Violence at Constance Billard? You heard it here first. All bets are off, and that includes this girl. These are the shots being heard round the world, and for once I'm signing off. Turn on the TV, turn off the texts.
-GG
Jenny Humphrey was used to being escorted to school. When she'd been younger, her mother had taken her. Hand in hand they would point excitedly at the beautifully dressed people meandering through Manhattan. When she'd gotten older, her brother had dropped her off before continuing on his own way. Then there had been that brief, disastrous time last year when Rufus had insisted on taking her in—the only way, he'd insisted, that he could be certain she actually got where she belonged.
Yes, she was used to being escorted. She was not, however, used to having her escort hang at her side, open-mouthed, as motionless as the statues in the Met just across the way.
"Dan, you can leave now. I can navigate the stairs alone," Jenny said pointedly.
"Can't go anywhere," Dan insisted. "Danger. It lurks, everywhere. In the bourgeouis purses, in the chandelier earrings. . ."
"If you're waiting for Serena, why don't you just meet her where you always do?" Jenny sighed. Dan had always been a little ridiculous, but really, this was pushing the line, even for him.
"Well, why don't you go on then?" Dan asked. Jenny had to admit that he had a point. After all, she hadn't exactly taken many steps herself. The truth was, ever since the debacle with Penelope, Jenny hadn't enjoyed heading into school without Eric. What a pair they made, she though with a sigh. Maybe all the Upper East Siders had a point. Maybe there was something wrong with Brooklyn.
"What is this, a new art exhibit?" A snobby voice broke into her carefully crafted reverie. "Something avant garde from under the bridge?"
"Hello, Blair," Jenny said carefully.
"Wait, we're on speaking terms again?" Dan asked. He laughed, shortly. "Sorry, sometimes it's just so hard to keep track."
"Funny," Blair glared at him. Jenny shivered a little in her boots. How could something so tiny be so scary? She was very glad that today's little tirade wasn't directed at her. "Where's Serena, anyway? I assume that's who you're waiting for?"
Before her brother had a chance to answer, a long black limo pulled up alongside the school.
"Ugh," Blair said, and began to move away. Jenny didn't blame her. Black limos at school usually meant trouble – trouble or Chuck, which weren't all that different, come to think of it. But as the door opened, a distinctly unmanly leg emerged, and suddenly the three were engulfed in a ball of sunshine.
"Hi, Dan!" Serena rolled into her boyfriends arms, locking lips before she'd even registered who else was there. "Blair, hi! Hi, Jenny."
"Hello," Blair said. Jenny was very glad to see another familiar face come out of the limo – Eric. She walked over to her best friend, glad to escape the drama that always surrounded the elite.
"Embracing material things?" she asked her friend. He smiled, shrugged, and nodded back toward the limo.
"No, just. . .Mom finally realized that family takes some work. So that's what we're doing. Working on it."
Jenny laughed. "Riding around in one of Bart's limos. Looks tought."
"Yeah, well. . ." Eric trailed off at the sound of a car door shutting. Both he and Serena turned to stare at the limo as it slowly began to pull away from the curb. With a simultaneous "NO!" They both lunged at the car, Serena treacherously close to the front bumper.
"Oh, no you don't!" Serena screamed, banging on the door ineffectually. "You get out of there, right now!"
"I did not ride in that stinky limo for you to just ditch!" Eric said, pulling at the apparently locked door.
"What's going on?" Dan asked.
Serena dramatically spread her arms and legs, standing directly in front of the car. "It's a stand-off!" Serean cried. "You run me over or you get out!"
It was, indeed, a stand-off for several moments, as neither Serena nor the black limo moved. Then, slowly and deliberately, the back door opened and Chuck Bass stepped out.
Jenny surveyed him critically. A fashion disaster as always, with that bow tie. Really, she thought. What kind of a real man wears a paisly bow tie anyway?
"Why, sister," he drawled lowly. "If you want to play damsel in distress, come by my room, not the front of my car."
"No thanks, Chuck," Serena said, dropping her arms and going to stand by Dan once again.
"Waldorf," Chuck said, nodding at Blair. "Come to be part of my welcome back committee? How charming."
"The only thing anyone's going to be welcoming you to is hell, Bass," Blair said. With a flip of her hair she began heading toward school. "A moment, S? I have to discuss something with you."
Serena shrugged, glanced apoletically at Dan, and then flounced after her friend. Jenny rolled her eyes. Beside her, Eric laughed.
"Do you ever feel like we're in a weird time loop?" he asked as they began walking to school together. "Everyone fights, makes up, fights again, makes up again, over and over again."
"People succeed in the fashion world and then find themselves right back in high school again," Jenny nodded her head. "A time loop indeed."
"You'd think something would snap us out of it," he mused.
"Yeah," Jenny laughed. "Graduation."
"Well, that won't be happening if we don't get to class," Eric said with a laugh. "See you at lunch?"
He was back at school. She supposed that was a good thing. She supposed that she wanted him to heal. She supposed she didn't really hate him.
Blair Waldorf was not used to supposing things. She was used to knowing them. Which was why Chuck Bass's returne presence at school was doing nothing more than freaking her out. As if it weren't enough seeing his shadow everywhere she went, Ms. Carr was also acting weirder than usual.
"Good morning, Ms. Waldorf," she said, brutal and brusque as always. But when Serena entered right behind her, she received only a curt nod, and the Shakespeare teacher hurried to the safety of her own desk.
"Suspicious," Blair murmured. Serena shrugged her shoulders, though her smile seemed tenuous at best.
"She must have just remembered something," she said.
"Yes, remembered her Iago personna," Blair agreed. "I smell betrayal."
"Well, I smell Chanel," Serena said, and said down, perhaps a bit huffily. Blair considered for a moment, and actually smelled the air.
"Hm," she said, before sitting beside her best friend. "Why, Watson, I do believe you have it!"
Class continued in the same vein. Carr seemed unusually nervous—even for her, and she'd never been the most stable of teachers, Blair thought critically. She seemed not to notice whenever Serena put her hand in the air—usually she called on Serena with a gleeful abandon. Something, Blair realized, was definitely going on. Carr being rude to her she could understand—not appreciate, but understand. But a snubbing of her former favorite student. . .that just reeked of something underhanded.
"Penelope," she whispered to one of her underlings. "I need the stats on Ms. Carr."
"But I have lunch next period," the other girl whined. Blair just glared at her.
"I said now," she growled. She couldn't keep the smile off her face when the other girl sighed, shoved her books into her purse and stood. Sometimes it was good to be the queen. The smile broadened. Who was she kidding? It was always good to be queen.
"B, what are you up to?" Serena asked. Blair just turned an ever-innocent gaze on her best friend.
"Nothing, dear," she said perkily. "Whatever would make you think that I was up to something?"
"Call it a hunch," Serena muttered. "I have to make a detour before music. Meet you there?"
Blair nodded, but when she turned down the hall toward the music classroom she saw an overly familiar figure heading toward her. "On second thought," she said, dashing back to Serena's side. "Really, we don't spend enough time together. I'll come with you."
"Um, you really don't want to do that," Serena said, avoiding Blair's eyes.
"Oh, yes I do," Blair said fervently. After all, the other direction lay disaster.
"My detour is to make out with Dan," Serena said bluntly. That was enough to actually stop Blair in her tracks. Which was the worse option? Brooklyn sucking face with someone so much better than him or a Basshole?
"Hello, sister," Chuck's drawl came from behind her. How had he caught up to them so quickly?
"Hey, Chuck," Serena said, a resigned note in her voice. Realizing she wasn't going to get any face time with Humphrey, Blair thought, and despite the situation she found herself in, she did take a small note of joy from that fact.
"I just wanted to make certain that you could get yourself home today," Chuck said. "I have a matter that I must. . .attend to, and I fear that I will leave you without an escort home."
Blair rolled her eyes, even as Serena said, "I don't think so, Chuck. You're to stay in school. Mummy's orders."
Chuck opened his mouth (undoubtedly to stick his foot straight into it, in Blair's mind) but before he could say a word a loud shot rang out from the courtyard.
"What was that?" Blair asked. A loud siren began wailing over head.
"And what is that?" Chuck complained, clasping his hands over his ears.
Suddenly students came pouring into the hall from the courtyard. Blair stared at them running by, panicked looks on everyone's faces. Headmistress Queller materialized in the hallways as though by magic.
"Please do not panic!" She yelled at the hordes of stampeding students. "Proceed calmly to the nearest classroom. Teachers, lock the doors behind you. Once again, there is no need to panic!"
Blair still couldn't move. Her feet were rooted to the ground. This was not the way her people reacted. The running, the ties undone, the hair flying around. . .this simply was not done at Constance Billard. Let alone the droves of boys pounding through the girls' hallway.
Finally, a familiar face. Serena must have spotted him at the same moment, for she reached out and grabbed Nate Archibald as he dashed by.
"Nate, what's going on?" she asked. Nate glanced back outside, blue eyes wide with terror.
"There was a shot. . . a gun. . ." he gasped out. "Somebody out there is shooting at us!"