A/N: Thank you to lightbloom1, Sweet-Swan-Dreams and Aga1709 for your favorites and follows, and thank you SweetDreams for your review.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The next day I was cranky and tired when Castiel came to pick me up for school. "You look like hell." He said as I shoved past him and climbed on the back of his bike. He raised an eyebrow at me then climbed on too.
"Did Amber do something because she found out you took you're files back?" he asked.
"She tried to hack my computer last night. Nat needs to keep her on a fucking tighter leash and stop letting her get away with all this shit." I answered. Castiel shook his head.
"You shouldn't let her get to you so much. She's not worth it." Then the bike roared to life cutting off any chance of conversation until we got to school.
'It's not her that's getting to me. It's someone else, but I can't tell you that can I? No, because you'd never believe why Amber's digging is making me crazy.' I thought. We pulled into the quickly filling school parking lot and I sullenly got off the bike. I looked around and spotted the place I had been looking for. Not even glancing back to Castiel I walked over to a group of kids who were standing just off school property smoking. I dug in my backpack and pulled out a new pack of Next Blue and a lighter. I always carried around smokes with me because sometimes people asked me and I would give them one cause I'm just nice like that. I hadn't had a smoke in months, but I freaking needed one today. Especially if I had to deal with Amber, Nat and the entire track team. I nodded hi to the kids at the pit and lit up.
"I didn't know you smoked." Castiel said.
"There's a lot of things that you don't know about me. Besides I quit a while ago." I told him off-handedly.
"So why are you doing it again?" he asked.
"Because I'm going to need it today. I have a way to get Amber off my back but she may go running to Nat again. Not to mention track tryouts. Basically, if I don't have at least one right fucking now, I will end up punching someone in their fucking face." I ranted.
"It's not just Amber bugging you today is it?" he questioned. I took a drag from my cig and kept my mouth shut. He sighed angrily. "Whatever. Enjoy you're coffin nail. I'm going inside. See you at track." I watched him walk away and my heart hurt. I didn't want to leave but when Conner found out about the email he would demand that we do.
I was pissed at everything and everyone including myself. Life would be so easy if I was normal. But I had stopped wishing for that a long time ago. At least I thought I had. It was easier to run when you had someone you cared about running with you. It was even easier when you were running away from something you didn't care about.
What I should have done was gone home told Conner about the email and disappeared. Instead I ground out the smoke with my shoe and walked into school.
I was insanely quiet all day, letting myself focus on the work in each of my classes and nothing else. At lunch I ran to the plaza across from school grabbed some food, finished it on the walk back, and then hid in the library to read until lunch was over. By the end of the day all my friends had a really worried looks on their faces as they all waved goodbye. I waved back absent mindedly; forcing a reassuring smile that I was sure didn't fool any of them.
I headed to the locker room to get changed then went over to the track field. I did my normal exercises keeping my mind occupied by mentally singing every Hollywood Undead song I could remember. I was on Bullet when the coach called me over. I got into my starting position and got ready. When the coach blew the whistle I shoot off like a bullet pounding my feet so hard into the ground it was like I had a personal grudge against it. I flew past the finish line and skidded to a stop. I let out a ragged breath and looked at the coach who was staring at me in awe, along with the rest of the track team. Even Castiel was silent.
"Where did you learn to run like that?" the coach asked.
I snorted and tried to keep the irony out of my voice as I answered "I've had years of practice."
"No one has ever run the course that fast." The coach said. "You're on the team!" he announced. All the guy's jaws dropped.
"Thanks coach." I said then turned and walked away. I was almost back to the locker room when Amber stepped in my way. "Get out of my way Amber." I said flatly.
"What is so special about you?" she asked.
"Amber…" I warned.
"Why don't you just disappear? Everyone would be better off." She said flippantly. I began counting to ten in my head. Her words hit a little too close to home for me, and that pissed me off even more than normal. I took a deep breath and with deadly clam I spoke.
"I know you took my school file Amber. And I know you were digging around on the internet last night. I did a little digging of my own and I found out some very interesting things. Like personally, I didn't know that you still sleep with a teddy bear named mister cuddles." When Amber began to turn pale I allowed myself a small rush of victory. But I quickly crushed it and continued. "I found a lot more than that. There's even a very embarrassing photo of you dressed as a Care Bare at last year's comic on. As well as some more damaging information like how you blackmailed the last new girl into leaving, or when you bribed the math teacher to give you a passing grade last semester." Amber had grown more and more pale and now she was beginning to shake. Her eyes became wide with fear. "Now it would be such a shame if any of this leaked out to the general public, wouldn't you say?" I asked her.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Oh, but I would." I told her eagerly. "Of course. That doesn't have to happen."
"What do you want?" her voice cracked and she looked like she was about to cry.
"Simple. You stop digging into my past. You stay away from me. And you never breath a word of any of this to anyone." She was shaking her head in disbelief, so I continued. "Or you could run to your brother and tell him everything. But then he might find a file on his ex-girlfriend and a recording of you threatening her to leave Sweet Amours and never come back. I'm quite sure he'd be very understanding after he heard that tape."
Amber had turned such a sickly green it was almost comical. By now though we were starting to draw attention. I feigned innocence and concern. "Amber! Are you alright?" I asked loudly "we should get you to the nurses office, you don't look well." I dropped my voice so only she could hear. "Do we have a deal?"
"You're a cold-hearted bitch." She whispered.
"Do we have a deal?" I repeated my voice as cold and hard as steel.
"Yes." She croaked. Then she pushed me away from her and marched – very unsteadily – away. I took a deep breath and sighed. Suddenly Castiel was beside me.
"What the hell was that about?" he asked, looking at me suspiciously.
"Just Amber being Amber." I answered.
"Do you want me to go talk to her?" he asked glaring at her retreating back. As much fun as it would be to sick Castiel on her I figured I had just sacred the shit out of her enough for one day.
"No I don't think that she'll be bothering me for a while." I told him. He looked at me curiously for a moment then shook his head.
"So are you ever going to tell me what was really getting to you today?" he questioned bringing me up short. I bit my lip and looked at the ground.
"I want to, I really do. But it's really complicated right now and…" I trailed off not knowing how much or how little to say.
"It's ok firecracker. You… You don't have to tell me now. When you're ready to talk… I'll… be here for you… or… something like that…" he ran a hand through his hair looking frustrated with himself. I smiled. It was really sweet when Castiel tried to be nice.
"Thanks Castiel. For not pushing me. I'll… talk to you later ok?" I smiled at him weakly then turned and fled from the gym.
I walked into the house, to find Conner standing their waiting for me. "Did you take care of it?"
I nodded "For now at least. But if this threat goes stale then we may have to resort to a different tactic."
Conner looked at me with a raised brow. "If we have to resort to that we're definitely going to have to leave." He said.
"Then I'll make sure that we won't have to." I said determined.
"You're getting attached too." He sighed and shook his head. "This may be our final stand after all" he murmured under his breath. But that only strengthened my resolve. I was going to make sure that we stayed here, and stayed safe.
I felt really guilty about what I did to Amber. Even if she was the Queen of Mean, she really didn't deserve to be treated that awfully. But I couldn't have her digging around and tipping him off to where we were. It was safer for everyone like this. Or at least that's what I told myself that night as I tossed and turned on my bed, haunted by ghosts from the past and real life nightmares that were never too far away.
"She can't be trusted." Lee said.
"There's something strange about her I will admit." Lysander said slowly. "But I don't think that she's any real danger to us."
Nathaniel shot a glance at his sister. She was normally more adamant about how they should chase Lizzy the hell out of town, but she had been quiet through the entire meeting. He didn't always like his sister but he did love her. And he was worried. Ever since she had gotten home she had seemed pale and quiet.
"Amber is there something wrong?" he asked her quietly.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes at him, but he didn't miss how her hand trembled slightly. "I'm fine stop being such a worry wart." She replied.
"She's hiding something, that's for sure." Rosalya nodded. "But we're all doing the same thing to her."
"It's probably personal. And besides she's only been here for a little while. We shouldn't pry." Jade admonished.
"I'm worried about her though." Iris confided. "She's been looking really tried and today she was acting really strange."
"Maybe you should ask Amber why that is." Castiel growled menacingly. All of the eyes in the room turn to Nat's sister.
"So I was digging around on the internet! Since when is that a crime?" She yelled. Castiel glared and her and growled. Nathaniel shook his head sadly. "I was trying to find out more about her since you all are so chummy with her. Oh don't looked so shocked. It's nothing any of you haven't done before."
"Is that why you stole her school file?" Castiel lashed out. Amber cringed back. Nathaniel hated when those two started going at one another. And that had been happening more and more often lately.
"It doesn't matter because I didn't find anything. Her school file had nothing in it and when I was digging around on the internet my computer crashed on me before I could find anything." She told them calmly. Nathaniel pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Amber you can't do that." He told her straining for patience.
"Don't worry." She said quietly. "I… I won't be doing anything like that again."
Nathaniel looked at his sister. It was strange for her to back down so easily. He wanted to ask her what was wrong again but he knew she'd just brush him off again. Besides he was worried about Lizzy to. Why would she freak out if someone was trying to find out more about her? What could she be hiding that was so bad?
"I don't know but I'm about ready to find out." Melody said. It was then Nathaniel realized that he had spoken allowed.
"We can't push her." Castiel said. Lysander and Jade nodded in agreement. "If we do then she may never tell us."
"Or she'll run." Iris said.
"Then we wait." Rose said. They all nodded. But Nathaniel couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something very obvious. He shook it off.
"We wait." He agreed.