CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

[behavioral rectification]

"i know the drill"

Andi reclined on her bed, completely dressed and filing her nails as she waited patiently. A loud knock sounded through the quiet dorm room. With a soft sigh, the blonde stood and slipped on her white converse before answering the loud bang.

As soon as she opened the door, the noise from the hallway grew louder. Lin's monks stood on the other side, ordered to escort her to detention. They stepped forward to grab her upper arms but she pushed their hands away.

"I know the drill," Andi snapped. She was pissed, more at herself than the monk that caught her. She would not even be as mad if she had been given detention for fighting like Marcus had, but instead she was caught out of bed after curfew. Stupid, amateur bullshit.

Thinking of the Nicaraguan boy almost made Andi groan aloud as she made her way to the library, the monks trailing behind to make sure she did not take an unexpected detour. Seeing Marcus so soon after the previous night had her dreading this detention even more. She had run. Like a fucking coward.

Her mind was at war with itself when it came to Marcus. She wanted to let him in so badly, to just be with him. Yet another part of her, which sounded suspiciously like her mother, always persuaded her against the idea. She knew he was going to be confused at how things ended the previous night, but she could not afford to get anyone else mixed up in her shit.

They arrived at the library and Andi braced herself for the hellish next couple of days. The monks opened the door and before they could shove her inside, she snapped her head towards the one to her right and glared. "I said, I know the drill," she practically growled, stepping inside the dusty, dark library.

It seemed like she was the last to arrive, however, Master Lin was absent still. She heard the heavy doors slam behind her as she walked farther into the room. Nobody really acknowledged her presence. Well, no one except the one person she was trying to avoid.

Marcus looked up when she entered the room. Their eyes met and the blonde quickly looked away from the awkward eye contact. She could not stand to see the confused, helpless look in his eyes and know that she was the reason why it was there. Quickly diverting toward the desk Saya was sitting at, she took a seat next to the Kuroki girl and waited for the final member of their party to arrive.

As they waited for Lin, Andi leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her body and closed her eyes, desperately trying to ignore Marcus's stare. Her goal was to sleep through as much of this damn detention as she possibly could.

She opened her eyes for a split second only to see Saya looking at her with her eyebrows raised. Andi knew that she, too, was questioning why the blonde was not sitting next to Marcus. "Don't even ask," Andi muttered under her breath, knowing the other girl could hear her. "It's a long story."

It was not really a long story. Just an overly complicated one… even though it did not need to be.

Marcus must have shown up just before Andi did because he was still unaware of exactly what was going on. "What is this?"

"Prolonged confinement designed for behavioral rectification," Petra answered in an overly verbose manner. Andi smirked and, against her better judgment, simplified it for Marcus.

"Detention," the blonde explained, eyes still closed.

"What did you do?" the Arguello boy asked. For a moment, Andi believed her was speaking to her. He did not actually know why she was there after all. She had not been caught for fighting at the dance. When she opened her left eye to peek at him though, she realized he was addressing her table neighbor.

Saya merely glared at the rat before turning her gaze back forward. Andi knew that Marcus was the reason Saya was spending her weekend in detention; it was just another perk of him being her pledge. Whenever he gets in trouble, so shall she.

Master Lin finally entered the room, causing Andi to sit up, alert. Chico chose then to open his big mouth and try to plead his case. "Master Lin. All due respect, this must be an oversight 'cause I didn't do—," Lin cut him off with merely a look while Andi rolled her eyes at the Soto Vatos leader. "Yeah. Fine. But if I'm getting hit for fighting, shouldn't Willie's ass be in here, too?"

Andi almost spoke up just to shut Chico down, but she bit her tongue for once. Master Lin could handle this himself. Her detention was bound to go much more smoothly if she did not stir up shit in the first fifteen minutes of being there.

Unfortunately, Viktor took Chico's remarks as an invitation to speak to his own defense, albeit, not well. "All Viktor did was invite rodent girl to dance."

"All I did was punch a Nazi, inbred, debutante bi—," Petra started before Lin stopped her by placing his cane under her jaw.

Addressing everyone in the room, Lin finally spoke up. "You all committed the cardinal sin. You were caught." He walked away from Petra and down the aisle, smashing his cane into Jaden's leg and knocking it from the desktop. "Agoge. Spartan instruction that molded petulant Greek boys into the greatest warriors in the world. It had three basic tenets—conformity, discipline, and commitment to Sparta over one's own interests."

A monk went to confiscate Saya's katana from the desk, and she quickly placed a hand on top of it to stop him, "You wanna keep that hand?"

Andi closed her eyes and shook her head. Bad move, Saya, she thought.

Lin slammed the desk in front of them making Saya jump, although Andi remained unfazed. "You chose your baser instinct. Rivalry," Lin continued speaking, taking Saya's katana away himself. The monks continued to make their way around the room, confiscating items.

They came to Andi and she shook her head and raised her hands as if she were surrendering, "I don't have anything."

Lin gave her a disbelieving look and she sighed, annoyed that he could see right through her. "Fine," she said, reaching into the garter belt that was hidden just below the hemline of her tennis skirt and pulled out a butterfly knife that had been tucked away in a custom holster.

"Damn," she heard Jaden whisper, followed by a not-so-subtle wolf whistle. Andi rolled her eyes at the remark but noticed the glare Marcus sent the other boy's way.

"You will spend your weekend locked in this room," Master Lin said, giving the conditions of their punishment as he took possession of Andi's knife as well, "Contemplating my disappointment."

With those words, he left the seven teenagers to their very, very, long weekend.

The seven teenagers quickly let their boredom take control of them.

Marcus had been lucky enough to hide his journal before the monks were able to take it from him, so he occupied his time jotting down his thoughts and sketching away as he usually did. The others had turned to more unconventional means of keeping busy.

Saya played with the strings of her hoodie.

Petra twisted and pulled at her chewing gum.

Viktor used the encyclopedias as weights to workout.

Chico was littering his desktop in any and all stamps he could find.

And Jaden was attempting to cut off circulation in his fingers with a loose piece of string.

Then, there was Andi.

Marcus was convinced that this girl had him completely wrapped around his finger, even in the short amount of time that they had known each other. Everything that she did drew him in. It was why he could not help but draw her. He would never admit how many times he caught himself sketching her in his worn, black composition notebook.

It did not hurt that she was a bombshell in her own right. His eyes, like the other males in the room, were draw to her slender legs when she lifted the hem of her skirt to reach for her knife. His mind took him back to the night at Shabnam's party, when those legs were wrapped around his waist, leaving little room between them.

No, no, no, Marcus thought. Now was not the time or place to think of that. The last thing he wanted was to pop a boner while stuck in a library with six other people, half of whom he hated.

Besides, with their conversation after the dance, he had no idea what was going on in the blonde beauty's head. One moment, they were about to kiss and the next she was out the door, ignoring his calls.

Now, Andi was perusing the stacks, fingers skimming the spines of the old books, attempting to find something worth reading. She was also doing an excellent job of avoiding Marcus in the relatively small space. Granted, Marcus did not quite know how to approach the topic either, allowing her to have her space for the time being.

Eventually, though, he would bring it up. They had to talk about it at some point, sooner rather than later. He had to understand why she kept pulling away. Every time they took a step forward, as if they were going to actually just be together, she took two steps back, ruining any progress.

Saya grew bored of fiddling with her hoodie strings, yanking them out altogether and standing abruptly. She walked over to the bookcase that Andi was at and the two began whispering back and forth to each other. They were too far away for Marcus to overhear, and he suspected that was the point entirely.

Another thirty minutes or so passed and everyone was still bored out of their minds. Vik was still working out. Jaden had long fell asleep. Saya moved to lay on top of the bookshelf that she and Andi had been talking by earlier. Chico was still working on his vandalism art project. And Petra had taken Andi's place in wandering the room, the blonde finally having settled down with a book.

"Hey, Vik. You got the time?" Marcus teasfed, noticing the three different watches the Russian had decorating his left wrist.

Viktor was unbothered, continuing his push-ups on the desk next to the Arguello boy. "Very funny, Nancy boy." He sighed, stepping back out of his stance. "Is Swatch. Top American style."

"That's smart," Marcus shrugged. "In case you break the other two."

Chico stood up abruptly and kicked his desk, causing Andi to look up from her book for the first time in a half an hour. "Fuck Lin and his Trojan bullshit."

"Spartan, actually, but who's actually paying attention…" the blonde muttered to herself, but Marcus overheard, smirking at the sarcastic remark.

"Once I get what I want from this joint," Chico continued, "I'm gonna stick a machete up his ass."

Andi laughed, her eyes moving back to her book. Marcus loved the sound of her laugh. It was so light and innocent sounding. The complete opposite of anything else that had to do with King's Dominion.

"Now he pipes up," Marcus said. "Forty-five minutes after he left."

Chico sneered at Marcus, pointing an accusing finger at him. "You're the one that I should be carving up, Arguello. Your queefy dart bullshit got us thrown in here, yeah?"

"Or, you know, you could just blame it on your own idiocy and anger issues? But, that would require some personal responsibility, which you don't have," Andi quipped sarcastically from across the room.

"You think the queefy dart was faster than The Flash?" Marcus asked Saya.

"No, but he could out-queef Superman for sure."

"Quick question, Chico. Does your ass ever get jealous of all the bullshit that comes out of your mouth? Asking for a friend…" Andi quipped again.

Realizing that he was not going scare them like he so desperately wanted to, Chico simply gave them all the finger and went back to his seat.

Simon's plans for this weekend were disappearing by the second.

Initially, he planned on taking Andi out and trying to get her mind off the shit week she had, but with the blonde nowhere to be found so those plans were quickly flying out the window. He had went to her dorm with no sign of her, even going so far as to ask Brandy where the hell his best friend was.

The blonde, Nazi bitch had been no help—big surprise—and so that left Simon to try to locate her other friends. He had seen Marcus being dragged off to detention earlier in the morning due to the fight from the dance. He knew that Andi had not gotten in trouble for that though, but could she have gotten detention for something else.

Honestly, detention would be the cherry on top of her shit week.

He was on his way to Saya's dorm, to see if the Kuroki girl knew where the blonde was, but before he could get there, he was unexpectedly yanked into another dorm.

"What the hell?" he started, before realizing that Maria was standing in front of him. "Maria? What's up? I was just looking for Andi."

"I saw her being escorted to the library for detention earlier. Chico's there too, along with Saya," the Mexican beauty stated in her accented voice, confirming his suspicions on Andi's location.

"Damn, I wish I had tickets to that cage match." Simon said before asking, "What did she get detention for?"

Maria shrugged. She was unsure about what transpired the night before after her and Saya had left. "I don't know, but the most important thing is that Chico is going to be locked in that room for the next two days. This is my chance to get away from him."

Realization dawned on him. This had been something Maria had only brought up to Simon once before in the past. When she had originally mentioned it, it had just been a pipedream. Never once did she think that the opportunity would actually present itself. However, the teenage gang leader finally slipped up and was caught, all thanks to him not being able to resist a fight against Marcus Arguello.

"I need your help," Maria started. "You can get me the papers I need to get out of here. Please."

"Of course. You know I'd do anything to help you Maria. Like I said, I am here whenever you need me." She smiled at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears at the prospect that she would finally be free and Simon would be the reason why. "Give me a few hours to get a passport made and arrange some transportation with a few of my contacts and meet me in the cemetery around six, all right?"

"Of course, thank you! Thank you so much," she exclaimed. Before he could turn to leave, she leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. The Londoner was struck with déjà vu from the night before.

Maria peeked her head out of the dorm room, careful that the hallway was clear before she gave Simon the signal that he could leave. Any efforts they made would be for nothing if the other Soto Vatos caught on to Maria's escape attempt.

Simon was not about to let her down. She had been through too much because of Chico and his family. She deserved happiness and this was her chance. Without wasting another second, Simon got to work. He had a lot of calls to make.

I'm finally back! Whoop whoop!

I've been very busy the last month or so… I ended up moving in with a few friends but the room I was moving into needed a lot of work so your girl has been getting her hands dirty, cleaning and painting to make it look livable.

I'm finally finishing up some of the work though and my actual job is winding down now that summer is wrapping up. September is our last really busy month. I work in a beach town and we have some car cruising events coming up that will make it hard to update at work, but after that I should have significant time freed up. This will be my first slow winter season where I won't have school work to keep me busy so I am optimistic about future updates.

Sadly, Deadly Class is officially donezo… However, as I've said before, I plan on continuing into some material from the comics and some original material as well.

I thank all of you for the support and dedication you've shown this story! I can't believe I hit over 30K reads. I'm just blown away! Updates won't be as frequent as they were until later in the fall. I want to catch up on my MCU stories a lot. But, I also plan on updating about once a week, possibly Fridays as a goal.

Thanks so much again! Don't forget to vote and comment!