Revenge and Its Thrills

Alex’s POV

Who’s crappy idea was this? Coming after Jack in this heat, in a country none of us had ever been in before, where next to no one spoke English? Seriously, some people just had the worst ideas.

Jenna and Vic were both in foul moods, too. Every time I tried to strike up a conversation, one or the other would tell me to “Shut the fuck up,” or “For fuck sake Gaskarth, I will throw you under the next bus to drive past!” or even “Go die in a hole, for fuck sake.”

Rude.

Eventually, we had to stop for lunch. Vic and I had forgotten to pick up any lunch money, so Jenna bought two large portions of chips and told me and Vic to share one. Vic kept pushing my hand away when I went to grab a chip, the little bastard, so in the end I pushed him off his chair and snatched the plate. I threw a handful of chips at his head for good luck.

“You bastard,” Vic growled at me, but didn’t try and get the chips back. Lucky me.

After we finished we went on another search. But the flies had started to buzz around our heads and wouldn’t go away no matter how much I swatted them angrily, my legs were aching like I’d run a marathon - scratch that, ten marathons - and my head was starting to hurt.

Finally, I’d had enough. My anger and frustration, which had steadily built up over the last few hours, boiled over. As we passed an outside restaurant, I turned to the nearest chair and started smashing my foot into it repeatedly. People stared at me, but didn’t attempt to stop me - not even Vic or Jenna, who were obviously just as aggravated as I was.

“Steady there,” A calm voice told me. I whipped around, ready to hit whoever it was, but instead found myself glaring into the blue eyes of Craig.

“Craig?” I asked. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” He observed coolly. His eyes held a flurry of pent up rage and anger. What had I done wrong? I was only kicking a chair. It wasn’t like Craig hadn’t done worse.

“Jack!” Jenna screeched. That was when I saw him. He was standing behind Craig, head bowed, looked ashamed and defeated. He had none of his usual bright, cocky aura.

Jenna body-slammed the poor guy in a hug and he hit a pole, but Jenna wouldn’t let go.

However, I had my own problems. Craig stepped forwards and grabbed the front of my shirt, slamming me into one of the tables. Okay, what the fuck was his problem?

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He spat. What’s wrong with me? He’s the one who just attacked me for no reason! I was speechless.

“Leave him, Craig,” Jack said wearily. I stared at him in shock. Was this Jack Barakat, standing up for me? This moment will go down in history, Jesus Christ!

Craig shot him a look, but released me nonetheless. “Fine. But, Alex, if I find out you’ve done something like that again, I will fuck you up. Understand?”

“B-but I . . .” I sputtered helplessly, desperately searching for something to say. I was lost. What had I done? What had I done? What had I done?

“Jack, we gotta go,” Vic interjected, basically saving my ass. “Mr Armstrong’s probably called the police or something. You know what he’s like.”

Jack nodded in understanding, still looking out of it. But he turned to Craig and said, “Thanks, man. For everything.”

Craig waved it away. “No problem. See you at school?”

He nodded slightly, distracted. “Yeah, school . . .”

Craig shot him a concerned glance and placed a hand on his arm. Okay, what exactly happened last night? “Whoa, man, you sure you okay?”

Jack seemed to snap out of it. “Huh? Yeah, I’m good. Bye!” He gave a wave that looked cheery, but his brown eyes looked far from happy. They looked fractured, some how. Fractured and dark.

I watched Craig walked away, still mystified as to what I had done to get in his bad books. Maybe he had something against people booting chairs? Like, some sort of ‘Stop Chair Bullying!’ campaign? #SaveTheChairs2014? Mhm, it must be something like that.

Jenna was sobbing into Jack’s shoulder. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Barakat! You hear me? I thought you’d . . . I thought you’d tried to join May again.”

He stared at her green hair, his expression sad. “I . . . I almost did,” He whispered in a cracked voice. I could tell he hadn’t wanted me to hear, but I gave him a shocked look anyway. For some reason I’d convinced myself that Jenna was lying. That Jack had never attempted to kill himself. I guess I just didn’t want another suicide on my conscience.

Vic had stepped in and turned it into a sad little group hug. I just stood the the side awkwardly and waited for it to stop. Seriously, this sappy stuff was not resting well with me. My natural habitat was made of anger and deceit, not misery and gayness. Well, I suppose just a little misery. No gayness. Ew.

“Guys, can we stop being weird and go back to the hotel? I’m fucking starving,” I whined, hoping to break them apart. I was aware of how annoying I sounded, but fuck. I was starving.

Break apart they did, all three sending me varying degrees of death glares. Surprisingly, Jenna’s was the weakest. And then her face broke into a small smile, which nearly gave me a heart attack. What the ever loving fuck was going on here?

Then she seemed to realise what she was doing, and her face dropped into a scowl once again. “You may have helped us find Jack, but I still fucking hate you, Gaskarth. Got it?”

“Got it,” I grinned. And boy, did I still hate her. But I assumed she knew that already, and didn’t need to be reminded.

Jack peered at me suspiciously. “Why are you here anyway?”

I shrugged. “Because I love and care about you deeply, Jack. Why do you think?”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. Why would I ask if I knew?” He returned my question with another question. If there was anything that pissed me off, it was when someone did that.

I glared mildly at him, not bothering enough to put the effort in for a full death glare. “Because Jenna was crying and pissing me off. And I couldn’t be arsed with that pathetic ‘Tour of Larnaca!’ thing.” Part of me felt like that wasn’t quite the truth. That I came because I felt guilty. That I decided to come after Jack because, shit, I felt responsible.

But I told that part of my brain to shut the fuck up, because really, I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit.

On our trek back to Palm Beach Hotel, I remembered to ask Jack why Craig was so pissed off with me. His reply of ,“Because I told him what you did to May,” didn’t seem to sit well with me. Why would Craig care? Craig was a drug and alcohol addict. Sure, he had a certain, persuasiveness, but why would he care about some random person’s sister dying? It just didn’t make sense.

Seeing my puzzled expression, Jack took it upon himself to explain. “His mum died and this bunch of idiots make fun of him for it. He didn’t like the way you tease me about May.”
Still, something seemed off about the whole thing. Craig just didn’t strike me as the type of person to care about that sort of stuff. Sure, of course he’d care about his mum, but a stranger’s sister? It was just a little hard to believe.

We finally arrived at the hotel. Oh god. If I was religious, I’d be praying right now. Mr Armstrong was one scary mother fucker. Of course, Mr Hoppus would stick up for anything I did just for the sake of getting one up on the Millburn rector.

Ooh, what if Jenna, Vic and Jack get sent back to Scotland? That’s would be a dream come true!

But I guess all dreams are destined to crash and burn. Jenna decided to blame the whole thing on me - wow, thanks - and they got off with a ban from free time that day. During free time, I had to join the three of them in the dining hall and write sums.

For fuck sake.