Saints (SAINTS #1) | ✓

35

THE DAY AFTER SHE went to school again, that same smirk on her face as always as the rumors circulated like smoke around her feet. None of the sins had followed except Lucy, the others all too busy with her creditcard and their new human lives. Walking around in school and not seeing Alan was something which amused her, though a part of her knew this wasn't the last she had heard of him just yet. With the way people were looking at her, it was almost like they had expected it to be the last they would have heard of her though.

She wasn't that surprised about it. After the fall she had made she supposed it was weird to see her walking again after only taking two days off, but she didn't care for the weird looks. Let them think she was a witch. Lucy's presence didn't help either, her existence so sharply ethereal that the magic around her was hard to miss. Her eyes lit up at everything in school and when she sat down for the first lesson, it was like the sin was mesmerized.

"School is so fun," she told Jasmina as they exited the classroom.

"You're one of the few who thinks that," Jasmina said amusedly.

"It's just the first time I've been able to go," Lucy said, her eyes wandering the halls," this isn't what my youth looked like." She spread her fingers, magenta ribbons elegantly wrapping around them and disappearing in the air. "I prefer this though. The power I have now is one I could only wish for then."

Jasmina looked around at the people around her, all of them children from influential people she was bound to meet again later in life. High school was just a place to make connections and establish herself on the hierarchy before she was introduced to her parents' society as an adult, nothing more, nothing less. Power never had been a physical thing for her and it never would be, manipulation a game she had become well-versed in.

"Jasmina, hey."

For just a second she slowed down, but when the voice got closer she picked up her usual pace again. His footsteps quickly fell in line with hers and she glanced at Isaac, the way his nose now was crooked suiting his face oddly. Lucy seemed concerned as she noticed it, moving her hand as pink glittered around it, but Jasmina stopped her before she could do anything. There was no need to attract more attention to them by having Isaac's nose magically returned to normal.

"You've healed well," he said, that infatuated look he always carried around her still soft in his eyes.

"So have you," she said.

"Yeah," he said as he absent-mindedly touched his nose," way quicker than I expected."

"It suits you well," she drawled as she grazed her hand against his cheekbone.

His face flamed up and he quickly avoided her gaze, brushing an awkward hand through his hair. "As long as you think so." He looked back at her then, a flash of hope in his eyes. "I mean, where do you stand on us? I wasn't sure what to think after the party."

"I think I'm going to leave," Lucy said subtly, but Jasmina spoke before she could.

"You are sweeter than I will ever be, Isaac," she said," you and I both know that. I don't think we fit together."

"But we can try," he said.

Though she knew many people who had been infatuated with the idea of her instead of her, she knew that wasn't the deal with Isaac. With the way he spoke about her it was clear he worshipped the ground she walked on and though she didn't mind ignoring these kinds of guys usually, a part of her liked him, even though it was in a friendly manner. So instead she turned toward him, no discernible emotion on her face.

"If you have to try to make it work in the beginning," she said," is that really the kind of relationship you want to be in?" He parted his lips, but no sound left it, and she shook her head. "You're better suited for a love which is unconditional, Isaac, and we both know I can't give that to you."

"But I want it to be you," he said, voice merely a whisper now.

She thought about mentioning her new husband now, but knew that it would do no good. It would just hurt more for him, the thought that she had moved on so fast, when she actually hadn't even been stuck on him at all. Besides, she was more than the men she was with and she always had been. She could do something about this though with just a little help of magic, so she gave a pointed look at Lucy when she spoke.

"You'll find someone," she said, Lucy raising her hand just slightly and waving it as soon as the words left her lips.

Right then a girl bumped into Isaac though, causing him to frown as he turned towards her. Before he could even speak though Jasmina continued on walking, knowing that he would forget her in no time. Lucy had told her once she could find soulmates easily with her powers, the attraction between two people one only she could see, and she was sure it would work. In a way this was her way of apologizing about involving him in her plan when he had just been friendly to her. Whatever he had hoped to find in her eyes, she knew he would find it now with that girl.

The school day passed quickly after that, the boredom in Jasmina rising as quickly as Lucy's excitement. The sin seemed disappointed when the final bell rang and Jasmina took a mental note to ask her to go to school more often. All the way towards her home Lucy kept on chattering about the way she adored the normality of it all and Jasmina didn't interrupt her until her driver pulled up at her house. When she spotted a car she only knew all too well her eyes widened, her normal composure almost lost.

"Miss," one of their guards said when she stepped out of the car, telling her a message she already knew before it left his lips," your father is home."

Lucy glanced at her, as if she could find a hint of vulnerability on her face, but Jasmina didn't show any of that. Though she didn't see her mother often, her father was a person she almost didn't know, the man too busy with his companies to concern himself with other matters. She didn't care much about it, as long as he gave her the money and titles she needed that was fine. There was a problem with him arriving in the house now, seven of those problems in fact.

"Is he in his office?" she said.

The guard nodded and she made her way to the office with ease, Lucy nodding at her in a supportive way as she let her continue on alone from the stairs onwards. The sound of her heels were quietened by the Persian carpet covering the second floor as she walked towards the big door at the end, not even bothering knocking when she opened it.

"Miss," one of the guards beside the door said as they tried to stop her from entering, but she ignored him and walked in.

"Hello daddy," she drawled," how long has it been? One year? Two?"

Her father was sitting at his desk, which was covered with stacks of papers, three men standing beside him and talking over each other. She recognized them as his business associates, but as soon as they noticed her they stopped all at once, gawking at her for a moment before they worriedly looked at her father. He didn't speak, but he didn't have to - Hakim Nawar was a man who could influence a whole room with his presence alone. Though her mother was all elegance with her soft Uzbek features, Hakim was all stormy eyes and pepper and salt hair, his bushy eyebrows always turned in a scowl and no emotion visible in his cold features.

"Jasmina," he said, the only acknowledgement he gave.

"Come on now," she said," is that all you're going to give your lovely daughter?"

"As he should," a familiar voice said then and she turned slowly towards the source of it to her left.

Alan and his father were both standing several feet away from the desk, looking like they were waiting for a chance to speak with her father. Hakim looked at the three of them, before dismissing his associates with a mere glance. As soon as they left the room he looked back at her again, his voice as icy as always.

"I think the four of us have a lot to talk about," he said.