Chapter 34 – Why Aren't You Happy?
My self-defense kicked in, despite my fear, and I felt the adrenaline racing through me. I jumped to my feet, switching my gaze back and forth from Mr. Darnell and the now-rising guards. They were swarming around me, enclosing me in a circle. Part of me should have been afraid, but another part was just freaking annoyed.
Mr. Darnell's face was contorted into a grimace, reminding me of a dog growling. I even swore I heard some kind of unique, inhuman rumble release from his throat. It was suddenly making him very unattractive.
Looking around, I realized I didn't have any route of escape. They were slowly taking away any openings, and I wasn't sure if I could go through them. (When I mentioned I hadn't tried walking through people, I really hadn't tried. That one time with the sexist jock had been a total fluke, like a self-defense mechanism). Well, if that was the case, I was seriously in danger and could use a handy-dandy boost to my powers right about now!
And the other problem with this little situation was that I had no idea where Fang was. When we had separated, I'd lost track of where he was. He could have fled for all I knew.
"Um… isn't this harassment?" I asked, trying to find some way of getting out of here. "Haven't you heard of personal space? I have a bubble that if someone pops I start hyperventilating."
"How'd you get in?" Mr. Darnell barked, visibly shaking with rage.
"Um, I'm sort of lost. You know, being a freshman and all."
My humor only made him angrier. "Don't play stupid with me. I know what you were doing. You honestly can't think that I'm that ignorant."
"Actually, I can and I do because I really have no idea what you're talking about." I peeked through the tiny spaces in between hulking guards, searching for any trace of Fang. Fang, Fang, come out wherever you are! You are in deep trouble if you ran away!
I felt a blaring pain blaze across my face, then fizzle into a dull ache. Only afterwards did I realize that he'd slapped me. I fixed my gaze back on him, feeling hatred and rage boiling deep within. He never did sit well with me, the few times I'd seen him. It was obvious that he wasn't just a pretty face, even though I still wasn't completely sure why he was here.
Immediately after I'd figured out that he'd slapped me, all hell broke lose. And I didn't cause it.
Mr. Darnell was pulled backwards and thrown to the ground. Then his face moved back and forth, apparently on its own, with loud smacks and several grunts. I wasn't slow. Fang had come to my rescue… again. I was officially pissed with him too, even if I was kind of thankful.
The guards, watching their leader before them with doubt coloring their features, seemed to understand what was happening. They turned their faces — some ugly, some unbelievably beautiful — to me and scowled. "Get her," one ordered, and that's when they all came after me.
Okay, I may be freakishly strong for a fourteen-year-old girl, and I wasn't exactly the best at math, but five large, well-trained fighters against a lanky kid like me really didn't look good from my point of view. Two options ran through my mind: run or run like a bat out of hell. I chose the second, seeing as it sounded like the more desperate of the two.
"Fang! C'mon!" I shouted as I made a straightaway for the door. As I was running, I felt something tug on my shirt. My first response was to thrash uncontrollably, until I peeked over my shoulder and didn't see anyone, so I knew it was Fang. We ran through their office and out into the hallway. Fang's invisibility power was in full affect, as I could tell by the air shimmering around my skin. Some teachers and workers in the other offices had heard the commotion and were standing in the hallway, looking at what the cause had been. We could hear their confused murmurs as they couldn't see anything, and then their surprised cries when the guards darted out of their office.
We bolted down the stairs, through the now-filling halls as the dismissal bell sounded. No one could see us, but they could see the guards chasing after something. Some kids snickered, thinking that they'd finally lost their minds, while others were terrified that the guards were coming after them. Either way, I wanted to tell those kids that they were lucky.
Fang switched his grip from my shirt to my hand like before, and I was too panicked to be embarrassed or confused or any other petty emotion. All I could think about was getting away. Which of course was very hard when you had to dodge bodies and you had guards with heat-sensory glasses.
I noticed an empty room by the main offices on the first floor, and I tugged Fang in that direction. Now, I know you were thinking that this was a stupid move, right? Well, there were two reasons for it. One, I knew for a fact that if we were quick enough we could run through the walls and straight outside. The second was that I was quite familiar with this room since it was directly beside the principal's office. Ha, who said I stupid?
We were heading straight for the wall when Fang suddenly decided to drop a bomb on me. "Max, our backpacks are inside. We can't leave without them."
"Forget the homework!" I managed in between pants. "Who knows what they'll do to us if we're caught."
"Your house key is in it and they won't let the bus leave if we get in it."
Shit. I hated it when he had thought logically, even when it seemed like we should be running to the ends of the earth. Then again, we were on a school campus. What was the worse they could do to us? They couldn't physically torture us and keep us against our will.
"You're right," I admitted reluctantly. "Is yours in your locker?" He nodded and I sighed. "Okay, we should turn around."
And of course, since it was me we were talking about, as soon as we started heading back to the main hallway the door of the empty office room boomed open. The guards, and a recently bruised-up Mr. Darnell, entered the room. I wanted to slap Fang a high five — and also smack him across the head for stepping in — for beating up our good 'ol "member of the Board of Directors".
Yeah, Board of Directors my ass.
"Little girl," he nearly purred, making me want to puke, "you might be innocent in this whole thing. I know you're here. You're messing with the wrong crowd, and you might get hurt otherwise. Please help us get your friend."
Ugh, now he wanted me to turn against Fang? What an idiot. Then his words hit me. You're messing with the wrong crowd… you could be innocent. Did they not know that I had powers? Did they think everything was Fang's doing? Was it —?
Oh. My. God.
Everything was clear just then.
They were here for Fang.
I looked sideways at him. He didn't seem worried, just… calm. But that was Fang for you; if you dangled him over a cliff by his ankle he'd still be impassive. At least on the outside. From the look in his dark eyes, I knew that he knew, and that he'd known for a long time. If I wasn't so stressed right now I would have reevaluated that sentence to see if it actually made sense.
"You shouldn't have brought her into this," Mr. Darnell went on, directing this toward Fang. "You should be kept a secret, and you wouldn't want us hurting your little girlfriend because she knew about your… unique talents."
Why did everyone think we were dating? I was extremely pissed now.
I charged forward, letting go of Fang's hand, getting up in Mr. Darnell's face as best as I could. "Look, I don't know who you think you are, but if you think that he's the only—" My sentence was cut off as a hand clasped over mine. I could smell the scent of Fang, and I felt stupid for almost blowing our cover. He wanted me to keep my powers secret. He was protecting me.
Jesus I was going to kill him!
"She isn't involved," he said softly, sending me a warning glance, telling me to keep my mouth shut. "Let her go."
"You see, I can't." Mr. Darnell didn't sound sorry at all. In fact, he sounded too eager. "She knows too much, and you have no choice in the matter. Boy, will the Director be happy to know when we've finally capture you."
The guards pounced on us like cobras, restraining my hands behind my back. Only two were on me, but three attacked Fang, pinning him to the ground. I heard his breath release as their immense weight dropped on his back. I felt my eyes prick with tears. (And that strange event still seemed irrational to me). Why couldn't they leave him alone?
"Ah, finally," Mr. Darnell sighed. He laughed, but a new voice totally caught everyone off guard.
"What the hell is going on?" The angry voice belonged to none other than Mr. Reinhard. He was standing in the open doorway, his brows pointed in a 'V' over his eyes. A vein was showing on his bald head. He did not look happy.
"Uh, you see, these kids broke into—" Mr. Darnell began, but was cut off by the principal's sharp voice.
"I don't care what they did! You have no right to physically attack students. I made my boundaries very clear when we agreed on this deal, Mr. Darnell, and you know I'm extremely fed up with your complete disrespect for our rules around this school. You've been parading around, and I've got nothing but complaints from the parents for the past three months."
"But it isn't what it looks like!"
I was totally entranced by this scene that was taking place. It was like watching a Jerry Springer; you know it's completely wrong and yet you find it engrossing. I was aware of the guards grip loosening, glad that my wrists could allow blood to flow into my hands again.
"That's not the point. The point is that you're abusing your rights, and, overall, you completely lied about your intentions. You've done nothing to this school except cause chaos. I have no choice but to dismiss you and all your 'guards' from our property."
My jaw dropped. This was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me in high school so far. I couldn't believe that Mr. Reinhard wasn't involved with Mr. Darnell, and that he was completely on our side. It made me respect him a little more.
"Now let these kids go; they have to get home." Begrudgingly they all obliged, and the three guards rose off of Fang's back. He jumped to his feet immediately, and I could see the cringe in his eyes as he flexed his muscles. I grabbed his arm and ushered him out of the room, nodding in approval to Mr. Reinhard. He smiled in acknowledgement then turned his attention back to the guards, giving them a good verbal beating.
A crowd of students were surrounding the hallway, checking out the scene that was happening. They'd let us through, but not without us hearing a bunch of questions that we weren't in the mood to answer. I was hardly listening anyway. We made it back to our lockers which luckily were close by and grabbed our things quickly and silently. As we made our way out of the building and to the bus, I looked at Fang and grinned. I forgot for a moment that I was mad at him for protecting me.
"Isn't this awesome? The guards are finally getting taken from the school! This is momentous!" I didn't see any expression of joy on Fang and, if anything, I thought his face sunk a bit. "What's up with you? Why aren't you happy?"
He shot me a terse look. "Are you that dense, Max? This isn't good. You know they want me, and if they want it bad enough they'll stalk us all the way back to your place. Your family could be in danger because we were stupid enough to let them catch us."
My breath caught in my throat. Holy crap, he was right!
So you know how tense we were the next few days at home.
I need to keep this short. I have some summer work for school I need to finish, so if I don't update too frequently for the next couple weeks I'm busy working on that. I might also have pink eye. Ew. I have to get that checked tomorrow.
Thank you Iggy4ever for the reviews! I love a lot of them!! You guys rock for giving me 14 reviews last chapter. I'd love for that to continue. As for betas, I'll let you know what I'm thinking in the next few weeks or so. Thanks to Anara Celebvilya for pointing out my mistake, and I hope I made it somehow seem to fit in. Um, yeah, and the 400th reviewer will get... uh, I don't know you can pick this time.
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