Defiant (Blaze Trilogy Book 1)

by H G Lynch

  Then she said, staring at the ceiling as if the balloons were still there, “I was thinking, if I were to do something like that, it wouldn’t be to prove that human curiosity breaks things, but to prove that human curiosity can create beauty,” she said slowly.

  I blinked at her, feeling the questioning expression on my face, but she wasn’t looking at me yet.

  “Think about it. You burst the balloons and what? Bright, colourful paint splatters everywhere. You cover a room in liquid creativity. No pattern, shape, or intent to the colours, just a mad swirl of blue and purple and red. Chaos, yes, but beautiful chaos.”

  I was speechless, struck mute by my astonishment and admiration. This girl, this girl I had only known for a couple of hours, had said the most meaningful, in-depth thing I’d ever heard outside of my own head. I didn’t care if she had cloven feet or a history of mental illness, with what she’d just said, I’d happily take her hand and marry her. It was the most spectacular feeling in the world, right then, to realise she was the girl I’d been looking for after all. After two hours, I felt as if I knew this girl better than anyone else in the entire school. I felt as if she understood a part of me that not even my family could.

  “Yes,” I breathed emphatically, nodding, “Yes, that’s brilliant. I didn’t think of it that way before.” Where my take on the sub-conscious reasoning behind my stunt was bleak, hers was exciting.

  Poppy brought her gaze down from the ceiling at last and beamed at me as if I’d just given her the best present in the world. My heart spluttered inside my chest.

  “You think so? You’re probably the first guy—scratch that—first person to understand me when I’ve said something like that. Normally they just smile nervously and change the subject.”

  She twisted around on her stool to face me fully, dropping her twined hands into her lap. Reflexively, my gaze swiftly followed her movement, but I caught sight of a malformation under her shirt. For a second, I wondered if she was deformed somehow, but then I remembered English class and chuckled. She looked confused by my laughter.

  I gestured toward her chest with one hand, trying not to let my ears get hot, and asked, “Uh, do you still have that note tucked in your shirt?”

  I pointedly kept my gaze off her, while Alistair, overhearing our conversation, was once again gawking at her. This time, however, his gaze wasn’t directed at her face. Poppy glanced down at herself and bit her lip.

  “Whoops. I totally forgot about it…Um…” She toyed with the collar of her shirt hesitantly. The crumpled note had fallen far enough down that it didn’t look as if it could be easily retrieved while keeping her dignity intact. It had settled just under the gentle curve of her breasts—not that I was looking that closely—and it seemed she’d have to undo a button or two to get it out. Alistair was practically panting like a dog, waiting for her to do it. I stood up and untied my hoodie from around my hips. She looked up at me in confusion as I held it out in front of her. I spread it like a curtain, holding it with both hands, blocking her torso from Alistair’s view.

  I looked away and closed my eyes. “I’m not looking. This way, you can get it out without, um, anyone seeing anything they shouldn’t,” I explained.

  She made a soft noise of appreciation, and I heard the faint rustling of fabric as she, presumably, undid buttons to retrieve the note. I fought very, very hard not imagine what she was doing. You just met her, I reminded myself. But, unfortunately, hormones don’t care about that sort of thing. They want what they want, regardless of the length of time you’ve known a girl.

  “’Kay, I’m decent,” Poppy said.

  I glanced at her to be sure before lowering my hoodie. She gave me a grateful smile, and I just shrugged a shoulder, as if to say, You’re welcome. Any time you need me to cover you while you partially undress, I will be here with my trusty hoodie. I kind of wanted to say it aloud because I thought it would make her laugh, but I didn’t have the guts. I sat back down in my seat just as the bell rang. It was 3:15 pm. School was over. And for possibly the first time in my life, I was not glad to hear that bell.

  Chapter Two

  Home sweet home, for me, was a cosy little three-bedroom house tucked away at the edge of a lonely road, ten minutes from school. It wasn’t big or magnificent or stuffed with shiny, expensive toys, like some of my classmates’ homes, but I liked it just fine. The dark paint on the front door was scuffed at the bottom from the years of me kicking it closed when I was in a foul mood. The brass numbers screwed onto it were dull and stained with age, and the door got jammed fast every winter when the snow came. One year, I’d pulled the handle off trying to yank the door open from the inside to get to school on time. I’d ended up very late and that was another one of my detentions. Not my fault wood expanded when there was moisture in the cold air.

  I pushed the front door of my humble abode open and stepped inside, out of the glaring sunlight. I kicked it closed behind me and it shut with a bang. I waited for the inevitable yell of annoyance that would tell me my mother was home. There was no yell. She wasn’t home. Great. Looked like I was babysitting again. Not that I had anything better to do, but it was the principle of the thing.

  Dumping my bag on the plush, brown sofa that dominated the living room, I made my way to the kitchen to grab a snack. With wood-topped counters and white-tiled walls, our quaint kitchen was fairly modern and happened to be where I spent the least amount of time as possible. I couldn’t really cook anything but pizza and chips, though my culinary skills could occasionally stretch to spaghetti bolognese if I felt like feeding my little brother, too.

  So, it was to the fridge I went to snag a can of Coke and the half of a ham sandwich I’d left in there from my midnight snack the night before. Stuffing a bite of the sandwich into my mouth, I cracked open the Coke can with my thumb and sauntered back to the living room to watch some TV. This was my normal routine: Come home, grab food, watch CSI for a couple of hours, then go to my room and read whatever book was sitting on my nightstand. It was a comfortable routine that was only broken once in a blue moon when I decided to do my homework.

  Flipping on the TV, I threw myself down on the sofa and flicked through the channels until I found one that was playing an old episode of CSI. I’d seen it a dozen times, but it was a mindless way to relax after an exciting day of school—and I didn’t mean exciting sarcastically either. Not today. Today had been awesome really. I’d made a new friend, one of the hot female variety, and had had my mind blown by the fact that she was so obviously the girl I’d been waiting for. Now if I could just sneak my way past the friendship zone right off, I’d be golden. If I played it cool too much, I’d be relegated to the friend zone for good, and once I was there, it’d be a hard hike to climb beyond it.

  “Anson, Anson, Anson!” My little brother interrupted my mindless chill-out time. He came bounding down the stairs and leaned over the back of the sofa to grin down at me. His floppy brown hair was getting long, and his glasses always sat a little squint on his nose because he had funny ears. His two front teeth were crooked, too, but he flat-out refused to get braces.

  I gave him a withering look and sighed. “What is it this time, Aaron?” It didn’t matter if I asked or not, because even when I ignored him, he always told me what was on his mind anyway. Since I was in a good mood, I figured I might as well talk to the kid. “Did you discover a new species of insect or something? No wait, I know, you’ve discovered life on another planet and they’re coming to take you away to their research labs on Mars,” I teased, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

  Aaron liked outer space. He had a telescope in his room, and his walls and bed sheets had rockets, stars, and satellites on them. His books were mostly about astronomy, meteorology, and cosmology. I didn’t know the difference between astronomy and astrology, but so long as it kept him happy, he could build himself a rocket to the moon if he liked.

  Pulling on his serious scientist face, which I always thought looked funny on a twelve-y
ear- old, Aaron shook his head solemnly. “No, I just wanted to ask if you saw the new girl at school,” he said quietly.

  Huh? I sat up, surprised. How did he know about Poppy? Oh, of course, the whole school had probably been talking about it, and I just hadn’t been listening.

  “Yeah, she’s in a couple of my classes. Why do you want to know, bud?” I asked.

  Aaron sucked on his lower lip for a moment and then pointed to the TV screen, distracted by whatever gross thing was happening in the CSI crime lab. I snapped my fingers in front of his face so he’d focus again.

  “Why do you want to know about Poppy?”

  He blinked behind his glasses, his hazel eyes—our mother’s eyes—widening. “Poppy? That’s her name? Interesting. I was just curious because I heard some boys saying she’s…what was it they said again? I think they called her ‘a babe,’ which I thought was insulting. Does she look like a pig, Anson?” Sometimes, it was as if Aaron really was from another planet. I laughed and shook my head.

  “No, she doesn’t look anything like a pig. They didn’t mean it like that. ‘A babe’ means they think she’s hot. It’s a compliment, I guess,” I explained the terminology of the senior boys while watching some scientist on the TV dissecting a swine foetus. The timing of the appearance of the pig was a mildly amusing coincidence given our conversation. Then I began wondering what kind of animal Poppy would be if she weren’t so very human. Aaron tapped me on the head with his little knuckles, and I looked back up at him.

  “I was talking to you,” he said accusingly.

  I made an apologetic face and waved my hand to indicate he should continue with whatever he’d been saying while I was zoning out. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and said, “I asked you if Poppy is ‘a babe’ as those boys thought.” He even did air quotation marks around the word babe.

  I chuckled, nodding. “Oh yeah, definitely. And she’s funny, too. And I think she must be either really smart or really dumb because she decided she wants to be friends with the King of Lonerdom.” I didn’t think she was really dumb. You couldn’t really be dumb and deep at once, and she’d proven she was at least deep. Exactly how deep, I’d have to wait and find out, but she wasn’t a kiddie pool.

  “You made friends with her?”

  I tried not to be offended by the disbelieving tone to Aaron’s voice. It was a perfectly reasonable reaction, seeing as he knew my status amongst my peers. Even he had friends, though they were all science nerds like him.

  “Yup. She sits next to me in English and Art.” My voice was smug, and I didn’t bother to modulate it. I felt smug. I felt great. I was even looking forward to school tomorrow.

  Aaron laughed and pushed himself off the back of the sofa, and I heard him pad back upstairs to his room to do whatever it was twelve-year-old science geeks did—probably homework. I grinned to myself, tipping my head back to look out the window at the bright sunny day outside. The warm light spilled through, illuminating dust motes in front of the TV screen, and everything beyond the streaky glass was bright, crisp, and glowing. The world, for once, matched how I felt inside.

  The next day was even brighter and hotter than the day before, and I was out of bed before my alarm even went off. The stale air of my room was smothering, so I threw open the window to let in the fresh day outside. The smell of blooming flowers and cut grass blew in on a warm breeze, and I stretched as I searched my dresser for a clean shirt.

  The dark wooden furniture in my room looked good with the cobalt walls. The dido rail that ran around the room at waist-height was painted gold, and so were the skirting boards. The floor was made of wooden panels that slotted together like puzzle pieces. My mother had thrown a small blue rug over it to make it look homier. My posters of rock bands and the periodic table were my own touch, as were the CD cases scattered across the window seat and the collection of mismatched socks under my computer desk.

  I finally found a clean shirt, my tie, and a pair of black school trousers that didn’t have paint on them and went for a shower in the bathroom across the hall. Locking the door behind me, I got a clean towel from the cupboard under the sink and turned to look at myself in the mirror. My strangely dark blue eyes looked back at me, brighter than they’d been in a long time. There weren’t even any shadows under my eyes today. My hair, a deep red like burgundy, stuck up in tufts in some places.

  My reflection mimicked me as I ran my hand through my hair and leaned in closer to see the freckles that sprinkled across my nose. Just a handful of light pink spots that looked like someone had taken a paintbrush and flicked it at my face. I scrunched my nose, and pulled a face at my reflection before turning on the shower and leaving it to run for the hot water while I brushed my teeth.

  As I’d expected, the school was abuzz with news of the new girl, and everyone who hadn’t seen her yet was dying to get a glimpse of her. Even those who had seen her wanted a second look. I know I did. I didn’t have English on Tuesdays, so I would have to wait until lunch to see her. In the meantime, I listened to the gossip going around, hoping for a little more information about Poppy. Where she came from, what classes she took, whether she had any brothers or sisters. Anything that would give me a better idea of who she was.

  However, all anyone could talk about, or all anyone knew, was how she’d stood up to Lacey Silverman in my defence. I could feel eyes on me as I walked down the corridors, heard the hushed whispers of my name. It made me uncomfortable, so I tried to ignore it. I just had to make it to lunch, and then I’d see her.

  I was already planning what to say to her. “Hey, Poppy, come and join me at the royal table of Lonerdom,” or something less sucky, like, “Poppy, you want to sit with me for lunch?” Yeah, the simplest was always the best. I could start in on the bad jokes once I knew her a little better.

  Every minute seemed to stretch until I thought I might die before lunch, or time would stop altogether just a few seconds before 12:30 and lunchtime would never arrive, but eventually, that blessed bell rang. I shot out of my seat, but by the time I made it to the door, there was a brick wall in my way. Jake Clark and his pals, Mark and Kevin, were blocking the door out of Physics, and I had a bad feeling in my gut that told me what was coming.

  They were all pretty built. Kevin was the tallest of the three at six-foot-stupid, but I was one of their bigger targets. At five feet and ten inches, I was the same height as Jake, and for all my wussy poetry writing, I wasn’t a scrawny insect like most of the guys Jake and his gang liked to pick on. I worked out, so I had enough muscle that they couldn’t easily throw me up against the wall, but they were still monsters in comparison. Today, it looked like it was going to be one of those days where they tried the wall thing anyway.

  “Hey, Anson, what you in such a hurry for? Got a hot date or something?” Jake grinned in a way that showed all of his big, white teeth. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of grin, and his grey-blue eyes were narrowed menacingly, eyeing me like a cat eyes a mouse trapped in a corner.

  I wasn’t in the mood to get punched in the gut, so I just took a step back and looked at him blankly. There was a voice in my head telling me to answer him with, Actually, yeah. I’ve got a date with the new girl. But that was likely to cause me more trouble than it was worth. I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to get on with his little game.

  He stared at me with a challenge in his eyes, daring me to push past him. He was standing just far enough forward that the other students could slip out behind him, but now that I was right in front of him, I had no chance. I considered, for one heartbeat in time, just punching him in the nose. Then that would give his backup dancers a reason to tackle me, and I’d rather spend my lunch hour in the canteen than in the nurse’s office with an icepack. Or, you know, the headmaster’s office—which was where I’d end up for fighting in school.

  I folded my arms over my chest, showing that I was willing to wait all day if he was willing to just stand there all day. The three of them were trying to intimida
te me, and they hadn’t quite worked out from our past encounters that I wasn’t easily intimidated. I just ran out patience with them very quickly, and that was how I always ended up with blood on my face—three against one, not fair.

  “Uh, excuse me,” a soft voice said from somewhere behind the wall of meat blocking the doorway. Jake and his guys turned slightly to see who was talking, and beyond Jake’s shoulder, I could see the top of a blonde head.

  Poppy looked tiny next to the hulking boys, but she was wearing a look on her face that could have melted stone. “Sorry to interrupt your riveting discussion, but I was wondering if I could borrow Anson from you,” she said, her blue eyes wide and her smile bright. It gleamed in the sunlight coming through the windows at the back of the classroom.

  Immediately, Jake and his bouncers stepped aside as she leaned forward and snagged my wrist. Her fingers, surprisingly cool, wrapped around my arm, and she tugged me past the stunned jackasses into the hallway. Her touch raised goosebumps all up my arm, and I felt something slick and hot slide from the back of my throat into my stomach. We left the shocked, angry boys behind as she dragged me, with not inconsiderable strength, down the corridor to the doors of the canteen.

  One of the doors was propped open with a wedge of wood, and the sounds of scraping knives, clattering trays, chatting and laughter erupted into the hallway. The smells of pizza, pasta sauce, and garlic bread flowed into my nose, making me drool. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until then. I could really go for some pepperoni pizza and fat, greasy chips. Maybe a cheeseburger too.

  Poppy let go of my wrist, and I looked down at her, drawing my hand back to myself and stuffing it into my pocket. She leaned against the wall as if she didn’t have the energy to stand, looking a little pale—well, paler. In the glare of the fluorescent lights, I could see her forehead was damp with sweat. Her eyes were closed. She didn’t look well.