Chapter 30
"Is everything okay, Ariadne?" The teacher asked.
I looked up, and only just realized that I'd been clicking the top of my pen over and over again.
Oh, so that's what that noise was?
"Um, yeah," I answer, pretending to be shy. My first lesson and I'm already wishing it would end.
How many hours do we have left? Oh, five.
"Good," He replies, giving me a sharp smile. I sigh.
Well, he hates me.
"Xanny, what's wrong?" Ameena asks silently, leaning in a little. I sigh once again.
"I'm dying," I whisper back. She rolls her eyes and puts her hand up.
"Yes, Ameena?" The teacher asks, annoyed that another interruption was made in his very charming story of Le Renard Roux.
"Uh, Ariadne's not feeling well," She says, nudging me. I cough slightly. The teacher raises his eyebrow.
"Really?" He asks, glancing at me. I give a solemn look and nod. The teacher sighs and finally gives in.
"Fine! Ameena, please take Ariadne to the nurse's office," The teacher answers, giving us both another very sharp smile.
I give an embarrassed smile back as everyone turns to smirk at us. One girl even goes as far as to give us a thumbs up.
Damn this posh school. You can't even hate the teachers!
Ameena immediately stands up, and I don't realize she's got a grip on my arm until she pulls me up too. So hard, in fact, that I'm almost worried my poor arm will come off.
We pack everything away, and I stuff my notes - that I didn't take - and my pencil case - that I didn't need - in my bag, making sure the pistol is well covered.
Every time someone looks at my tiny backpack, I get an uneasy feeling that they know what's in it. But then I realize I'm just being paranoid. Like always.
"What's really going on?" Ameena growls once we're finally out of the classroom. I roll my eyes.
"I'm not feeling well," I point out. She scoffs and grabs my arm, pulling me towards the nearest door she can find.
When we barge in, my mouth falls at what I see.
It's like a living room.
Literally.
There are three couches laid out triangularly, and a huge flatscreen TV in front, with a small fridge at the back, and the whole other wall covered in shelves of books.
And I'm still wondering why there's no one in here.
"This is my homeroom," Ameena says, nodding at my reaction. I laugh.
So it isn't a random door she pulled me into.
"They weren't kidding about the 'home' bit, huh?" I ask, turning on the light switch.
Even that was fancy. What kind of school has a golden light switch, for Heaven's sake?!
"It's a students only room, just like the staff have their own. There's more of these, but each room is assigned to different groups of people. And entering the wrong one will start a war," She explains, laughing.
I shake my head. "This is crazy."
"So hey, are you still shook from your meeting with Principal Crissler?" She asks, plopping onto the huge couch and sinking in immediately.
I sigh.
Ameena's not going to let this go.
"No, she was cool," I answer, rolling my eyes and sitting down next to her.
"Right, so what is it?" She asks. "You've been jiggling your leg non-stop, your pen clicking is still embedded into my brain, and so far, the only thing you've written in your notes is a bullet point," She says, raising an eyebrow.
I snort.
"Okay, first of all, I didn't know what to write in my notes. Not everyone knows French! I'm a Spanish person, bien?! And second of all, you don't know if I have leg pain or just enjoy the clicking of pens!" I answer, glaring at her.
I'm about to get up and leave but Ameena stops me.
"I'll tell Arsen," She warns. I roll my eyes.
"What's he gonna do? Glare at me to death?" I ask. Ameena sighs.
"You know what Arsen wants, he gets," She answers. I fall back onto the couch, annoyed.
"Yeah, well, he wanted justice for Xena, did he get that?" I hiss, frustrated.
I freeze when I realize what I just said.
Ameena didn't know that Xena was my sister. She didn't even know that I knew about Xena!
Ameena gives me a confused look and gets up.
"Xanthe? Am I missing something here?" She asks, stepping back slightly. I gulp.
She called me 'Xanthe', not 'Xanny'.
"No. I--Arsen told me about her," I shrug nonchalantly, trying to come up with a better excuse.
"Uh..." She trails off. "Whatever. I told Jax we'd meet up with him in the backroom of the cafeteria. It's off-limits, but Arsen has a spare key."
With that, she walks out of the door.
I let out a huge sigh of relief. I don't know what just happened, but I was aware of one thing; Arsen could not know about the texts. Especially not when I was this close to finding out who it was.
"You coming?" Ameena calls.
I rush off towards the door, not wanting to be caught in here.
As Ameena and I are walking in whatever direction, I realize something.
"Arsen has a spare key?" I ask, bemused.
Ameena nods. "Mm-hm, impressive, I know."
"Does he have a spare key to everything?" I raise an eyebrow. She smiles and gives me a look.
"Yeah."
"Even the bathrooms?" I ask, surprised.
"Yup."
"Why would he want a spare key to the bathrooms?" I mutter, more to myself than to her. But she snorts anyway.
"I've wondered that myself a few times," We both snort this time.
As my extremely tired legs follow dear Ameena (bless her for making me walk this much) through the very fancy hallways, we finally make it to the ginormous double doors, which I can only assume lead into the cafeteria.
Unless it's where kids go when they're ditching lessons.
She opens the right door slightly, just enough for us to slip through, and my eyes widen at what I see.
"I thought we were supposed to be going to the cafeteria, Ams?" I ask, feeling the need to whisper.
"You don't need to talk in a hushed tone, Xanny, this school has zero cameras," Ameena laughs. "And this isn't the cafeteria."
It's just a huge, empty hall. Mind the fancy, golden wallpaper and dangerously huge glass chandelier that seems to be swinging creepily.
It's only creepy because there's no wind coming in from anywhere.
"This room is for all the ceremonies and parties and festivals the school holds. It's not what you get in every school, so you better make the most of it. The cafeteria, however, is just a square inch smaller and is through that door,"
She points to the other side of the huge hall, to a similar set of double doors.
Damn.
Once we've walked across this goddamn festivities hall, and have walked across the goddamn cafeteria, we finally reach a single, blue door, with the word 'Janitor' on it.
What a lucky man. Has to walk two miles to get to his room.
"Yeah, Xanny, this was exactly two miles. Believe it or not," Ameena smirks, giving me a funny smile before pushing open the blue door.
As we walk in through the room, my mouth falls to the ground, literally. Because if the janitor walks those two miles across just to get to his closet - or fricking stadium - then it's totally worth it.
This school's not kidding. They went full out on the posh, didn't they?
"Where were you two?! Jesus, I just got married and had twelve kids!" Jax sighs, getting up off the blue, worn out couch.
I roll my eyes. "Don't be so dramatic, Jax, your legs aren't the ones that are dying," I say, glaring at Ameena who gives me a sheepish smile.
"Oh, she took you through there, did she?" Logan sighs, shaking his head. I give him a curious look.
"What do you mean? There's another way?" I ask.
Xander raises an eyebrow and points to another door in the room. "That leads in from the outside. She could've brought you through our gardens," He smirks.
I groan in frustration.
"Seriously?!" I cry. Ameena shrugs.
"Payback for not telling me what was bothering you," She whispers.
I look around. The whole gang's here, except for Kaitlin and Ally. And Arsen, but we all know he loves to be fashionably late.
"Where is he?" I ask, confused.
"Behind you," Noah answers.
At first, I think he's joking, but everyone's eyes seem to be glued on one person, and I find it kind of creepy that they'd be able to do that if Noah was joking, so I turn around.
Yup, he's there.
"Why is she here?" Arsen asks as if I'm not standing right in front of him.
"Hello, Xanthe. Hello, Arsen, how are you? I'm simply peachy, Xanthe, I was just about to give you a big, toothy grin," I exclaim, glaring when Arsen gives me an annoyed look.
He glares back. "Shut up."
"You shut up!" I answer back childishly. But no matter how hard he glares, I don't back down. Eventually, he gets tired and turns to the gang.
"I just met Max," He states. Noah and Xander say 'really!' at the same time as if they're very interested.
I smirk.
"When?" Noah asks. Xander comes to stand in front of him.
"Dude, you good?" He asks, examining Arsen as if Max would shoot him in the middle of the school hallways. Arsen hisses in response.
He definitely knows what's up with those two.
"Simply peachy," He growls, giving me his 'look'. I scowl when he does.
He used my words as mockery. How dare he!
"What'd he say?" Noah asks, shoving Xander aggressively. He almost goes flying into Logan, who has set up his computer and is typing away.
Actually, it's not a computer. It's one of those weird, 'for-hackers-only' type of laptops where you can do anything illegal without magically getting caught.
"Everyone's going to take part in spying on him," Arsen states, ignoring Noah and Xander.
He's clever.
"Stalking," I mutter.
Unfortunately, Arsen ignores me, too.
"Logan, you're in charge of placing the cameras in the school, and hacking into the principal's personal files for the locker combinations and schedules," Arsen commands.
Logan gives an awkward salute and rapidly starts typing away on his computer.
"Noah, Xander, you two are already part of the basketball team, so is Max. You're going to befriend him," He tells them both.
They both give each other a quick glare but nod at Arsen. I almost want to smile at this.
Bromance - what a truly wonderful thing indeed.
"Ameena, you're going to pretend to be in love with Max and get to know him. Enough for him to spill his secrets," He tells her.
Ameena gives a stiff nod, and I can't help notice how she briefly glances at Jax. I do, too, and aside from his completely normal face, his fists are tightly clenched.
I find it quite adorable, especially when Ameena lightly blushes.
"Kade, Jax, you two are in charge of making sure you know where Max is going straight after school. Not until you get useful information, you'll be doing this every day," His amber eyes turn to those two.
Immediately, Jax drops the glare and grins, raising an eyebrow at Kade, who gives the same look back.
"Donard; you, Ally and Kaitlin know what you're doing. Don't screw it up."
After giving them their job, and sharing a slight glare with Don, he looks around. "Where's Ace?" He growls. I sigh.
"I'll text him what he needs to do. Uh...what does he need to do?" Xander says, getting his phone out.
I expected that slight glare Noah threw at him, but it was still funny to see.
"He's going to try and find things out from Max's ex-friends," Arsen says.
I try to keep a straight face when he says 'ex-friends', and I manage to when I realize I've not been assigned a job.
I need to get to Max. Even if it means paying money to get answers out of him, I just need to know how this all started. Where it started. Why my family's involved.
And where my dad is.
"Arsen, forgetting someone?" I ask, smiling sweetly. He ignores me and nods to the gang, before turning and walking out of the door.
I scoff and ignore Ameena when she tells me not to go after him.
"Arsen!" I yell. He ignores.
"Arsen!" I yell again. He ignores, again.
"Arsen!" I scream. A little quietly, though.
He stops sharply, turning around. I stop sharply too before I go crashing into him and my brain turns to mush all over again.
My heart beats wildly when Arsen finally looks at me, properly.
"God, why are you acting like such a jerk?!" I cry. Arsen glares at me.
"Don't talk to me like that," He says. I shake my head.
"Why?" I fold my arms, waiting for the answer we both know he doesn't have.
"Because you--" He cuts off for a second, glaring with calculative eyes.
He doesn't know what to say?
He doesn't know what to say! This is the happiest day of my life!
"Because when I tell you to do something, you do it." He growls firmly. I snort.
"No, Arsen. When you tell them to do something, they do it. I don't. Why are you acting so...different?" I emit, feeling extremely frustrated.
"I'm not," He hisses. I raise my eyebrows.
"Oh, yeah? Does this have anything to do with basking in the countryside this weekend?" I ask, folding my arms.
Arsen stops short, and my heart almost breaks from every single emotion ever when I look at the sight of his face.
He looks...he looks like...a nineteen-year-old boy.
Not the scary, intimidating gang leader who always knows what he's doing and is a huge pain.
I like it when his face is like this. He looks innocent and normal and boyish.
"How'd you find out?" He asks quietly. I swallow.
"Uh, you let it slip this one time," I mutter. Arsen glares at me. "Jax and Kade told me," I answer quickly.
Arsen hisses, closing his eyes for a split second before opening them again, almost glowing from the golden all around us.
"I'm not going," He tells me coldly.
I'm even surprised he'd tell me. But I'm glad he did. Maybe it helped lift something off his shoulders.
"Why?" I ask gently.
"If my mom wants me to go, then I'm definitely not going," He growls, his eyebrows furrowing.
I try to nod seriously, but a slight giggle comes out of my mouth before I can help it, reminiscing what he said at the beginning of that sentence.
It sounded so genuine. So adorable.
I laugh again when I realize he finally said it, and throw my arms around his waist, giving him the tightest squeeze and imagining him as a tiny little toddler. A charming one.
He doesn't return my hug, because he's still confused as to why I'm laughing.
You can't tell he's confused, because of the armour over his eyes. But I know he's confused.
I just do.
"What?" He asks, seeming angry that he doesn't know what I'm laughing at. I decide to let him in on my joke.
"You said 'my mom' in such a cute way," I laugh, nudging him.
His eyes flicker from my eyes to my lips. "Shut up," He growls deeply, before walking off, making sure he nudges me on the way.
I shake my head, smiling.
"See you after school, Arsen! When you tell me about my assignment!" I yell at his back, realizing what I came running after him for was completely forgotten.
Yeah, that happens to me when I'm around him. I become an idiot.
I turn around and follow the signs on the walls to the nearest girl's bathroom. It's quite a long hike since I have to go through the Himalayan mountains and Everest, but I make it.
I walk in and lock myself into a stall.
After I'm finished with my business, I come out and wash my hands, and after drying them off, I turn to the exit but the door barges open for me.
I freeze. And so does my heart when I realize who walked in, and her two cronies following closely behind.
She's even prettier than before.
I thought if people were mean, it was supposed to show on their face. But every time I look at Shanaya, she looks like the nicest, honest to God type of person ever.
"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you were going to move to this school," She says, genuinely shocked. Her two cronies give me sweet, fake smiles.
I raise my eyebrows.
"Um, yeah," I say, not wanting to start anything.
I look at Shanaya's sense of style.
She's not got the 'make-up-and-designer-clothes' vibe. Even though you can tell her clothes are extremely expensive.
She's wearing a normal white t-shirt and a golden chain around her neck, with leather jeans and ankle boots - that don't have heels.
Besides, she doesn't need heels, she's already pretty tall.
"I told you to stay away from Arsen," She states, folding her arms. I roll my eyes.
"So? You don't control my life or the people I see. If you're not with Arsen anymore, then he rightfully belongs to no one," I point out. Shanaya scoffs.
"Ariadne, I'm not saying to stay away from Arsen because he's my ex-boyfriend and blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying it for your own good," She shrugs, taking out lip balm and applying it on her lips.
Her two friends just uncomfortably shift beside her. I actually feel sorry for them - kind of.
I sigh when I realize Shanaya's probably going to start saying exactly what everyone else has been telling me.
"Really? So you suddenly care about how I'll feel when I see a girl in Arsen's bed tomorrow morning?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. Shanaya nods, turning to me.
"Yeah, I do. Because I've been through it. And almost thirty-five percent of the girls in this fucking school. They liked Arsen, but they were scared of him, too," She tells me.
I'm about to speak - and ask why she used past tense, but she stops me.
"You're probably going to say you're not scared of Arsen, and I admire your courage, but Arsen's not going to start a relationship. Whether he wants to or not. When he gets close to people, he keeps them out of his life, because he doesn't want to see them disappointed when he lets them down," She explains to me.
I stare at her, shocked.
Okay, list time.
1. No one has ever said that about Arsen before, ever. It sounds sweet and genuinely concerning.
2. She sounds nice.
3. She sounds nice.
'She sounds nice' was repeated two (now three) times, because she's not supposed to. She's supposed to sound snotty and stuck up and I just can't deal with a nice mean girl right now.
Or maybe she's just not a mean girl.
I don't want to believe that.
Why?
Because I don't want to.
Why?
She knew my sister. She insulted her. And she's dead.
Because of that? You pussy.
Shut up.
"Thanks, for the advice," I say, smiling uneasily. She smiles back.
The smile seems genuine. "No problem. Wanna know why you don't see many of his girlfriends around? Or why no one talks about them?" She asks sweetly.
I look at her curiously. "Why?"
Her sweet smile vanishes, and a deadly look creeps into her eyes.
"He killed them all."
___________________________________________________________
3248 words.
And that's where it all starts!
Bear with me, guys, as I try to get my stupid story - and the plot - intact.
Don't worry. More action coming soon. My head's just jumbled up right now.
I promise it gets better. I know I keep saying that, and I'm sorry, but still. I promise.
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