9

“I printed off the class notes for each of you. Take them home, work through them and highlight anything you want to elaborate on tomorrow.” I instruct my study group, sliding out the paperclipped pages to each one, and Elisa slides half the pile from them to pass to the next table.

We’re in the library on the second floor, taking our class free period as a time to catch up on biology. This is how I use any free time I get during school hours, unlike some I could mention. My entire existence is about doing well and getting the grades I need to go to Harvard when I graduate, so becoming our class president and the study group leader for our year feels like an achievement.

“These are well laid out and really helpful, Kayla. Thank you.” Jordan, a boy from my class, flashes a shy smile, giving me those puppy dog eyes he sometimes has for me. I know he’s had a crush on me since junior year, but I don’t have time for boys. As nice as he is, I don’t need the distraction of dating.

He's not unattractive. He’s that typical rich, preppy boy bookworm type. Good bone structure, clean cut, sandy hair, blue eyes, tall and lean with glasses, and a neat cut back and sides. He reminds me of Clarke Kent in a way.

“Guys, guys…” A rushed, hyper voice invades the quiet of the roomy library, breaking the near silence as a middle year kid rushes in, knocking into a book stand by the door and sending a few sliding to the floor. An angry librarian shushes him with a glare, but he waves his hands in the hair with excitement. “There’s a punch-up between two seniors in the main hall. They’re going crazy.” He whoops and turns on his heel to run out before he gets a demerit for ignoring the rules in here, and a dozen student chairs scrape across the floor as they shift ass to see.

There’s an instant buzz of excitement, and I roll my eyes, glaring at the two from our group, who get up so that they slowly slide back down and look sheepishly at the rest of us.

“We have more important things to do than watch two idiots thump lumps out of each other.” I raise a brow and go back to opening the pages in front of me. Tutting at how many students have exited the room to go view something barbaric.

“Dane Masterson and Greg Kent from the seniors are beating the shit out of each other.” A voice echoes our way loudly from a  group being ushered out by an excited teen, and my whole body stiffens. It feels like the blood runs cold in my veins, my heart skips a beat, my breath falters, and I hesitate about getting up. My hands tremble instantly.

This is not my problem. I shouldn’t care. He told me to stay away from him a few days ago, which is fine. Let him get expelled for something as stupid as fighting. Let him get beaten to a pulp. Why should I have any sort of emotion about that – he’s nothing to me.

“You’re really not going to go look?” Elisa nudges me, sensing my stiffness. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I shake my head. Unsure why suddenly my pulse is racing, and my stomach is fluttering like I’m nervous. I don’t get the internal reaction, so I swallow it and shake my head, pasting a fake smile to brush it off.

“Sorry, Kayla, but that’s something I want to see. Greg was a jerk to me all these years, so seeing him get beaten up….” Shy boy David slides up, and it seems the only encouragement some of them need as my group dissolves with a sudden up-and-run behavior. More than six of them follow suit and depart as quickly.

“It’s your brother, right?” Jordan eyes me up and looks from the door to me, trying to gauge my reaction from my blank expression. He seems torn about following them but knowing he likes me probably is the reason he’s still sitting here.

My hands start getting clammy, and I mentally scold myself to sit here and let it go. Impulses jumping inside my body and brain to move my legs and go with them are being pushed down hard. I don’t even know why my instincts are trying to get me out of this chair. I don’t care if he gets punched to a pulp.

“By marriage. He’s an idiot who can handle it by himself.” I dismiss casually but my voice tremors, and Elisa narrows her gaze on my face.

There’s a giant smashing, crashing noise that reverberates so loudly that it echoes in here and gives half the staff a jumping fright. I feel like my stomach lurches into my chest.

Without thought, pure instinct taking over, I’m up on my feet and running out to the hallway before I can stop myself. Sliding to the railing of the glass banister with an urgency that overhangs the hallway below. I have to push between two girls to get in to see, shoving and wriggling into the crowded space and almost fighting to get my head over. I am crammed in with bodies and almost take an elbow to the face.

Below on the white marble floor in the school's main foyer, crowds are moving around two figures tied up in each other’s limbs as they fight it out wrestle style. Kids are egging them on and chanting, but the boys are oblivious and zoned in on each other. Dane seems to have the upper hand, throwing the other boy down and then dragging him up by the collar from the floor before punching him square in the face. Greg reels back into the remaining marble pillar that acts as a flower stand by the entrance, and it, too, comes down with a  violent crashing. The other is already on its side, the top detached and broken, and the huge glass vase, which held a display of expensive large flowers, is in a thousand pieces. That must have been the crashing noise. Leaving water, shards, and fauna all over the right side of the hallway.

There’s a second echoing smash as this one suffers the same fate, and a few around me cover their ears in the chaos.

“Stop it… Stop it.” A girl appears and starts frantically hauling at the back of Dane’s blazer, clinging onto him and getting nowhere as he drags Greg up again. Blood is smeared across the boy's face from what might be a broken nose, and he already has darkening eyes from bruising. “Dane, you’re killing him.” She’s sobbing, desperate with her pleas, and I recognize her as Renee Walter - the girlfriend of Greg.

“Apparently, Dane has been sleeping with her for a month. Greg just found out.” The girl beside me whispers to her friend, snorting their disgust, and both lean over the rail as the crowd moves again. The two boys and half the spectators disappear under the balcony we’re overhanging on, and all up here lean over further to see.

My heart stops mid-beat, a moment of sheer anger mixed with a spiking bump into my stomach at their words. A sickening feeling comes up to strangle me that I can’t explain, and I’m dazed and unfocused for a second.

I mentally cast my mind back to that night on the drive and wonder if it was Renee who picked him up. Although I didn’t get a good look at her, it could have been, and I wouldn't put it past him to have sex with someone who had a boyfriend. He doesn’t care who he hurts or what mess he causes in people’s lives.

He’s disgusting.

 Renee and Greg are final-year seniors graduating this year, a class above us. She's been dating Greg for her entire high school life, and everyone knows they are set to get married after college. The fact she would do something like that abhors me, and I push away from my spot, getting annoyed with no longer being able to see what’s happening.

I slide back and push past Elisa in haste, who’s hanging back, heading for the end of the walkway and down the huge stairway to get onto the same level as them. I’m a mix of anxiety, anger at him for being this thug, and a shred of concern that Dane might actually get seriously hurt. The thought surprises me, but I guess he’s been my brother for ten years, and I wouldn’t be human if there weren’t an ounce of care. I’m not as self-centered as him.

It takes seconds to get down beside them, and I force my way through the nearest wall of students caging them in, seeing teachers starting to spew out of nearby doorways and know this will be broken up soon. Dane getting in trouble for this will make my mom go nuclear.

“Dane, please…. I beg you.” Renee is hauling at Dane, but it’s not keeping him off the now-floored-again Greg. He looks done. His face is a mess, his clothes disheveled, and there's blood all over his face, neck, and collar. Dane isn't much better. Although his nose has way less blood, it looks like his eyebrow piercing has taken a direct hit, and his lip ring is gone, leaving what might be a split.

“Stop it.” That impulsive part of me that sometimes takes control against all my logic has me diving into the center of the clearing and pushing myself up in Dane’s face, so he drops his focus on his victim. Unlatching his hand from Greg’s clothes and shoving him back with two hands to the chest as hard as I can. “Let him alone. He’s done. Stop it, right now.” I snap at him, knowing I’m only overpowering him because Renee is still hauling from behind, and it’s a combined effort.

Dane is panting with exertion, his clothes pulled up and messy too, and he seems to sag a little as his eyes rest on me. He looks exhausted, and there’s a sheen of sweat across his forehead under messy bangs. His stiffness from standing ready to take another swipe loosens, and he exhales right in my face. I get the vibe he’s close to sitting down as he’s as spent as Greg, and I wonder how long they were doing this.

“What did I tell you about butting out.” His words are splintered and raspy, his gaze locking on mine with ferocity, and before I get a chance to scold him some more, his eyes widen, and he moves so fast my head spins.

Somehow I go from facing Dane, hands on his clammy pecks while holding him back, to being enveloped in his arms. Turned so speedily that I get dizzy, and I'm crushed to him in a vice-like grip of being shielded. Something hits him in the back  with a force that reverberates through his body to me, and he slumps over me a little as he takes the full impact. Squeezing me tighter, my head is pushed under his chin, and my arms are crushed tight between us, so I can’t move or breathe.

“I will fucking kill you.” He growls over my head, turning his face back in the direction Greg is in, and I realize I have been pulled in a  complete arc to get here.

Dane is surrounding me with his body, and I am suddenly in a weird shadow of protection as his jacket conceals half my face with how he grabbed and pulled me in.

“That’s enough… break it up… break it up.” Mr. Swanson, the head teacher’s voice booms across us all, yet Dane doesn’t release his grip on me. Looking down, his eyes scour over me, and he seems oblivious to the new swarm of staff who have appeared to drag them all out. He’s in so much trouble for this.

 “You two are coming with me… I am calling your parents.”

“Did it hit you?” Dane's voice drops in volume, so it’s for my ears only, and I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Did what hit me?” I shove myself out of his arms, realizing how weird and gross it is to be cuddled up to Dane. My heart is beating a rhumba from the fright he gave me in grabbing me this way, and my senses are overwhelmed with his mix of aftershave and sweat. His clammy touch or muscular body pressed into my every curve. It’s left me feeling weird and antsy, like a rippling crawling sensation running over my skin. I’m suddenly lightheaded.

A piece of broken marble about the size of a tennis ball is right by Dane’s foot in my line of vision, and it dawns on me he just protected me. Greg must have thrown it at him. That would have smacked him in the spine. I don’t know how to absorb that. I would have taken it in the back of the head.

“No… I don’t think so. Are you okay?” it’s out before I realize how weird I sound. Soft and genuine, like I might actually mean it, I snap my mouth closed and step away from him. Shocked at my own response.

“Move.” Dane is grabbed by the scruff of his collar by the head and pulled away from me. My eyes dance over the mess of his face, the slight bruise shade appearing along his jawline. Churning up my stomach, I seriously think about following him to ensure they take him to the medical room.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Elisa’s voice pulls me backward, with a dainty hand tugging my wrist. Dazed, I come to, and she’s beside me, so I instantly suffer from confusion. I glance from her to Dane being hauled off as school kids part and disperse, and I hesitate.

“I should go too. Make sure he’s okay and wait for his dad to come. My mom will go crazy over this.”