Chapter 20:

Cammie POV:

I was staring intensely into his eyes. His heavy breathing was making it evident that he was struggling to contain his anger, it seemed to be coming off of him in waves. His did neither, without another glance my way he shoved past Josh with one of his broad fist were clenched so hard that his knuckles were turning white. You could feel the tension in the air. I could sense he was silently debating with himself whether he was going to listen to me or if he was going to punch the shit out of Jimmy. In the end he shoved Josh by the shoulders and sent him a glare which would have him buried him six feet under.

I watched his retreating figure and without another word, I chased after him back into school.

"Zach!" I called out urgently wanting to make sure he was okay but there was no reply.

I was running around the school like a maniac trying to find him, that got me a few strange looks from people walking by, people who obviously had nothing better to do than to stick their abnormally large noses in other people's business. I finally found him as I rounded the next corner. He looked like he was about to kill someone else.

"Zach! Are you okay?" I asked him

I noticed he jumped slightly at the sound of my voice.

"Gallagher Girl, just leave me for a bit to calm down. I don't want to hurt you when I'm like this"

"When you're like what?"

He shoved a hand through his thick hair before replying, "When I'm too pent up and have no control over my actions, that's what Jimmy does to me, he makes me see fucking red."

I gulped, I knew he was mad but I didn't think he was that mad. I just stared at him helplessly. I had no idea what to do.

"Don't worry about me Gallagher Girl, I'll be fine. I just need time to calm down." He said and I would have been more reluctant to believe him if his fists weren't clenched tightly.

All I could do was nod. He smiled at me but it didn't meet his eyes. I smiled back at him then turned and left. To be honest he was handling that much better than I thought...

CRASH!

Or not. What the hell was that?

I looked back round to see Zach quickly retreat down the corridor a metal locker door now dented and hanging on the hinge. Jesus christ what a hit… I felt sorry for the poor sucker who was now in a position of vulnerability as he or she could get robbed at any minute.

The bell rang shortly afterwards. I quickly ran to my perfectly intact locker to collect my books then made my way to English.

Anyone who has ever read The Crucible. I know how much pain you have suffered. And for those who haven't, stay away! Finally what felt like forever the bell finally rang indicating that the lesson was over. As usual I started to head back to my locker with Bex, thankfully I had someone that I shared that dreaded class with. However, on the way back we encountered a sight that left us visually raped. Jimmy and Tina were making out by the locker that just so happened to be the one that Zach had let all his anger out on. You can tell that they were getting quite into it as Josh slammed Tina up against the locker, I felt sorry for the locker more than anything.

Little did they know that the locker was already loose and was not in the condition to have sluts pushed up against it. Which lead to the metal door completely unhinging itself and falling onto Tina and Josh and just missed decapitating them, which was a great shame.

There was a few seconds of silence until Tina let out a drama queen high pitched scream. Well, that just burst my eardrums. I didn't realise my eyes were closed until opened my eyes and saw Tina sprawled out on the floor, the locker door not too far behind her. Damn, I hoped the door was alright. Josh being the courteous gentlemen that he is, did not help Tina up from the floor. But what really pissed me off was that, at that exact moment Zach, Grant, Jonas and Preston were returning from their classes and Tina made sure to use Zach as leverage to help herself up making sure to brush the length of her body against his.

Then something inside me just snapped. I was really tempted to go up to Tina and punch the flirtatious smile off of her face. The only thing that stopped was the look of pure disgust on Zach's face.

Of course Bex had other ideas as she was already storming up to Tina. This should be good. I edged closer to Zach, Tina and Bex and even caught some of Tina's "flirting" techniques. She was trying to innocently bash her eyelashes but ended up looking like she had a fucking twitch.

"Do you have a fucking twitch Tina?" Zach said venomously. I couldn't help the smug smile that crept onto my face and I felt it go full on, high-voltage smile when I saw Tina back down. Zach just kept walking forwards, forwards to me! Out of the corner of my eyes, which were still primarily on Zach, I noticed Bex had already came to a halt in front of Tina and she did not hesitate to raise her hand and downright smack her across the face. The impact of her hand on Tina's face was so hard that the sound caused silence amongst everyone.

Tina recovered quicker than I thought and it took everything for me to not stop and laugh at the unmistakably red hand print covering the entire right side of her face, and to practically run up to Bex to defend her instead-not that she wasn't capable, but it was my fight. It seemed like something out of action film, Tina ready to strike and me intercepting her hit onto Bex by grabbing her wrist and twisting it causing her to cry out as I trapped it behind her back- my parents hadn't taught me self defence for nothing.

Having a full on fight in the middle of my school corridor was not on my bucket list so I tried my best to keep it with only self defence as my intention but Tina was making it really hard with her constant supposedly hurtful comments. Could she not see that it was I who had the upper hand in the situation? Calling me a bitch or a slut was not going to improve her situation, but I had to say it was extremely funny watching her curse like that and to me of all people, I was biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from laughing maniacally.

"You think you're such a goody little two shoes, don't you?" She sneered at me, "but you're really just a pitiful slut."

And I couldn't help it, I snorted with laughter. Someone who failed to see the funny side of it was Zach though, he was fuming and I couldn't help but slightly smile at how caring he was of me, protective but not patronising or too much because he knew what I was capable of and he respected that. And whilst I didn't really expect him to hurt Tina physically unless in self defence like myself, I wished Tina would shut her mouth for once if she wanted to live a day because I doubted the grasp Grant, Jonas and Preston had on Zach was going to last much longer. Looking around I saw Macey and Liz looking at me with awe and Bex pure pride, she mouthed "I could have sorted it" at me but I just shook my head.

I must have let myself become distracted because Tina (somehow) managed to rid herself off my grip and continued her exhausting recount of what she thought I was. It was becoming far too pathetic, I mean, she had already said bitch and slut around five times now. The girl really didn't have many brain cells or an extensive vocabulary...

I tried to keep my face passive but I was grinning before I could stop myself. Tina, unimpressed proceeded to land a feeble slap onto my face. My eyes weren't watering and my face felt more tickilish than anything. Slowly drawing my face back up I locked my eyes with my friends to reassure them I was completely unharmed and then at Zach who seemed to calm down at my look and this time, I was the one to smirk at him first. But of course he was not to be outdone as he crossed his strong arms and and smirked right back of me. It was oddly silent excluding Tina's excessive breathing and that did it. I released one of those laughs that doubled you over and made you want to stop, but still never stop. Shortly after I started I heard an eruption from the corridor, most of the witnesses had started laughing too.

Tina looked stunned and furious all in one; her eyes narrowed as she glared at me, her mouth tight. I did my best to keep my voice levelled as I said, "Was that supposed to hurt?"

Tina didn't find what I said even remotely funny and I'm just glad that I sobered up enough to see her try and land another slap on me. I easily blocked it and making sure my thumb was not tucked into my fist I punched her right across the face and I was able to get pleasure from seeing her on the floor, clutching her face where I had only seconds ago hit. She shouldn't have provoked me so I was in the right with my self defence and almost everyone else seemed to believe so as Bex lead them into a cheer. Zach was instantly by my side bringing me into a hug which meant I could lay my head on his chest and inhale his unique scent.

"I'm so proud of you Gallagher Girl." He said as he placed a kiss on the top of my head. I was in a moment of euphoria, nothing could destroy this moment I was having with Zach because I knew all would be completely fine between us, much better than fine actually.

"What on earth is going on here? Does anyone care to explain?"

Okay, maybe the loud, booming voice of our headmaster could ruin our moment...