Chapter 5

TIO'S POV

"I've not sent you to Elmor to frolick around with the girls," Father warned, the lit cigar in between his fingers as he circled me.

"Father, I've done all that you asked of me. What harm is there in having a bit of fun?"

He came to stand before me, clearly not pleased with the words I'd just said.

"Fun?" He scoffed. "In college, there's no such thing as fun, you little twerp!"

The cigar smoke curled between us. I held his gaze because looking away was something I had trained myself out of a long time ago. Looking away meant weakness and weakness in his house was something you paid for.

He resumed circling round me. "Do you know what you are, Tio?"

I said nothing. It wasn't a question that wanted an answer.

"You are a rogue." He let the word sit. "Your kind were banished, cast out and left to bear the forbidden mark and rot with it." He stopped in front of me again, close enough that the smoke hit my face. "You know what happens to those who bear it? They are hunted, destroyed and treated like the abominations they are."

"I know the history, Father."

"Then you know what I saved you from." He pointed the cigar at me. "I found you before the mark could take hold. I gave you protection, a name, a position that your blood had no right to. And how do you repay me? By wasting your time instead of getting onto the task you were given?!”

"I am still trying to build trust—"

"You are being lazy." He turned away, moving to the window. "Michelle Collins. She is your main focus. Get close to her. Stay close. And don't you dare try anything funny."

"What do you intend to do with her?"

He turned and he smiled. It was the smile of a man who was holding cards and enjoying the fact that no one else at the table could see them.

"That is not your concern." He retorted. “Your job is to do what I say because I'm risking a lot to protect you so you should have it at the back of your mind that you owe me.”

“Yes father, but she's a student, Father. She's—"

"She is a piece," he said simply. "And you are the hand that moves her. That is all you need to know." He brought the cigar back to his mouth. "Now go back to that school and do what you were sent there to do. And Tio—" He exhaled slowly. "Don't make me come to Elmor myself."

The dismissal was on his shoulders before he finished the sentence. I straightened, picked up my keys from the table by the door, and left.

—

The drive back to Elmor was long enough to think and I did not want to think so I turned the music up loud and let it take up the space instead. The forbidden mark.

Three dreadful lines.

I pressed harder on the accelerator and stopped thinking about it. The school gates were ahead when I saw her.

I saw her and my foot came off the accelerator. I pulled up alongside the curb just outside the gates and cut the engine and sat there for a second because what I was seeing did not immediately make sense.

A girl was standing just outside the gates with her arms crossed and next to her, a woman who was speaking rudely to the security man.

I got out of the car.

"Michelle." I crossed toward them. "Why are you out here? And who is this?”

They both turned.

The woman stopped mid-sentence. And the girl stared at me with a puzzled expression.

"Do I know you?" She asked, staring at me incredulously.

I looked at her. She had the same face but their eyes….. it was different. this girl looked at me like she was waiting to understand the situation before she decided what to do with it.

"I—" I stopped. "Sorry. I thought you were someone else."

"Clearly." The woman cut back in, sizing me up with a disgusted look. "And who are you?"

"A student," I answered. "Do you have business at Elmor?"

"My daughter has business at Elmor," the woman said, drawing herself up. "My daughter Michelle and I are here to see the principal because there's a thief in there."

I blinked. “A thief?"

The young lady nodded. “That lousy girl stole my documents and ran away from home."

Lousy girl.? Interesting.

Michelle?, the woman said Michell…

Michelle Collins, standing outside the gates of Elmor, and her mother making a scene beside her.

Which meant the girl inside the school that I'd hit with the baseball, the girl who'd hit me with the water bottle was not Michelle Collins.

Or these two could be liars.

I narrowed my eyes on them.

Maybe this woman and her daughter were here trying to usurp the real Michelle,

What proof was there that this was Michelle Collins?

Ohh, this was going to be such a nice drama.

Finally, I smiled. "Welcome to Elmor," I said.

The woman blinked, thrown off by the pleasantness of it. "I can walk you both to the admissions office," I said. "The first day is confusing for everyone. The map they hand out is terrible."

The woman softened slightly. And the young lady looked at me with a careful consideration gaze. She was nothing like the girl inside.

It made what was about to happen to her considerably more complicated.

"That would be kind," she smiled. "Thank you."

I nodded and started walking and they followed. The woman was already talking again, something about the standard of the accommodation and whether her daughter’s dietary requirements had been properly noted. I let it wash over me and focused on what I was actually dealing with.

We got to the principal's office. A few minutes later, the Vice principal came out and when she returned, she had Michelle in her company.

“She looks confident,” I thought to myself as she walked past me without sparing me a glance.

As soon as she walked into the office, I could hear voices.

“How dare you steal my daughter's identity, you filthy whore?!”