Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Nine

Walking back into class felt like the first day of school in kindergarten, except two thousand times the anxiety.

I could barely force myself to move in the proper direction. I already knew that the reaction I'd get would not be a positive one. Everyone had seen what had gone down, everyone saw me fall, saw Bea break her hand, and she was not even with me now since she had been taken away, probably to get it fixed.

Everyone knew how strict the police officers had been and everyone was most likely insanely curious as to what had gotten them to react that way.

And it was funny, because I was insanely curious just as they were.

As I walked, now thankfully without the officers' help, the question kept coming back to me. Why did they literally drag Bea and me out of the room? What caused them to commit such violence? And shouldn't they have been scolded by Mr. Neilson, or someone for that? Wasn't that illegal?

Did it even matter if anything was legal anymore? Because to be quite honest, Animuses didn't even feel like they should be legal.

I walked into a classroom of silence.

Complete silence.

Not even the teacher, Mrs. Hunting, was talking. Her mouth was frozen in an O shape, like she had been in the middle of speaking, but was shocked into stillness the moment I entered the room. She didn't seem to be the only one either, everyone else in the class sat in the seats staring, expressions of surprise mixed with fear on their faces.

And then a warm body slammed into mine and I was barely able to keep my feet on the ground. Muscular arms wrapped around my chest, completely engulfing me because of my small size.

"I thought I'd never see you again," Zander whispered into my ear and the entire class seemed to unfreeze itself at Zander's tackling of me. Eyes began blinking, and the teacher closed her mouth quickly, reality slamming back into the room.

I didn't bother correcting Zander on how utterly abnormal it would've been for me to actually never see him again. It had seemed unlikely, even with the extreme reactions of the police. But maybe the real reason I was feeling that way was because I'd never been faced with that type of oppression before. I'd never actually been faced with the ideas of going to prison, or something else terrible happening to me that would cause me to lose my family and friends.

Maybe some part of me was still so paralyzed by the images of Bea being dragged out of the room and me following close after that I couldn't actually understand the absurdity of the situation.

"Missed you too," I mumbled in response, awkwardly trying to get one of my arms to actually wrap around his back.

Mrs. Hunting seemed to finally wake up from her daze. "Excuse me...students....," she started hesitatingly. "Please return to your seats." There was little conviction in her tone, and it was obvious she didn't mind us hugging. Everyone could feel the sense of loss that still radiated in the air from when two students been taken from the room.

And now everyone seemed to be wondering the same thing. If two students had left, why had only one come back?

I turned my face to the rest of the students and quickly let out, "Bea is receiving medical attention." I despised all the staring, how the rest of the rooms' eyes were latched onto me as I finished my statement and scrambled past Zander's imposing figure to get back to the refuge of my desk. At least at my desk the people in the front of the room couldn't turn to look at me without being overly obvious.

"Please, settle down," Mrs. Hunting ordered just as Zander was returning to his own seat, still three rows away, but feeling closer than it had this morning. It was funny how being faced with losing people always brought out love for that person.

The class refocused their attention on Mrs. Hunting.

"Thank you." Mrs. Hunting seemed particularly rattled, but now that she knew what had gone down with both students, a sense of relief could be seen going through her. Shoulders dropping, hands unclenching, she took her uncapped marker and began drawing on the whiteboard, purple stains left behind wherever her hand went.

"So...like I was saying before...adding-," she started before pausing, her eyes glued to her computer screen.

"Oh...oh...," she began muttering as she dropped the marker back down next to the whiteboard and the tension in the room escalated once again. What now?

Her fingers began typing frantically on the keyboard and when she stood back up, her blonde bun bobbing around in her haste, her face seemed slightly more confused than it had before.

"Sorry...but it seems we are being interrupted. There's supposedly a meeting in room C457 in five minutes."