"So you're the guy that died and came back to life, eh?" Steven turned around at the sound of the girl' voice. "For the record, I didn't die, I just-..." He heard the girl gasp as they locked eyes. Steven felt like he'd seen this girl before like they were old friends. But in his sixteen years of life, he had never seen her before. Steven guessed that the girl was thinking the same thing since she gasped. "-disappeared" he said, continuing his sentence. The girl shook her head and replied " Robyn Freedman", she had a smug look on her face as she stuck out her hand. Steven shook her hand, as weird as it was. Ryan and Harani were sitting on the bench next to Steven, talking discreetly, before Ryan finally turned around "Oh hey, popular girl".
Robyn's cheeks turned a bright shade of red, "It's Robyn".
It was lunch. Ryan drew a smiley face in his mashed potatoes with his finger, " Yeah, I think i'll just call you popular girl". He scooped up some mashed potatoes with his finger and ate it. "Whatever, so Steven... where exactly were you all those months? I mean I wasn't there and I know I shouldn't pry... , but i'm just curious." Tamara leaned on the table and looked at Steven. Ryan and Harani patiently waited for an answer, "Yeah, you never actually told us where you went."
He was about to say something when he remembered what Jasmine had told him on the day Steven got his powers, the Convergence, "You can't tell them about this, Nothing about the Zodiac, Maxwell, or Vanguard. If you did, you'd be putting them in great danger, it's better if they didn't know what you can do". "Um, I don't really remember most of it..." He said, hating himself for having to lie to his best friends. "Are you sure? You can't remember one single thing?", Robyn leaned in farther into the table, casting a shadow across the cheap plastic styrofoam plates filled with mediocre food. Okay, Robyn was getting on Steven's last could almost hear the Tiger roar, begging to be let out. Steven was so tempted to tell Robyn off, but he held back. It took him a lot of strength to get the Tiger in him to calm down."Robyn, if Steven says he doesn't remember, he doesn't remember", Harani replied, defending Steven. "Whatever", Robyn walked away from the table.
Another guy came up to the table, "Hey, Ryan. Wanna sit with us instead of these losers?" He gestured to a table in front of them where 5 other guys sat, laughing. When Ryan started 10th grade, he'd been the most popular guy in school. In 9th, everybody thought he was a complete nerd. He had big, thick glasses; his hairstyle was not the best; and he had braces.
But that summer, Ryan actually got contacts, got a new hairstyle that suited him better and his braces got taken off. Ryan also found out that he was a natural athlete, he was just never picked for teams. He could have hung out with the popular kids, but Ryan got branded a loser the day he started hanging out with the weirdest kid in the 9th grade, Steven. Ryan almost looked like he was going to accept when he said, "Um, these losers are my friends and no".
"Suit yourself...loser", the guy murmured as the table started to laugh again. "Anyway, have you heard of Zodiac?", Harani asked, braiding a piece of her hair. Steven almost choked on his food at the sound of that, "Um, no, what is it?". Steven could barely keep from laughing. "Seriously, dude? In the week you've been back, i'm surprised you of all people don't know who they are", Ryan said, while Steven just shrugged. "Ugh, okay. They're this group of superheroes who save the world and stuff. And they are all freakin' awesome. The weird thing though, if you see them fighting in person you can see the silhouettes of kids. But when people try catching them on camera, all that shows up is a tiger, a goat or something, a bunny, a chicken, and a dragon. It's so weird, but it's so cool".
Hey, at least he got mine right, Steven thought. "And at every place they fight, they spray paint the words "We are Zodiac" onto the ground." Harani continued. You can thank Roxanne for that little touch. "Personally, I kind of think that they have something to do with the chinese zodiac since on camera they show up as a tiger, ram, rabbit, rooster, and a dragon. And their team name is Zodiac. So it obviously makes sense ", Harani replied, twirling a pen in her hand. Of course, she would figure it out, Steven thought, I just hope she doesn't find out about me.
Harani was sitting at a table in the school's library. She took her phone out of her bag and pressed play on a video. She held the phone up close to her face so she could see the video better. Harani saw Steven, his fists clenched, his face expressing pure anger. Another kid stood across from Steven, his arms crossed, Stupid Brian, Harani thought. That guy had been bullying Steven since 4th grade, "So how's about you just go back to wherever you went missing from-". She heard a deep growling sound come through the phone, people at the nearby tables turned their heads up and looked at Harani.
"What are you looking at? Can't a girl watch a video?"
She said to the onlookers, who stopped looking and began reading again. Harani continued to watch the video, gasping as she stared back at the screen. She blinked her eyes for a few seconds, hoping that what she'd seen was just an illusion. For a split second, Harani thought she saw... No way, It can't be... She thought, rewinding the video back to a second before Steven had growled. As soon as Harani heard the growl, her eyes widened. She covered her hand over her mouth. "Oh god ".
"First of all, I'm very mad at you. It's my free period. And I don't really want to spend my free period at the librar-" Harani dragged Ryan through the library as he complained about how he usually spent his free period playing soccer on the field outside. "Second of all, I-", Harani turned to Ryan and put a hand over his mouth. "Come on. You need to see this... You're never going to believe what I found". She walked over to a table in the library and sat down. There was a laptop on the table, on it was the video of Steven's fight. Harani pressed play and took her hand off Ryan's mouth. Ryan watched the video with Harani. When it ended, he said "So? If you were trying to prove to me that Steven actually did growl, you didn't have to do thi-".
"Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Wait till I play it in slo-mo."
Harani interjected, rewinding the video to a few moments before Steven growled, then changing the video to slow motion. "Watch this." She pressed play on the video. Ryan's blinked his eyes as he heard Steven growl. Oh Holy- It can't be real, can it? Ryan thought, his eyes growing wide at the video. "No way, this is real... Someone could have done something to it" ."This came directly from Amy's phone. And honestly I don't think she's smart enough to mess with a video and make it look this real", Harani said to Ryan, with a look of shock on his face.
"So what do we do?", Ryan crossed his arms and leaned back on a wall. "I don't think we do anything, this could only mean two things...", Harani paused the video and stared at the video, looking at Steven's face, then looking at Ryan, "What?". "Either Steven's not telling us something... or we're both going insane", Harani closed the laptop and placed it in her bag. She stood up from her chair and left the library, closing the doors behind her. Ryan just stood there, in a daze. He couldn't stop replaying the video in his mind. Steven growled, then for just a split second, he was replaced with a fierce roaring tiger.
