Chapter 13 Orion
Orion
I drove from Harper’s place, my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. The last bloody thing I’d wanted to do was leave her. Not when I’d finally managed to melt some of the ice between us but…
Why is he here?
At Atlas Hall, I parked my car and hurried to my floor. Two men wearing all black stood sentry outside my and Easton’s door. Security detail.
I rolled my eyes. Not at all conspicuous.
“At ease, gentlemen,” I said, giving a mock salute.
“Mr. Mercer,” one said, opening the door for me.
My bravado might’ve fooled them, but my stomach roiled. Inside my living space, Father stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back, gold and diamonds glinting off his fingers.
“This is unexpected,” I said. “Hello, Father. What brings you here? Business or pleasure?”
“Orion,” he said, turning. His mouth was drawn in a grim line. “I’m on my way to New York for a series of meetings. Given the severity of your situation here, I thought it prudent to make a stop.”
“Severity,” I said. On the coffee table was a manila envelope and an orange bottle of pills. “My next target and the poison to kill them?”
“Always with the jokes.” Father sighed. He came around and sat on the lone chair across from the couch.
“I’ve received your mid-semester grades, and they are no joking matter.
You’re failing or nearly failing everything but piano and chemistry.
Piano is meaningless, and chemistry is a B-minus when it should be an A, considering. ”
It should be an F. I was drowning in my classes, and only Harper kept my head above water in chemistry.
“Then there is the matter of the Novus Science Innovation contest,” Father continued.
“Yeah, sorry, I missed the deadline.” I hopped up on the kitchen counter that faced the living area. “Slipped my mind.”
“It didn’t slip mine. I signed you up for it myself after you failed to do so.”
“You…?” I felt a headache start to grow behind my eyes. “Why?”
“Why?” Father repeated. “Why would the highly prestigious scion of a science empire not participate in a highly prestigious science contest?”
“Because I don’t need the prize. Not the money or the help with college.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I gritted my teeth. “Other students could use both much more than I do, and you know it.”
“Other students aren’t my concern. That you are failing to uphold even the bare minimum standards of my expectation is. And now you are failing in your academics as well.” He arched a brow. “You may need the help with the college admissions more than you know.”
Now he was joking. Father had a direct line to the president of Cambridge. I could flunk out of Castle Hill Academy and I’d still get in.
Four more years. I can’t do another four years.
“It’s too hard,” I muttered.
“Say again?”
“I said, it’s too hard, Father,” I repeated, louder. My heart was pounding, meeting his dark eyes. Admitting it out loud for the first time. “My brain…it can’t process the work. I can’t read—”
“Nonsense. You read perfectly well. We couldn’t get your nose out of a book as a child. You lose focus during exams, is all.”
“I can read books, yes. But it’s…all mixed up. It’s not as simple as losing focus.”
“I doubt that,” Father said, leaning over his knees. “You haven’t been taking your medication, have you?”
“It makes me sick,” I said. “It gives me a bad reaction, and it doesn’t help.”
Father pursed his lips. “I thought so. This is a new prescription. You will take it and you will improve your grades. That is your only job. Not crew. Not piano.” He tapped two fingers on the envelope. “This is a list of formulas Mercer Chem is working on. Simple, basic.”
My eyes widened. “NoSci rules state no outside help allowed. That’s cheating.”
“Don’t be gauche, Orion. You will get no help from us. This is merely a list of ideas. Choose one. Choose none, but you will participate in that contest.”
Father rose to his feet and came to me. I slid off the counter, and he put his hands on my shoulders.
“Your mother and I love you very much. We only want what’s best for you. You must know that.”
I nodded, a thousand words piling up in my throat, wanting to spill out of my mouth. Only two escaped.
“I know.”
“When I was your age, in Year 13, I worked two jobs, and was already building the bones of what would become Mercer Chem. No one helped me, Orion. I had only grit and determination. Those were the bricks and mortar from which I built the empire that will one day be yours.”
He clapped his hands on my shoulders and turned for the door.
“Work harder, take your meds, and come up with something brilliant for the contest.” He opened the door. “We’ll talk soon.”
Then he was gone, and the room felt bigger somehow, now that he wasn’t filling it with his looming presence.
I sat down at the coffee table and opened the envelope and found what looked to be a list of chemistry formulas and ideas, some exceedingly complicated, some simple.
Though it made me feel unclean, I could pick the most basic, the most un-innovative, the one most guaranteed to not wow any judges.
Not that I had the mental bandwidth to wow anyone, anyway.
I’ll pick the one that won’t stand in Harper’s way.
“It’s still bloody cheatin’, innit?”
I tossed the papers on the coffee table and picked up the orange pill bottle, squinting at the label. A different medication than the one I’d been prescribed before. Maybe it’d work…
Or maybe it’ll give me a heart attack. That’ll be fun.
I set that aside too and rubbed my eyes. First things first.
“Harper.”
Just saying her name made everything feel lighter. Better. The headache behind my eyes was driven away by the memory of her smile as she watched me play with that rascal of a brother of hers.
She was not going to be pleased that I’d paid for her car repairs, but then again, I wasn’t not going to pay for them either. Impossible. I might’ve been a lowdown cheating bastard, but I was still a gentleman.
“Gentleman” isn’t the first word she’s going to use when she hears I paid the bill…
A grin spread over my lips, just as Easton walked in the door, carrying his motorcycle helmet. He narrowed his eyes at me.
“And how was your day?”
“Smashing,” I said. “My father has entered me in that bloody contest I wanted to avoid, is insisting I take medication that might send me into cardiac arrest, and tomorrow I might be expelled because I’m going to beat the ever-loving shit out of someone or someones for bullying the girl I care about.
But none of it matters since I’m failing out of school anyway. ”
Easton listened, nodding. “Makes perfect sense. And you’re smiling because…?”
“I’m going to ask that girl to go to the Halloween festival with me, and I suspect she might say yes.”
“Of course.” He started for our room. “Just don’t go having cardiac arrests or getting expelled.”
“Why, have you gone and fallen in love with me, Easton?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” He shrugged one shoulder. “But…you don’t suck.”
“I’ll take it.”
***
On the way into CHA the next morning, my path dovetailed with Xander Ford’s, and we walked along the quad together.
“Xander, my friend, tell me what’s good,” I said. “Going to the Halloween festival this weekend?”
“Yep,” he said, pushing his black square-framed glasses up his nose. “I hadn’t planned on it, but I suppose it’s the thing to do. Are you dressing up?”
“Of course,” I said. “A 1920s gangster.”
“Al Capone or…?”
“No. Less Scarface, more Sinners.”
Xander stared at me blankly, and I laughed. The bloke was a certifiable genius in quantum physics but could scarcely name a movie if his life depended on it.
I waved a hand. “The primary objective is to look hot in a suit. What’s your costume?”
“A scientist,” he said, glancing away almost shyly.
I laughed. “Of course. And which lucky lady will be on your arm?”
“Harper.”
I nearly stopped walking. “Sorry?”
“Harper Bennett? She’s in the Math and Physics Club with me,” Xander said as we crossed the threshold into the Academy’s bustling halls. “Do you know her?”
“Yeah, I know her,” I muttered, my words lost under the tone of the first bell.
“Gotta run.” Xander chucked me on the shoulder. “See you at practice.”
I stood in the center of the maelstrom of students, some jostling me on their way to class, while the disappointment sucked at my heart, dragging it down to the vicinity of my ankles.
You waited too long, you bloody moron. You waited too long.
“Yo, Orion!”
Brent Reynolds, erstwhile bow seat from crew, was waving me over from a row of lockers. I wandered over.
“Hey, man! Been a while since we hung out,” he said, an eager, almost desperate smile on his face. “Not since that Ford fucker took my seat.”
“What do you want, Reynolds?” I asked dully.
“Nothing, just…what are you doing Saturday before the festival? Maybe we could hang out at Cassidy’s? Tucker and the rest of the crew don’t really talk to me much anymore…”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Fuck me. She’s going with Xander? Are they an item? Just how late is too late?
“Oh, hey.” Brent whacked my shoulder. “Did you hear? I pulled off the senior prank.”
My head snapped up. “What did you say?”
“Yeah, so Tucker and those guys said they’d given up on it for some reason, but Rhett told me it’d be funny if I did it anyway.”
My teeth clenched. “Did what, exactly?”
Brent frowned. “The senior prank? You know…move some Bender’s car? But that shit was too heavy for just me and Jason. We didn’t get very far—”
His words cut off with a choke as my hand shot out and gripped him around the collar, slamming him against the locker. Brent’s eyes widened with shock at my sudden ferocity. It shocked me too, the rage that boiled up in me, as if it had been waiting…
“You did that?” I seethed, my face inches from his.
“I thought…I mean, Rhett said—”
“You fucked up her car,” I snarled. “Nearly a grand in damages.”
“Shit, I didn’t know, I swear…”
Brent was staring at me as if I were a stranger. Someone he’d never seen before. I sucked in a breath, forcing the red haze to retreat. Slowly, I let go of his shirt and backed off.
“Jesus, Orion,” Brent gasped, jerking his collar back into shape. “What the hell, man?”
I leveled a finger in his face. “You don’t go near her, you hear me? Don’t talk to her, don’t touch one fucking thing that belongs to her. Never again.”
“Okay, okay, but—”
“Never again.”
I turned and stormed down the now near-empty hallway, inhaling over and over, willing the anger back down as I headed to period one, English. A class where my teacher believed I was cheating because my book reports were exemplary but my exam scores were shit.
My footsteps echoed on the polished floors, and one thought echoed in my messed-up brain.
I can’t do this anymore.