Chapter Five

By the time Adrian and Jill got to the sports hall it was already filled with students and teachers cheering for both teenagers. Jill grabbed Adrian's hand and pulled him through the crowd. Some students who saw the two moved out of the way, knowing that they were going to the front to where Lissa, Christian, Mason, Eddie and Sydney were already on the front line watching their friends standing there. The meeting with Mia was clear from Adrian's mind, but still was on the back of Jill's. Not that she mattered about it right now.

"What have we missed so far?" Jill moved in between Christian and Sydney while Adrian stuck close to Mason and Eddie, with Lissa also next to him.

"Nothing much. Rose has been throwing abuse at him while he just made comebacks." The group stared at the two, to see them standing perfectly still and looking at each other.

"You're going down Dimitri!"

"Now that Jill and Adrian are here shall we get started?"

"What took you two so long anyway? We were waiting for you!" Rose looked over at the two, for Jill to chuckle nervously and Adrian to look away blankly.

While Rose was distracted Dimitri ran forward and started the fight. He threw several punched at her, but she knew they were coming and just reflected them with her own arms while stepping back to give themselves some distance. Adrian just stared at Rose and Dimitri, watching their every move. Lissa, Sydney and Jill were crying out for Rose. Mason, Eddie and Christian were cheering for Dimitri.

The more he watched the two the more he realised. They knew each other's moves. They could tell what the other person was going to do. It was as almost they could read what they were about to do next. Every time Dimitri attacked Rose knew what and where to defend herself. Every time Rose threw herself at Dimitri, he knew how to catch her and flip her over, but she always bounced off her arms and legs to gain her control.

"Go on Dimitri!"

"You can beat him Rose!"

"This is great!"

He could understand why Jill said that this was a fight that he couldn't miss. When the five minute marker when even Adrian was cheering loudly with everyone else, but he was cheering for both Rose and Dimitri.

But while this was going on, no one in the group noticed Mia walking into the hall with two guys standing with her. She scanned the room as if she was searching for someone, and when her gaze fell on Adrian her eyes went narrow. The two boys saw this, and followed her gaze to the artist. She told them how he humiliated her. And now she wanted revenge. Without saying a word the three left the hall, still unnoticed.

By now in the fight Rose just wanted to beat Dimitri up. She was throwing punched and kicks at all angles. The same with Dimitri, but he was more graceful than Rose. He was watching what he was doing as well as watching her attacks. She was not. Which came as an advantage for Dimitri as no one was expecting what was about to happen next.

She threw one last punch towards his chest, for Dimitri to step to the side and reflect the punch with his arm. The moment he was a safe distance between her he grabbed hold of her wrist with his deflecting arm, then rested his other hand on her shoulder. With one quick move he swiped his foot underneath her feet, and while she was falling he managed to turn her body around, lock her arm behind her back, and kneel on top of her to stop her from moving.

The hall went quiet.

"Damn it!" With her free hand Rose hit her fist on the training mats below. The entire hall cheered loudly at the fight. Mason and Eddie both burst into hysterics are seeing Rose having her butt kicked, again. Lissa was standing there with her hands to her mouth as if she was panicking at what she just saw, but Christian was next to her telling her that Rose was okay. Because she was. Jill too looked worried about Rose but Sydney managed to calm her down. And Adrian just stood there with his mouth wide open, unable to believe what he just saw.

"You got owned Hathaway!"

"Shut up!"

"It was a close fight. I think that the students would have cheered for anyone at that point."

"True, Eddie. It just happened to be me who won."

"Shut up guys!"

"Guys, leave Rose alone." Lissa walked up so that she separated Mason and Rose. "Come on Rose, Sydney and Jill are going to library. Let's go with them and start on our English essay together."

"We'll see you guys at dinner." Sydney waved at the boys who were standing in a line together, watching the girls walk off. Jill stopped to face Adrian for a brief moment then continued following the others.

Dinner wasn't for several more hours so the guys headed back to the dorms, deciding to hang out in one of their bedrooms until the clock struck six and they could head down to the cafeteria. But with Mason's and Eddie's room still a mess from the night before and Dimitri's and Christian's room also a mess as a result of their heavy drinking, Adrian allowed them to go in his room.

"Why did Jill look back at you earlier?" There was a hint of jealously in Eddie's voice, which Adrian took as a sign that the boy had a crush on the young girl.

"Dunno. Probably just worried about me."

"Why?" This attracted Mason's attention from the TV, which was showing Dimitri and Christian in the middle of an intense gun fight in the latest Call of Duty game.

"Some girl called Mia R-something." Christian turned his head to look at Adrian while Dimitri paused the game, also interested. "What, what's wrong?"

"Mia Rinaldi?"

"That's it."

"That girl is the devil behind those pretty blue eyes."

The guys took turns to tell different stories involving their group and Mia. Mason and Eddie were very good friends with her at one point, back when they were in Middle school. But then she started going out with Lissa's older brother, Andre. And everything changed when he broke up with her. He left to go to college, and with Lissa being his little sister she was an easy target for revenge.

Mia started by dating Lissa's ex-boyfriend Aaron, but this didn't bother Lissa in the slightest. She wasn't very interested in Aaron in the first place, she just dated him because she felt sorry for him. But soon Mia started rumours, and it ended up with Rose getting grounded after she punched the girl in the face and broke her nose. Mason and Eddie stopped hanging out with her after they found out what Rose done and why as they too were good friends with Lissa. Not as much as they are now, but still good friends.

Now Mia finds every chance she can to humiliate Lissa and any of her friends. She must had seen Adrian hanging out with the group at some point in the past two days and when she found out he was an artist-to-be she tried to humiliate him in front of several students only for it to backfire.

"She doesn't sound like a popular girl." Adrian took a drag of his cigarette while offering the packet to the other guys. Mason and Christian took one each but Eddie and Dimitri declined the offer.

"You would think that. But she does have a lot of girls following after her. And two guys who will do whatever she tells them to do as long as they have sex with her in return." Christian lit his cigarette and took a drag. The look that the two non-smokers were giving him meant that he wasn't meant to smoke. "Don't look at me like that, I don't smoke all the time. And Lissa won't find out unless someone tells her."

"But seriously, Adrian." He faced the Russian guy. "Just be careful around her. If people start giving you weird looks she may have started a rumour. And the names of those two guys are Jesse Zeklos and Ralf Sarcozy. There have been rumours that they've done horrific things to people that Mia didn't like."

"I think I'll be okay."