Disclaimer: All characters recognized in the Faculty movie are under copyright of Robert Rodriguez and Dimension Films.

-oOo-

Chapter 4 – Accused

The musty, clogging odour of dust and spilt disinfectant filled Casey's nostrils as he slumped against the wall of the ambulance, one arm splayed across his chest whilst his broken one cradled in the sling that had been tied around his shoulder for support. The vehicle zoomed along, now and again allowing a few unwanted bumps to annoy those in the back.

This is so embarrassing, Casey thought, that horrible voice inside of his head: that one that was unbearable to listen to, but somehow made him know it was right.

It was embarrassing.

How had one morning at school gone so wrong? All he had wanted was a typical, normal day, just like any other. A few cuts and bruises could have possibly been forgiven, perhaps a shove down one of the corridors or a tackle into the lockers.

But yet, here he was. Riding in the back of a bouncing ambulance with his arm strapped tightly to his chest so it was almost impossible to move, with more pain vibrating through his body than three months of a semester put together.

He could still remember Nurse Harper's reaction after he had limped into her office for the second time that morning:

"Oh, my God!" Her exclamation echoed around the white walls and they flew back at Casey, slapping him in his stinging face. "Casey, what happened now!"

Casey opened his mouth, but no words came out. "I..."

"He had a bit of an accident," explained Grace's voice, drifting gently through the tense atmosphere. "He fell down the bleachers, and..." She winced and gestured towards the shattered wrist.

Casey closed his eyes and waited for the reaction. He wanted to sink into the ground with the worms and die.

"Jesus...Casey!" she snapped, her voice harsh and tinkled with concern. "What have you done to it?"

Casey sighed. He hung his head even further so it teetered on his shoulders. He felt a soft blush creep across his face, and a pain so sickening hit his stomach, he was sure he was going to vomit. Instead, he heard a few of his own words answering back, although he was sure his lips never moved. However, they were a little numb.

"Broken," he whispered simply. "I think."

"You think?" she replied dryly, an eyebrow disappearing into her dark hair. "Casey, that's definitely a break – I'm gonna have to call the hospital – "

"What?" Panic froze in his throat; his head snapped up.

She stared at him for a short while, confusion playing across her face. "Yes, call the hospital. We need to get that treated right away – you can't go around all day with a broken wrist!"

Casey fumbled on his feet, his hobble supported by the shoulder of Grace under his good arm. "You...you don't have to call my parents, do you?" he asked rather hopefully, clenching his teeth in prayer.

"Of course I do," she replied. "They have to be informed of this and sign the forms for you – "

"No!" Casey burst in frantically, his eyes widening. "No, please don't tell them – they can't know about this!"

Grace frowned. "Casey?"

However, the implied opening for a response left nothing. Casey merely scoffed out a sigh and turned his head away from the enquiring faces. An expression of irritation and desolation clouded his eyes.

"You wouldn't understand."

Yet, now, throughout all of the beeping and whooshing brushes of air that swept by from passing cars, Casey couldn't help feeling the silence present in the small backspace of the vehicle. It was almost like a gentle, irritating hum, which remained in the head, and seemed to grow stronger the more that he tried to take his mind away from it.

"What wouldn't I understand?" the question asked quietly, causing Casey to glance up.

He stared into the face of Grace, her dark hair rippling against her chin and her eyes boring into his; searching, imploring. She tilted her head a little to one side, attempting to search for answers.

Casey looked away. "Nothing."

Why was she here, anyway? Why had she volunteered to come to the hospital with him? At the moment, Casey wasn't sure whether he wanted her to be sitting next to him, with her arm around him for support, or splayed flat out on the kerb in a bloody heap after he had thrown her headfirst through the window. After all, wasn't it her who had caused him to slip in the hallway? And hadn't she caused him to fall down those bleachers?

What is her deal, anyway? he thought suspiciously, eyeing her through squinted slits. Is she trying to kill me, or something? The way things with her are going, we'll hit a fucking truck and be blown all the way to Madagascar.

"Why did you come with me?" he asked her, finally glancing back up at her again, his back leaning against the side and looking glum.

She clicked her tongue and rolled her chocolate eyes. "Chill out," she teased. "You're always on the guarded level, you are." She picked at her painted nails and continued: "Why do you always think badly of people all the time?"

She reminded Casey of a court prosecutor. Her voice was cold and calm.

Casey frowned a little, trying not to shudder inside. "You didn't answer the question." His sapphire eyes buried themselves into her soul, prying into her to find a response.

She smirked, lacing her fingers together. "You're not gonna stop asking until you get an answer, huh?"

He raised his eyebrows, rather sceptically.

"All right," she murmured, defeated. She untied her knots for fingers and set them in her lap, crossing one leg over the other with a reluctant grimace. She gazed at him, her dark eyes deadly serious. "If you really must know, I came here to give you some support. It was practically my fault anyway, right?"

Yes.

That's what he really wanted to say. Instead, he just shrugged in boredom.

"Besides," she continued, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "No one likes going to the hospital. It's got all of those needles...and gross smells, and bloody bodies – "

"Yeah, I know," Casey cut in, shooting arrows from his stare. "Thanks."

She glared at the sharpness in his tone, and at the way he seemed to be giving her the cold shoulder all of a sudden. "Yeah, well," she started again, venom sprouting from her tongue and infecting the words. "Like I said, I'm just trying to help you."

He rolled his eyes. He had only done it for a split second, and hadn't thought that she would notice. Nevertheless, she did.

"What?" she snarled.

Shit. She would have to be one of those eagle-eyed girls who just notice everything.

He jerked his head to stare at her fuming face and responded with a confused frown. "Hmm?"

"Oh, don't act the innocent, smartass," she spat, crossing her arms tightly across her chest, her eyebrows sinking into her cheeks. "I saw what you did – don't play dumb."

He shrugged again, keeping his attention on the whizzing cars that were passing by outside. "I didn't do anything," he muttered, in a quiet, distant voice.

"You fucking liar."

He flinched at the danger that twinkled on the edges of the painful accusation, cutting and slicing his skin deep like sharp knives. He attempted to brush it off by answering; but instead he obeyed his brain and continued to gaze out of the window.

"I'm not lying."

She scoffed and threw her hands up into the air dramatically. "There he goes again."

It was almost as if she were speaking to someone who wasn't there, and that hurt Casey a little. Of course, he was used to that – the ignorance of heartless people – but not when he was the only one with her.

"What did I do?" he questioned in a small voice, tilting his head up and trying to frown, but instead allowing it to look like an agonising scowl.

A sinister smile played over her smooth face, reminding Casey of those pre-school teaching assistants. They always seemed to grin at the children and show pearly whites, when everyone really knew that they were exposing vampire fangs, ready to render the little mites into forty pieces.

"L – i – i – i – e – e – e – d – d – dah!" she droned out in one, long, slow word, as if she were describing it to someone of the mentally insane, or a person with the I.Q of three.

He made a disgusted face at her and turned away again, his nose slightly screwed up in place. "Right," he mumbled sarcastically.

"Why the fuck did you roll your eyes?" she blurted out, her tone icy.

"No reason."

"Bullshit."

A firm, murderous gleam outlined his pupils as he glowered at her. They flickered with embers. "It doesn't matter what I do or say – you're always gonna comment on it."

"Phft," she scoffed rudely, casually tossing a hand over her shoulder as if she were washing herself clean of the whole conversation. "I'm not that bored."

Silence followed.

However, it didn't last long. From her direction, Grace sighed exasperatedly and spun around to face the pouting teenager. "Look," she started, rolling her dark eyes. "I didn't mean it, okay? It's just...I feel like you're angry at me, for some reason."

Casey shrugged, his voice flat. "I'm not angry at you." He kept his gaze to the wall.

"Then why won't you look at me?"

No, Casey thought to himself, his whole body going rigid. I can't let her look at me. She'll search my face...my eyes for answers, and I – I can't let her see them! I can't let anyone see them...or me...

He stared at his bandaged wrist again, playing with a loose shred of gauze that flapped by the edge. He didn't answer. He couldn't. What could he say that would make any sense at all? She was sitting there, waiting for a response that he couldn't give.

Afraid of what she'll think, huh?

Casey groaned. That guilty voice of his was back. The voice that spoke his true thoughts, and based itself on realism. He closed his eyes in an attempt to block it out, but it was too clever.

Damn consciences.

Talk to her. Look at her in the face, you puss.

"No," the boy growled, crossing his skinny arm over the other and slumping against the side of the ambulance, his sneakers rooting themselves into the ground.

She's just a girl, no need to be so fucking afraid. Just talk to her, already! She's apologising.

"I don't want to," Casey grumbled back in reply, pinching his eyes tightly together, plunging his mind into complete darkness, cutting away his guilty threads. Perhaps this would teach it a lesson.

"Well, fine," came a poisonous reply from in front of him; the words tipped with frustration. "Don't look at me then – just be fucking miserable."

Huh? Casey snapped his eyes open, revealing sight towards the fuming expression opposite, staring out of the window with her arms folded as tight as an envelope across her chest.

And then he remembered what he had said.

"I just feel like you're angry at me, for some reason."

"I'm not angry at you."

"Then why won't you look at me?"

"No, I don't want to."

"I didn't mean that," he quickly blurted out, as if the answer had been electrocuted out of him. "I didn't mean to make you mad, I just – I..." but, as usual, whenever he tried to explain this ridiculous problem of his, it deleted itself into nothing.

Grace turned towards him, alarmed by his outburst, and curious by his unorthodox apology. If it was an apology. She frowned, wondering whether to feel comforted or more worried.

The ambulance ran over a bump in the road and they were knocked slightly into the air for a moment. Casey's wrist made an involuntary jerk and he grunted in pain.

"Almost there now, kids," called back the driver in a cheery voice, hearing the sharp wince escaping through Casey's teeth. "Just a few more blocks."

"Let's fucking hope so," muttered Casey quietly under his breath, balancing himself in the seat again and attempting to avoid the icy beams that were coming from Grace's glare.

Kill me now.

-oOo-

"Uck," Grace murmured, recoiling in disgust from the pungent odour of rubber escaping from the mint green walls. "Sick...fuckin' hate these places." She moved closer to Casey's side, screwing her nose up.

"You get used to the smell," said Casey dryly. "It's just like the nurse's bay in school."

They continued on past, following the nurse who was leading them to the x-ray facilities. The cold floor-tiles delivered clomping replies back to their ears, smelling of too much disinfectant. Casey wondered if it was strong enough to burn through his shoes. The smell burnt his nostrils and he choked back a retch.

His eyes fell across the emergency wards as they passed, filled to the brim with first aid kits, morphine drips and beds of all sizes, carrying the weight of invalids from a huge range of ages. Nurses were speaking to a few, and one was attempting to comfort a young girl of around seven years old who had burst into tears.

Grace turned away. "The smell's not the only reason why I hate these places."

"Yeah," Casey mumbled awkwardly. He didn't know how else he could reply to that statement. He stared down at his wrapped arm again, blood seeping through beneath the first thick layer of bandage. The pain returned again for a moment, and he clenched his teeth against it with a hiss.

It's her fucking fault I'm here in the first place, he grumbled to himself. If she didn't want to come here, she should have just left me alone.

However, at that moment, a sharp jolt of panic rushed through his veins as they passed one of the Emergency facilities. A display of needles, small surgery knives and other sharp objects lay inside, glimmering faintly in the dim hallway light.

His brain acted immediately and he glanced away with a small gasp, his eyes bulging. "Shit – "

"Are you okay?" came Grace's calm voice, poking his shoulder and blinking at the sight of his paling face. "You look like you're about to be sick – "

"Oh, Goddd..." Casey's groans alerted the nurse's attention in front of them, and she turned suspiciously, her sharp eyes landing on the boy.

"Feeling all right?" she asked kindly, concerned at his panic.

Casey swallowed bile. He brought his fingers up to his mouth and began to feast on the nails nervously, his breathing ragged. "Fuck...fuck...fuck..."

He was beginning to attract attention. Some of the patients in the ward darted exhausted eyes towards the traumatised boy, who was walking at such a nervous, rapid pace that he almost collided into their guide.

Grace almost slipped on the waxed floor in an effort to catch up with him. "What is with you?" she laughed, softly amused. She tossed back her mahogany locks and touched his shoulder for encouragement. "You're only gonna need an x-ray, nothing like those things. Everything's gonna be – "

"Don't fucking touch me!" suddenly screamed Casey, in such a cold fury that it set the little girl off into piteous wails and howls once again. He shrugged away her hand from his shoulder violently and stepped away from her, glaring dangerously back at her with his eyes burning.

Grace blinked. "Wha – ?"

"It's your fucking fault I'm here in the first place!" yelled Casey, his voice louder as it carried itself across the corridor. His rage blazed behind his eyes and cindered into hers. He didn't care about her seeing them – perhaps it was about time that she did.

She needs to know all of the shit I have to put up with! All of the shit like her!

"Casey, shut the hell up!" she whispered harshly, aware of all of the eyes that were focusing on their spat, and all of the hospital staff who were looking down their noses at such appalling language.

"I shouldn't be here!" Casey wailed angrily, clenching his fists at his sides, filled with a fiery courage he was completely surprising himself. His head felt light, as if he were watching this event from a third person's view. This wasn't him. It couldn't be.

"You've got to have it checked out, moron," said Grace reasonably, although her words cut.

"But I wouldn't have to have it checked out if it wasn't for you!" he spat back nastily, moving at an even quicker pace, attempting to put as much space between the two of them as possible. "I sprained this fucker because of you, and I fell down the bleachers 'cos you wouldn't leave me the hell alone!"

"Who are you trying to kid, you little shit!" barked Grace spitefully, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around to stare into the naked blue flames flickering in his face. "Don't you dare blame all of this on me!"

"Who else is there!" growled the boy, gritting his teeth together, at that moment looking quite murderous. His hands clenched tighter, his nails slicing his palms.

A long, uncomfortable silence followed. Grace still had the furious boy's shirt gripped in her shaking fist, lifting him towards her so that their noses were almost touching. It looked like a headlong battle from their profiles. Grace's bright copper eyes moulded into the enraging sapphire flames of his, causing a complete meltdown of their senses. And once again, Grace could see the hidden messages hiding there, dancing in the fire:

Fuck you, bitch!

Go to hell!

You don't know the shit I've been through! Why should you care about me?

Leave me the hell alone!

Stupid bitch.

For a moment, she stood there, flabbergasted. She released his shirt slowly, stepping back a few steps, as if he were a rabid animal, ready to attack. Her rage cooled, and instead let herself fall prey to those hell-fire eyes, that inflicted such pain when intended.

"I wish I'd never met you," Casey choked bitterly, continuing to stare into her surprised face without blinking.

Grace suddenly felt very unusual and cold. Those words...they really hurt her, deep inside. She hadn't wanted this. She thought that they could have perhaps have been friends. He certainly looked as if he needed one – and she wanted to help him. But now...it was clear why that he didn't.

He doesn't trust anyone, she realised. He doesn't let anyone get close enough, and when they do, he prevents it from happening. He's like a bomb, always ready to go off, but not waiting until people get close enough before telling them.

"Me too," she whispered reluctantly.

And some part of her meant it.