Always

The school day soon came to an end and Brooklyn grabbed her bag from her locker, heading outside. Stood by Axel’s bike, she scanned the steady stream of students flooding out the doors and quickly spotted her boyfriend walking towards her.

“You’re an idiot,” Brooklyn said as he reached her.

“Hello to you too,” Axel replied with a frown, “What’s going on?”

“A gun, Axel, of all the things that you could have been hiding in your locker.”

“How... Brook, what did you do?”

“I saved you from getting arrested for one.”

“You were the one that took it out of my locker.”

“Someone had to,” Brooklyn stated, “I get you wanting to protect your family, but who’s looking out for you?”

“Babe...”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt, but I can’t... a gun, Axel.”

“I know,” Axel replied, cupping Brooklyn’s cheek and pulling her into a hug, “I had just pulled up to the school, when Felix turned up and told me to hide it. There was no room for argument, so I stashed it in my locker and planned on dealing with it later.”

Not wanting to continue their conversation so close to the school, Brooklyn agreed to go back to the Garcia house and climbed onto Axel’s bike. Sat in Axel’s room a while later, she handed over the gun and waited as he left his room to deal with it.

As much as she loved Axel, there was a part of her that was angry at him for taking a risk like that and she wasn’t sure what to do. The sound of raised voices soon drifted to her ears and she quietly cracked the door open a little, flinching as something crashed in the other room.

Without thinking, she went to investigate and felt fear wash through her as she walked in to find Felix laying into Axel on the kitchen floor.

“Get off of him,” Brooklyn shouted, rushing forward and shoving Felix with enough force to knock him from his position.

“You little bitch,” Felix growled, getting to his feet and glaring at Brooklyn, “Pon a tu chica en su lugar, prima.”

“Get out,” Axel demanded, struggling to his feet and standing in front of Brooklyn, “Dije salir.”

Felix glared at them both for a few tense seconds, before storming out and slamming the door behind him. Unsure of what had just happened, Brooklyn turned her attention to Axel and retrieved the medical kit from the cupboard.

She had just finished cleaning up his face, when the front door swung open and Mrs. Garcia walked in.

“What happened in here?” she asked, moving over to Axel and examining his injuries, “Who did this?”

“I’m fine, mama,” Axel told her as he pulled away from her touch, “It’s over...”

“Felix,” Mrs. Garcia guessed, watching Axel and obviously seeing something on his face that confirmed her suspicions, “I’m going to murder that boy.”

Not wanting to interfere with their conversation, Brooklyn started picking up the pieces of smashed glass and put them in the bin. It wasn’t very often that she got scared, but the whole situation had freaked her out, and keeping busy was her way of coping.