Dedicated to Eunice because she's one of my closest friends on this site and I love her very very much for sticking with me all the way through
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Everyone was dressed in the standard P.E. uniform and lined up along the bleachers in alphabetical order. No one moved. No one spoke. We all stood incredibly still, shoulder to shoulder, as Coach Woodson moved down the line, his eyes staring deep into our souls with an angry fire blazing in them.
However, it was hard for me to keep a straight face since his normally spiky black hair was now a delicious shade of bubblegum pink.
"Someone's going to fess up for this," Woodson snarled, his gravel-like tenor tones mashing together in an inharmonious tune. "By the time this class is over, I want a full confession from the person who did this--if not, then everyone gets detention."
No on dared to groan, but I knew that every single one of my classmates felt a pit of burning rage inside their stomachs. If there was a teacher that everyone unanimously hated in Cross Academy, it was Coach Woodson.
"The detentions start today," he added with a spiteful sneer. At this, an outburst escaped my lips and I broke the statue-like formation by stepping forward, my fists clenched at my side. My amusement was gone, and the irritated spark in my chest was now flaring.
Today, my father would be back in town to introduce me to my new bodyguard. Since I was returning to Cimeria for the first time in two years in the summer, my father had insisted on me getting a bodyguard in order to increase my safety. I hadn't seen him in months and I was not going to be late to the little introductory party just become some idiot had turned Coach Woodson's hair into a pink porcupine.
"You can't do that!" I cried out.
"Get back in line, Finch!" Woodson roared, a temple threatening to burst on his head as his face flamed into an atrocious shade of candy apple.
"I'll get back in line when you start thinking logically," I protested, standing my ground. Woodson stalked to the spot in front of me, the vein in his temple now bulging as a look of utter offense crossed his features.
"What did you say?" he said in a deadly whisper.
"Anyone could've snuck in at lunch and replaced your hair spray with pink dye. You don't have any proof whatsoever that someone in this class did the crime. All of us are innocent until proven guilty, and no charges can be held against us without proof. Therefore, you cannot keep us confined without firm ground that one of us in this class is a suspect."
I crossed my arms and glared back at him defiantly. Normally, I showed a healthy amount of respect for my professors. However, all I wanted to show to Coach Woodson was the view of the world before I pushed him off Mount Everest.
I'm not a violent person, I promise.
Suddenly, the bell echoed throughout the vast gymnasium. The insulted glower on Woodson's face melted into a malicious smile. "Everyone is dismissed," he barked to the line behind me, "except for Finch. I'm keeping you behind for detention."
"What?!"
"Finch is getting detention for talking back to a professor and showing blatant disrespect to a higher authority." Coach Woodson had on the most self-satisfied smile, as though he was thinking haha-I'm-a-teacher-and-you-can't-touch-me.
"Fine!" I grumbled, throwing my hands up in the air. I watched my classmates begin to leave, though a lot of them threw me sympathetic looks over their shoulders. "What is today, Woodson? Mop the bleachers? Clean the bathrooms?" Organize your ten-thousand hair products in alphabetical order?
Coach Woodson turned a bright pink but remained in his strict composure, and I realized I had actually said the last part out loud instead of in my head.
Oops, my bad (not really).
"I want you to clean the entire stadium and field. Make sure it's spotless before you leave."
My jaw hung open. "There's practice today!" I pointed out. "I can't clean up right now!"
"Then wait until practice is over."
"That's two hours!"
"Did I stutter, Finch?" Coach Woodson said. Triumph blazed in his eyes while anger flashed through mine. You know what? Pride is a sin, and sinners get struck by Zeus' lightning bolts (at least, I think so).
That's right, keep feeling proud. I hope you enjoy getting electrocuted.
"I wish I was the one who put the pink dye in your hair spray," I said, shooting him a dark look before I started walking out of the gym. "At least then this punishment would be worth it."
Angrily, I pushed a door open and began an upset march up towards the stadium and practice fields. My grey running shoes that were streaked with yellow pounded against the cement pathway, kicking little pebbles lying in my way.
"Stupid porcupine," I muttered to myself as I entered the stadium. "What kind of professor has that hairdo anyway?"
Since it was the season for track-and-field and there were meets every other day, the coaches were holding a practice before the competition tomorrow. However, I refused to wait around for two hours just so I could start cleaning. I marched on over to the janitor's outside storage closet and dragged out a black bucket. I filled it with clean water before I grabbed a mop and pulled the bucket over to the bleachers.
One of my favorite things about Woodson's detentions was that he liked to publicly humiliate in a subtle, indirect manner. It was no secret to the staff that nearly everyone disliked me, so Woodson tended to set my detentions in settings where I could be seen by a large group of of people, allowing them to gawk and laugh at me.
I couldn't wait to pay them back for their lovely behavior towards me. Soon. Just one more year.
"She's so pathetic," I suddenly overheard someone say loudly. Oh, look: Coach's plan was already in motion.
"Did you hear about this morning? She's so rude for talking back to Logan like that."
"I know, right? Why is she so mean to him? He's such a sweetheart!"
If only, random girl, if only. I slammed the mop onto the surface of the bleachers and began cleaning.
You'd think after six years, people would stop fawning over him but nooooo. Apparently, he's still the hottest thing in town. Every day, I'd have to witness the members of his fan club trail him and his friends home, asking him to come over to help them on homework or if he wanted to take a break to go eat with or something.
His fan club kind of reminded me of the paparazzi. Huh. No wonder I didn't like them.
Logan Cross was a curse word to me. As I dragged the bucket back towards the janitor's closet, I recalled the day I first attended Cross Academy. Cross and I had been wee little ones. When my father dropped me off at the front gates (wearing the most ridiculous fashion disaster I had ever seen), he had said that there was a boy here who was Cimerian. He was part of the twelve noble clans back in Cimeria and if I befriended him, I'd feel less lonely.
You know exactly who my father was talking about. Logan Cross is the only son of the Cross clan. His mother was highly revered in the academic world, for her intellect and knowledge of everything was astounding. His father was the CEO of one of the biggest businesses in the world (not to mention the head of an undercover agency). I knew none of this until much later. All I had known of Cross when I saw him strutting down the halls was that he seemed rather familiar.
Plus, I remembered thinking what kind of eleven-year-old struts?
I replaced the mop for a worn-out broom and a portable bin. Little Demonic Cross had known that I was one of those rare scholarship students and had kept an interested eye on me for the first season. Until, of course, my name didn't place the top one-hundred testers. Ever since then, we've been at odds, and our problems evolved from disappointing test scores to even bigger grudges (such as the fact that I accidentally punched him in the face once).
Yes, it was an accident. Don't give me that look like you don't believe me.
When I arrived back on the track, there was no one running laps like before--everyone was on the field. Was practice ending early? Either way, no one was on the track, so I began to sweep it, pushing the dirt into the portable bin. After getting about halfway through the track, I saw the team beginning to leave.
Ah, so practice did end early.
I quickened up my pace, not wanting to stay for longer than I had to. Honestly, who ever wanted to be one of the last people leaving school?
In another ten minutes, I was completely done with sweeping the track. My eyes did a quick scan of the stadium, searching for obvious messes. The student body was pretty good at keeping their campus clean, though, and since I couldn't find any conspicuous mess-ups, I figured I was good to go.
I was putting the broom away when I heard two different tones of laughter erupting from the stadium. I shut the storage door and headed back to see what was going on.
There were two boys walking through the fields, black trash bags in their hands. When they saw me, they roared my fake name and made wild hand gestures to beckon me over to them. The closer the three of us, I realized it was James Mayfield and Josh Bakerson heading to me, two-thirds of the Unholy Trinity, and two of Logan's closest friends.
"Talk about an unpleasant surprise," I said, approaching them rather slowly when the distance between us shrank.
"Good afternoon, Alex," Josh said with a spitefully gleeful smile on his face. One of his most famous habits was to run his fingers through his messy brown hair, which was what he did after he spoke.
"There's this invention called hair gel, Jeremiah," I pointed out. "I think I'm going to buy some for you. Or maybe a comb."
"It's Josh," he snapped before the smile returned. "Is the Finch not so chirpy today? Was Coach being unfair again?"
"What the hell are you two doing here?" I sighed. Normally, I enjoyed their antics. It was a great way to pass time and it was great entertainment to see a couple of boys try so hard to annoy me. Today, though, I just wasn't feeling in the mood. "Like you said, I'm not in a very good mood. I'm actually late for something and if you don't have something important to say, I'd like to leave."
"You're late for something?" James spoke up, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips and my blood ran cold. James was the most popular out of the three. With jet black hair and eyes as blue as the Mediterranean, girls swooned at his feet. Out of the Unholy Trinity, James had the most hatred for me.
Which was why suspicion prickled my skin when I saw his smile. James Mayfield doesn't smile around Alex Finch.
"It'd be too bad if you were even more late," James mused. He and Josh began untying the trash bag and horror hit me.
"No," I groaned in defeat as both boys dumped the contents of their bags out. Plastic cans and bottles tumbled out from James' bag. The moment the interior of the bag was empty, he began kicking the items on the ground around, scattering the objects around the field.
Josh had a bag of leaves. Unlike the cans and bottles, the leaves didn't need Josh's feet to fly everywhere -- they danced off on their own, settling on nearly every corner of the field and flying off to the bleachers. The once spotless stadium was now littered with trash and dead leaves. And the kind-of-late-to-something Park Sparrow was now going to be completely-and-unbelievably-late-for-something.
James and Josh were laughing hysterically beside me, totally oblivious of my murderous expression as they patted each other on the back, applauding themselves on their own heinous crime.
We'll see who's laughing after I'm done with them.
"Maybe you should try harder and get your name on the list by the summer finals," Josh snickered, shooting me a contemptuous look.
Little did he know, I was actually on the list. Sure, my name (or fake name, per se) wasn't physically listed, but the empty slot right beneath Logan Cross' name and rank (which was first rank, just to let you guys know) was for moi.
Years of private lessons from specialized tutors and hours of having my cousin play Jeopardy with me using facts from a hundred textbooks really paid off. Sure, I pretended to slack off in class and played the dumb girl pretty well, but I aced all my exams and quizzes. The only thing I had to do was beg the professors to hand out fake results so everyone would think I did miserably.
"James? Josh?" someone called out from the entrance of the stadium. The two boys turned around while I smacked myself in the forehead. Great. Let's add the king of the Unholy Trinity to this wonderful gathering of ruining Park's detention.
"Hey, Logan!" Josh cried enthusiastically. In a few seconds, Logan Cross appeared by his friends' sides, a dark eyebrow cocked as he looked between Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber.
"What's going on here?" he asked, his gaze sweeping the perimeter in a swift moment.
"We're just helping Alex with her detention," Josh replied, puffing out his chest in delight.
"Didn't you hear? Alex stuck up for her class today, so we decided to do something nice as well."
"Did you guys do this?" Cross assumed in a low voice, looking pointedly at the bottles and leaves. "I had P.E. first period, and it was not this messy."
Josh and James high-fived each other, grinning from ear to ear as they thought that Cross approved of their methods to make my day as disastrous as an upcoming apocalypse. A smile crept across my lips as I watched the boys dig themselves a deep, deep, deep grave.
Once Cross lowered his voice, it was the first sign that he was not happy. The second giveaway to his mood was the narrowing of his tawny eyes, a familiar move performed on me a thousand times whenever the two of us clashed. The last thing he did to show the rage he was bottling inside was the clenching of his jaw, which was what he did when James and Josh began boasting about how easy it was to get this all done.
"So, you trashed the academy?" he asked in a steely voice. That's when it clicked with the two: they were in trouble.
"No..." Josh muttered, shifting from foot to foot. "Not the academy, per se."
"If you're trying to teach her a lesson, do it without using filthy methods like this," Cross snapped, kicking a bottle by his shoes with a sudden ferocity that sent the bottle flying fifty feet away. "Clean it up."
Josh and James nodded without protesting. Josh grabbed the trash bag off the ground and began throwing in bottles while James stalked off to grab a rake. I was left alone with Cross, who watched me with an apathetic glance.
"Are you okay, Cross?" I asked, feeling wary of the situation. This was the second time today he had stuck up for me. Rarely does this ever happen twice in a row (it barely even happens once). That's like winning the lottery twice in a row -- highly improbable and occurring once in fifteen lifetimes.
"What do you mean if I'm okay?" he asked.
Ignoring his response, I stepped forward and pressed my palm to his forehead. His eyes widened in surprise, but shockingly enough, he stood still, allowing me to feel his temperature.
"You don't have a fever," I stated, pursing my lips. "Your pupils are fine. Your eyes aren't red, and the bags under them aren't too bad."
"What are you doing?" he inquired, seizing my wrist and dragging my hand away from his face.
"There's only one possible explanation for this behavior," I concluded. "You must be his secret twin sent from Europe. I'm Alex Finch, Cross' archenemy. It's great to meet you." I held out a hand for him to shake, but he merely regarded it with a she's-really-weird look.
"I guess the secret twin is just as rude as the original," I grumbled, taking my hand back and folding my arms. "What are you still doing at school anyway?"
"That's not of your business," Cross said with a bristled tone. "Why are you still here?"
"Obviously not because of the fact that Woodson gave me detention," I answered with absolutely no sarcasm whatsoever as I gave a vague sweep of the messy stadium.
"Ha ha," he said flatly. "Anyway, I was just wondering if you were taking the bus back to the city."
Since the academy had a rather large campus, it had been built thirty minutes outside the city of Paradise, Montana. It allowed the students to be "one with the wilderness" and made them "appreciate Mother Nature." Those were the words of my hippie AP Biology teacher from fourth year when Gabby Preston complained about the location.
It was great to be on campus--our surroundings weren't of two-story houses, but rather the forests and wildlife of Montana. The only difficulty was getting to school--students who couldn't get their own rides to the school had to take buses, which ran at forty-five minute intervals.
"Why the sudden interest of my mode of transportation?" I said, cocking my head.
"Are you taking the bus or not? Do you have a ride?" he repeated, enunciating every syllable. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Can you repeat that? I was too busy not giving a fu--"
"Just answer the damn question, Finch." Cross gave me a pointed glare, showing me just how much I was testing his patience.
A few minutes ticked on by, and I realized I was wasting time with my pride.
"I'm taking the bus. Why do you care? Are you going to push me in front of it?" I assumed. "Have you been watching Mean Girls again? Now that I think about it, you are kind of like Regina George. She's the one who got hit, just to let you know."
Cross merely gave a slight roll of his tawny eyes. "The next bus is coming in ten minutes. Unless you want to wait another forty-five minutes, get changed and meet me there."
"Are you kidnapping me?"
"Stop being so suspicious."
"Stop being nice! It's creeping me out!"
"It's called manners, Finch."
"Yeah, and for seven years, you've been lacking in them."
A sigh escaped Cross' lips as he pressed his fingers against his forehead, massaging his temple as he muttered some gibberish under his breath.
"Meet me there in ten. If you're not there, I'm not going to wait for you." Without another word, he sauntered away, sticking his hands into the pockets of his slacks and leaving me no chance to reply. Did he expect me to think that he'd actually wait for me?
There was a huge part of me screaming, "Don't do it, Park! He's going to murder you once and for all!" I ought to have listened to that voice because it made a lot of sense--why else would Logan Cross act so...friendly? Obviously he was out for my life.
But the bus intervals were so far apart. My detention was to clean up the track--but it seemed Cross had James and Josh taking care of their little stunt. If I left now, even if I had to suffer through a thirty minute ride with the king of hell, I'd be on time.
Damn, I needed to file a complaint to the mayor about these stupid bus intervals.
That's how I ended up walking away, heading towards the stadium exit. Coach normally fell asleep in his office, so sneaking out wouldn't be too difficult, especially for someone trained like me.
On my way out, I passed James and Josh, both of them looking rather glum as they gathered up the consequences of their actions. When they saw me walk past, I blew them both kisses before starting a jog out of the stadium.
Once inside, I made every move of mine as silent as a cat wandering around in the dead of night. My black backpack seemed untouched on the bleachers and I slipped it over my shoulders while trying to pick up my textbooks at the same time. The door to the locker room was still open, where I snuck in and grabbed my uniform before tiptoeing back out. Then I made a quiet dash for the exit, trying my best not to alert Coach of my ditching of detention.
Everything after that was a piece of cake. Though there were still several students sitting in the halls, none of them spared much of a second glance. Their heads were buried in their thick textbooks, highlighters in their hands as they went over notes.
In a few minutes, I was walking out of the academy entrance, heading across the empty courtyard and out the gates. True to his statement, Cross was across the street, sitting in one of the park benches by the old-fashioned lampposts. Whatever he was thinking about, it must've consumed his mind because the boy paid no attention to me when I approached him.
My eyes darted down to see the pale yellow folder on his lap, and surprise struck me when I recognized the Court of Cimeria's seal upon the surface.
However, Cross was finally notified of my presence. When his head shot up and his glare met my wandering eyes, he shoved the folder into his backpack, cutting off my gaze.
"Keep your nose out of my business, Finch," he snapped. Ah, there was the Cross I knew and hated. I held my free arm up in surrender.
"I meant no offense, my King," I apologized with a wry smile. "I'm a curious little cat."
A bus was appearing at the end of the lane, heading straight for our stop. "I dislike cats," he remarked, standing up and pulling a strap of his backpack over his shoulder, "but they're more tolerable than you."
Ouch, I thought as the bus screeched to a stop. "Your words wound my heart," I sighed. Cross snorted just as the doors to the bus opened. I was about to step on when someone rushed off the steps, ramming straight into me and knocking me backwards.
I gave the girl a death glare, to which she quailed under, her eyes flitting from me to Cross with fear splashed over her features. Then she scurried away without so much as an apology. With her presence gone, I finally realized what kind of position I was in.
The girl had pushed me into Cross, who had his arms wrapped around my waist in a secure fashion. He seemed to realize the fact at the same time I did and hurriedly pushed me up to a standing position before taking a large step back from me.
"I'm not dying of some contagious disease that's transferred through physical contact," I told him, a bit offended by his reaction. Honestly, was I that bad that people sprang away from touching me? Gods, it's like they thought I was some sort of zombie or some monster.
That would be nice. Then I could just eat everyone I didn't like and blame it on my natural instinct to eat my prey.
"Sorry," Cross muttered, though he wasn't meeting my eyes. I frowned, though decided not to say anything else--Cross was just weird in general. I had decided that fact years ago. Why did I keep forgetting it?
I pulled out my bus pass from my backpack and when I climbed the steps, I swiped it. The bus driver nodded and jabbed a thumb towards the back. People were everywhere as I scooted down the aisles, careful not to whack someone in the face. They were crowding in the seats and pushed against each other, feet splayed in the aisle.
Finally, at the very end of the bus, I leaned against a pole, using my free hand to hold onto the metal tightly.
However, I didn't stand for long. Five minutes later, when the bus pulled in front of a private neighborhood and one of the passengers got off, Cross took ahold of my shoulders and steered me into the seat. When we began moving again, he propped his body against the pole besides my chair.
"Honestly, Cross, are you sure you're alright?" I asked, poking him in the side.
"Why do you keep asking me that? Do I look sick or something?"
"The last time you were this nice to me, it was because your mother found out about--hold on a sec. You got yelled at again, didn't you?"
Cross flushed, his cheeks turning a slight pink and he promptly turned away from me. Judging by that reaction, I figured I was right and a smug smile crept across my lips. "I preferred my twin theory, honestly. It made you sound cooler."
"Your theories are stupid."
"My theories are brilliant!"
"They're pathetic and childish."
"Is this because of my dragon theory?" I gave him a glare, which he caught when he spared me a quick glance. "Come on--every culture had dragons before they even met each other. They existed!"
"Just stop talking."
That was probably the closest we had ever gotten to a proper discussion that didn't end with the two of us hollering curse words from across classrooms. This sort-of conversation felt different from the others. This one had a sense of familiarity, as though we were old friends who conversed with casual and rude jabs at each other.
"You're not half bad when you're pretending to be nice," I commented. "Maybe I should tell your mother everything you've ever done to me."
Cross laughed softly and ran his fingers through his messy brown hair, ignoring my threat. Then, he turned to face me with a crooked grin on his lips. "You're not too bad yourself either, Finch."