Chapter 3
It was eight-thirty at night, and Layla was sitting in the corner of her dark room, her knees pulled up to her chest and her tear-stained face buried in them. She was currently listening to the sounds of Aelita quietly knocking on the doors around her room, asking each person that answered if they knew where the crying girl was. Eventually, someone was able to point her in the right direction, and she knocked on Layla's door.
"Layla? Are you in there?"
"No," Layla answered with a quiet sniffle. "Nobody's home."
Aelita ignored the girl's pathetic attempt at a bit of humor and asked, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah. Just a bit too emotional for my own good. I've never been one to let my emotions show."
"I've noticed."
Both of them were silent for a moment, then Layla questioned, "Why do you care, anyway? I'm not your problem."
"You're right. You're not my problem. You're my friend. So will you at least open the door and let me in so I can make sure you're okay?"
Layla couldn't help but smile a bit. She got to her feet and walked over to the door, trying to wipe away what remained of her tears as she opened it.
Aelita hurried into the room and Layla quickly closed the door.
"You don't look all right to me," the pink-haired girl stated after studying Layla in the dark for a moment. "What's wrong?"
"My mother's a bitch. That's what's wrong," was Layla's half-snarled reply. "Thanks for your concern and everything, but will you please go away and mind your own business?"
Aelita shook her head and turned on the lights. "The others and I are all worried about you. I'm not leaving until I know exactly what's wrong with you and how to fix it."
Layla glared at Aelita. "You can't fix it. No one can. Now, please, just leave me alone."
Aelita shook her head again and continued to pry. "Tell me why your mother supposedly hates you, and I might consider leaving."
"She just does."
"I need more detail than that."
Layla sighed, exasperated, and elaborated. "My mother isn't exactly the motherly type. The only reason she ever tolerated me was because I've always been the one with the money. Now she's pissed at me because I purposely had myself shipped off to France, which means she might actually have to get off of her ass and do some work for once."
"How have you always been the one with the money?" Aelita questioned, looking curious.
"Well, I haven't always been the one with the money, but I have been raking in a decent amount of cash ever since I was old enough to run a-" The redhead stopped dead and glared at Aelita once again, half blaming her for causing the near slip of information.
"Ever since you were old enough to run what?"
"Nothing. I've told you what you wanted to know, so leave."
"But I still don't know how to fix it."
"I've already told you! You can't fix it!"
"I at least want to try!"
"Well, don't! There's no point in trying if you don't have the slightest chance of succeeding!"
"Come on, Layla! Just tell me what we can do to help! Everyone's worried about you! Odd, Jeremy, Ulrich, Yumi, all of us! Why won't you let us help?!" Aelita looked on the verge of tears, but Layla ignored the girl's obvious need to help and continued to argue.
"Because I don't need help!"
"Everyone needs help sometimes!"
"Well, I don't need help right now!"
"Yes, you do! Just accept it and let us help!"
"No! Now leave!"
"I'm not going to leave until you let me help you!"
"Go the hell away!"
Aelita found Layla's fist heading toward her face before either of them could really register what was happening. At the last possible moment, Layla turned and hit her bedroom wall instead, the force of the blow nearly cracking the surface.
"Please," Layla whispered, her fist still resting against the wall, her red bangs hiding her eyes, "go away."
"Layla, I-"
"Go," the redhead ordered, her voice louder than before. "I'm already halfway into a rage blackout, Aelita, and I don't want to hurt you. Thank you for wanting to help me, but there's really nothing you can do."
Aelita stared at Layla for a moment, then nodded and left silently, closing the door quietly behind her after flipping the lights off.
Once Layla was sure Aelita was out of hearing range, she fell to her knees, rested her head against the wall, and sobbed, hating herself for nearly slipping again. She fell asleep half an hour later, too exhausted to stay awake.
The next morning, Layla awoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing.
She sat up groggily and crawled over to her bag, which was laying on the floor beside her bed. She found her thin black phone clear at the bottom of the bag, of course, and it took her a few seconds to wrestle it out from under all of the other crap in there.
"Hello?" she said questioningly to the person on the other end of the line, not even bothering to check the caller ID. Biiig mistake...
"You still haven't changed your number, Layla?" a boy's voice asked in reply. "Not a very smart move."
Layla found herself fully awake now, her ass meeting the floor when she fell back in surprise.
"Now I can access your entire contacts list, and you know what that means." The boy, a genius when it came to electronics of all kinds, chuckled, and Layla gulped.
"Don't, Alex. Please, don't," Layla whispered into the phone.
"You can't run from your past, Layla. You can't run from us. We told you that if you left, if you tried to escape your duty, tried to run from what you promised to do, we'd hunt you down. You're the best we have, and we can't let you go. Now, you should probably tell your little friends that you're leaving before we let them know what you are. If we don't see you coming to the airport within the next few hours, we will tell them, and we will use force to bring you back. Understand?"
Layla leaned against the side of her bed, trembling and arguing with herself in her head. She gulped again, then managed to speak. "I won't go back, Alex. I won't let myself become that...that thing I was again. I'll die before I go back."
Alex was silent for a moment, then he ended the conversation with a simple, "We'll see." He hung up, and Layla copied him a moment later.
She pulled herself up onto the bed, put her elbows on her knees, buried her face in her hands, and muttered, "Fuck. How am I going to get out of this one?"
"Hey, Layla," Yumi greeted the redhead cheerfully at the beginning of the first class they had together.
"Hello, Yumi," Layla replied softly, staring down at her desk, looking troubled.
"Is something wrong?" Yumi asked while sitting down beside the girl.
Layla bit her lip, having a quick mental debate, then she looked over at Yumi. "There's something I need to tell you and the others."
Yumi's expression filled with worry. "What is it?"
"I...I can't tell you now," Layla stated, looking away and fidgeting nervously. "Do you think you and the others would be able to meet me in the park tonight, just after sunset?"
"Of course."
"All right. I'll see you then."
Yumi stood and nodded, then moved to her usual spot near the front of the class, wondering what Layla wanted to tell her and the others.
Layla talked to no one throughout the rest of the day, vanishing at lunch and directly after school. She waited in her room until almost ten minutes before sunset, then she went out to the park to wait for the others.
What she thought would be a simple task, walking outside and waiting for some people, turned out to be quite complicated. There were...obstacles. Obstacles in the form of three guys, two of whom were blonds that looked to be at least a little bit older than Layla. The third one looked to be the same age as her, with short brown hair and dark brown eyes. They were all waiting for her right at the edge of the park.
"Layla, did I not tell you to be at the airport by now?" the third male said, his voice sounding exactly like the voice of the person Layla had spoken to over the phone earlier that day. The other two were standing behind him to either side, smacking lead pipes against their palms threateningly in the usual thug-like manner.
Ignoring Alex's words, Layla put on a bored expression and said, "So you only brought those two to forcefully take me back to the U.S.?"
"Of course. I didn't really think I'd need more than two to take a scrawny girl back home," Alex replied, looking quite confident.
Layla sighed, shaking her head in obviously feigned pity and sadness. "If only that were true, Alex," was all she said before becoming stoic and cold once again and lunging at Alex. She altered her course at the last second, aiming a punch at one of the older guys behind the genius. Her fist collided with his palm and he held her there while swinging the pipe he held in his other hand at her stomach. She grabbed the pipe with her free hand easily, yanking it out of his grip when he was too stunned to function and swinging it at his head. He blocked with an arm, now aiming a punch at the girl's stomach. She managed to block with her free arm, but she didn't see the pipe heading for the back of her knees. The object hit with a dull thud, and Layla's legs gave, allowing the unarmed guy to take his weapon back as she fell to her knees.
Both of the older boys swung their pipes at Layla's head, each coming from a different side. Luckily for Layla, she wasn't dumb enough to just sit there and let them knock her out. She threw herself backward at the last moment, ending up in a bridge position, enabling her to watch the two pipes collide with a loud clang. She then forced her legs up, kicking the weapons directly out of their owners' hands before putting herself in a handstand. She flipped back onto her feet and caught the pipes with ease as they came back down, hoping like hell that no one was focusing on what was up her skirt. She reeeeally didn't want anyone to see her black underwear... For obvious reasons.
She brushed her red bangs back from her face, her cold blue-gray eyes focusing on her two opponents.
Wait... Two opponents...? The girl looked around, trying not to panic. Where's Ale-? Her thoughts were cut short by a kick to the back that sent her to her knees. The pipes nearly slipped from her shock-slackened grip, but she tightened her hold on them before they could get away. She then spun around while getting to her feet, aiming a pipe at Alex's head without even being completely sure it was him. She was right, but he ducked down to avoid the weapon and tried to sweep kick her legs out from beneath her. She jumped up just in time to avoid the kick, only to be knocked out of the air by one of the older thugs.
She hit the ground with a pained grunt, the pipes finally slipping from her fingers and hitting the shoe-clad feet of two of the many people hovering over her. She got to her knees slowly and looked up at the people to whom these feet belonged.
"Damn it. You shouldn't be here yet," she blurted, shocked to see the Lyoko warriors staring down at her, most of them appearing concerned.
"Oh, so these are your little friends, then, Layla?" Alex said, sounding smug as he took a few steps closer to the kneeling girl.
"Don't say a word, Alex," Layla growled threateningly while getting to her feet, turning to put her back to the Lyoko gang.
"Oh, why not? You'll never see them again, anyway." Alex smirked, then began to say, "Layla here's a-"
Hurriedly, before Alex could be the one to tell everyone her secret, Layla stated, "I'm a gang leader. Soon to be an ex-gang leader." She glared at Alex. "I'm not going back."
"Yes, you are," the boy retorted, glaring right back at the redhead.
"No, she's not," Ulrich said, taking a step forward in order to stand to Layla's left.
"If she doesn't wanna go back, then she doesn't have to go back," Odd added, moving to stand to Layla's right.
Both Alex's and Layla's eyes widened as the rest of the gang gradually worked up the courage to stand up for the girl.
"She's going to stay right here with us," Yumi stated, nodding while standing behind Layla and placing a hand on her shoulder.
"She deserves nothing less than a good home and people to care for her," Aelita chimed in from where she stood next to Jeremy.
"Besides, she could do much more good here than anywhere else," Jeremy piped up with a single nod.
Layla didn't really get what he meant, but judging by the grins the others were wearing, it was something good, and something they had argued about for a while.
"Yep! So just get out of here before we have to hurt ya," Odd said brightly, smiling at Alex and his chronies.
The brunette stared at the group of strangers backing Layla for a moment, wide-eyed and utterly shocked, then he looked down, defeated, and said, "Let's go." The trio retreated with their tails between their legs, vanishing into the darkness to find something else to do.
"Well, at least we didn't have to resort to switchblades," Layla muttered. When she looked around and saw all the surprised expressions everyone had on their faces, she added loudly, "Which I do not own three of."