Chapter 3.12
Allegra could not shake off her sadness. Almost three whole days had passed since Clayton had tried to rape her, which had been traumatising enough. Knowing that she had left her guitar behind in his clutches had been another devastating blow. She felt incomplete without it; not even painting could mask her grief.
Her plan to tell her parents about Clayton and her guitar had complete gone out the window when they had strolled into her room unannounced about twenty minutes ago.
“Allegra, honey?” Leon sounded as if he was searching around for her whereabouts; despite she was obviously standing across the other side of the room.
“I’m here,” Allegra announces, trying her best to hide her annoyance, as well as the solemn expression she had been wearing. Her Mother remained stood by the foot of the bed whilst Leon made his way over to his daughter with a serious look on his face. Allegra’s heart started to pound a lot more aggressively than usual when she realised she was not going to like the upcoming conversation.
“As you’ve probably noticed, over the past few years your Mum and I have been going through a bit of rough patch.”
Allegra arched an eyebrow, curious as to what direction this discussion was heading in.
“We’ve been talking about things over the past couple of weeks and have made a grown up decision, which we hope won’t affect you or your brothers…”
“Oh ok, so you’re getting divorced?” Allegra assumed.
“No, darling. We’ve booked three weeks away together in France,” Rocio, who was now stood a few paces back from Leon, piped in with forced smile on her face before laughing awkwardly. “Getting a divorce, jut why would you ever think that?”
Leon chuckled uneasily too.
“Oh, right. I just thought… Well, never mind. France then, ey? Why there?” Allegra questioned after breathing a silent sigh of relief.
“We’re going to see a specialist marriage counsellor who lives out in France, Dr. Lambert. Her program only lasts for two weeks, but we thought we might as well spend an extra week there to explore and see the sights,” Rocio revealed as she fiddled with her necklace as she studied Allegra’s currently blank expression, eagerly awaiting her response.
“That’s… great,” Allegra said in a genuine tone, the corners of her lips furling up into the faintest hint of a smile. It was enough to reassure her parents, somehow.
Then came the next bombshell.
“We’re flying out early in the morning,” Leon explained as he rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, “I hope that’s ok. We just think you three are old and responsible enough to look after yourselves.”
As if Allegra had any choice in the matter.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep the boys in line,” She joked as her Father gave her a loving hug.
When Leon finally broke his embrace with his daughter, he spun around and started to follow Rocio towards the door. Before they reached the exit, they turned back around to face Allegra who was still smiling faintly.
“We’ll be leaving contact numbers on the fridge,” Leon added as he laced his fingers around Rocio’s, “Call us if you need to chat, or if there’s an emergency.”
Allegra nodded vaguely then watched sadly as her parents walked out the room still holding hands. She wished she had been able to tell them about Clayton, but she earnestly did not want to delay their trip away to France.
She paced her room for several more minutes as the sun sunk beyond the horizon, and nightfall dominated the town outside. Her insides felt like iron weights and her throat felt dryer than the Sahara.
Allegra jumped immediately when her phone started to vibrate harshly against her leg. After pulling herself together she fished into her pocket and tugged out the pulsating object.
“Hello?” Allegra answered without even bothering to look at the caller I.D on the display screen. It could have even been Satan himself, she did not care, she was just eager to hear another voice.
“Ally Pally, grab Dex and get your butt down here,” Apollo’s playful tone echoed down the line.
Allegra quickly looked down and out the window. Apollo was stood on the patio in the garden, his phone held up to his ear as he stared directly back at her.
“Ok,” Allegra sighed, “we’ll be there in a sec.”
Several minutes later, once Allegra had gone to get Dexter, they teleported out into the garden besides the pit fire. Apollo rolled his eyes as he walked towards his cousins, and made a sarcastic comment about them clearly being in a hurry to join him outside.
Once settled at the pit fire, Apollo updated them with the situation between his Father and their Mother. Basically, they were no longer sleeping with each other.
Dexter was perplexed; he knew his Mum had been deeply in love with Titus and had not been genuinely happy with Leon for a long time. He could not get his head around why she was trying to rekindle her romance with him.
At that moment, Dexter was actually glad not to have a girlfriend. Relationships seemed far too complicated for his liking.
“Why the sudden change of heart? Mum and Uncle Titus were smitten with each other,” Allegra mentioned as she glanced over at Apollo. The affection she had seen Titus give to Rocio was far more than she had ever seen Leon offer.
“You may have not noticed, but at Cedric’s birthday party, my Dad and Aunt Rocio barely spoke. They decided to end things a few weeks prior to that night. My Dad wants to focus more on Charlie; poor little chap is still struggling at school, and your Mum thought it was about time to try and work things out with Leon.”
Apollo then raised both hands up in a decisive gesture.
“So I guess that’s that. Everything should be relatively normal for us now, or at least not as screwed up.”
“I wish that was true, Pollo,” Allegra whispered in a weak tone. She bit down on her lower lip as Dexter and Apollo immediately snapped their hands round at the sound of her distressed voice.
Allegra rose to feet, her legs shaking violently. It was now or never, she had to tell someone about Clayton and the photo shoot, it was eating her up inside.
As she revealed what had happened, there was little point of her looking over to see Dexter’s and Apollo’s reactions. She could clearly hear the anger in Apollo’s breathing, and the gritty grating sound of Dexter’s grinding his teeth together.
“Where does he live, Ally?” Apollo demanded to know as he perched a hand on his hip.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Dexter snarled as he scrunched his hands up into fists, whilst his eyebrows furrowed inwards and his eyes narrowed considerably out of frustration. The thought of someone trying to harm his sister sickened him greatly; he wanted to see Clayton squirming in fear and discomfort for what he had done to Allegra.
“Wait. I have an idea,” Apollo announced.
Both Dexter and Allegra listened intently as Apollo told them the plan. Small smirks crept across their faces.
It was simple, perhaps slightly dangerous, but it would be effective if it all went smoothly.
“We’ll definitely get your guitar back, Ally,” Apollo vowed, “and we’ll sort that pervy Clayton out.”
The following afternoon, the three teenagers put their plan into action.
Allegra felt uneasy the moment she teleported back into the room. She could smell Clayton’s musky body scent lingering in the air and it instantly made her stomach turn.
Still, relief washed over her as she glanced to her left hand side and saw her guitar still propped up where she left it.
“Perfect,” Allegra stated out loud, before she reached out and strummed her fingers against the strings. The soothing sound rang out stridently through the spacious room.
Moments later, the door swung open. Allegra instantly spun around at the sound of the hinges creaking in pain. As she had predicted, Clayton was standing at the door with a snide smile on his face.
“I really didn’t think you’d return,” Clayton spoke in a low creepy tone, “But, I guess I was wrong.”
Allegra only smiled back somewhat seductively as she fluttered her eyelids.
“I couldn’t help myself… I… I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” Allegra purred as she continued to gaze at him with lustful eyes. “I want you, Clayton. I need you.”
If her words had not been enough to shock him, he definitely was surprised when she started to dash towards him.
And when her lips slammed against his, and her arms slipped around his body, he was genuinely gobsmacked. It was like a dream come true!
“Mmm,” Clayton moaned in approval when they finally parted for air. He ran a hand across the back of her neck, “I’m pleased you feel the same way.”
Allegra tried not to gasp in panic when Clayton’s hands suddenly moved south and tightly grabbed onto her wrists. He started tugging her towards the bed.
That was until she sharply managed to tug her wrists out from his vice clamp grip and sharply turned her head towards where her guitar was. This time she gasped out loud.
Apollo was in the middle of picking Allegra’s guitar up…
Clayton glared angrily at the blue haired teenager.
He then briefly turned his gaze back towards Allegra.
“Oh, so this was your little game?”
‘If only you knew the half of it,’ Allegra thought as Clayton once again looked back over at Apollo. ‘I wonder how Dexter’s getting on?’
“Don’t mind us, Clayton,” Apollo spoke in a cocky tone, “Just claiming back what’s rightfully ours, before we send your twisted ass to prison.”
Clayton stood on the spot shaking with anger for several moments. His breathing was erratic and Allegra started to feel somewhat intimated being stood so close to him. She took two steps backwards, edging closer towards the door.
“Ally, check if Dex is done, I’ll…” Apollo’s speech was cut off quickly. Clayton had charged at him and roughly grabbed him by the neck of his t-shirt. He wasted no time swinging his fist back, before throwing it at full force into the side of Apollo’s face.
A noticeable snapping sound resounded through the room. Apollo stumbled backwards, momentarily dazed.
His expression remained sour, even when an ear piercing scream flooded the room.
“I’m guessing that hurt you more than it hurt me?” Apollo asked rhetorically after he pressed a hand across his barely injured cheek.
Meanwhile, Clayton was swearing and whimpering in agony as he cradled his now swollen and broken hand.
“What the fuck are you?” He choked, “Jesus Christ, was like I hit a bloody brick wall!”
As he continued to sob and whine, Apollo grew frustrated. The asshole had just punched him. Sure he had broken his hand because of Apollo’s abnormally strong bone structure, but that had been his fault entirely!
“Oh shut up!” Apollo abruptly snapped as an enraged expression dominated his face. He figured if Clayton was going to cry, he would certainly give him something to cry about!
Before Clayton could even react, Apollo had balled his hand up into a solid fist and threw it towards him.
Allegra flinched and shuddered violently at the cracking noise Clayton’s skull made as Apollo’s fist made contact with it. It sounded similar to eggs breaking against a hard surface.
A peculiar gurgling sound escaped from Clayton’s drooping jaw, whilst his body swayed from side to side as he gradually lost his balance.
Then he crashed onto the ground with an almighty thud, his body convulsing for several traumatising seconds before it remained completely still.
There was a painfully long silence as Apollo and Allegra gazed at Clayton’s body; panicked thoughts racing through their heads.
Apollo finally summoned the strength to look over at his cousin.
“I think he’s dead, Ally.”
In the room next door to the studio, Dexter had been searching for any incriminating evidence on Clayton’s computer. He knew Clayton would have been clever enough to delete anything that he knew could get him trouble, but what he had not planned on was Dexter being fluent in ways of recovering erased files and data.
He had heard the shouting and cries of pain coming from next door, but had not thought much else of it. So long as Clayton had not been injured enough for it to look like they had deliberately set out to harm him, then Dexter knew they would be just fine.
That was until Apollo and Allegra appeared behind him suddenly.
“I’ve searched and searched, but there’s nothing on here. He must have used a program to make doubly sure he permanently deleted anything dodgy,” Dexter groaned in aggravation. He already had an incline that something really bad had occurred in the other room, but he refused to confront them about it.
“Clayton’s dead,” Apollo announced bluntly, immediately shattering the blissful bubble that was wrapped around Dexter. Still, he remained quiet as he wiped his prints from the keyboard and mouse, but deep inside he could feel the rage gradually building.
Allegra and Apollo jumped as Dexter slammed his fist against the desk. His cousin edged towards the studio door as Dexter got off from his chair and started to stomp towards Apollo.
“How could you screw up your own plan?” Dexter snapped.
Apollo raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t do it intentionally. Besides,” he added swiftly, “You were the one who wanted him dead.”
“If he is dead, we’re in deep shit,” Dexter said in a venomous voice, “why couldn’t you control yourself?”
“He broke his hand after hitting me,” Apollo protested in his hysterical state of desperation, “and then he wouldn’t shut up. He was making so much noise. I just panicked. I didn’t mean for it to…”
Apollo took a deep breath inwards, trying his hardest to calm down. Dexter and Allegra exchanged looks of concern; this whole thing had clearly affected Apollo a lot more than they had initially realised. Being around him like this, it was not safe at all.
“It’s fine,” Apollo tried to reassure his cousins, “we just need to cover our tracks. What about a fire? We could start a fire, burn the evidence.”
Apollo was talking gibberish, even he knew that. He just wanted to convince them that they could get away with accidentally murdering Clayton.
Unfortunately, despite realising she would be betraying him; Allegra had already made up her mind. She could not risk tarnishing her image if she ever wanted to be a famous rock star. It was a selfish decision but she knew that if she and Dexter left now, they could feign innocent to their involvement…
“Sorry, Pollo. We’re out.”
Allegra walked over to Dexter’s side. Her hand brushed briefly against his….
… and she teleported out the room with him, away from all the commotion.
Apollo had tried his best to try and help Allegra get her guitar back, and now he was well and truly stuck in deep mud, so to speak. He should have felt irate about his cousins abandoning him, but all Apollo felt was an overwhelming wave of sadness, combined with a dash of terror. What the hell could he do to get out of this situation? Even if he managed to hide the body, people would soon start to question Clayton’s disappearance…
“I must say Apollo, you’ve put yourself in quite a predicament,” a well spoken voice penetrated Apollo’s fragmented thoughts.
Sat in the armchair to Apollo’s left was the same teenager who he had chased with Dexter and Allegra alongside the cliff tops almost two years ago now.
“Ok, who the hell are you?” Apollo fired his question rapidly, yet the stunned expression stricken across his face and the fear in his voice did not dissipate immediately. The strange teenager sitting in the chair let off a very unsettling vibe.
“I believe I haven’t introduced myself properly; I am Zeus Aristotle Peterson.”
“Aristotle? As in… Oh my God, seriously? You must be his…”
“Son, yes. But that is irrevelant at the moment. I think you have potential Apollo, much like Cedric, heir-to-be…”
“Cedric?” Apollo echoed as if it was a foreign word.
“Indeed, even I was surprised when I first found out,” Zeus admitted in a mysterious manner.
“Huh? But, a decision hasn’t even been made yet…”
Zeus just smirked.
“Apollo, how about this; I’ll help you clean up this mess,” Zeus slowly started to rise to his feet, “And you do me a small favour in return? It won’t be dangerous or malicious, just something I need your upmost assistance with. Maybe I’ll tell you how I know about Cedric as well… What do you say?”
This was perfect. Allegra and Dexter may have run out on him, but Apollo now knew what he was supposed to do. Form an alliance with Zeus and learn the true art of being a Meerkato.
“My friend, we have ourselves a deal.”
~~~
A/N: Longer chapter than I anticipated, yet hopefully it was interesting end to Generation 3. Chapter 4.1 should be up early next week. Much love. x
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