Purely Fallen - D. Richardson (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📗

girl in that room is going to be all over you. And since I have to stick with you until the last class is over, I’m going to have to put up with all of them.” I watched him digest this information. Honestly, what guy doesn’t know when he looks good. He must have been oblivious in his last school. When a corner of his mouth began to rise into a half smile I knew that he got it, and turned to walk the last hall to my torture.

As I predicted, as soon as he followed me through the double doors every head turned to check him out. I heard the girls gasping in awe and stifled the urge to roll my eyes. Sure he was hot, but nothing to get so excited about.

Brett waved at me from our usual table. It was to the side of the room with a wall on one side, tables on the other, and the door was in easy reach. It was actually my table from my first day. I had a thing about crowds, and the only way to get around it was to have a wall at my back, and nothing between me and the door.

A couple of weeks after I had staked out that particular table I had met Brett. It took a little while, but he had become my best friend, and so sat with me every day. We’ve only been separable by classes since.

His eyebrow raised when he spotted Gabriyel, but when he sat down on the other side of the table, Brett stiffened. I had no idea what that was about and made a mental note to ask him later. For the time being I put the list of extras on the table in front of me and began crossing some of them out.

“What’s up?” Brett asked, simultaneously gesturing to the paper and Gabriyel.

“I’m his welcoming committee, and Mr. B is making me sign up for two extras by next week.”

“Why?” I shrugged.

“Says it’ll be good for me.”

“But what about…” He trailed off but I knew what he was asking. My self defense had gotten a little unorthodox in the last couple of years. It wasn’t exactly something we could talk about in public. I gave him a wry look.

“Why do you think he’s doing it.”

“Well, damn. I guess we’ll just have to figure something out.” I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should just ride this out, I mean if I start tearing up his school he’ll back off.” He gave me ‘the look’ and I smiled. “Relax I was joking. No need to be so serious.” He rolled his eyes and pulled the list so it sat between us.

“You could join the chess team, you like chess.” I leveled my gaze on him.

“Yeah, let’s just stick me in a chair for hours on end in a room full of innocent teenagers.” He pulled out a pen and crossed that off the list.

“There’s the book club.” I made a face.

“I never want to read what they do.” He slashed another line on the paper.

“Oh, here we go, you could join the choir. You’d have to switch to the class, but it won’t take any time after school, except for concerts.” I thought about it for a moment. Choir was a fourth hour class, my current class that hour was study hall, and I never used it to do my work. So I nodded and he circled that one.

“There’s the mathaletes.” I snorted, and he crossed that one out. It wasn’t that I didn’t like math, well very few people actually like math. But I was good at it, just not interested enough to try to make it a competition.

“What about the dance team? They hold practice during the seventh hour class. Again, it wouldn’t take any extra time, except for any extra practices, and performances.” I considered it. I had economics that hour, but it was only a filler. Technically I already had all of my mandatory credits to graduate. The next two years were really about getting the right number of credits under my belt.

“Maybe, I’ll see.” Instead of waiting to actually here my decision on it, he went ahead and circled it. He knew me well enough to know that it was my best option.

Gabriyel spent this time watching us as if we were some kind of experiment. I didn’t really mind, I was used to people looking at me peculiarly. I looked at the time and saw that we had only about five minutes until the bell rang. I wasn’t sure he was ready for the onslaught of teenage bodies that the cafeteria turned into whenever the bell rang.

“Come on, I’ll take you to your first class before the stampede starts.” I stood and he followed automatically. After finding out that we had the same first hour, I took my time.

It was on the other side of the building, but on the same floor, so we had some time. That is until we were about halfway there. We had turned down a hallway lined with lockers, and I paused for a moment when I spotted Janine about halfway down.

Janine was the typical queen bitch. You know, the ones that think they hold the most weight in the school. The only problem was that she actually did. Her dad was the principal, and she would get away with murder if it wasn’t on the federal level. She stood stick still next to a smaller girl, with short mousy brown hair. And I mean stick, the girl had no curves to speak of.

She must have been new as well. I had never seen her before. Although this isn’t exactly a small town, I had met just about everybody in it, one way or another. I watched as they continued to argue, though I couldn’t quite hear what it was about.

I pulled a cookie out of my bag as I started forward. Hey, don’t judge, I would spill blood for Sandra’s cookies. The woman could bake. I made it almost level with the fake blonde before she noticed my arrival. Which meant I had gotten to hear the last bit of the argument.

“It’s not right!” The new girl hissed vehemently.

“Get this straight little girl. What I do is always right, I rule this place. Ask anyone that’s been here for more than five minutes. And if you know what’s healthy for you, you’ll fall in line, just like everybody else.” I decided to join in, I wasn’t invited but who wants to argue semantics.

“I’ve never been very good with lines. I guess that’s why I’m not in drama.” Janine jumped in surprise at the sound of my voice. I was the only one she didn’t try to rule over. Mostly because we had a rather long and nasty past.

She turned to me putting a hand on a non existent hip. The other girl just stared at me for a moment, then stared at Gabriyel for another, before finally turning back to Janine. Who suddenly realized that she was outnumbered. I eyed her for a moment while I took a bite out of another cookie.

She started to fidget a little. Running her fingers over her shirt and touching her hair. I knew she was up to something, she always was. Then she moved slightly to her right, and I heard a slight movement coming from the locker that she was trying to cover.

I looked down at my cookie. It was too big to shove in my mouth, and I didn’t have a napkin handy. Finally, I turned to the new girl. She looked clean and her hands were empty.

“Hey, your hands look clean, will you hold my cookie?” She looked at me with mild shock and surprise, but nodded. I handed it over careful to keep her from touching the part that I had taken a bite out of. I dusted my hands off on my jeans then turned to Janine. She swallowed nervously.

“What are you staring at?” I smiled at her sweetly, then grabbed her by the throat and pushed her to the left up against the lockers.

She acted like I was choking her, but she could breath just fine. I wasn’t hurting her, simply keeping her in place. I reached over with my other hand, keeping eye contact with her, and opened the locker she had been guarding with a flick of my wrist. A small freshman girl tumbled out, barely keeping her footing.

It had really taken some force to get her in there. She still wore her back pack, and her arms were full of text books. But she was short and the lockers were deeper than they looked.

When she had righted herself, she took in her surroundings. She saw the new girl and Gabriyel, then her eyes widened when she took in me and Janine. I held up a hand to keep her in place then turned back to my child hood nemesis.

“Shoving freshmen into lockers again? I thought we had discussed this.” Her face turned red, not from lack of oxygen, but anger.

“Let me go, you delinquent! I’ll tell my father, you’ll never come back to this school again!” I scoffed.

“Out of all of the times you’ve gotten me sent to his office, do you really think he’ll actually do anything?” That left her speechless, and I gave her a disgusted look, before letting her go. “Now run along.” I turned my back on her, and listened to her huff and puff, before she realized there wasn’t anything she could do, and stomped down the hallway.

I turned to the small girl and she shrank back a little, but straightened her shoulders as soon as she did. She had potential, she just got caught being smaller than someone else, and didn’t know how to use it to her advantage. I dug in my bag until I found what I was looking for.

I handed her the business card that I always carried around with me. I kept one at all times, just in case of things like this happening. She took it hesitantly and read what was on the front. Her eyes widened and she looked back up at me quickly.

“Get some training, and that will never happen again. Never let anyone lay a hand on you, if you don’t want them too.” She nodded and continued on her way, staring at the card she still held in her hand.

I reached for my cookie and the new girl handed it to me gently. She stared at me for a moment and I turned to see Gabriyel doing the same. I shrugged and took another bite. I motioned for him to follow and tried to leave, but the girl stood in my way.

“Um, could you tell me which way to go to my first class?” I looked at her confused.

“Don’t you have a welcoming committee?” She shrugged.

“That blonde chick was supposed to show me around, but I would prefer not to have to stick with her all day.” I nodded to show I understood.

“What class do you have?”

“World history.” I stared at her for a moment.

“Mr. Pickard?” She nodded as I finished off the cookie then nodded.

“It’s your lucky day, we’re headed there now.” I turned and they flanked me. Little did I know, they would spend a lot of time in those spots.

It turned out that they were in all four of my morning classes, and my lunch schedule. I passed Mr. Block in the halls once, and he raised a brow at seeing both of the new students walking with me. He knew better than to ask. Even the faculty knew about mine and Janine’s so called relationship. It was always her on one side and me on the other. I rather enjoyed the distance.