"That's Levana," Iko said pointing across the cafeteria. She'd been twittering along about the school gossip for the majority of lunch hour to Winter who'd asked to know about the goings on. Winter hadn't expected the lecture Iko had delivered about the history of every person in their year and the notable people in the year above. It'd be how much she knew Cress mused if Cress herself hadn't hacked into certain targets social media to get information for Iko. It wasn't anything serious but Iko liked knowing everything; knowing the goings on in the year made Iko feel powerful and usefu. As long as Iko didn't do anything with the information that was too illeagal Cress had had no problem with relaying the information she found to her. It was the least she could do. "Queen Bee of the school and cheer captain."
Winter scoffed, "And what does she date the football captain."
"That's our Wolf here," Cinder said fist bumping with the burly teenager.
"He broke with the popular crowd back in middle school," Iko explained seeing Winter's slightly confused face. "When he and Scarlet started dating they initially hung out with the popular kids but Charleson-" Iko didn't mark the boy out but cress couldn't help but glance at the boy with dark hair and high cheekbones who was sitting in the middle of the crowd. He was the child of Venerable Annotel he was one of the richest kids in school and invulnerable to the school authorities and the teachers.
"It didn't work out," Scarlet interrupted. Wolf's hand rested on Scarlet's protectively and Cress could see him squeeze it slightly. Wolf was even more sensitive than Scarlet was about that year back in middle school and had rejected everything to do with his former crowd. Being captain of the football team was the closest that he got to hanging out with them nowadays and his only friend left on the team was Kinney and even that was only really when he was on with Iko. Wolf was loyal to a point and had adopted them as his new group at the expense of his last.
Cinder rolled her eyes at that, "She's dating Sybil the girl next to her. Her vice." Sybil was almost as pretty as Levana was but with dark hair instead of Levana's flaming auburn hair. As they watched the Sybil reached up to hold Levana's hand but was batted away by Levana who was talking to another of the boys who orientated around her. "They've been the power couple of the school for as long as it matters." Cinder said shrugging her shoulder.
"Is Sybil her name," Kai said interjecting finally into the conversation. He'd been sitting there listening much like Winter to take in the entire of the conversation and scope out the lay of the land as far as Cress could tell. His reactions had been less obvious than Winter's as Iko relayed the sordid tales of Lunar High but Cress was good at watching people. "She invited me to sit with them this morning in Calculus."
Cinder stiffened up noticeably and Cress resisted the urge to smile. Kai was the only son of the entrepreneur behind the Commonwealth Industries and it made complete sense that Sybil would approach him; he was more than decently attractive with rich parents so he would be perfect in their opinion. "Yeah that sounds like her," Cinder said her voice tight like her white knuckles.
"You can do what you like Kai," Iko said conciliatory. "But statistic evidence makes the odds of one of them messing you up extremely high." Iko was right. They'd all been affected by Levana's posse. Keeping your head down and not getting you head down gave you the best odds of survival.
"They're teenage girls," Kai said slightly confused.
Cress laughed, "Teenage girls that can persuade you into selling your soul to the devil and not even remember why you did it."
...
"Moon Face," A mocking voice called out.
Cress's hands slammed down on the computer's keyboard as she started. The delicately copied out lines of code were all ruined by random letters which were now interspersed amongst the actual code. She cursed under her breath at whoever it had been behind her but didn't bother to spare them a look. The code was challenging even for her and could literally destroy her computer if she got this wrong so she couldn't be distracted.
She backspaced loudly each press of her finger on the keyboard emitting a obnoxiously loud noise and Cress cringed inwardsly. The code corrected her fingers resumed their dance across the keyboard as she typed line after line of code. "Moony." Another voice called out this one higher pitched and female. Cress didn't respond this time and instead pulled out her headphones to play some music. She worked better with music anyway. Keying in her favourite opera she started to hum along to the aria almost forgetting about everone else in class.
Almost
"Shell," the female voice called out over her music. Then rough hands grabbed her chair and spun it round until Cress almost felt dizzy and when she opened her scrunched up eyes she saw Sybil and Jacin standing in front of her.
Cress stood up wobbling slightly as her head spun, "What is it?"
"Levana needs your hacking abilities" Sybil said coolly examining her crimson nails.
Cress sat down again, "Which minion failed this time." Sybil and Levana had been making Cress hack school systems since middle school as neither they nor their groupies could afford to have anything other than a stellar GPA. She'd hated doing it but it was worth it as they didn't pick on her when she was doing one of their tasks.
She had been so ernest when she'd started that by doing what they wanted she'd be able to get accepted into their group and would maybe even be popular. It had never happened though. They had just used her until Cinder and the others had busted her out of her metaphorical prison and dissilusionment and finally she had belonged. But Sybil and Levana still got her to do odd tasks for them if it was necessary and she never told the other girls. If she didn't they had enough proof of the stuff she had done voluntrarily to get her kicked out and she'd always been to scared to stop.
Sybil cleared her throat before looking at Jacin uncomfortably, "You'll find out when you look at this sheet. It's top secret and we'll know if you tell anyone." Her voice was uptight and Cress could tell she was stressed.
"What if I say no?" Cress asked. She couldn't keep on doing this year on year and if this was to be her fresh start then she had to finally stand up for herself.
Sybil laughed and the harsh sound grated against Cress's eardrums, 'If you say no then we will make your life hell. This is a fraction of the pain compared to what we'll do to you if you don't listen to us."
"I don't care anymore," Her fingers sketched out a keyboard on her skirt nervously.
Jacin laughed and his was rich and smooth like silk or scales, "You will."
Cress bowed her head unwilling to aknowledge either of them and she felt a piece of paper land feather-light on her lap. It was cold against her hands and Cress averted her eyes again only now it was from the paper instead of the two figures in front of her. She only looked up after she heard the pitter-patter of the pair of them walking away from Cress and that cursed piece of paper.
"Whose the blonde," a voice asked acompanied by the harsh rasp of wheel against the ground.
Cress looked around before seeing the girl who had just addressed her, "Winter?"
"Can you introduce me to the blonde you were just talking to," Winter asked smiling bubbly.
Cress scoffed, "Jacin. You don't want to date him he's one of Sybil's goons."
"But he has a smile like sunshine," Winter pouted looking dreamily across the room.
"He's trouble. He and his sunshine smile will drag you down if you let it."
Cress looked across the classroom to where Jacin was standing leaning against the wall. He spotting her watching him shot her a half smile and Cress smiled tightly back. It was less sunshine and more a downpour of rain.
...
Cress felt the rain hit her face and she finally allowed herself to cry reasoning that no one would be able to make out the tears from the rain that poured down. She'd made such an effort to hold herself together throughout today but now she couldn't. This had been supposed to be her time and she'd messed it up on day one. She was such an idiot.
What had gone wrong?
Why hadn't her thoughts for how the day should of been not happened?
Why did nothing ever work out?
Cress tilted her hood on her jacket back allowing it to fall to her shoulders leaving her blonde hair uncovered. Normally she hated the rain and how it would make her hair frizz and then she'd have to spend hours washing it but Cress relished it today. There was something liberating about the rain beating down on her and washing everything off her. She could almost see everything that had happened today slide off her but she knew they hadn't completely because she was still crying.
She'd forgotten her bus pass so she had to walk home in the rain. It wasn't a long walk but it offered Cress more than enough time to be alone with her thoughts and she didn't like what she found there.
Cress continued trudging forward conscious of the tear tracks which revealed her weakness so she lifted her head so it was facing the sky and allowed the rain that was by now pelting down to obliterate any traces of her weakness. Cress bit her lip hard in order to grasp some semblance of control of the situation only to release it when she tasted the faint tinge of coppery blood.
A car rushed past her and Cress was drenched by the water which sprayed over her. This was all going so badly wrong and she wasn't even sure what she had done. She'd done everything she was supposed to do and yet nothing worked. She had survived last year by telling herself it would get better but it wasn't. What was she going to do now. Maybe her expectations had been too high and she'd thought through the day so much that it could never meet her expectations. But all she'd wanted was too fly under the radar and she didn't want to rock the boat.
She had though. Or at least whatever her actions had been they hadn't made her sufficiently inconspicious. It was all his fault. If she hadn't taken his damn motorike to school than maybe she wouldn't have ended up like this. She didn't need to be the centre of attention and she hadn't needed to make an entrance like that.
Cress shook her head abruptly. She had to stop with all of these self deprecating thoughts. She'd gone through this all already and gotten absolutely nowhere with all of it. Looking up from the street she realised that her feet had almost wandered her completely home. Grasping her bag tightly Cress started to run to her house. Her pumps slipped slightly on the wet pavement due to the lack of grip and her bag banged against back but Cress continued to run.
Finally reaching the gate Cress pushed it open hearing it bang three times behind her before she reached the door. She buzzed three times on the door impatiently hoping that someone would get to the door quickly. As much as she'd wanted to walk and be outside not five minutes ago now she just wanted to get home and tuck herself in bed with a film or the lastest installment in her favourite series.
"Relax," She heard a voice say from behind the door acompanied by ever growing louder footsteps and held back a sigh. Typical that it'd be him. It had been two days but he might as well have been living here his entire life considering the way he seemed to hang around. "Take a chill pill" Thorne said swinging the door open to see Cress who had just rung the doorbell again.
Cress glared at him.
"Ouch," Thorne said looking faux hurt and Cress lifted her chin annoyed that she had to look up to him. Why was she so short in comparison to him? "Are you okay? You're drenched." he tilted head slightly as though to appraise her from head to toe.
"That's what happens when you walk home in the rain," Cress said before pushing past Thorne into the foyer of the house.
Thorne leaned forward over Cress and fixed his eyes on her and Cress resisted the urge to squeam. His hand came out and pressed against her forehead and she squirmed under the heat of his hand which scorched her. "You're really cold Cress, are you okay?" he asked repeating his question from earlier.
Cress forced out a laugh, "I'm okay I promise. It was cold outside." She didn't believe her own words.
"Uh huh," Thorne scoffed disbelievingly. "You look as though a brisk wind would knock you over."
"Hello. Did you see the winds out there. I'm fine promise," Cress said trying to put all of her confidence into her voice. She was fine everything was fine.
Thorne rolled his eyes. "Fine then. But I'm getting you some food and a hot chocolate okay." Cress started to shake her head. "And that's non negotiable otherwise I'll tell your dad about this."
Cress frowned before nodding. Her dad would massively overact if he found out about this. As a doctor he knew exactly what any sympton could lead to and thus took any ailment incredibly seriously and would become irritatingly protective over her.
Thorne shot her a smile before heading off to the kitchen. Cress could hear him busying around the kitchen as he found the necessary ingredients and hummed a little ditty.
Cress set down her wet back pack and took off her wet rainjacket before hanging it on a hook, "You coming Cress," Thorne called from the adjourning room. "Your hot chocolate's almost ready." Cress laughed and entered the kitchen to the sound of the microwave beeping.
AN so here is the next chapter of A Gape I hope you all enjoy it. This took me a bit of time as we've been moving but I hope that you guys are all still intressted in reading this story as I'm excited about it. I hope you guys didn't think that Cress's reaction was OTT as I personally was slightly about it but I feel like at this point of the day she's just quite tired and that comes out in her reaction as she's slightly hysterical as it's been a hard day and not what she's expected and built up for. I really enjoyed both the group dynamic at the start of the chapter and the little bit of Cresswell at the end of the chapter which I squeezed in so I hope you guys did to.
Please read and review and give me any feedback that you have as fundamentally this story if for you guys as the readers.
Verity XxX