Chapter 4: Consequence

10:02 hours

Dash's POV

It was only minutes after 911 was called that an ambulance showed up on school property, and behind it were two flashing police cruisers which at the time, didn't send any sort of chill down my spine. I finally managed to shake off my numb mind and walk from the scene of the fight, and I walked outside to watch Fenton get carried out of the school on a stretcher. In the parking lot, I could see his folks in their stupid looking van and I could see his sister rushing into the driver's seat of her car, reluctant to follow the ambulance to check on her little brother while Sam and Tucker climbed in the back seats. As I walked outside, Barry, Mike and Paulina caught up with me at the doors, all of them with scared expressions on their faces. My face? I couldn't tell what expression it had. Running from the ambulance, Kwan caught up with me at the same time. But out of all the expressions on my friends faces, his was the most scared looking.

I sighed. "So, what's wrong with Fenton?"

Suddenly, Kwan raised his hands up at me frustratedly.

"Are you seriously asking me that right now?" He snapped. "Danny's really hurt, dude! His head is swelled up really badly where you hit him, and he's not responding at all. The guy in the ambulance said he might have severe head trauma." Barry and Mike looked at me uneasily.

"Dude, you really screwed up this time..." Mike said with shock. "If Fenton's going to the hospital, I guess their goes our quarterback..."

"And our chances at the high school football title..." Kwan sighed. Suddenly, Paulina looked up at me with fear, trying not to get too upset with me considering that I was still processing what had just happened.

"Dash, please tell me you didn't just make the biggest mistake in your life." She winced. "I really hope that Danny's going to be alright. I might not really care what happens now, but you better hope he's not seriously injured." I sighed uneasily at her, still feeling slightly numb in my head.

"I don't know what just happened..." I muttered, realizing that this was all starting to set in. "I just, lost it on him! He deserved a hit to the face, but..." Paulina suddenly slapped me right across the face. I lifted my hand up to feel my cheek, which didn't even sting. But the emotional pain that ignited that hit was clearly visible in Paulina's eyes.

"Nobody deserves to get hit but you!" She snapped. "I understand that you really don't like him, and that you two have your pasts, but seriously! You could wind up getting expelled if he's not okay!"

As Paulina's words registered into my head, suddenly my feelings of rage, numbness and fury were replaced with some more sickening feelings, Guilt, sadness and panic. I felt my heart sink into my feet as my friends glanced hopelessly at me. I felt my stomach start to turn anxiously. Barry grabbed me by my shoulder to try and get me to talk again.

"Dude, it's alright." He coaxed. "It's probably no big deal. He'll wake up, just watch!" As Barry stopped, I felt something instantly return from inside that I thought disappeared from me. My anger. I ripped Barry's hand away and glared at him.

"Don't you touch me!" I grunted, getting his hand off of me. "If I didn't listen to you, I wouldn't be in this mess right now! Look what you made me do, dude! I'm now in huge trouble because of you!" Barry suddenly became offensive with me.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who was stupid enough to actually do it!" He sneered. "If you should be blaming anybody for this mess, it should be yourself! I never hit him!"

"But it was your idea!" I shouted back. Barry quickly got in my face aggressively.

"Yeah, but I didn't act out my own ideas!" He scowled. "I was just teasing you, bro. Now look what happened! You can't blame me for this! I was only trying to get on your nerves to bug you! I was kidding around." I growled at him with frustration.

"You think this is funny, you idiot?!" I yelled again. "You think this is some kind of joke now?! How's this for a joke!" Suddenly, Barry and I raised our hands up to one another.

Before the two of us wound up getting into it, Kwan jumped between us and held us back from each other. Our arguing over this suddenly caught the attention of somebody I really was hoping wouldn't figure out who did this. From the ambulance which took off out of the parking lot, Lancer glanced at us as Kwan muscled his way in between me and Barry. Raising an eyebrow, he walked towards us with a stern look on his face. He looked at us, furiously.

"Mr. Baxter and Mr. Thompson!" He growled. "Stop trying to rip each other's throats out, please! What just happened was a serious medical emergency and now I need to know who is responsible for this! Mr. Fenton is in an undetermined state right now. And I have a feeling that one of you meatheads at the scene was the cause of it!" I felt my eyes widen, but I once again was petrified to move another step. Lancer sighed. "I want all of you but Paulina in my office right now! Kwan, you're coming too. I know that I can't just go around blaming you people for what's happened, but you are the only witnesses and suspects I have for right now. Until I get some answers, you kids are both the culprits as well as victims."

My crew looked at Lancer with uncertainty. Immediately Paulina walked along, but the four of us were glared at and dragged by the backs of our jackets down to Satan's chamber, also known as Lancer's office. At the time, I didn't feel the numbness completely go away and hide behind my fear and panic. I just watched Fenton when he was on the ground like he was just air floating past my face, emotionlessly. I didn't feel like I'd done anything wrong, but I knew I did. The guilt was beginning to settle in slowly, but the guilt was blocked by a certain, uncertainess. Lancer had me and Barry by our collars, pulling us towards his room hoping we'd spill about what happened. Just as Lancer pulled us in front of his office doors, I felt that void of numbness instantly fade away.

This was when the guilt finally clicked.

"You four boys are going to be in a lot of trouble if I don't get to the bottom of this mess..." Lancer groaned as he grabbed and twisted the door knob on his office door, pushing the heavy door open. I felt my legs freeze up again, or at least they tried to. Lancer pulled me aggressively into the room and pointed a set of chairs in front of his desk. "May you gentlemen have a seat? Now!"

Barry and my boys looked at me with weird glances as they sat in front of Lancer and I stayed still standing behind them. An empty seat in front of Lancer's desk where I was supposed to sit just stayed empty as I refused to move another step. Lancer didn't care. He merely sat hoping to get his answers, and he didn't care whether one of us was being an idiot by refusing to take his seat. He placed his hands on the table in somewhat of a Burns fashion, curling his fingers and he glanced at us with his head slightly tilted downwards. Creepy...

"I don't understand something about this mornings little, unfortunate and completely undaunting affair." He said sternly, looking at me impatiently because I only understood the first three words of what he'd said. "You four jocks were supposed to be in my english class at the time of this incident. And yet, none of you bothered to show up at all. How about an explanation, boys?" Kwan nervously pulled his jacket sleeve as Barry and Mike glanced at him for some kind of answer. Kwan took a deep breath.

"We, we, were headed there sir." He stuttered. "Football practice dragged on this morning and, we just came back from the field." Lancer suddenly put a finger to the soul patch on his chin as Kwan stopped speaking. He raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't look at him at all.

"I see you seem to have some kind of, stuttering issue, Mr. Smith?" He growled. "I've never see you stutter before. So, why start now? Is it because you might be hiding something from me? Something that you'd like to share?" Kwan's face started turning red. I looked at Kwan using only my eyes, not wanting to move my neck in case I just freaked out. Kwan swallowed.

"N,no sir." He muttered. This time, Lancer looked up at him and smiled.

"So, you would not like to share anything you might be hiding?" He sneered. Kwan's face suddenly became worried looking. In a second, he shook it off.

"I'm not hiding anything." He said with a deep voice. Lancer glared at us menacingly. His stare usually sent a bad feeling down into your stomach, but this was just overkill. His eyes were just painful to look at. But I'm guessing that he could say the same thing about me. I felt like I was puppy eyed.

He smirked. "You're not hiding anything, Kwan? That's funny. You sure don't stutter or turn red on any other occassion when you're talking to me. What makes this conversation so different? Is there something you'd like to talk about? Get off of your chest?" Instantly, my heart sank again. Kwan looked like he was about to completely break open. Barry and Mike were terrified, Kwan looked like he was dramatized, and I was paralyzed from doing anything but stand there like an idiot hoping that my best friend wasn't about to let everything out. Kwan breathed calmly.

"What's there for me to hide, sir?" He suddenly said quirked which made me sigh with relief. "I was with Danny, remember? The boys went off to find you and Dash stayed with me to help. I'm not hiding anything." I felt my heart pull itself back up. Even though I was scared he'd blow it, I knew my best friend would never let me just go down like this. But looking at Lancer, he didn't look convinced at all by Kwan's story. Well, some of it was true. Just, not the parts he didn't see.

"Hmph, we'll see who isn't hiding anything." Lancer sneered. "I'm going to pick you four clean. By the time I talk with you individually, I guarantee I'll find what I'm looking for." Suddenly, he looked right at me.

"Even if I have to tear your little heart apart, ligament by ligament."

With that said, I found my freezing up was slowly disappearing. I finally gained enough movement to speak again, but I hesitated.

"Well, h, how can you be so sure we did this?" I asked unsurely. "Their's about five hundred kids in this dinkwater school. How can you be so sure one of us is who's responsible?" I felt myself freeze up again as Lancer kept his eyes glued on mine. He had an angry looking glare as he stared me down for a few seconds, but he kept his tone strict as usual.

"I've been in this business longer than most teachers, Mr. Baxter." He scowled. "I can read students like twelve hundred paged novels. They're complex. They're well brought up. But they're incredibly predictable and they all seem to drag on truths until the very end. You read a book to figure out what happens. But, do you know how to skip all the reading so you can just see what truth the character was looking for? Do you?" I blinked at him unsurely, only catching about half of what he'd just said. He sighed.

"You get the book to open up. Then, you merely miss the explanations and read the final chapter. You don't need to explain yourselves for me to just read right through you. I know you all seem to carry some kind of, weight on your shoulders from this morning. Kwan, you're dramatized from helping out, which I thank you for. But why the three of you seem like you're dramatized or scared is beyond me. I never saw you two around when me and Kwan were helping Mr. Fenton. And Dash, you just stood zoned out behind us like you were lost in translation. Danny was on the ground, and you just stood watching him like he was a highliter on a black floor." Lancer crossed his arms.

Instantly, the four of us went dead silent. Lancer sat waiting, but an answer wasn't coming anytime soon from any one of us. I was internally freaking out with guilt, but I tried to stay calm. Kwan was out of stories. And dumb and dumber just sat there hoping Lancer would just let us all go back to our normal lives. Lancer suddenly stood up and sighed again, shaking his head back and forth which made my stomach turn with each movement.

"The silent treatment doesn't work with me, boys." He muttered. "If you're not going to give me information standing side by side, maybe seperating you from your little companions will let the truth flow out. But until I get what I'm asking for...

You boys aren't going anywhere..."

Please, Read and Review! Chapter 5 is up as well so please keep reading!