Hey!

I'd like to thank the new readers LolaLines, BluePearl0luv, Chariline, Aaliyah-Babygurl - thank you for reading and reviewing!

Also thank you to two anonymuses.

Cola Zitron, Wyntirso - thank you for not dropping out!

And finally SimonComplex - thanks for the constructive criticism. It helped me a lot.

Wyntirso: I think it was going to be cigarette burns. Not too bad, but enough to scare someone very much.

Okay, what is there to say about this chapter...

Some of you have told me that Carey seems a bit uncaring in the third chapter. I hope that impression can be corrected with this one ^^

I know this took a lot more time than I promised; and actually, I already had this one finished when I uploaded the third chapter, and also the sixth and seventh. But I still don't have the fift, so I didn't want to update. Anyway, here you go now, and I hope you like it!

**************************************** ZPOV*****************************************

Css. Crrch. Css. Crrch.

The piece of paper made funny noises while I tore it apart to make balls from it. Tiny paper balls were scattered all over the floor of the living room. I didn't even notice; I was too engrossed in thought.

I didn't notice the aching bulge on my forehead and the pain in my shin, either, but I still knew they were there. The bullies had been nothing but that: ordinary bullies, all show-off-y when they were many, and cowards when they were outnumbered. But they had left their marks anyway.

I didn't mean myself or Bob and Jake by that – I got bruises and goose eggs almost every day, and these weren't too bad. But Cody was beat black and blue, and he was not as strong as us. His hand was swollen; Mom thought he had blood poisoning.

As we had imagined, she was now crazy with worry when Cody was out of her sight for just one minute. She made us pretend we were ill so we could stay at home for a few days. I had to go back to school after two days, though; she wasn't nearly as worried about me being beaten up as about him – she knew me and my friends could defend ourselves and that it wasn't exactly breaking news for us to get in a fight.

The two bullies from Tuesday had given me dark looks, but they didn't dare to touch me and my friends. But as soon as Cody went to school again, he would be their favorite target. I didn't even want to think of what they'd have done to him if the history teacher hadn't wanted to talk to us after school.

So he was safe right now, but it was Monday afternoon and my learning-obsessed brother really wanted to go to school. What was I supposed to do to protect him? He had much more classes than me, and I couldn't look after him all day, anyway. And his geek friends wouldn't be much of a threat to the bullies.

These were the thoughts that haunted me. And made me kill my report card of the last year. Not that anyone was going to be sad about that.

The door to our room was opened. "Zack?" I blinked a few times to push my thoughts away before turning my head and smiling at Cody, who stood in the doorway. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said, watching him as he walked over to where I sat. "Just thinking."

He sat down on another chair, playing with a pen in his hands. "About what?"

"Nothing important," I lied. I didn't need him to know how much I had been thinking about him the last days, or before.

However, he saw right through me. "You were thinking about tomorrow, weren't you?" I didn't respond. It had not been a question, anyway. "Don't worry about it, Zack. It's okay. I'm going to be just fine."

I laughed a hard, humorless laugh. "Aren't I supposed to be the one comforting you?" It wasn't a question, either. He cocked his head and, once again, his beauty cut into my heart. He looked so innocent, so breakable… How could I possibly let him put himself in danger tomorrow?

I sighed in irritation which made him quirk one eyebrow. "Stop doing that quirking thing at me!" I snapped. "Is it so bad for one twin to be worried when the other twin happens to be the new favorite target of two huge bullies who probably will bring friends next time and ba- Sorry." I dropped my eyes. What the f*** was I blubbering??

"I think it's natural for a twin to do that," Cody said with a serious face. "I would, and I really hope you are not honestly ashamed. But I still think it's going to be okay and I don't like seeing you rack your brains over it." I nodded.

"Yeah… I guess I should try not to think about it anymore," I said to humor him, even though I knew that effort was already doomed. "Just… try to stay close to other people, right?" He rolled his eyes, and then gave me that 'how-dumb-do-you-think-I-am?'-look. Strangely, I wasn't feeling better at all.

****************************************CPOV*****************************************

„Alright, let's do this."

Zack and I got up and out of the school bus. He had insisted on sitting behind me and Fred, although I was sure it had been hard for him to stay awake while we were talking. He probably hadn't understood half of the words, not to mention what the conversation was about.

"Come on, Zack, this is ridiculous. I'll be okay. Nothing is going to happen!"

I knew the whole thing had really upset him, more than me. He was almost worse than Mom. I couldn't quite decide what I felt like the most – touched, worried or irritated.

It was kind of weird, anyway. After all, I was the victim, not him. I was a bit afraid, of course, but he was just hysterical. I would never have expected such a reaction from him and I wasn't sure I appreciated it. It just didn't feel right, like I was missing something really important.

He gave me a troubled look. I could see he wanted to say something, but he didn't. Probably it was another advice. I didn't know how many times I had heard that during the last days from him and Mom - always stay with other people, don't look at the bullies, don't do anything to draw attention to you, don't fall behind on the way back to the station.

On the way to the school building, I felt my brother's eyes on me. I turned around to smile at him, but he looked away quickly, almost like he had done something forbidden. Did he really feel bad for being worried about me? I shook my head in confusion. When I looked forward again, I felt his gaze return.

Zack had changed in the last months. He was more responsible, more reasonable, and more aware of other people. But he was still the same old Zack in some ways, and that was fine. If he hadn't kept his stupid sense of pride, his laziness, or his total disapprovement of hygiene, he might not have been the brother I loved anymore.

But right now, I wished he had changed a little more. I wished he could drop the idiotic, egoistic behavior. He didn't need it. He was not an egoistic idiot anymore. But somehow he seemed to think that was a bad thing. Where had Mom gone wrong with him?

****************************************ZPOV*****************************************

History. Block Period. It was a nightmare. Or, anyway, it would have been if I had been sleeping like I used to do in those periods.

Sadly, I was not sleeping, and although I was as tired as if I hadn't slept at all that night (which might actually be true), I couldn't. Every muscle in my body was tensed, and I couldn't relax, no matter how many times I told myself being tense wouldn't help in any way, and besides, surely no one was going to hurt Cody in history class.

Hurt Cody. Cody, hurt. These words were like little evil bees buzzing around my head and stinging every centimeter of skin they could lay their stings on. My head was twice its size already and the annoying humming sound made it hard to concentrate. Not that I ever concentrated on history.

I looked down on my desk to find that I had drawn a cartoon-like bee with my ball pen. I quickly attempted to wipe it away. Unfortunately, the bee didn't care.

"What are you doing?"

Looking up again, I saw that Bob was staring at me from the neighbor desk with an expression that let me know he thought I was going crazy. I stared back at him, confused.

"What am I supposed to do, leave it there?" The teacher would make me clean all the desks in the entire school. And there were a lot of desks in the school. I wouldn't have any free time in the next week! Who was the one going crazy?

Bob glanced at the desk and then at me again, still with the same expression. "Leave what where?" Irritated, I looked down again.

I guessed I had looked a weeee bit strange – frantically rubbing my index finger against the desk to remove something that wasn't there. I checked my finger. It wasn't even blue.

Oh. My. Gosh. Now I started to hallucinate. What would come next?

Bob was still staring at me.

"I thought there was a bee," I explained. I only realized how stupid that sounded after I had already said it. Bob's expression got even weirder, much like he was going to call the nice men in white any minute.

"You have some serious issues, my friend!" He stated and shook his head, still grimacing. With a last doubtful look, he turned to face the teacher again.

"Yes," I whispered so lowly not even Bob could hear it. "I do."

*****************************************CPOV****************************************

Zack's eyes followed me around all day. I felt them when he was talking to his friends, in class, while I walked to the next one. After some time, I stopped turning my head because he never met my gaze anyway. At one point, I was worrying if I might have become paranoid; but others also told me that he was constantly staring at me.

It was annoying. I knew he just wanted to protect me, but he simply irritated me, not to speak of my friends. They started to refer to him as 'The Stalker', which I only half-heartedly protested against.

The worst thing about it was that I had to tell everybody what had happened. I was a terrible liar, and besides, I wouldn't have lied to my friends in my wildest dreams. They were all shocked and a little scared, except for Barbara.

Right now, we were on our way to biology class. "You know…" Liv said very quietly, "If those b-"

"Cut it out!" Barbara said resolutely. Liv dropped her sentence immediately. "If they come for Cody, they'll whish they never looked at him. Leave everything to me."

Nobody even briefly considered telling her that she was, no matter how good she was at karate, only about half as strong as one of the bullies, partly because we definitely could imagine Barbara beating up two huge bullies, and partly because we knew she could knock us out effortlessly.

"By the way… Cody, are you sure you don't want me to go over there and give Stalkerboy a piece of our minds?" She couldn't hide her eagerness. She had never liked Zack and right now, she was furious at him.

Quickly, I shook my head. "No, Barbara!" I said. I didn't quite know who I was trying to protect by that. "But I think I'll have to go talk to him," I added.

"You're not going to do that."

I frowned at Tyler. "Why not?"

"Are you telling me you are going to go and tell your twin brother to quit being worried about you?"

"No. But I am telling you that I am going to go and tell my twin brother to be worried about me somewhere else. After all, I have Barbara to protect me."

He couldn't say anything against that right now, so he shrugged. "Then go."

"And please, please, please don't change your mind!" Liv begged.

I threw her an angry look and walked away.

****************************************ZPOV****************************************

When I saw that Cody was walking towards me, I already knew what he was going to say. I knew I was annoying. I knew I was acting like an overprotective mother hen. I knew it was driving him crazy to have me follow him everywhere.

But I also knew that, whatever he said, I wasn't going to stop. It was simply impossible. I couldn't even stand the thought of letting Cody out of my sight.

Finally, he reached me. His face was expressionless and I copied it. We looked at each other like a businessmen and his reflection.

"Hello, Zack," He said and I was almost awaiting a handshake. "My friends and I have been wondering if you would mind relaxing a little and giving me some space." I found the way he was acting very cute, but I suppressed that thought immediately. I had problems right now.

"Yes, I would," I answered. The little sentence actually seemed to throw him off track. That amused me. Had he really thought I would just say 'whatever you say' and go away?

"Please, Zack," He pleaded. "Or I'll have to allow Barbara to convince you."

I laughed. "I hate to say this, but I'm so not afraid of little karate girl. I have more important things on my mind."

"Do you realize how irritating you are?"

"Yes, I do. And I don't care," I answered honestly.

"How about you…"

"No."

"I could…"

"No."

"But…"

"So not happening."

"You can't supervise me for the rest of my life," He reasoned. "I mean, one day, we're going to be grown up, and married, and whatever. Let go!"

He didn't know what he was saying. He couldn't know how he hurt me with this – really not very funny – joke. But as he spoke the words, the pictures came all by themselves – a grown-up Cody, festively dressed, beaming, with a faceless, but incredibly beautiful bride by his side. I felt sick.

"Zack?"

Let go…

I blinked to get rid of the pictures. "I'm sorry, Cody," I said, hoping my voice sounded normal. "I can't."

Maybe he would make me his groomsman. Maybe not. But he would definitely expect me to come and watch. To shake their hands and congratulate. He'd want me to be there with him to share his happiness.

I felt the sudden urge to puke.