I just wanted to say thank you to all of the people that reviewed. :) I get so excited when people do, it increases my confidence. But WOW it has been a LONG while since I updated this. Thanks to the people who have been so so patient for this. School and sports can really get in the way of writing :P. This chapter is kind of bland, but it's also kind of important.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the people who have nothing to do with Big Time Rush whatsoever.
"Get up."
I completely ignored the voice and buried my face in the pillow some more, wanting those few blissful moments of sleep to come back.
"I'm not kidding. Get up." They ordered again. This was starting to annoy me. Usually I'm a pretty obedient girl; it's just the sleep part that causes me to be a bit of a snitch.
"No." I grumbled.
"Come on, everyone is downstairs waiting for you. And the sooner we get done with today the better." Wow, they sounded irritated. I wonder who that could be...
"I feel like we should start it later in the day." I mumbled again into the pillow. I could tell it was early. I'm not a morning person when someone wakes me up.
"Fine."
Suddenly I felt two hands forcefully pushing on my back and sending me to the ground with a loud thud, sheets coming down with me.
"Okay...ow! What was that for?" I shouted, pulling the sheets off of me and standing up to only find James standing there with a victorious smirk on his face.
"You wouldn't get up!" He said nonchalantly. My expression turned into one of annoyance, anger, and pain from falling on the hardwood floor earlier.
"Okay, so at what point did you think it was a good idea to just push me off the bed?" I demanded. He just shrugged.
"It seemed like an effective way to get you to wake up. And look! It worked!" A cocky grin grew across his lips.
"Well congratulations! Now leave me alone!" I ordered pointing to the door. James rolled his eyes and walked out of the bedroom.
The only thing I really liked about this bedroom was that it was at the end of the hall, it was also across the hall from Kendall's bedroom, but I'd much rather have it here than inbetween two other rooms. There was also a bathroom connected to my bedroom, which is also on the small list of things I'm greatful for in this wierd house...jail...thing.
After I had showered (which really got me in a better mood) and dressed I hesitantly walked downstairs where I saw Carlos, Logan, James and Kendall all sitting in a row infront of Kathy. Logan turned his head towards the sqeaking stairs and smiled.
"Hey Sammie!" He greeted.
"Oh finally! Where have you been?" Kendall asked cheerfully. Wierd, I almost remember him kind of hating me. Not as much as James seemed to...but yeah.
I smirked. "Well I was having the most wonderful sleep when suddenly my face was introduced to the floor." I glared at James as I walked down the rest of the stairs. He was slightly chuckling. I smiled a little, liking the fact that he found that humorous. It's hard to hate someone when I've made them laugh...even if it was because of my own slight pain.
Logan raised an eyebrow and slowly turned his head to look at James. "Really? James the point was to wake her up not break her face." He scolded. James just rolled his eyes. "I got her up didn't I?" He retorted.
Suddenly I smelled the scent of waffles and syrup...and bacon! I didn't realize how hungry I was until now.
"Are we having breakfast now?" I asked, the words mainly coming from my stomach more than my mind.
An awkward silence fell upon the room. Logan and Kathy both made an embarrassed look. Kendall looked around awkwardly, and James...just laughed.
And Carlos...he did nothing.
"We already had breakfast." James stated, still laughing a bit. He seems to take a little more pleasure in all of this than I'd like.
"Really?" I asked, dumbfounded.
I'm having an awesome day so far.
"Yup. Really." James confirmed, sounding bored.
I rolled my eyes. Fine, I can go without breakfast for today.
"Sammie, Sweetie." Kathy said, moving towards me. "James said that you didn't want anything."
I glared at him. Bastard.
I smiled back at Kathy and said: "That's okay, I'm not that hungry anyway."
"If you're sure..." She said cautiously.
The room entered in an awkward silence that just seemed to drag on for a while until Kathy spoke up again.
"Uh, we're about to start the lesson, Sammie. Please take a seat next to James and we'll start." She inquired. I raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"Are you serious? Why can't I sit next to Carlos or Logan or someone?" As I tried to reason with her, I couldn't help but tense up and raise my voice a little at her. Not my best move.
Kathy instantly crossed her arms and put on a stern face. I bit my lip and relaxed my posture.
"Samantha, this program is not for your pleasure. This is specifically for the benefit of your future. Whether you follow it or not is your choice, but I highly suggest that you do things the first time they are asked and not question it if you don't want to stay here longer than you have to."
I stood there uncomfortably darting my eyes around the room. I looked at Logan for some kind of reassurance or encouragment or something. All I saw was him staring at me with pleading eyes. My eyebrows knitted together as he jerked his head towards the seat next to James; a gesture for me to sit down.
Reluctantly moving from my position and taking a seat Kathy smiled and was once again the friendly woman she was not two minutes ago.
I peered over at Logan again, who was half-smiling sympathetically. It wasn't really that much of a scolding but for some reason Logan looked more than relieved to see Kathy smiling again...
I glanced at James as well, he wasn't smirking or having a self-confident look on his face like he usually did (as far as I knew him, that is). He was staring at his hands on the small table in front of him. There was almost no expression. Even if there was, it looked like one of regret, pain, and sorrow. Kendall and Carlos were basically doing the same thing. I had no idea what was going on.
"Let's get started, shall we?" Kathy's voice caused the loss of my focus on the four juvenile boys. All of their heads turned to face her almost simultaniously. The blank expressions were now replaced with faces of small interest and readiness in a matter of seconds.
Honestly, I really did try paying attention for the most part, but this was one of the most confusing things I've ever had to learn.
"Find the value of x which is equal to the subset of negative six and four." Kathy said as she wrote out the foreign equation on a chalk board that kind of looked like xl-6y4l. I had no idea people used those anymore. I must admit it got me a little excited to see a chalkboard in a long while.
Staring at this problem I began to rack through my brain trying to figure out if I had done something similar to this in my, I guess now old, high school. I couldn't find anything in there for the life of me. I looked over at James who was writing the problem down on a piece of paper with ease.
I leaned over to him. "James!" I whispered as quietly as I could. His pencil stopped and his eyes darted towards me.
"I am so confused, what are we doing?" I whispered again, a bit louder this time.
"Math...?" He stated, making it sound more as an obvious question like I was stupid.
"No duh! I meant the x-subset thing!" I glared at him. He quietly scoffed.
"Go ask Logan! And shut up, you're going to get us in trouble!" He returned the glare and continued to scribble numbers and unknown variables on the paper before him. I was slowly starting to enter panic mode.
"I can't! He's all the way over there and you seem to know what you're doing anyway! Why can't you just help me?" My volume slowly started to rise again, now being audible to everyone in the room without me noticing. Kathy walked up to where I sat and the scolding woman was back.
"Is there something you'd like to discuss Samantha?" She asked in a menacing tone. I felt like shrinking down into the chair just to avoid the attention.
"I-uh...no. I just was, um, c-confused...We didn't d-do this at m-my old school-" I managed to stutter out before she cut me off.
"Looks like to me you were trying to retrieve answers from James." She accused. I seriously thought we were taking notes here!
"No! I swear I was just asking if-"
"Miss Forrester if you don't mind I would suggest you not try to get by on other people's answers. It would be very difficult to succeed in your time being here if you wish to continue. For now I would like you to work in the fields until 8:00 tomorrow night."
Um...okay?
She turned to James. "That goes for you too, Mr. Diamond."
"WHAT?" He yelled, jumping from his crouched position over the table to sitting upright in his chair.
"You heard me, you and Miss Forrester until 8 tomorrow night."
"But I didn't even do anything!" He protested, his voice raising higher in defense.
"You know you're not allowed to speak unless spoken to in lessons. Plus, you were helping her."
James sat there with his mouth agape, trying to form words but failing. His head turned to me, forming a scowl.
"I'll talk to Ron about further actions." She added. All of the guys' heads snapped in her direction. "Class dismissed for an hour. I want you all back here quiet and ready to focus." Kathy ordered and walked out of the room towards the back of the house.
I turned to look at the guys, seeing them frozen in their spots. They looked completely terrified. Kendall was the first to speak up after swallowing harshly.
"D-don't worry James. There's still a chance it won't happen. Even if it does, it can't be that bad this time! You can't get so mad after a little thing like that!" He tried reasoning with him. James swallowed and looked at Kendall.
"When have you known Ron not to get mad at any little thing?" James countered. Kendall looked down then around to Logan who was watching the pair.
"Why? What's the matter with Ron?" I wondered out loud. Four heads automatically turned my way.
For a while they just stared at me. They still looked really scared, but this time there was a sense of sympathy floating around as well. For the first time today Carlos said something.
"We can't tell you..."
/
The rest of the morning was full of anxiety, fear, and it was intensely awkward. Kathy came back once more as a kind and gentle woman. She first explained the x-subset thing to me and within a matter of minutes I understood it...kind of. She told me that we would start something new the day after tomorrow, of which I was completely relieved at.
Surprisingly it was more like a foster home like Logan said. There was no bland cafeteria where you ate funky food, instead it was like having a family meal. There were no jail cells, only bedrooms. No wierd jumpsuits or matching outfits, only your own clothing to cover your own body. Instead of having continuously grumpy and intimidating instructors, you had a sweet woman taking care of you as if you were her own child...as long as you didn't piss her off, which I have recently learned not to do.
We have four main subjects we go through during the day. There's math, English, science, the social studies or global studies or history or whatever you want to call it. We also have a half an hour inbetween each subject.
After we finished everything and Kathy had made dinner, I was going to meet Ron for the first time.
He was tall and big built. He had a long face and icy blue eyes. His hair was a little curly and it curled over his ears a bit. I expected him to be a lot freakier to be quite honest, but I should seriously start considering the inevitable around here.
"Ronald, I need to talk to you." Kathy called him into the kitchen once he greeted the guys. His eyes lingered on me for a moment before turning and entering the kitchen with Kathy.
Logan and I were sitting next to eachother on one couch. James was sitting in a chair next to us, and Kendall and Carlos were sitting on the couch opposite from us.
"He's in a good mood today." Kendall stated.
I raised an eyebrow. "He looked pretty nonchalant to me."
Kendall nodded with a small smirk. "Exactly. He's not always in the friendliest mood."
"Shhh!" James interjected, he leaned towards the kitchen in his chair. "I wanna hear what they're saying."
"Come, on, Kath. Don't you think that's enough? It's her first day isn't it? Tell you what, if she messes up tomorrow then I'll do it, okay?"
"But Ron-"
"Just...send her and James to bed or something without dinner. They don't have to eat."
"It certainly helps in the process of maintaining life though..." I mumbled to myself.
"Shush!" James scolded again. I rolled my eyes and continued to listen in, but Kathy soon came into the livingroom with all of us leaning towards where they had their conversation. We all quickly stood up straight and glanced at her. Her cold eyes flickered between James and I.
"I want you two to go upstairs and stay up there for the rest of the night. Don't come down for anything." She ordered quietly. James and I glanced at eachother. "Now!" She raised her voice and James and I instantly stood up. We scurried up the stairs and I heard Kathy let out an annoyed sigh.
"James..." I called up to him. He was walking faster than usual to his room.
"Don't talk to me." He grumbled. He went in his room and shut his door. I followed suit and opened the door back up and strolled inside.
"James, look, I'm sorry! I didn't know something little like that could get us in so much trouble."
He spun on his heel to face me. He towered over me. Not feeling too confident.
"That's one of the main points of this system. You can't know what is going on anywhere at anytime, or else we all get punished. You have to figure it out for yourself." He explained menacingly. I bit my lip.
"But why though?"
James' frown softened a little, and he shook his head.
"I can't deal with this right now. Something's wrong." He mumbled to himself as he turned back around and walked towards his bed. "I need to talk to Logan, or Kendall, or...someone."
"Talk to me." I offered quietly. Just because I don't like the guy doesn't mean I can't be helpful.
James spun again with a scowl on his features. "No way." He spat. "I am definetly not going to talk to someone who doesn't even know what they're doing half the time."
"Then help me learn."
James looked down to his bed. His eyebrows furrowed, lost in thought.
"...No..." He finally spoke, his voice low. "Just...no, I can't." He started to walk towards me. "Can you leave...please? I want to be alone."
He stood directly infront of me, towering over me again. I stared in his hazel eyes and for once they didn't look annoyed. They looked...hopeless, tired, hurt.
I would've continued to stare into his eyes, maybe find something so I could change his mind, but that would be wierd and creepy. He seemed to be in a rush to be alone anyway, so I nodded and walked towards the door. I stopped just before I left and looked back to him.
"I'm sorry, James." I told him and walked into my room. He shut his door behind me.
/
"Kendall, can we talk to you for a sec?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"I think we should take Sammie tonight...er-We do."
There was a pause.
"Not tonight, guys."
"But I don't want her to be traumatized tomorrow. Can't we do it just to be safe? For her sake?"
"Logan, you always want to take the safe route."
"It helps."
"No, it doesn't. We took Carlos and that only made it worse for him. Didn't Carlos?"
"I'm not sure how much different it would have been without it. I still had fun thought."
"This isn't about fun, Carlos."
"Then what is it about, Kendall? You just want all five of us to live a miserable life here and not try to find anything good in it at all?"
"No! I'm just saying that-"
"Forget it. We won't do anything tonight. Come on, Carlos, let's go."
"What about Sam?"
"Not tonight Carlos, apparently it's not the the best idea."
Silence.