I wearily glanced back behind me, as I watched Vic obnoxiously slide down the handrail of the dormant escalator, crying out enthusiastically, as the three other boys laughed at him. Unsurprisingly, I stood right at the back of everyone else with my hands in my pockets, looking over my shoulder in a paranoid way, picturing the cops or my mother bursting in and catching us. I knew that I was being a killjoy, but I could not stop being concerned. This was the first time I had done anything remotely rebellious and the stress I had felt before came back, worse than ever.
Despite the anxiety of the situation, our setting was actually quite interesting. I had never seen an abandoned mall before, so being inside of one was obscure. Most of the stores were empty except for a few items (Gabe found a gem in the form of an ancient speaker and rewired it to play music from his phone). People had clearly ventured inside before, as graffiti littered the walls and some things had been smashed. We could not find the power switch, and were too scared to enter the basement, so we set up a bunch of torches that the boys brought, as well as a few that we had found here, to provide an interesting source of light.
We had a look around the higher levels, but stayed on the ground floor, as the building seemed very fragile and we did not want to risk anything collapsing underneath us as we messed around. I shoved my hands into my pockets and sighed, wondering when this would be over. All I wanted to do was just get home, slip into bed, and pretend like none of this actually happened.
"Why the sad face?" I jumped when a tanned arm was slung over my shoulder carelessly and a giddy Vic appeared next to me.
"I'm just really paranoid about everything, sorry," I said, shrugging his arm off me and wrapping my own around my torso. I just really disliked this situation; it was much nicer when it was just Vic and I out on the field. Mainly because that wasn't illegal, but this is.
Justin called out to everyone, having had retrieved something from his backpack, so we all approached. I was not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely was not a couple of blunts in a plastic bag.
I uneasily glanced at Vic, then the others. None of them seemed affected by the sight, maybe a little excited.
"Your boy Justin always comes prepared," the bassist said smugly and sat on the floor, all of us doing so too, forming a circle. "It's already grinded and rolled. You're welcome."
When I agreed to coming here, I certainly had not realised that we would be smoking weed. I knew that it was something normal for teenagers to do, but I had never tried it before, mostly due to not having anyone to do it with. I never really had an opinion on it, but now it just made me weary as it only added to the list of illegal things we were doing today.
I watched as the boys passed the, now lit, blunt around our circle. It got to Vic, and I watched as he put it to his lips, then sucked in a deep breath of it. Losing myself in thought came quickly, as I remembered what he had told me beforehand. I guessed that he did not want to discuss it in front of the others, and neither did I, but I felt like I had been left at a cliffhanger, with so many unanswered questions and queries, the main being why anyone would even like me in the first place.
Vic smiled and passed the blunt to me, apparently taking my staring as a sign that I wanted it. I just shook my head at him and sighed, really not being in the mood for this.
"Are you sure? It's the purple haze strain. That stuff makes you all happy and giddy, might de-stress you," Vic offered again, so charismatically that I almost changed my mind and took it, but I was in such a low mood that I thought nothing could change it. Simply, I passed the blunt along to Jack without bringing it anywhere near my lips. I knew that I would feel the effects of it from inhaling some of the smoke too, but nowhere near as much as the others. The fumes themselves were making the back of my throat burn.
Seeing how uncomfortable I seemed with this whole thing, Vic took one of my hands (which caused an electric shock to vibrate throughout my body) and led me away from the smoking boys.
"Come on, let's find something to do. There was a toy shop up on the second floor, there might be some interesting stuff there," he offered and I nodded, willing to agree with anything he said as long as he kept holding my hand. We walked up the unmoving escalator and made our way to the toy store. No one had been inside before, so we had to put a little more effort than usual into entering, but we managed to do it and shined our torches inside, scanning the mostly abandoned area.
"Nerf guns!" Vic gasped excitedly and raced over to a half-opened crate which stood against a wall. I slowly followed him inside, being caught off guard when a large, colourful, plastic gun was chucked in my direction and I nearly dropped my torch in order to catch it. Luckily, it was not heavy at all, so I was able to keep my balance.
I placed my torch on the floor in one corner, illuminating the room, and Vic did so in the opposite one. There were still many tall shelves, some pushed over, in rows around the room, casting sinister shadows across the ground.
It was clear that Vic was up for a little game as soon as I felt something sharply slap against the back of my head, making me yelp in surprise and twist around. There he was, with his gun raised and a mischievous grin plastered on his face, an expression showing that he was ready for more. I sighed but gave in, hoping that this would improve on my melancholic mood and so, before Vic could even react, I was shooting one of the foam bullets directly at his face (I missed, but at least it hit his neck).
I was quick to fire another one, however Vic clumsily dove for cover behind one of the shelves. I could not help but laugh when the boy shrieked and I watched the plain shelf tumble over with a thud, as he had knocked into it. This gave me the opportunity to shoot him a few more times, before concealing myself behind the counter. There was an excitement rushing through me at our little competition, as it was a great distraction from the dreadful truth that we were still doing something illegal.
I slid down to my knees, collecting some of the soft ammo from the ground at my feet, as I heard Vic's footsteps shuffling around.
"I'm coming for you," he sung in an attempt to be menacing, but all it did was make me giggle. Someone like Vic could never be scary - not in the slightest.
Getting into a crouch position, I manoeuvred away from the counter and around the rows of shelves, with my gun up and aimed forward. I could hear Vic's footsteps, but he could not hear mine, so I took this to my advantage and came up behind him, rapidly unloading as many bullets as I could into his back, before running for cover.
I shrieked in laughter, as Vic raced after me and reached to grab my arm, but only made me stumble in the process. My feet skidded when we reached the end of the row of shelves, but I twisted around to face Vic with the intention of shooting him again, only to have the boy run right into me, his face colliding with my chest and knocking us both backwards. I chuckled, as I managed to keep my balance and hold both of us up by wrapping my fingers around Vic's arms.
The shorter boy's laughter was music to my ears, sounding melodic and inspiriting. Now that we were so close, Vic took this opportunity to wrap his arms around my waist, and I did so with his torso too. His hugs were so welcoming and they made me feel warm inside. I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing heavily from all of the running we had done.
"I really like you, Kellin," Vic mused, once again making it feel like we were the only two people there.
My cheeks burned with a red tone, as I pondered that idea. Someone actually liked me, and that someone was none other than Vic. I had no idea what he saw in me. He was fun, adventurous, loud. I was shy, clumsy, quiet. We were polar opposites, with the only thing linking us being a love for music, yet he still somehow found appeal in me. I could not think of a single special thing about myself, but here was Vic with stars in his eyes whenever he even glanced at me.
All of a sudden, a loud noise from the ground floor made Vic and I jump, releasing each other from the embrace. We slowly approached the railing from which we could see down below us, and it showed that the area we had been in before was illuminated by a light which streamed in from the front entrance that had once been locked.
"This is the police. You have unlawfully broken into and entered an off-limits building, so anything you say will be used against you in a court of law, if charges decide to be placed. Come towards me with your hands up - all of you."
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I haven't left Wattpad I just joined a cult and started doing fentanyl