Silver Eyes Ch. 02

Annette yawned loudly as she stretched on her bed. She looked at the bedside clock and saw that it was three in the afternoon. She raised her eyebrows in surprise as she kicked off her duvet. Wow, she must have been more tired than usual as she normally woke up by twelve or one at the very latest. She squinted at the faint sunlight that tried its hardest to squeeze out from the grey clouds. It was November so winter had happily settled in the capital city of England. She did not mind at all as winter was her best season of the year. She stretched once more and scratched her head, digging through her afro as she walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She stared at herself in the mirror, grimacing a little at her large silver eyes. Back in the orphanage, most of the other children had been so scared of those eyes staring out of skin as dark as hers that as soon as she turned thirteen she started wearing non-descript brown contact lenses. She smiled wistfully to herself as she remembered her early days in the convent in France. She had stayed with a group of nuns till she was seven then something terrible had happened which caused her to be shipped hurriedly to an orphanage in England. She quickly blocked what had happened in France from her mind. She had lived in the orphanage and gone to a nearby comprehensive school till she was sixteen. Then she had taken her GCSE's and had the highest mark that the school, or any other school in the county had ever seen. This had caused one of her teachers, one of the few nice ones, she remembered bitterly, to put her name forward for a scholarship in the prestigious public school, St Pauls School for girls. She had gotten said scholarship and gone on to score the highest A level scores there as well. This got her a full scholarship to Bristol, and as they say, they rest was history.

No one onwards from St Pauls knew about her silver eyes. She did not want to draw unnecessary attention to herself. This had continued whilst she was in university, and although the contacts did not detract from her beauty, she tried her hardest to downplay any interest with the addition of plain clothes. Oh she was no virgin; she had done away with that seeing it as something one had to do as a university student, however she had never been in a relationship. She never let anyone come that close. In fact, the only person she trusted enough to tell her secrets was Olivia and this had not been by choice. One evening in second year, it had been Olivia's turn to make dinner. In those days, Olivia had not been the amazing cook she was now and had been trying to make pasta with pesto sauce. The water had been boiled and Olivia, in her sporadic bursts of clumsiness, had missed the pot that was near the sink and poured the boiling water straight from the kettle unto Annette's hands as she had been washing a mug in the sink. Annette had not realised anything was amiss until she saw Olivia staring at her arm in horror with a very white face. Annette had hurriedly looked down and realised that her arm was shrivelling from the burn and, just as rapidly, healing. She groaned inwardly and looked back up at Olivia.

'Err, weird hunh?' She had quipped weakly.

It had taken her only about ten or fifteen minutes to explain what she was to Olivia and to her delighted surprise, Olivia had taken the news calmly. The truth was Annette did not know what she was. All she knew were three things: one, she healed fast – immediately in fact. She had been stabbed, burned, even shot at and yet she had healed all injuries instantly.

Secondly, she felt no pain; physical that is. At first, she had thought she had an abnormally high threshold of pain until she realised that she never even noticed when she got hurt except if she was alerted to it. This had caused her countless worries when she first realised this and she had become extremely careful so as to notice little acts that caused the average person to bleed or even bruise however slight. She must have been extremely relaxed with Olivia to have let her guard down as she did that evening and she told her this. Olivia had blushed a little, pleased that Annette considered her that true a friend.

Thirdly, she was incredibly strong. Like, inhumanly strong. She had realised this when she was about the age of six back in the convent. One of the nuns had been trapped under a fallen pillar during an earthquake and Annette had been so frantic with worry and terror that she had grabbed the pillar without realising what she was doing, and thrown it so far across the rubble that was the former church that it shattered on impact. The nun had been unconscious so she had not been aware of what had occurred, but Annette in her innocence had told her favourite Nun, Sister Esther, about it. Sister Esther had shushed her hurriedly and told her never to repeat what had happened to anybody else and she had asked why. Sister had replied that very bad people would take her away if they knew what she could do, so it was for the best that she kept it their little secret. Of course, keeping it their little secret had not stopped what happened a year later....

Luckily, Olivia had, after a minute or so of silence, taken it all in her stride and this had endeared her to Annette more than ever. She had also taken out her contacts to show Annette her real eye colour and this had made her gasp in awe. Everyone else had gasped as well, but in horror or fright, or even revulsion. But trust Olivia to be fascinated by her eyes. Annette privately thought that it was a result of Olivia's upper class blood. They were known for their eccentricity, weren't they?

Of course it turned Olivia into a mini-mother as she made sure to watch Annette like a hawk so that she never inadvertently 'forgot' to wince or scream in pain whenever any situation warranted such. It sometimes made Annette laugh at the way Olivia berated her if she put herself in reckless situations. She shook her head wryly as she imagined what Olivia would say or do if she told her what had happened last night. She could already hear the shrieks that would burst out of Olivia's rosebud lips. Shrieks of anger, fear, all sorts really. And this was why she was not going to stress her unduly. It was not like she had died anyway, so why frighten her best friend over nothing?

She washed her face and put her contacts in. Although she was not going anywhere till seven when she had to leave for the bar, she was so used to putting in her contact lenses the moment she woke up that it was more of an automatic thing than a way of hiding from others. Contacts in and teeth brushed, she went to the kitchen to make some toast. As she ate she stepped on the scale and saw that she had not lost any weight since the last time she checked, which was two weeks ago. She grimaced slightly at this. Granted she had not gained any weight either, but she really wanted to drop a size down to a proper ten. It was really frustrating having to buy some size ten dresses in one shop, and size twelve in another. Why did she not have the power to stay skinny, she thought for the umpteenth time. She knew deep down that she looked good with her curvy body but sometimes she wished she was slimmer, maybe even a size eight like Olivia was. Ah well, c'est la vie, n'est pas?

Several hours later, Annette came out of the bathroom as the door to the flat opened. 'Hey babe, how goes the world of the top legal brains in the country?' Annette asked a visibly weary Olivia as she towelled her hair.

'Oh good Lord Annette, I think I need a large gin and tonic.' Olivia sank to the soft cashmere clothed sofa. 'Bloody hell, it was a nightmare. We're trying to sort out the acquisition of some other company for Bucks Plc but it's via auction so obviously we don't have the fear of as many warranties as normal acquisitions. But some stupid oversized company is demanding we increase the warranties, and also give them a list of any other thing that we could be hiding as they are the main contenders for buying Bucks. God, why did I not pay more attention during bloody Private Acquisitions?'

'Don't be silly Livvy.' Annette said, dragging on her trusty boy shorts, 'All Bucks has to do is firmly inform the other company that it's a bloody auction. That's what comes with buying target companies this way. They do not have to increase warranties nor do they have to tell them anything more than what they've informed the other companies bidding as well. If this 'oversized company' was to look at things practically, then I'm sure they would be rather ticked off if the other bidders were being fed information that they weren't privy to. Anyway, isn't it against the law to give some company info which isn't equally meted out to their competitors?'

Olivia gaped at her in shock. 'Please Annette, remind me again why you did not bother to practise as a lawyer? I mean, how do you even know all this? They definitely didn't teach us that in undergrad and you didn't do an LPC so...'

'I was bored and read some of your textbooks. Didn't have a job then, did I? So had to keep myself busy, somewhat.' Annette refused to look up as she said this, furiously applying Shea butter body scrub to her arms. 'And anyway,' she continued hastily as Olivia opened her mouth to argue, 'I've already told you a million and seventy one times, I don't want to draw any attention to myself as a solicitor. I might, I dunno, help with some mega-billion deal and get my name and picture put in the paper and those guys...' she trailed off.

Olivia gently said, 'I understand, Annette. Completely. It's just; sometimes it kills me that such a clever light is being hidden under the bushels.' She stared at Annette who in turn looked out the window unblinkingly.

'And who said you'd help with some mega-billion deal you cheeky arrogant bugger?'

Annette started at this and turned to see Olivia grinning wickedly at her.

'Oh sod off Livvy, you know I'm like, clever enough for that to happen. Maybe even during my first year as a trainee.'

'Sod Off!'

Annette giggled as a cushion sailed towards her head and she ducked, running into her room and slamming her door shut.