David escorted Avery through the doors to first period just in time. He took the initiative to tell the teacher that the new student had arrived. He strode right up to her desk and left Avery to catch up.
"Fresh meat, Ms. Williams," David smiled at the teacher.
Ms. Williams shot David a death glare, "Thank you; you can take your seat now."
David backed off but offered Avery a whisper of "good luck" before taking his seat.
"Take the empty seat in the back," Ms. Williams directed while staring blankly at her computer screen.
Avery followed directions without another word; she decided to just get her paper signed at the end of class. She sat down in the only open seat, in the very back corner of the room. The few surrounding students looked almost comatose from the early morning. It made her wonder how David was so perky, although she didn't voice the thought aloud.
Ms. Williams finally scooted away from her computer and stood in the front of the room. "Have you read Great Expectations yet?" she directed towards Avery.
"Yes," Avery answered quickly.
"Good, you'll still have to pick up a copy to follow along in class."
"Uh, I think I will be fine," Avery said quietly.
"What was that?" Ms. Williams flared.
Avery directed the subject down a slightly different path. "What chapter is the class on?"
"Chapter thirty-two," Ms. Williams waited to see what Avery was planning.
The new teen began reciting. "'In her furred traveling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change.' Need I go on?"
The few teens with their books open turned back to Avery with eyes wide. David shot her a thumbs up from the front of the class.
"That'll be all," Ms. Williams huffed and started directing the class in a hurried manner.
The class dragged on until the end of the hour. Once the bell rang everyone sprang up out of their seats and exited to attend their next class. Avery got her signature and left as quickly as possible.
David caught up with Avery in the hallway before she could peel off the left to go towards the locker rooms. "Hey, that was pretty cool. I've never seen Ms. Williams so flustered."
Avery shrugged in response, a small smile tugging on the edges of her lips.
"Well, I doubt you're ever going to need help in English. We've got a test coming up on Great Expectations; could you help me study for it later?"
"When?" Avery asked, trying to hide her surprise.
"Well the test is next week on Friday, so how about next Tuesday? I have practice the rest of the week," David justified.
"I will see what I can do," Avery said.
"Cool, well, I've got to get to math. See you at lunch." With that, David was darting down the hallway.
Gym passed without an incident. Avery was told to bring work-out clothes for the next day and that was that. For the day, Avery was allowed to sit on the sidelines of the gym and do whatever she wanted. That meant sketching. Without meaning to, Avery found herself sketching all the people around her. The loud girl playing volleyball without a care. The muscular boy showing off to his friends by shooting three-pointers. The girl with the broken leg, sitting on the sideline. The boy trying to flirt with all the girls trying not to mess up their hair by exercising. These people were interesting, even if Avery didn't want to admit it.
The bell rang for gym eventually, so Avery progressed towards her math class. The teacher there was a nice old lady. She explained everything easily and Avery took notes to aid in the homework assigned. The class went swimmingly, even when Avery had to ask the boy next to her if he understood the quadratic equation near the end of class. It sparked an easy conversation, questions about where Avery was from, what her classes were; simple things. The bell rang its song again once the hour ended.
Avery started walking through the halls towards the lunch room to meet up with David, but someone grabbed her arm and pulled her towards an emptier part of the hallway. Once the dragging finished Avery turned to see the person who commenced the action. It was a girl in her math class…Abby was it? Abby was tall with a fake blonde color to her hair. Her makeup was almost too perfect and her outfit was clearly expensive. Even the fake nails, that left small imprints in Avery's arm, looked well-done.
"Don't talk to Matt," Abby spoke low and even.
"Excuse me?" Avery refused to be intimidated by the girl.
"Matt, my boyfriend, the guy you were giggling with not five minutes ago. Don't talk to him."
"He said he was single," Avery pointed out.
"That is such bull," Abby growled. "He just doesn't want to admit we're still together. But don't even look at him, got it?"
"No, I do not think I have 'got it'." Avery felt a scowl tug on her face.
"Well you better, or your face is going to be rearranged." Abby tapped a fake nail on Avery's glasses.
A voice spoke up from down the hall, "Now, now, Abby, you don't want her to look as bad as you. That would just be downright tragic."
Avery leaned to the side to see the girl approaching them. She had short, boy-cut brown hair. There was a smile playing on her thin lips. The Union Jack backpack she was carrying was carelessly slung over her shoulder. She had a large red hoodie to combat the winter weather, along with sturdy looking jeans, and doodled-on sneakers. The girl didn't look like she had a care in the world.
"Get out of here, Reed," Abby pointed towards the nearest exit of the hallway.
"No, I don't think I will. Honestly, just when I thought you were above threatening the new kid, there you go."
"This isn't any of your business."
"It isn't any of yours either. Matt doesn't want you anymore. You're his toss-away. He's free to talk to whoever he wants. Leave the girl alone before I call Mayhood." The girl stuck her hands in her hoodie's pockets and pulled out an older model of smart-phone. It had a Coca-Cola case.
Abby huffed out a final breath before hissing at Avery, "This isn't over."
"Um, thank you, I think," Avery said as Abby disappeared down the hallway.
"No prob." The girl stuck out her hand, "Aly, Aly Reed."
Avery took it, shook, and introduced herself. Then asked why Aly showed up.
"David told me to look for you on my way to lunch since my third period is right down the hall. I saw Abby dragging you away and decided to cut into your pleasant little talk before she broke a nail," Aly started walking down the hallway towards the cafeteria.
"I take it you do not like Abby," Avery tried to make conversation.
"Not one bit. She's full of herself. Not to mention totally obsessed with her ex-boyfriend, Matt. They're an on-again-off-again kind of couple, but Matt called if off during winter break and it seems to be for good this time. Looks like he's finally gotten tired of her crap."
"Good for him," Avery threw in.
"You could say that again," Aly opened the doors to the chaotic cafeteria and walked straight towards a specific table.
There were already four other people seated there. Three seats were empty, but reserved it seemed. Aly took one of the seats and gestured for Avery to take another.
Aly went around the table introducing people, "You already know the Tramp," Aly pointed to David. Then she pointed to an Asian girl with long brown hair and kind brown eyes, "That there's Theresa, usually just Risa." Then to a Caucasian girl with layered red hair and sparkling hazel eyes, Avery recognized her from her gym class, "That's Marilyn, but we call her Monroe a lot of the time because of her flair for the dramatic." Then to an African-American boy with black hair shaved close to his head and brown eyes. "That's Nate. Everyone, this is Avery."
Avery nodded and smiled at all the new people but still asked Aly, "Why did you call David 'Tramp'?"
Aly laughed, "He is. He's dated a lot of the girls here at this school. He's pretty much our personal player of the group."
David smirked and wagged his eyebrows at Aly, "Don't pretend you don't like it, Sweet Pea."
"Don't make me vomit," Aly scoffed.
Marilyn laughed from her side of the table, "Don't let them get to you, Avery. I think they're just trying to repress their natural sexual tension." Marilyn then had to hold up her binder to keep from being hit by food by both David and Aly, although she was still laughing the whole time.
Risa unhooked the Batman keychain from Avery's backpack and held it up, "So you like Batman? I heard he was just a myth."
"Not a myth, and it is more of a memoir of my old home." Avery took the keychain back and put it in her jean's pocket.
Another guy came jogging up to the table, interrupting what Risa was going to say, "You'll never believe what happened last class." He then took notice of Avery, "Hi, you're new. I'm Jordan, call me Jordan."
"Sure," Avery smiled at the eclectic teen that just popped up.
"Alright, spit it out, Jor," Risa said as she popped a grape into her mouth.
"Well, Mr. Spencer was going on, lecturing of course, then he turned on the projector and there was a photo shopped picture of him and Mrs. Cronk on the screen. It was priceless!" Jordan kept babbling on and on.
Avery smiled to herself as she listened to everyone speak. Maybe she could find a place for herself here.
.:Back to Life:.
The rest of the days classes dragged on a bit. Biology was simple; they were going over the structure of bacteria cells. Jordan had been assigned as her lab partner for the semester. Then there was art, which Avery perked up at. They were working on portraits. That day they were assigned with a project to draw a portrait of the most influential person in their lives. Then there was history, which Avery dreaded as they were just starting the unit on World War II. Avery got all her signatures and turned the paper into the office straight after school.
Overall, there could've been worse days. So there Avery sat on the curb, waiting for Superboy to come pick her up. David was waiting with her since it wasn't a far walk to his house, and it was the polite thing to do in his eyes.
They were simply talking when Avery caught her eye on something in the distance. A flash of white, orange and black. Maybe it was just the new caution that came from being taught by Batman, but Avery halted the conversation.
"You can go home, David, really. This is Happy Harbor, not Gotham." Avery kept her eyes over David's shoulder, where she saw the flash of colors.
"Um, okay. I'll talk to you tomorrow then?" David seemed slightly upset and confused by Avery's suddenness.
"Sure," Avery agreed and watched David walk off safely. Once he was out of sight she stood up and turned around.
Right when she hit the full 360 she saw what she was looking for. Deathstroke, not an arm's length away from her.
Avery instinctually dropped her back pack and took up a fighting position, "Why are you here?"
"Playtime's over. No more running, Avery." Deathstroke took a step forward.
"I beg to differ," Avery struck out with a punch directed for the taller man's face.
Deathstroke caught her hand and twisted it behind her back. Avery had to go with the twist or risk dislocating her shoulder. The mercenary placed a handcuff around the one wrist he had in his grip. Avery tried to fight back with her free limbs, but it was useless.
Deathstroke leaned in to whisper, "Game over," then promptly snapped her neck to stop her squirming.
A/N: I'm just gonna leave it there 'til my next update. I've been leaving you guys cliffhangers recently, I kinda like it. Oh, and I wanna apologize in advance if this story temporarily gets pushed to the back-burner. Recently I came up with an idea that I just have to follow through on so my brain stops thinking about it. It's called Little Witness if you wanna check it out. Cool, that's out of the way. Now, once again, all these new characters are based off of real people. All my friends that are in the story enjoy being included, particularly "David" and "Aly". I'm gonna go watch the rain now, it never rains where I live, so this is a treat. Have a nice day.
Read. Enjoy. Review.