Jon and Athena remained mostly silent as they continued on their way. Neither was quite sure what to say to the other. Jon didn't want to risk giving himself away more than he already had, and Athena was trying to figure out what was wrong with the person who appeared to be her best friend.
After a few minutes, they pulled up in front of a house. Jon glanced out the window as Athena honked the horn. A moment later, the door opened and a girl came walking out of the house. She was familiar to Jon as well. She wasn't nearly the presence around the Madison household that Athena was, but she was over quite a bit, and he had heard a fair number of stories about her.
The girl who emerged, wearing a silver colored jacket, a neon green top, and black leather pants and sporting bright blue hair was, without a doubt, Zelda Whitfield. She was a more recent addition to Zoe's group of friends. She had lived in town as long as the Madisons, at least, but had been rather shy up until her freshman year.
Then, for some reason or another, she branched out a bit and began to hang out with Zoe, Athena, and the rest of their friends. Like Zoe when she met Athena, Zelda took to the goth lifestyle rather quickly, and seemed to use it more as a means to garner attention than to merely express herself. At least, that was Jon's theory as to
As far as personality and interest went, Zelda was in almost perfect contrast with Athena. While Athena's interests lay in the arts and learning about mythology and the occult, Zelda spent her time brushing up on the latest technology and programming jargon. Jon had overheard Zelda once going on and on to the others about her computing set up at home, and what she could feasibly do with it.
On that particular list was being able to hack into the school's systems and, potentially, change certain student's grades. When Jon asked Zoe about that later, she swore vehemently that Zelda would never actually do that, and that she didn't really need to.
"Morning." Zelda said as she climbed into the back seat of Athena's car.
"Good morning." Athena replied, and Jon followed suit.
"You guys get that history assignment done?" Zelda asked, rooting around in her backpack.
"Yeah. Took me a while, but I got it done." Athena said.
"It was such bullshit. Who assigns something like that and only gives you one night to do it. Like we don't have anything better to do with our time." Zelda continued. "You get it done, Zo?"
"Um, yeah." Jon said. Honestly, he wasn't sure it was done, but he'd assume, and just hope he wouldn't actually have to deal with that class.
The small talk continued the rest of the way to the school, mostly centered around Zelda's complaints about the unreasonable assignments. Despite Jon's disdain over his situation, he found himself laughing at some of the comments that were made.
Finally, they reached the school, and the three of them exited the car. Jon pulled Zoe's cell phone from her backpack and checked the time, seeing that it was 7:45. He had fifteen minutes to track himself down, otherwise, he'd have to wait until...who knew.
He peered around the school yard, hoping to spy himself or Karyn. Waiting wasn't an option. The longer he was without the stone, the more chance there was for something else to get screwed up.
"Coming, Zoe?" Athena asked, snapping Jon from his thoughts. He looked at them and saw that they were already several feet away from him. He nodded. "Yeah, I'm coming." he said, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder and following his sister's friends into the school.
