~Quinley~

I tapped my pencil against my temple, staring at the ceiling. Where was he? I had invited him to the library over a week ago, and there was no reason for him to be ten minutes late. He was the top-ranking prince for goodness sake; it wasn't as if somebody was holding him up in the middle of the hallway because they bumped into them in the hall.

               "Sorry I'm late," A voice yelled out at me, the owner power-walking towards me as he panted, "had some stuff to take care of." I sighed and closed the textbook I was reading over to look up at him.

               "It's fine. I finished up the first section, you were supposed to finish the second, and then we have to work on explaining and showing it to the class." I brushed my hair out of my eyes and brought out my school laptop. Tai sat down right beside me, despite there being a seat across from me, and opened his computer too.

               "I haven't seen you around a lot," Tai said, "are you new?"

               "No." I glared at him and sighed again, fiddling with my nails as he brought out the tab from behind his games. My heart was sinking in my chest, and I realized with an internal face palm that he probably was going to give me some excuse on how he couldn't manage to finish in time.

I should have known better. After all, Tai wasn't in an AP class for no reason.

               "So, I finished my section, which was the design portion of the machine, and I came up with about three different possible ones. They get more complex, so it depends on what grade we want to get and how much time we can devote to the project. Do you do any clubs during lunch or free period or are those times that we can work together?" He asked, pulling up his designs. I withheld a small gasp. They were complex, something somebody would have to spend all night to think about and then design.

I underestimated him, that was my mistake.

               "Let's go with the most complicated one," I said, keeping my hands below the desk, "the third one. This assignment is the final project for the unit, after all. I took the liberty of sending you the assignment before we got here, so all the information on Rude Goldberg is in that email." He nodded and checked his email.

My part of the project, at least the first segment, was the presentation on the man who had created the original idea. His role was to design the machine. Initially, I had hoped he would have a couple that I could conjoin to get something even remotely complex enough to get us an A-. But I had been pleasantly surprised by his work. My segment was up to par, and now it was time to fuse the two.

                "It's perfect!" He exclaimed, his childlike tone of voice back, "Now, all that's left is to choose the materials, right?" I nodded, and he gave me another smile. I opened my laptop and started a shared document, and then I got to work researching.

He was surprisingly quiet for a good ten minutes before it started.

                "What other classes are you in? I never see you in any of mine," He asked. I looked back up at him.

                   "All AP. I can't talk and work because I need to use my hands to type things out, so could we please keep the small talk to a minimum? Thanks." I answered my question as I got right back to it.

Another ten minutes of silence.

                    "Hey, Quinley," Tai poked me with his pencil.

                     "What," I responded, trying to keep my face level.

                     "Guess what? I'm a ninja." He gave a playful smile, staring at me with his deep brown eyes.

                     "What? No, you're not." I shook my head and tried to get back to work.

                     "Did you see me do that?" He blinked, and I furrowed my brow.

                     "Do what?"

                     "Exactly."

I scowled at him, and he laughed, drawing attention yet again to our table. If he were anyone else, the teachers would have asked us to leave already. But he wasn't exactly anyone else; a top-ranking prince had an incredible amount of power in the school.

                     "Could you quiet down? You're disturbing the other students." I said, making sure to keep my face void of any emotion.

                     "If they had a problem, they could come to talk to me about it," He winked, "but look, there's nobody there." I rolled my eyes hard. Maybe because they're afraid you'll murder them if they so much as speak to you. The entitlement was strong with this one. I found it very hard to believe that a person born so gifted with so much natural power, an ability so strong that it made them the next King of our school, couldn't imagine a reason why weaker students weren't walking up to him and telling him to be quiet.

                        "The bell is about to ring; we should start heading to the next class," I said, shutting my computer.

                        "Wait, we should exchange numbers. For the project, you know?" He said. I nodded skeptically, and he pulled out his phone, "What's your number?" I looked around to make sure that nobody was nearby, then took out a piece of paper, wrote it down, and gave it to him.

                         "Don't share it with anyone. Text me your full name as the first thing you send, so I know it's you, and only text me if you have something related to the project." I said, trying to make my face convey sternness. My gloves couldn't read the tone that I was trying to use, which was slightly irritating, but it was worth it to be able to speak.

                         "Alright then, bye Tai," I said, turning around and heading out. He grinned at me as I glanced over my shoulder.

                         "Bye, Quin!"

~Waverly~

                         "So, I was thinking of getting this one," I held up a light blue halter top in Camari's face, "but Orion said that this one would look better on me." I finished, glancing towards the navy-blue shirt. This one was much flowier, but the colour didn't compliment my hair as much. Decisions, decisions.

                         "Hm, I think I like the halter top more," Camari finished up her text and put her phone down, "those typically look way better on you." I smiled and put the navy one away neatly on a rack, grabbing her hand to haul her up. We walked towards the cash register, where a bored-looking employee was staring off into space.

                          "Excuse me? Can you ring me up, please?" I asked politely, snapping him out of his trance. He was a high-schooler, a cute one too.

                          "Oh! Sorry, just a little lost in thought," He gave a flushed smile and ran his hand through his dark blue hair. I read his name tag, Adrian. Even his name was cute.

                          "No problem," I replied, handing him the shirt and two other items, a silver bag and a pair of tight-fit jeans. I glanced at Camari as he rung them up, and she was looking at me with raised eyebrows. What? I mouthed, glaring at her as I handed the employee my credit card.

                          "And, here you go, ma'am! Have a nice day!" He beamed at me, handing me the items, and waving at us until he exited the store.

                          "He was cute, wasn't he?" Camari winked, getting a small giggle from me.

                          "He was something all right," I sighed, pulling her arm gently so we could keep walking, "now that we've gone to all my stores, where do you want to go?" I asked. She rubbed her stomach and gestured to the elevator.

                          "How about the food court?"

                          "Sounds perfect!"

We walked together to the elevator through the mob of people, although it was substantially less busy than usual.

Probably because it was period six, otherwise known as my math period.

                          "I want to press the button," Camari said excitedly. She had a thing for pressing buttons in elevators, for reasons that I will never know.

                          "You're such a little kid sometimes," I said, rolling my eyes playfully. "You're lucky you got that strong ability to back you up." She laughed and turned towards me.

                          "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm Queen because I'm a genius child, not because of my ability. How dare you." Her yellow eyes sparkled with amusement as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

Truth be told, Camari was probably one of the smartest and most powerful kids in our grade, a deadly combination. Her ability on its own was average at best, and it was the ways she used it that let her take the Queen spot in our school amongst all the other powerful females. Even though Zoe held the title of heir because she was going to take over the school after Camari graduated, she was miles away from Camari.

                          "Let's head over there!" She pointed to a place that was making fresh pizzas. I nodded, and we started walking over. The food court was massive, but this place was reasonably close by so that we didn't have to walk for what seemed like five hours just to get to the other side.

We took a spot in line, and I glanced up at the menu that was plastered on big signs.

                          "What are you going to get, Camari?" I asked. She twirled a strand of her blonde hair around her finger.

                            "Probably the pineapple pizza, and maybe a soda." I gave a disgusted wrinkle of my nose. Pineapple pizza was disgusting.

                            "I'll get plain cheese pizza and water. Whoever put pineapple on their pizza should go to prison."

                            "Why? It's good." She said. I shook my head,

                            "It's disgusting."

                             "Leave and my pizza alone!" Camari whined, pouting her lips.

                              "Never. Your pizza is the equivalent of Atlas. Stodgy and sour." She burst out laughing at my remark, and the person in front of us looked over his shoulder. He saw the uniform and turned right back around; Cycrest was the most famous school in our region.

                               "Well, if pineapple pizza is Atlas, then cheese pizza is Dante. Plain and stupid." She retorted as we moved up the line.

                                "Can't argue with that one," I replied back, brushing my light brown hair out of my eyes. "If I was a slice of pizza, what type would I be?"

                                 "You'd be that pizza that celebrities eat because they think it's fancier, but it's not. It's just pricy." I opened my mouth in mock rage and jabbed her in the ribs. "I hate you!"

                                  "Me too, girl, join the club." She winked at me and it was finally our turn. "Hi, can I get a slice of pineapple pizza and fizzy lemonade. Can I also get a slice of plain pizza and water?" The employee nodded and gave us our order. We walked back over to the seating section, but not before hearing something.

                                   "C-Camari?" A voice said behind us— a very familiar voice.

                                   "Yes?" Camari said, turning around, probably expecting it to be one of our friends, "Kiarah? Are you alright?" Kiarah was shaking, bad. She had red cheeks and circles under her eyes.

                                   "I was looking for you, b-because I didn't know who else to call. But you didn't pick up your phone, and I thought you might be at the mall b-because that's where y-you always a-are during math..." She said, her voice shaking. She looked like she was about to faint, have a panic attack, cry, or all of the above.

                                    "What's wrong? You know you can talk to me, right?" Camari handed me the food and grabbed Kiarah's hands. Kiarah burst out in tears and buried her head in Camari's shoulder. "Hey, it's alright. What happened?"

                                     "It's, it's Blaine!" She whimpered, almost a whisper. "I went to pick him up from his playdate with Lillian, they have a day off of school today, and he wasn't there. So, I thought maybe he wasn't done, those things can run late, but when I walked in, Ms. Jamison said that someone else had already picked him up. I asked who, maybe it was dad, and she said a man had walked in and picked up Blaine. A man with pale skin and black hair. I don't know anybody like that! And Ms. Jamison said he even had a signature from my mom, but mom hasn't been back in weeks!" She collapsed into Camari, sobbing. "My little brother is gone, and I don't know what to do. Camari, you've got to help me!"