by Bella King
The guard didn’t notice that I was tailing him. I had to stay several yards back as he made his rounds through the school. I just hoped that he didn’t wander too far off from the place Andrew was luring Natasha. If he went too far, things could get ugly before he arrived to put a stop to them.
“Look who it is,” a voice said, interrupting my thoughts.
I twirled around to face Laney, standing in the hall with a smug look on her arrogant face. “Fuck off,” I grumbled.
Laney laughed. “I don’t think so. Natasha is about to have far more power than you could imagine, and your little gang is going to crumble.”
I rolled my eyes. She had passed a gun to Natasha and now she thought she knew everything that I didn’t. Nice try, bitch, but this was all part of the plan.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, whore,” she said, the last word slipping from her lips like venom from the fangs of a serpent.
I couldn’t let the security guard get too far or else I wouldn’t be able to find him when the time came to go through with my part of the plan. I stepped back, away from Laney. “I don’t have time for this,” I replied.
“I don’t really give a fuck,” Laney snapped, drawing a knife from the waistband of her skirt.
Great, did this need to be happening now? I was just about to have to save Andrew’s life, and Laney was attempting to finish me off in the hallway. She was out of her goddamn mind, but I should have realized that when she carved her message into my stomach in the showers.
“You don’t want to do this,” I said as she began to walk toward me.
“Yes, I do,” she said, her voice trembling with what should have been nervousness, but was actually excitement. This woman was excited to get the opportunity to slit my throat in broad daylight. She really was a nutjob!
The vibrator began buzzing in my pocket as she came toward me. I jumped to the side but didn’t run toward the security guard. If I did, and if Laney chased me, then I wouldn’t be able to get him to follow me to where Andrew was. He would be too busy taking down Laney.
I got angry at the thought of her preventing me from saving Andrew. The rage boiled up inside me, quickly bringing on an intense rush of power into my body. Laney seemed to move in slow motion as she lunged toward me. I managed to sidestep her and throw out my foot, causing her to stumble and fall.
She smacked against the floor, but the knife stayed in her hand. “You’re dead,” she growled, springing up to her feet for another run at me.
I was prepared this time. I threw a punch before she could stand up completely, knocking her so hard that it felt like I had broken something inside of my hand. I probably had, but I didn’t have time to nurse it. I bolted in the direction of the security guard, trying to find him as the vibrator continued to buzz in my pocket.
Laney was out cold, crumpled in a mess on the stone floor of the corridor. This was the second time she had been knocked out since I started going to Ridgeview. At this rate, she would be braindead by graduation.
I would have laughed if I wasn’t so panicked. I ran as fast as my feet could carry me toward the security guard, screaming at the top of my lungs to grab his attention.
With a hand on the gun in his holster, he spun around on high alert as I came peeling down the hall toward him.
“Help, help, she has a gun,” I shrieked.
“Who?” He asked, his eyes growing wide. This was his moment. I was sure that he had been waiting for some excitement for a while. Patrol duty could be an awful bore.
“Natasha! This woman beside the chemistry lab. You have to go quick,” I urged, panting as I stopped in front of him.
“Stay here,” he said, holding up a hand and running in the direction of the chemistry lab.
I wasn’t going to follow his command. I needed to see how this played out. I ran after him, staying a few yards behind so that he wouldn’t get pissed at me for not staying back when he told me to.
The vibrator wouldn’t stop going off in my pocket. I groaned and pulled it out, throwing it at Laney’s unconscious body as I passed her. It seemed that the guard deemed a gun threat more important than her. Good.
“Down on the ground,” the guard shouted as he turned the corner. “Put the gun down!”
I stopped, praying that there wouldn’t be any gunshots. As far as I knew, Andrew was still safe. Natasha was the one who was in danger now, but not if she started popping off in the hallway. Then, we would have an even larger problem on our hands.
I couldn’t see around the corner at what was happening because I didn’t want to run up on the guard and get shot. That would have put a damper on the mood. I held back and waited. My throat was tight, and my hands were slippery with sweat as the time ticked onward. What happened now was out of my control.
Chapter 19
“Peach or lemon?” Daniel asked, digging into an icebox.
“You didn’t get mixed-berry?” I asked, placing a hand on one hip.
He chuckled. “You get what you get, Rose. It’s not that easy.”
I shook my head and smirked. “I thought you were better at your job than that.”
“Woah now, watch what you say,” he said, pulling a lemon-flavored alcoholic drink from the ice and handing it to me.
I took it, and promptly handed it to Martin so that he could pop off the lid for me. He did it with his bare hands, which was always impressive to watch. It didn’t seem to hurt him, and it was a neat party trick.
“For you, Andrew?” Daniel asked.
“Nothing for me,” Andrew replied, waving a hand.
“Loser,” Daniel teased.
“I didn’t think defeating Natasha qualified me as a loser,” he replied with a chuckle.
“You’re a hero,” I said, squeezing his arm. “You all are,” I said, correcting myself while looking around at the men that stood around me in the garden.
“I can drink to that,” Troy replied, raising his bottle.
We were all gathered in the old garden, celebrating another beautiful weekend after school. After Natasha was detained and expelled from the school on felony gun charges, things began to lighten up considerably. There was no need for all the drama, but we still had occasional trouble. For some reason, Laney couldn’t let things go, so we constantly had to keep her off our backs, but that was nothing compared to what we had to do before Natasha was kicked out. It was clear sailing from now on.
The scars on my stomach were starting to heal, growing into faint white lettering. Thankfully, with a knife that sharp, scars usually don’t stay for that long. It didn’t tear up my skin as badly as I thought it had. Besides, I was thinking of getting a tattoo over it when I got out of Ridgeview.
“Hey, could I ask you something?” Andrew asked, gently tugging on my arm.
“Sure,” I replied, taking a sip of my drink and giving him my attention.
“I want to get a picture of all of us together, but I don’t know how to set the timer on this damn camera,” he said pulling out a phone.
I laughed, shaking my head at him. Andrew was tragically bad with technology. It was charming, but he seriously needed help with it. I took the phone and showed him how to set the timer. “Use the back camera,” I said, tapping on the rear side of the phone. “It’s better.”
“Okay,” he said, then turned to the gang. “Everyone, let’s come in for a photo.”
Daniel was eager to get into the photo, smoothing back his hair and brushing the remaining strands into place with his fingers. He sprung up from the icebox and joined the rest of us as we gathered around the garden fountain.
Andrew walked a few feet away and found a suitable spot to place the camera on the crumbling border wall. He started the timer and jogged back to the group.
“Say cheese,” he said, smiling at the camera and pulling us all together in a huddle.
“Cheese!”
There was a flash, and our image was captured on the phone, in our memories, and forever in our hearts. Troy, Martin,
Andrew, Daniel, and I were together in the paradise we had made together as a team. Life may have dealt us all a bad hand, but we were making the best out of it, and that’s all we could ever want.
The End.
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Breaking Her Bully
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