Wicked End Academy

I sit with Marissa at lunch. She gets me to sit with her friends, but I don't pay attention as she introduces me to them. I see Matt's table with all the guys sitting there. They're all talking and joking besides Brian. He's staring down at his food, looking deep-in-thought. Probably thinking about what I told him. He looks up and catches my gaze. He looks past me and his eyes suddenly burn with anger. I turn to look at what he set his eyes on and feel my heart crash in my stomach.

"Hello, ladies," Rodney says, leaning over an empty seat. He winks at me, making some girls at the table glare at me for a moment. I look down at my tray. He walks away, but brushes his hand against my back. I grab my tray and dash out of the room, dumping it in the garbage. I hear someone yell something, but I don't know what the person says. I run out of the front doors but someone grabs my arm.

"Let go of me," I scream, swinging to hit the person. He catches my other arm and holds them together in one hand.

"Charlotte, stop, calm down," Brian tells me. He puts his free hand on the back of my neck and soothingly moves his thumb back and forth. I look up at him with tears in my eyes and he just takes a deep breath. "Do you wanna talk now?" I nod quickly, but he doesn't move. "Take a deep breath." I do as he says and feel better in the matter of a minute. He lets go of my hands and drops both of his hands to his sides, stuffing them in his pockets. I cross my arms over my chest as we start walking in a random direction.

"So you didn't have the best first day, did you," Brian asks. I shake my head.

"I hate this place," I say in an emotionless tone. "All the fighting, weapons... it's too much."

"And this is only your second day here. It'll get worse, I can promise you that."

"Matt's in the middle of a lot of it, isn't he," I say more as a statement.

"He picks a lot of fights, yeah. But..." He trails off. I look up at him.

"But what?" He looks down at me with a regretful look in his eyes.

"I am, too," he murmurs, then looks back up and stares off into space. "But only if Matt's in trouble. I don't pick fights with people that don't deserve it. Now Rodney... he's a different story." I sigh almost silently.

"What about the rest? Jimmy, Johnny, and Zacky?"

"They usually don't. Matt is the worst out of all of us, and I follow second. They'll help us if we're both in trouble." He looks back down at me with a slight smile. "Or if someone hurt any of their friends." I smile a little and look back at the school.

"When does the afternoon class start?"

"One."

"Oh." He steps in front of me so I'm looking right at him. I turn my head away.

"Tell me what happened," he says softly. I look down at my feet as we continue to slowly walk the grounds.

"I ran down a hallway and he pulled me into a closet. Nothing else."

"What did he do?" I swallow back the tears that were brought on by the memory.

"He, uh... he rolled my skirt up, and he held me against the wall as he... fingered me and when he got tired of that, he..." The tears come anyway and stream down my face. Brian pulls me against his chest as he wraps his arms around me. I cry into his shirt as he whispers something in my ear.

"He's never going to do it again, okay? I'll make sure of that." A few minutes later I pull back and look up at him.

"If he finds out I told you, he'll do something even worse to me, and he'll hurt you and-"

"Char, seriously," Brian says, trying his best to smile against the pain in his eyes. "He can't do shit to me. I got Matt to back me up-"

"Matt can't know," I exclaim, eyes wide.

"I know, I'm sorry, I forgot you don't want him to know... but he's gotta know if you're gonna start to cringe away from him everyday." I look around and don't see anyone else around. I back up slightly, and Brian notices my sudden anxiety. "What's wrong?" I shake my head, but he tilts my head up so I'm looking directly at him. Our faces were only nine inches apart due to my small figure. "What's wrong, Charlotte," he whispers. My heart pounds against my chest, ensuring me that he could feel it, too, since I'm standing right against him. I glance down at his muscles.

"You're stronger than Rodney," I whisper almost inaudibly.

"Yeah, so I'd be able to beat the living shit out of him-"

"No," I stop him. "You could hurt me ten times worse than he did."