Bound to You

Chapter 4: The Encounter

Thursday

She went to the staff-room to leave her bag and consulted her schedule. The classes were named based on Greek alphabets. She had mainly senior classes on her list. As she entered the Grade 12 Alpha class again, she was pleasantly surprised to find Ileana sitting in the front row. Seemed she had already made two friends as she was eagerly speaking with them before she broke in. 

She politely greeted everyone, took out her black marker again, introducing the next sub topic. And as she discussed about some mathematical problems, she could find Jace yawning at the back of the class. The boy had almost fallen in a sleep it seemed. 

Sierra questioned, "Now who wants to give me an answer? Raise your hand." 

No one dared. She saw the eyes looking away from her, up to the ceiling, down to the copybook, sideway but not towards her. "Anything from you, Jace?" 

Jace opened an eye, looking boringly at the whiteboard and groaned as she dared bother him. Sierra could see the class captain, shaking his head as if warning her. A warning she didn't pay heed to. "Do you have an answer?" 

Jace grumbled as he rubbed his two hands on his face, shaking off the sleep, "Why do you disturb me?" He stood, walked towards her and she wondered what he was doing. He snatched the marker from her hand and solved the problem in a matter of seconds, right there on the board, "There you have it, your bloody answer. First and last time you annoy me, get it?" 

She was stupefied by his aggressiveness but what could she say, the solution was correct. Her colleagues had warned her about Jace Torres' ruthless behavior. He didn't really respect any teachers here and no one had the power to stop him since he was the son of the CEO who owned this building. He was popular among the students and he even had a not so discrete fan club, or so she heard. 

They also warned her to let him do anything he wanted and not to get in his way. He already had three teachers fired in the past, made another two of them ask for transfer and had several insignificant fights with some others.

Jace tossed the marker on her desk, "Aw, you know what? Now that I shocked you, I'm going for a stroll." 

She frowned, "You can't just leave my class in the middle of a lesson...though, um, even if you got a good answer." 

He snapped his fingers in front of her face, "Sure I can." 

"I'll report you." 

He laughed in her face, "I'm the one who reports teachers here." 

"Oh really?" She placed her hands on her hips, "Please go back to your seat and follow." 

He stared at her for a moment and mocked, "I'm so scared right now."

Ileana bit her lips. That was bad. She wanted to laugh like everyone else were doing. It was kind of entertaining to watch them arguing. So his name was Jace? It kind of suit him. She had been wondering about it since yesterday. God, when she went to the washroom, he and his gang were basically a hot topic of conversation on the lips of the girls there.

Sierra felt a headache starting as the little pest made his way towards the door, "Mr Torres! I'm giving you a last warning." 

Fancy using his family name which only made him feel even more powerful! Jace sighed. What did she want with him? Well, she could go to hell. He grabbed the doorknob, opened the door and walked away whistling a song. He'd go and see the others train at basketball. That was way more interesting...than learning the same old useless calculus.

Sierra asked herself what she was supposed to do with a student like that. She tried to maintain her patience and above all, her dignity as a teacher, "We'll continue with or without him. So as I was saying, when you have a question like this, you need to bring the power down and reduce the power by one in order to..."