I was of the opinion that the three of us looked absolutely ridiculous or like we were in a pantomime. So yeah. Ridiculous. First of all we'd casually walked around most of campus to find Danny – fortunately the weather was finally warming up a little, I mean, there were only a few days until March and that meant Easter and that meant chocolate. But that as not the point here. The point about the weather was that whilst I still had a hat and gloves on, my poor skirt-not-overly-clad legs weren't legsicles anymore.
Anyway, we'd eventually spied Danny in the gym doing kick boxing with some guy I had never taken the time to pay attention to before and still could barely remember what he looked like even though he'd been right in front of my eyes a moment ago. The gym doors were modern replacements of the old double arched doors and had a narrow pane of glass going from to bottom of both of them. I'd walked passed the door barely glancing inside, but the fight caught my eye and for a moment I'd simply watched thinking how simply awesome it would be to do something like that. Then I had an internal rant about my glasses and not being able to do anything awesome like that because of them and then I'd realised who I was staring at and leapt to the side out of sight.
Then I peered through the window again just to make sure.
"Guys," I hissed and waved them over.
"What?" Evan asked at normal volume.
"Shhh!" I hissed. "He's in there."
I peered back through the window. A moment later Evan carefully looked through the window as well, just as carefully as me and his head was just above mine. Then Luke put his head above Evan's, probably for comedic effect.
"I thought you said he boxed," Luke whispered.
"He does," I confirmed. "This is part of his training. When he was with Lex he only came to this gym on Mondays."
"He has more than on gym he goes to?"
"He likes the one in town. The twenty four hour one."
"A twenty four hour gym?" Evan asked, equally quietly and with a note of distaste. "What kind of person goes to the gym at, like, one in the morning?"
"Someone with tiny penis syndrome."
Danny and his partner stopped fighting and as one turned towards the doors. The three of us quickly pulled back and flattened ourselves against the wall.
"Do you think they saw us?" Evan whispered.
"I don't know," I said trying to not panic.
Because if both of them came this way, we were screwed. We needed to get Danny alone.
Carefully, and hardly daring to breathe, I peered through the window again. They were pausing for a drink. Then the other guy left the sparring ring.
"Go!" I whispered to Luke and Evan. "He's alone. Go!"
"What?" Evan asked.
In response I just grabbed his arm and pushed him through the door. Well, he was supposed to go through it; he kind of just splatted against it like a bug on a windscreen.
"Oh jeez," Luke muttered but pushed him the rest of the way through.
Once the door had closed and stopped flapping on its hinges I peered through again. Danny was sat stretching on the floor looking unconcerned even though Luke and Evan were still stood up. I kind of wanted to be annoyed about that, but yeah. He really didn't have much to worry about. Luke may have been into more guyish things than Evan and Scott – he loved paintball, went to see motor racing with his cousins and stuff like that – but he balked at confrontations as much as me. And Evan... well, he was Evan. He was almost as effeminate as me sometimes. Not in the way he dressed or anything like that, but he was... soft. Calm. The quiet one of the group.
He also had his hands in his pockets, was scuffing a foot to and fro on the floor, had his shoulders hunched and was totally letting the side down. Luke was doing a little better, though his hands kept flexing a sure sign he wasn't comfortable. I kind of wanted to bust my way in there and take over, but knew that it would achieve nothing. So there I was sending silent thoughts to my friends of how to do this even though I knew they couldn't hear me.
"What I'd give for us all to be Betazoid right now," I muttered.
And decided I'd been spending too much time with Dad and Dan. The far better plan was for us to connect thoughts like Rose and Lissa had at the end of Blood Promise. Yes, that was a much better idea. I'd be able to show them how to punch the crap out of Danny's face too.
As I watched Danny got up from the floor and loomed over Evan who took a step back. Then, instead of doing the smart thing of walking away, Luke shoved Danny away and well and truly socked him. I was about to celebrate, but Danny rounded on him and socked him back, breaking his nose.
"Hey!" Evan yelled and tried to land some sort of sissy hit on him but got kicked in the ribs. God, did they forget in the last two seconds that Danny boxed and they were Luke and Evan, not Batman and Robin?!
Evan went tumbling to the floor, whacking his back on the corner of a weight stand. Luke got over the pain of his broken nose and lunged at Danny.
I finally jumped into action, my eyes going from wide with shock to narrowed with anger in a heart beat. I slammed the door open and hurried into the room, not quite running but pretty close. Just as Danny's fist connected with Luke's stomach I reached them both. I grabbed Danny's collar and pulled him away somehow tripping over my foot as I did so. I stumbled a little but stayed upright.
And that, ladies and gents was how the head of P.E. found us and why the four of us were sat in the Dean's office through lunch. The Dean had made us wait for the talking to, subsequent questioning and the following dishing out of punishments until Luke and Evan had been seen by the nurse (a one time doctor who really knew her stuff). Danny and I had been sent to the Lower Head's office to wait out the in between time in perfect silence. It wasn't that we were acting childishly, but that he was making sure his son was ok and he never let anyone stew in his office alone. No, if he was leaving people to stew you had to sit in the room with him whilst he did paperwork.
Evan was declared bruised, Luke's nose was declared fine if sore and then the Dean pointed me and Danny into his office in tight lipped silence. I hurried in there, not through fear of the Dean but so that I could see how my friends were. Luke had ice for his face, Evan had a water bottle for his back and both were dosed up on painkillers.
"Sit down, Miss Jones," the Dean said.
I did as I was told knowing that even though I knew him outside of school I was not going to get any special treatment. Evan didn't get any special treatment and he was Zack's son. I had my friends to my right and Danny to my left. I vaguely noted that in pantomimes when the bad guy came on stage it was always from the left.
Thus came the rant about how we should all know better, how we were supposed to set an example for the rest of the school as we were in our final year, that he expected better from us all, how someone could have been seriously hurt and most of all, how he was disappointed all of us.
"Miss Jones, tell me what happened," he commanded.
"Her? But she –"
"Quiet," he snapped over Danny. His voice reverberated through the room. For a moment the four of us sat in complete silence. He let the silence stretch for a few moments before turning back to me. "Miss Jones."
I sighed. "It's my fault, Sir."
"No it's –"
"Evan," the Dean, his dad, pressed.
I sent a thankful look to Evan for trying, but it was my fault. Ok, so the fight wasn't my fault, but I asked them to talk to Danny. I'd put them in that position. I explained what I'd asked my friends to do, what I'd seen through the window and how I jumped in to help, to end the fight.
Zack clasped his hands together and rested them on his deck. "You got your friends in trouble, Miss Jones. Why didn't you confront Mr. Cormick yourself?"
"Because I knew he wouldn't tell me the truth." I nearly shrugged but didn't dare.
He gave me a look that said he knew I wasn't telling the whole truth, but turned his gaze to my friends. "This is what happened?"
They both nodded. He turned to Danny. "Tell your side of the story."
"She set them on me!" he growled finally looking away from the wall to glare at me. "Because she's too cowardly to do it herself. And they never gave me a chance to explain before punching me. They just –"
"Tell him the truth, Danny," I snapped.
"I am telling the truth," he snapped back. "You got them to do your dirty work for you and –"
"You honestly think I sent them to beat you up?"
"Didn't you?"
"When I know they'd lose – no. If I wanted the crap beaten out of you I'd do it my –"
"Enough, Miss Jones," Zack said mildly considering the circumstances.
Danny looked smugly at me.
"But you are right," the Dean continued. "I don't doubt for a second if you wanted to beat him up you'd do it yourself.
Danny's face fell.
"Zoey, why don't you think he'd tell you the truth?" I was asked.
Danny's eyes snapped back over to me, a silent command to keep silent on the matter. I turned from him and looked at Zack. I waited a moment, just to agonise Danny some more – it was the least he deserved.
"A while ago I found out –"
"Don't you dare," Danny growled.
" – something about him and his father that he'd rather no one knows. To stop him harassing Lexie I told him if he carried on I'd tell everyone what I knew and that I'd tell everyone if he put one foot wrong, no matter who he was bullying."
Danny visibly relaxed. I didn't mind. I'd never intended to tell Zack what I knew.
"I figured he'd lie to me to save his own skin. So I asked Evan and Luke to talk to him."
An eyebrow rose. "And you didn't ask Scott because?"
"Because he knows the secret too."
He narrowed his eyes at me as if to tell me how shrewd I was being and how much he didn't approve. I didn't really approve that much either, but you had to do what you had to do. Lexie was worth it every time.
"Mr. Cormick, I'm only going to ask once, and you'd better tell me the truth," Zack said. "Did you spread the rumours about Zoey and her boyfriend?"
He sighed. "Yes."
"Why?" I asked. "You saw him. You know he's not sixty five."
He frowned. "No I haven't."
"Yeah you have. At the Halloween party. Grigory threw you out."
"Your neighbour?" he asked. "The guy with the short brown hair?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
"No. You're in the same Russian class as Harriet right?"
The rest of us sighed and figuratively settled in for what was bound to be an epic story. I was also wondering the possibility of her getting expelled.
"You two don't need to be here," Zack said to Evan and Luke. "You're free to do what you want."
"I'm good staying right here," Evan said. "Luke?"
"I only wish I had popcorn."
I snorted a laugh. Zack gave them a condescending look but didn't kick them out. I kind of wanted to call Scott, Lexie and Dan into the room, but knew that that would never be allowed. Almost as one we turned our heads to Danny. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair for a moment, cleared his throat and then settled down.
"The day after Zoey dropped out of the class, Harriet sent me a text telling me what happened and sent a picture of him." He pulled his phone out of his pocket and found the message. He showed us all.
And we all started to laugh.
"What?" he asked looking between us all, truly lost.
"That's Alan Rickman!" Evan laughed.
"Who?" Danny asked.
The laughter dried up and we all blinked at him for a few dumbfounded moments. Who the frick didn't know who Alan Rickman was? He was a legend!
"Snape," I surmised.
He crinkled his brow. "He has something to do with Harry Potter right?"
Again, who didn't know about Harry Potter?
"Judge Turpin."
He shook his head.
I threw my hands up in the air. "The Sheriff of Nottingham."
"Really?" he asked and looked at his phone. "He played... the Kevin Costner one?"
"Yeah."
He looked back at his phone. "Oh man. I totally see it now."
"Oh my god," I groaned in despair at his utter cluelessness.
"Moving swiftly on," Zack said, once again all seriousness. "Why did Harriet tell you?"
Danny gave me a fearful look.
I sighed. "This time, I won't say anything. I honestly just want the truth. But next time..."
He nodded just the once deciding to cut his losses. Detention for the rest of the year, or whatever his punishment would be, probably looked a lot more attractive than me letting his secret slip. "She knew that I wanted to get back at Zoey for what happened at Christmas. With the secret," he clarified for our momentarily confused Dean.
"So, she told you knowing that you would spread rumours about Zoey?" Zack asked just to make sure he understood things correctly.
"Yes, Sir."
I grinned. Harriet was toast. Zack shot me a look that had me containing it, but not feeling any less gleeful. Then he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.
"You, Mr. Cormick, are in after school detention for a week starting today. Come back no later than five minutes after the bell."
Danny stood up. "Yes, Sir."
He walked out.
"You two can go as well," Zack said to the guys. "Take the rest of the day off."
"Yes, Sir," Luke said.
"I need a house key," Evan said.
Zack pulled his keys out of a draw and gave Evan the one he needed. I stayed silent until the door was closed. Even then I just looked up at Zack, askance in my eyes. He came to sit in Evan's seat, turning it to face me like he had the last time I was in here. We both knew that this time I wasn't going to be storming out.
"You can't tell anyone until tomorrow," he said softly. "No one should find out they're being expelled through rumours."
I nodded. "She's really going to be gone?"
He nodded. I nodded too doing my best to not cry. She didn't deserve the tears, but finally it was going to be over. I'd never have to worry about what she was going to say to me next, when she was next going to call me Little Idiot, how she was going to bring a good mood crashing down just by walking passed me. But knowing that she was going to be gone and I was free of her...
I was pulled into a hug.
"I really do wish I'd been able to do this sooner," he sighed.
"Yeah, but, if you had I would never have stood up to her," I said and pulled away from him so that I could look at the clock. "She's probably still at lunch."
He smiled at me. "Send her in. Just don't hit her."
I grinned and skipped out of the room. It wasn't far to the dining hall, and it was pretty full still when I got there considering how late in the lunch hour it was. Even so I quickly found Lexie, Scott, Dan, Brandon and Liam. I dumped my bag in a chair and pulled my water bottle out.
"How'd it go?" Scott asked.
"In some ways terribly, but in others it was great." I sipped some water. "Where's Harriet?"
They all paused eating and looked at each other and then at me.
"Dean Templehurst wants to see her. I volunteered to be his messenger."
"Zoey..." Dan began probably wondering why I was so ok with this.
"She's over there," Lexie said grinning at me.
I hadn't told her that the next time Harriet was in trouble she'd get expelled. Lexie just knew me well enough to know what I was doing and that I was ready to do this.
"Where?" I asked.
"In the corner there," she pointed.
I looked to the corner closest to us. It was about ten tables over and Harriet was stood adjusting her skirt with one hand and holding a bottle in the other. The wall was maybe about ten feet behind her so that people had enough room to go in and out the door which led to the quad.
I strode over to her.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I used this song in the Falling Fast soundtrack, but gosh I love it and Vampire Academy too much to not include it again! Zoey to the rescue! More importantly.... What do you think is going to happen next? Gah! I love the beginning of the next chapter. I almost don't want to wait another week to update again >.<
I hope you liked this chapter and how much of an idiot Danny is :D Please let me know what you thought of it.