Wicked Ones {bxb}

{Chapter 38 : Son}

Vincent stood in the middle of the automotive shop. The class was bustling around him with the heavy sounds of clanking steel, the guys laughing at one another and shouting for assistance; producing echoes that rivaled the shrill shiver of metal hitting metal. Vincent, though, had been called to the desk by his professor moments ago.

"I what?"

"You were taken off of my roster sometime this morning." Mr. Matthews tapped his pen against his lips with a clueless look in his eyes. "I just assumed you were transferring."

"No," Vincent returned, "I never requested a transfer."

"It's probably just a computer error." Matthews set his things down, patting Vinny's shoulder with a hand, large and strong from twenty years of dedicated engineering. "Go to the Student Services office and see if you can get the problem settled."

"Yeah," Vinny thrusted his hands in his pockets with a sigh. He had an ill feeling about it all. "Sure."

Once outside, the weather smacked him like a cold ton of bricks. He rubbed at the chills on his neck and soon found his fingers around a cigarette. The end of the year was nearing, and the world seemed to be dying around him; puddles stilled with shells of ice and trees but skinny skeletons. It didn't snow often in Seattle, but he wondered when the first flake would fall. He could feel the bite of winter on his cheek.

As he smoked, he crushed brittle leafs beneath his feet, passing by buildings and throngs of socializing students until he found himself situated in the services office. He was forced to part with his cigarette, and with each antagonizing tick of the clock, he missed the feel of it between his fingers. He ran a hand over his neck, elbow atop the counter while he waited for the attendant to pull up a database and sort the issue out.

"Your name is off of the roster, huh?"

He grumbled a yes, growing antsy and anxious the longer he found himself staring into the marble countertop.

"Name?" The mousy looking woman at the computer asked, ogling up from her thick lenses.

"Vincent O'Connor."

"I see," she hummed, typing along despite the hassle of her lengthy acrylic nails. Suddenly her lightning fast fingers came to an abrupt stop and she shot him a glance. One that didn't bode well with the boy. "Your father is Jonathan Alexander?"

Vincent was drenched from the rain, but he had hardly noticed a drop the entire way home. He felt much like a brainless zombie, his mind far, far away from the rest of him. As he stepped inside of the dorm, he dropped his things to his feet, sopping wet as they hit the ground. All he could feel was numb, and cold and he couldn't decide if one correlated with the other. The television was playing, but the words passed him by, groggy and muffled like whispers beneath water. Reality was setting in.

"Fuck!" he growled aloud, slamming his fist against the door behind him. It rattled the walls, bit at the bones in his hand, but did nothing to take from the emotional sting already eating away at his heart.

In the other room, Kailan jumped. He had been distracting himself from the storm with music—the only other thing that seemed to smother his anxiety when Vincent wasn't around. At the sound of Vinny's distress, he tore off his headphones.

He hopped from his bed and lingered at the doorway of their room, watching drops of rain fall from Vinny's chin. He assessed him in silence, but at the pained look on his face, Kailan felt himself moving closer. "Vinny, what's wrong?" He asked, his head tilting slightly, "Did something happen?"

Vinny was fighting back tears, his head laid back against the door to keep them from falling. Still they clung to his lashes and blinded him.

It was overwhelming. He had known all his life that he was not his father's son. Simply a publicity stunt in the making. Still, he wasn't prepared for it all to come crashing down like this.