Lullabies (Victorious) (Cade)

Trials and Tribulations

"Are you serious? Tell me you're fucking joking, Lane."

"Jade, please..."

"No, shut up and listen to me." Jade cut him off, raising her voice.

Lane's jaw tightened, but he stopped, allowing Jade to speak.

"I would never hurt Cat. Ever. Why the hell would you even assume that?"

"You've been violent towards other students in the past. And it's no secret that you're often cruel, yelling at Cat and humiliating her."

"But do you really believe I would hurt her? Its Cat we're talking about."

Jade was blinking back tears, but her voice remained stony. She was trying desperately to keep her composure. To stop herself from screaming, crying and breaking things and proving him right. She gripped the edge of the desk tightly, her knuckles turning white.

Lane sighed.

"I... I have my doubts, Jade. But I have a witness claiming to have seen you acting aggressively towards Cat, and no one has given me any other explanation. You have to admit that it looks bad. If you can tell me what actually happened we can drop all this."

Jade scoffed, glaring at him.

"I don't know what happened. You dragged me in here before I could ask! As for your witness, they're a goddamn liar. Who even told you that?"

"I'm sorry, I can't say." Lane replied with a frown.

"Why not just ask Cat what happened?She'll tell you I didn't do anything."

"Because if you did do something then she probably wouldn't be honest with me."

Jade shook her head, staring at the wall in silence. Lane took a moment to write a few things on the paper in front of him. He paused for a second, chewing his lip as he thought.

"I'm supposed to write here if I think you're going to be a risk to other students and in particular, Cat." He said, looking up from the page, his expression softening.

Jade crossed her arms, turning to face him, her eyes pleading. Something resembling pity flickered across Lane's face. He sighed again and wrote something down that Jade couldn't make out.

"Okay, Jade. You can go. But please, don't cause any trouble. If you find yourself back here any time soon there's no way I'll be able to let it slide again."

Jade nodded sadly, getting up to leave. As her hand touched the doorknob Lane spoke one last time.

"And Jade."

She turned to look at him.

"Don't make me wrong about this. Please."

------------------------------------------------

"That's probably not a good thing." Tori said quietly as she and Cat watched Jade follow Lane down the hall and out of sight.

"You were going to tell her." Cat replied, crossing her arms. "I told you not to tell her."

Tori turned to Cat, looking exasperated.

"Cat, you have a bruise the size of Kansas on your face. How were you planning on hiding that?"

Cat rolled her eyes, heading toward the stairs in the main entryway. She kept her head down, trying to ignore the stares and whispers coming from all sides. Some even pointed at her with looks of either curiosity or pity.

"I wasn't going to hide it from her. I was just..."

"Going to lie to her about what happened?"

Cat faltered slightly as she sat down on one of the steps. She let out a breath she had been holding in and looked up at Tori.

"You know what she'll do if she finds out. She'll do something stupid and reckless and get herself in trouble."

Tori nodded.

"Oh yeah, she'll kill them if she finds out. No doubt about it. Probably slowly and painfully."

Cat gestured vaguely in agreement, biting her lip and staring at the ground.

"She still deserves to know." Tori continued, sitting down beside Cat and hugging her around her small shoulders.

The girls sat for a long moment. Eventually Cat straightened up slightly.

"Fine, I'll tell her what happened. But I'm not saying who did it."

Tori raised an eyebrow, but Cat just shook her head lightly.

"Don't argue. If she doesn't know who did it she can't hurt him."

"Even though he deserves it?" Tori asked pointedly.

Cat nodded. "It wouldn't be worth it."

Just then the bell rang, prompting the girls to stand. Cat let out a small sigh of relief.

"Good, I'm not ready to face her just yet. Promise you won't say anything." She said, holding out her pinky. Tori hesitated for a moment before shaking Cat's pinky with her own. They stayed like this briefly, before nodding silently and parting ways.