Scorpio

Chapter X

Biology class became a biohazard. Elsewhere at school, the jeering and name-calling and general, unwarranted shaming continued unabated, but in Biology I was officially sentenced to death by radioactive poisoning. Chernobyl may have been an accident, but everything about what happened on Thursday afternoon was calculated, but the perpetrators got away.

I was wary of any new notes or feet stuck out as tripwires, but I didn't have eyes in the back of my head, so I didn't see when——

——a couple feet away from my desk, a creep reached out and grabbed a fistful of my derrière and gave it a twist, saying, "Good to know you have one of these, freak!"

I gasped, startled, and whirled around to see him cackling. Fire clawed up my neck and face, and I felt the suffocating pressure of twenty-plus other pairs of judgmental eyes staring at me. I started clenching my hands into fists, but then, I thought better of it because a dude like that—so shameless and full of swaggering bravado—didn't deserve an honorable black-eye.

No, that douche was only justly served by a mean slap to the face.

He was still clucking his head off and earning approving snickers from his buddies when I lashed out and smacked his left check halfway across to tomorrow.

He was stunned, and he staggered sideways, clutching his inflamed cheek. The room became hushed.

"How dare you?" I roared, eaten by fury. "You little prick!"

It was an unfortunate circumstance that Mr. Tackler, the malevolently mustached teacher, entered the room when I was losing my head.

"Aurora!" he snapped and strode over.

The freshman perv decided to do some caterwauling and shed some crocodile tears.

"She slapped me," he whined. "Mr. Tackler, she slapped me."

My hackles were raised, and I really wanted to slap him again.

"Aurora!" Mr. Tackler growled.

"I was just going to my seat," he wailed plaintively.

"That's not true," I tried to defend myself. "He was the one who first——"

"Aurora! Violence is not tolerated! Go to the principal's office! Now!" The teacher pointed a finger at the door.

"Wh—Wh—What?!" I flung my arms out. "He grabbed——"

"NOW!" Mr. Tackler bellowed.

The class was deathly still as the teacher marched me out of the room full of spiteful looks and snide lips. My face was still hot, no longer from the unexpected attack, but the cruel injustice and the lack of due process in my case. In theory, I could appeal to the Supreme Court, but in reality, the verdict had been written in bold Sharpie before I had ever taken the stand. I would not be believed. They didn't want to hear me speak.

The upshot of all this was that I had to serve detention on Friday afternoon while the slick-haired, polo-wearing third derivative bozos high-fived each other when they saw me return to class. I had to explain the situation to Rosalie and promised her that I'd work on the state practice questions during detention that afternoon instead of meeting with her as per usual routine.

The day of my wrongful incarceration, I walked glumly to Calc. I scowled at the preserved cats and sank down in the entranceway to the classroom.

"You are not doing anything fun this weekend," Xanexa observed grimly while spinning the silver pencil on xyr fingertips.

"Nope," I barked a laugh, not caring who heard me. "I have detention for slapping the kid who groped me."

"Psychological brutality hurts more than the physical kind," xe observed.