Emma checked her messages for the fifth time in half as many minutes, swiping the app away after a glance confirmed that no, she had no new messages. Letting out a small sigh, she went back to checking her feed on Facebook, her eyes flicking to both the time displayed on her smartphone and the wall-clock in the empty classroom she was waiting in.

Technically she shouldn't be in here, but as if this schools shitty rules phased her one bit. They couldn't even afford paint to cover up the gang tags on the display board by the road every week, so it wasn't like they would pay anyone to check if all the classrooms were empty. Plus, it was only like twenty minutes - she checked again to be sure - since the final bell so she could just say she was waiting for a friend or had forgotten something or whatever. I mean really, she was waiting for a 'friend,' so it wouldn't even be a lie.

She smirked at that thought, then frowned in annoyance. Where were they, damnit! They were supposed to ambush Taylor in the gym locker room and bring him here after the halls were clear. If some stupid teacher had caught them in the halls she was going to be so pissed!

Suddenly her ears picked up the sound of footsteps in the hall. Finally! For a moment she moved to put her phone in her purse, but then thought better of it. If it was a teacher she wouldn't look too suspicious on her phone, and if it was Brendan and his flunkies with Taylor - and it had damn well better be! - she could look cool and nonchalant for a moment before they got to business.

So she waited a few seconds, one of her friends' stupid paragraph-long postings about what her boyfriend and said to her on her screen as the footsteps drew closer.

'Wait,' she thought after a moment, 'is that just one person.'

Shit, maybe it was a teacher.

It wasn't.

The door opened inward in an instant and the tall, familiar form of Taylor Hebert stepped inside with it. Emma started to rise out of her desk, a cruel smile plastered on her face as she took the sight of him in. Long, lean face - like a horses, really - and short, dark curly hair piled on top of his head. His too-wide mouth, and those stupid full lips just a few shades lighter than the flush of his cheeks. His eyes were sharp and alert, a green so dark that you could almost confuse them for brown at a distance. His clothes were shit; dark brown hoodie, cheap looking jeans and worn sneakers. The very definition of low class. She only started to remember that he should still be in gym clothes when she was already half-way out of her seat.

Taylor spared her a glance - a glare, really - before sweeping his eyes over the rest of the room. It dawned on her that something was wrong when he turned around briskly and closed the door, his bare hand darting down to flip the lock with a heavy metallic 'thunk.'

His hand was bloody.

Emma froze, one hand on the desk and the other still clutching her phone. Her heart skipped a beat, and she forgot how to breath as he slowly turned from the door to face her and looked her in the eyes. She stumbled back when he made his first step forward, but stopped herself on the second.

"What are you doing here, Taylor?" She only just remembered to sneer when she said his name.

Her show of confidence was enough to give him pause, and he stopped a few feet from her, bringing his bloody hand up to his mouth and giving one of his knuckles a suck. The sound was wet, and in the quiet of the classroom as loud as a car horn. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest and her cheeks flare up as he fixed her with his eyes and answered.

"You really shouldn't have tried this shit, Emma. I mean, Brendan Derny? Him and his friends are weak shit. The old Emma would have tried to do it herself, or was Sophia not available to be you're muscle?"

Okay, now her cheeks were on fire. Fuck, he was right, too. Sophia had some stupid Wards thing she had to be at on Fridays, so she'd had to promise Brendan to set him up with Melissa. Him and his two friends should have been enough to handle Taylor. Shit, Sophia had been right, something had changed.

She'd thought it had been an act. The fights, the yelling. Sure, Taylor had some stupid fucking growth-spurt after the locker, so what? The dork had always been tall, ever since they were kids. Sophia had tried to warn her, said he'd been working out, doing better in gym class, and that the half-dozen fights he'd gotten into since he came back had made the usual boys she used wary. Shit, he'd knocked Carl Merendo out for half a minute last week, why had she been so stupid!?

Taylor took a half step forward, his eyes fixed on hers intently. She needed to regain control of this situation now, predators didn't back down!

"Don't come any closer." She demanded, brandishing her phone like a talisman

Taylors' cheek pinched, almost like he was smirking. "Or what, Emma?" He asked. "You gonna call for someone else to beat me up?"

"I'll call the cops." She declared with inspiration, new confidence flooding her and steadying her voice. "What do you think they'd make of a boy cornering a girl in an empty classroo-"

She finished her sentence with a yelp as Taylor darted forward, his non-bloody hand clenching around her hand like a vice.

She reacted on instinct, foot stomping down on his instep, her other hand balling into a fist and striking for his ribs, her hips twisting to gain leverage as she prepared to break his hold on her arm.

Only, her foot missed as he slid his back a few inches, his torso twisted so that her fist found only air and his other hand darted out and grasped the wrist of her striking hand. She didn't give up though; she'd been training with Shadow Stalker for over a year now, as well as a few self-defense courses from the trainers she'd convinced her daddy to pay for. She twisted, bucked, pivoted. Her feet struck out at his shins as he lifter her up, her arms writhed as he forced them both behind into the small of her back, phone clattering on the floor.

She didn't scream. Not for help, not for him to stop, and not in pain. She was better than that, she was strong. She was strong! And she wasn't going to just give up.

It took nearly a minute of wrestling, but eventually he had her back pressed up against the wall, feet dangling in the air, his arms wrapped around her in a bear hug as he held hers behind her. She was gasping, heaving in great gouts of air as he pressed her into the wall with his body. He was panting, though his breathing was controlled, steady. She hated him for that. She hated him for everything! How fucking dare he!

She growled out something, she wasn't sure. A curse? Taylor just sneered, his face a scant few inches from her own. She tried to headbutt him, but he leaned his head back almost as soon as she moved. She tried twice more before giving up, gasping even harder.

"I'm done with your shit Emma, do you understand me?" He asked, his deep voice shaking every inch of her. Suddenly, she was very aware of his body, pressed up against her. She could feel it through both their clothes; the hard muscle she'd heard about. His biceps felt like rocks pressed against her short ribs and his hands like coils of steel as they clamped down on her wrists. He stared at her from three inches away, his green eyes wide and alive, pupils dilated. She couldn't look away from them.

She could almost feel tears beading in her eyes, the needle-like pressure behind them threatening to burst out. No! She wasn't weak goddamnit! And where did this shit come from, this strength? Where had it been last year, or the year before that? It wasn't fair, he was weak, he'd always been weak and he would always be weak and-

"Emma!" He growled, his voice was so deep now, she could feel it rumbling up his chest like a rockslide as his warm breath added to the heat of her face. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead and where he his arms were pressed up against her.

"Do. You. Understand?" He asked. Only it wasn't a question. She'd heard that tone of voice before, many times. Out of her own mouth, out of Sophia's, sometimes out of Daddy's when he was on the phone.

No, not a question, not really. He was telling her to understand. That this was it, after this it was over. She'd had her fun, tormenting him. But that was when he had been weak. Before. Not now.

Now he was strong. Strong enough to fight three boys and win. Strong enough to fight her and win.

Her mouth trembled with an answer she didn't dare speak. Yes? How could it be yes, after all this time. After everything she'd been through, after everything she'd put him through.

She couldn't look away from his eyes, and he was watching her, waiting. A second passed, then two. And she could see him lose his patience in those green eyes of his.

His head darted forward, quick but smooth. Controlled. His lips mashed against hers, the breath she'd been pulling in stilled in an instant as he kissed her. Her eyes flew wide open. For a moment she was confused, the change so sudden that her mind struggled to catch up. His lips moved against hers slowly, forcefully, and somehow she responded. Her eye's fluttered, then shut, she sucked air in through her nose as the force of Taylor's head forced hers to tilt.

Yes.

For a few moments the only thing she could process was the frantic beating of her heart, and him. All of him. His body pressed against hers, and his arms holding her against him. His lips, moving against hers with bruising force, insistent, forceful.

Yes.

He pulled away from the kiss just as quickly as he'd initiated it. She looked up at him with wonder, the briefest sparks of awareness and anger starting to boil up from her breast.

"Tonight..." He growled out, instantly dispelling anything she'd been thinking of. She waited thoughtlessly for the half-second it took him to keep speaking.

"You are going to come over to my house." The words hardly processed, her mind was so confused.

She nodded. Yes.

"We are going to talk."

She couldn't think of a reason to say no, her mind still playing catchup to everything. So she nodded again, drool leaking momentarily from the corner of her mouth before she thought to lick it up.

He stared down at her for another moment, then she felt his hands release their vice-grip on her wrists. He stepped back in an instant, and she stumbled as she caught herself. She was still breathing heavily, rubbing her wrists absentmindedly, watching him. He just kept staring at her for a moment, before nodding and speaking again.

"Seven O'clock. Don't be late."

With that he turned and walked to the door, undoing the lock and swinging it open in a instant.

And then he was gone.

Emma didn't know how long she stood there, rubbing her wrists, catching her breath. She tried to think over everything that had just happened, everything Taylor had said and done. She didn't know what to think. She should be angry, outraged at his handling her like that, kissing her like that. And now she had to go over to his house tonight and talk to him?

"Fuck."