Beyond The Fence

Chapter 8:

"What in the world is a concealer?" Clary asked, skimming through all the makeup Austin had gotten from his mom's room.

His "venture" of stealing the makeup from his mom's drawer hadn't been what he would call "easy", but he was grateful that no one had caught him. He couldn't even imagine how his parents would react to him carrying his mom's makeup under his shirt.

"You are the girl over here. How am I supposed to know?"

"Well, I guess I'll have to try to find out."

Nelson was sitting on the sofa immersed in what appeared to be a biology book. Austin found it extremely weird how anyone would ever want to willingly read a biology book because he found it even hard to listen to his teacher's lecture in class. But Clary understood her best friend's desperation to know more. To see past the lies he had been taught all his life.

"What color are you going to dye your hair?" Austin asked Clary, who was busy applying the concealer on her hand to see how it worked.

"Is it necessary to do that?" she asked, twirling her hazel brown hair around her index finger.

"Not if you have a death wish."

"Remind me again: why am I even talking to you?"

"Because your survival is at my mercy."

Clary curled her fingers into a fist, fantasizing about smashing it into the young boy's nose, splattering his scarlet blood onto the blue walls. What an improvement would that be? But instead, she just set her mouth into a thin line as she watched him leave to join Nelson on the sofa, probably to tease him too.

Clary ended up dying her hair red, like the color of burnt orange sunset. To make other changes, she shortened them too. Her long hair, which had always been with her all her life, through thick and thin, fell to the floor beneath her as the sharp blade of the scissors cut them. Now, only Nelson was the reminder of what her life used to be back at Albama. She wore contacts as well, the glimmering color of emerald. As she stood in front of Austin's mirror, looking at the figure that stood before her, she barely recognized herself.

"What are you going to name yourself?" spoke a soft voice from behind her. Nelson. He had completely changed too. His curly hair was no longer the color of ebony; they were brown, like baked summer mud. His eyes were no longer that electric blue color, but gray; like the last ashes of a fire. However, when his lips twitched upward when he caught Clary's eye in the mirror, it held the same amount of warmth and compassion as they used to before. She smiled back at him, saying:

"Mikayla. Mikayla Scott."

"Interesting choice. I'm going to go for Xanthos."

"Xanthos, honestly? Can't you name yourself something easy like...Bob?" Austin asked, interrupting their conversation.

"Nope. That doesn't sound cool."

"You know what would be better? If you would start working on making your personality cooler rather than getting yourself a cool name."

Clary rolled her eyes at Austin whilst Nelson just looked at him blankly.

"So, we leave for school now?" she asked.

"Yep," Austin said as he slung his bag over his shoulder. He kept complaining about how he had to skip breakfast just because of them, as the trio snuck out of the house from the backdoor. He couldn't have had his breakfast and kept the two best friends waiting. Plus, he was already getting late for school, so he decided to skip his morning meal.

They now stood outside the building of the school, looking up at the humungous building before them. The monotone buzz of a hundred voices hummed in the air around them.

"So, Mikayla and Xanthos, you both are my cousins from District B. Are we clear?" Austin said.

The Albamaians nodded their heads in response.

"And no telling anyone your little secret. You cannot trust anyone around here."

"Then why should we trust you?" Mikayla asked, tilting her head to the left.

"You shouldn't."

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