descending on our car. So I was getting out of there.
My brother, Archer Raven, and the son of Satan, his best friend, were top of the school. Yuck, yuck, yuck!
"Bye, sluts!" I hollered at them over my shoulder. I didn't have to look back to know that Archer was glaring at me and Tyler was rolling his eyes.
Before you judge me, it was a factual statement. They legitimately were manwhores, each of them having slept with a majority of the female population at our school.
Well they could have all the slut fun they wanted, they weren't the only school rulers. Yeah, I was Archer Raven's sister, but I was popular in my own right. HA! Take that, whores.
At the entrance of my school waited my group. Now, my brothers group covered the jocks, cheerleaders, sluts, and preps. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against most of them. I love most of the people I went to school with, they were awesome. But my group… they were more my style. My group was made up of skaters, punks, stoners, and musicians.
I grinned at the lovely people who awaited me as I walked up the stairs. "Waiting for me? How cute."
The tallest of the guys snorted at me and raised a pierced eyebrow. "Piper Raven, why on earth would we wait for you?" he mocked.
I winked at him. "Ah, Jase, you wound me."
He laughed and embraced me, pulling on my ponytail. "Liar. An ego like yours can't be wounded, it's invincible."
I snorted at him, swatting his hand away. "Yeah, yeah."
Jase Baker was my best friend, and was probably just behind my twin and the devil spawn in terms of popularity. Although he was just as much of a manwhore as the Tiresome Two.
He grinned at me and grabbed my hand, pulling me indoors. "I got us two lockers next to each other in the senior row, this year. I know, I'm amazing."
I snorted. "How early were you to be here in time for that?"
"Ah, shut it, Pip. Why are you so early, by the way?"
"You make it sound like I'm always late or something." I said, faking indignation.
Jase snorted. "Piper, you are always late."
"Only on days that end with the word 'day'."
"Loser. But seriously, what gives?"
I grimaced. "Archer and Whitehouse. They're evil. Decided to be here on time to greet their followers."
"That must have been painful." He responded solemnly, corners of his mouth twitching.
I frowned at him. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. You try being kicked out of shotgun in your own car."
He laughed at me and ruffled my hair. Unfortunately, the cruel and unforgiving fates decided it was time for the late bell. We bolted to Homeroom, and I waved at him before ducking into the class. "Sorry I'm late, Clarkie!" I yelled, zooming across the classroom and collapsing into my seat.
Mrs Clarke looked disapprovingly at me, though the corners of her mouth twitched. The woman loved me. "I was hoping you'd try to start being on time this year, Piper. Your brother had no problem being on time."
I whipped my head to the side, and saw Archer rolling his eyes at me. I could practically hear the reprimand in my head.
"Oh, well, I have a reason for being late, Clarkie. I was ambushed this morning by two dirty, smelly primates. It was horrible, they were huge and disgusting. You should pity me!" I exclaimed.
"Piper, you were with Arch and me this morning." Tyler told me, his voice coming from my right.
I looked up at Mrs Clarke beseechingly. "See? They even admit to it! It was awful."
The class was laughing quite hard by now, enjoying the show. The kind woman rolled her eyes and snorted. "Well, I can sort of understand, then."
Archer smiled at her charmingly. "You really think I would do that, Mrs Clarke? I'm hurt."
She again withheld a smile. "You and your sister are going to be the death of me."
Archer and I turned to grin at each other. I swung back to Tyler. "Sucked in!"
He frowned at me. "Clarkie-"
"That's Mrs Clarke, Mr. Whitehouse." The woman said sternly.
It was at that moment that I lost all pretense of being serious, laughing loudly. He turned and stuck his tongue out at me. Oh, revenge was sah-weet!
*-O-*
If I don't get a smoothie in the next five seconds I will attack the nearest person with my lunch tray, I thought grumpily. Mondays always sucked, but they were particularly bad when they were also the first day of school.
I glared at the person in front of me, who had been deliberating over what to choose from the cafeteria for the past ten minutes, while I was stuck behind them and the line of people desperate for food grew behind me. The sophomore girl must have sensed my venomous gaze on her as she glanced my way and then squeaked, asking for the first thing she saw and hurrying away. I smiled with self-satisfaction. Oh yeah, I was a badass.
"Mango smoothie, please!" I requested brightly. The lunch lady nodded at me and went to get me one. She returned and I stuffed the money into her hand, grabbing my smoothie and greedily slurping from it.
"Oh that's just charming." came a sarcastic voice. I spun to see Michele Casper sneering at me. Michele was, in my humble opinion, the most evil of the devil bitches in our school. And somehow she was- gag me- popular. It was probably due to the DDs under her shirt and the mane of black hair. In my opinion, she looked like a horse with that mane. But apparently people thought it was just so beautiful. And to make matters worse, the rich devil bitch was in love with my brother and his best friend. While she was usually begrudgingly nice to me, due to my elevated status as Archer Raven's sister, sometimes she decided that she liked Tyler better for the day and attempted to make cutting remarks in my direction.
It was kind of funny, really. But in my already less-than good mood, it wasn't funny at all. In fact, I wanted to hit her with my lunch tray just for fun.
I didn't, though. Archer would have disowned me.
"Oh, look! It's Casper the bitchy ghost. What can I do for a slut like yourself on this fine day?" I said with a roll of my eyes.
She narrowed her beady, overly-made-up eyes at me. "I'm the slut? You arrived in a car with two guys this morning, and then walked in with a different one. I'd be careful what you go around saying to those superior to you." She scoffed.
I snorted at her, shaking my head in disbelief. "Oh, Michael."
She tried to interrupt with "It's Michele."
I however, ignored her input. "Anyway, as I was saying, Michael, there are many problems with that statement, but I'll address them. Firstly: I arrived in the car with my brother. Ew. Secondly: I also arrived with Tyler Whitehouse. Again, ew. Thirdly: I walked in with Jase, my best friend, and your step-brother, remember? Hardly slutty behaviour. And last, but the most important point of all." I looked directly into her eyes with a hard expression which she paled a bit under. "Don't you ever assume that you are superior to me. The last time I checked, my brother and Tyler would pick me over you any day."
She glared at me and stalked off, her high heels clicking as she walked. I shuddered. "Good riddance to bad rubbish." I muttered.
"Ugh, why was the shrew talking to you?" I heard a male voice ask. I turned, smoothie in hand, to see Satan's child having come up to me, looking after Michele with intense dislike.
"She was seeking my infinite wisdom." I said casually, returning my attention to my smoothie... Only to realise it was no longer in my hand. I looked up slowly to see Tyler Whitehouse, evil devil spawn, holding it and slurping away until there was about a quarter left. I stared at him for a moment, jaw dropped, until he smirked at me. And then, heaven unleashed its armies on dear Tyler.
*-O-*
"You punched Tyler?" my brother cried incredulously, fury racing through his eyes. He had cornered me at the senior lawn benches when he had heard of my disagreement with the devil spawn.
"He stole my smoothie." I explained, "It was mango flavoured."
"You punched Tyler... over a fucking smoothie?" he repeated, fury mounting by the second.
I assessed his eloquent summation. "Yep." I said finally, shrugging.
"Are you insane?"He screamed. "He has a bruise the size of a freaking tennis ball on his jaw!"
I again assessed his opinion. "That does generally happen when a crazy bitch punches a smoothie thief."
The disbelief on his face was almost funny, but I was aware that if I laughed, I most likely wouldn't live to see the next day. So I stayed reluctantly quiet.
"Piper," he said, frustration and anger mixing in his voice. Whatever he was about so say was interrupted by my best friend running up to me, roaring with laughter.
He stopped in front of my locker, hand on his stomach and tears of laughter streaming down his face. After a few seconds he managed to compose himself enough to talk. Still chuckling, he asked me "Pip, did you seriously clock Tyler Whitehouse for drinking your smoothie?"
I nodded, shrugging again.
And Jase burst into fits again, clutching his stomach as he doubled over. I jabbed a thumb in his direction and turned to my twin. "See Arch, now that's a reaction I can understand."
He glared at me and turned to my best friend, pushing him roughly into the wall. "Not helping, Baker." He hissed.
Jase just stood up and wiped the tears from his face, still snorting. "Ah, lighten up dude. Whitehouse can take care of himself."
Archer's face went red and his expression darkened. I sighed as he pushed Jase again. "That's my best friend, dude."
Jase rolled his eyes. While most of the school was frightened of the infamous temper of Archer Raven, Jase saw him as little more than my stupid twin brother. "And Piper's mine. Calm down and don't get involved with whatever crap her and Whitehouse have between them." He said, good-naturedly. I frowned at him, confused.
"What are you-" I began, but was interrupted by him slinging an arm around my shoulder.
"Nothing, Pipes. Calm down." I looked up at him suspiciously for a moment but then shrugged. He wasn't going to tell me so there was no use worrying about it.
"Baker." My brother growled. Here we go. "Get your arm off my sister."
Jase simply snorted and shook his head. "You can't rule her life, Raven. She gets to pick her own friends."
The vein in Archer's forehead looked ready to burst, but I interrupted. "Arch, cute protectiveness or whatever, but seriously. Quit it."
He scowled at me. "Apologise to Tyler." He snapped, turning on his heel and marching away.
I stuck my tongue out at his back, and looked up at Jase with an irritated frown. "I was perfectly justified. He stole from me. I punched him. It's not my fault, it was just karma."
Jase snorted. "Then don't apologise."
I sighed. "I wish. Archer won't talk to me until I do." I frowned. "Family loyalty is great, huh? I better find Whitehouse." I shrugged off Jase's arm and shut my locker. "Catch ya."
He nodded, face tight. "Yeah, Dairy Queen tonight?"
I nodded. "See you then, you're driving." I grinned and wiggled my fingers, going to search for my brother's best friend.
I looked around the school for a good twenty minutes, until I finally found Tyler violently kicking soccer balls into a goal on the sports field. I hesitated at seeing his temper, but scrounged up enough courage to call his name. He turned and his eyes landed on me, and for a moment I could have sworn I saw his expression drop before he replaced it with a hard mask.
I slowly walked up to him and stood before him, rubbing my arm nervously.
He raised an eyebrow coolly, the bruise on his jaw as large as Archer had said. "What?" he said flatly.
"Sorry." I blurted. "I mean... I may have slightly, sort of, overreacted a little bit."
He rolled his eyes at me. "Good apology. Heartfelt."
I glared at him. "Look, I'm not good at this, okay? I really am sorry. I don't know why I lost it at you, but I regret it."
He assessed me for a moment before shrugging. "Okay."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Okay? Is that all?"
He snorted. "What do you want, a hug?"
I flushed. "I'd rather you didn't touch me, thanks." I sneered. A wide smile spread across his face and my stomach dropped. "What? What are you thinking?"
"I've thought of a way for you to prove how sorry you are." He said casually, smile still fixed in place.
Uh oh.
"How?" I asked warily.
"You have to let me hug you whenever I want. For the rest of the year." He said with a snicker.
My jaw dropped. "What? No way!"
He turned, face going blank. "Guess you don't mean your apology then. I should go tell Archer I'm still mad at you."
I groaned in frustration. "Fine! But this is blackmail and I would like you to know that I won't enjoy a second."
He winked at me. "Whatever you say." He spread his arms wide and gestured for me to draw closer. "May as well start this up."
I gulped, slightly panicked. "Now?"
"Why not?" he challenged.
I looked around to make sure nobody was looking before reluctantly stepping into his arms. I was surprised that when they wrapped around me, drawing me tightly into his hard body so that my head was tucked under his chin, I didn't feel uncomfortable. The opposite, in fact. I sighed and relaxed into him, realising how good it felt.
"See? Not so bad, is it?" He murmured, a smile in his voice.
I shook myself and reluctantly drew away, swallowing the growing lump in my throat. "Um, yeah."
And then Tyler Whitehouse shocked me beyond belief. He leaned down and brushed his lips across my cheek, and then with a cocky smile on his face, returned to his soccer drills.
Ah, hell.
Another first chapter, woohoo!
Yeah, I'm a bit hyper and can't focus on one thing right now. Rest assured, I will make the effort to finish both Psychics and Cuz I Can while I still work on this story and Easier to Run also. This story is going to be a lot lighter than my normal stuff, and hopefully will make you laugh at some points.
R&R and I will love you forever!
Love, Sorraya T