Chapter 4 Detention

I awoke grubby and swore at my alarm clock that buzzed like a rooster. It showed me the time.

  06:00 AM

I had to be awake at this time to start detention.
               Last night I took a relaxing shower and super scrubbed my neck until it was red. I was right, when I looked in the mirror last night, yellow bruises wer forming on my neck. My coxic bone wasn't any better, in fact, it was getting worse. I was limping around like I had no actualy foot.
               "I'd have killed that demon for you, Ammie." Clair had grinned at me the same night while washing her face.
               The sky outside was a dull blue, not fully ripe yet. The sun was rising though. My bed was too warm for me to get out of, but I knew I had to get up and ready. I slid out, falling onto the hard wood floor. I grumbled, my head a little fuzzy and hair a clump on my head, falling into my eyes. My body froze as soon as I was out of the warmth of my blankets. My alarm rang again.
               I smacked it.
"I know already!" I screamed at the inaminate object lying on the floor. I heard a knock on the door and swung into a crouch by my bed. I was getting better at this.
               "Ammie, it's me!" Clair bellowed from the other side of my door. "Rise and shine, princess." She walked in and stood still when she seen me. Her black hair a huge tat on her head, tooth brush and tooth paste in one hand while a face cloth was in the other. She wore a long and thin pale pink nightie, yet she always wore shorts unerneath. She laughed at me, her brown eyes sparkling. "What on earth are you doing, Ammie?" She smiled, holding my door open. I stood abruptly, smothering my tangled hair back.
              "Me?" I asked, eying her. "What are you doing up this early?" I padded over to my dresser picking up my morning essentials.
              "Duh," She gave me a sweet smile. "You wouldn't think I let you go through detention alone, did you?" She moved aside so I could get through.
              "Aw," I chimed while walking down the stone floor with her. "That's so thoughtful of you." I chuckled.
"Are you kidding?" She stared at me. "I just wanna catch up in the goss." She purred. I gave her a dagger look. "Im joking," She touched my bare arm. "Just."

            

After brushing our teeth and washing our faces, we trekked to the canteen where a few kids were clustered. The smell of salty bacon filtered through the air, along with fresh bread and orange juice. Some people looked at me and Clair.
               I changed from a black shirt and shorts for black, thin three quater cargos with a thin black t-shirt with converses. My hair was pinned back in a ponytail with tendrils down the side while my side fringe covered one side of my face. Clair was in a red shirt and shorts. Her caramel skin suited it and her luminous pink trainers caught everyones eyes. She loved them trainers.
               "If I get one more stare at my chest," She started to threaten quietly to me. "I swear, someones face will be flanted under my foot." She glarred at a boy who looked away quickly, I think he heard her threat.
               "You're beautiful," I spoke softly. "Use that to your advantage a little more." I did a cheeky smile.
"Says you." She looked at me. "You always get looks from Nathan." I stood still, looking at her walk a few steps ahead of me before looking back. "I'm joking" She trailed back and looped her arm through mine.
               I was scared for a second, feeling a little on edge. All the time Nathan scolded me for my mistakes and made me clean the mess up after missions or pair me up with Alyson when he couldn't stand her sometimes. But he did do nice things like save me.
               "Want a bacon sandwich?" Clair picked up two along with a paper cup of orange juice.
Detentions were early in the mornings, and our snack to get through the torture was in the canteen and freshly made. But I hated bacon, not because it was once a pig, but because I didn't like the salt that was on it.
               "Is that it?" I peered over the heads of kids getting their snacks.
"Pretty much." Clair took another huge bite. "Oh s**t," She looked at me bewildered, her mouth still stuffed with food. "You don't like bacon, do you?" She remembered.
               "Did your mother ever tell you not to speak with your mouth full?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Sometimes, her manners never did make the cut.
               "Nah." She smiled at me. Then her smile vanished. "But Ammie, we're doing two hours worth of detention and you haven't eaten, you'll collapse." She came closer, being bumped by a girl older than her. "Hey, watch it!" She muffled.
               "Sorry, kid."
Clair was a little headstrong. I smiled at her. "I'll be fine." I lied, my belly grumbled already.
               Clair's eyes whicked to behind me and she groaned, rolling her eyes. "Here's The Rescuers."
I looked behind me, my ponytail hitting my face. Nathan stood there, panting and looking at me. Beside him was Alyson. I never would get her function of love. If he jumped off a cliff, I believe she would to. His hair flopped over his face, shiny and fluffy. His eyes burned blue. Alyson stared at me and back at Nathan. She wore a pink tracksuit, her long strawberry hair in a straight ponytail at her back. She even wore mascara and eyeliner, today.
                "What are you doing here?" I moved closer to Nathan, I heard Clair shuffle behind me.
"Yeah," She grumbled. "Aren't you two like goody-two-shoes, or something?" She gruffed, pointing at them while holding her sandwich.
                "Did anyone ever tell you it's rude to point?" Alyson narrowed her eyes at Clair, I just put my hands on my hips. Sick of her already.
                "Um, yeah." Clair looked thoughtful for a second and stared at Alyson. "You did just now." She smiled happily at her.
                "Anyway," Nathan stood straight and walked past Alyson who looked stunned. I seen Clair snicker behind her hand. "I came down and seen the bacon," He stared at me, loking me over. All of a sudden, I felt naked, exposed in front of him. He wore a tight black t-shirt with a black jacket along with loose blue jeans and regular academy boots. "I know you don't like bacon." He took out of his jacket pocket a pack or cheese and onion crisps and a chocolate bar. I nearly drooled. "So I went round to the back of the kitchen and asked for something else." He handed them to me. I took them and smiled at him gratefully. My smile kept on stretching. I had never wanted to hug Nathan so bad in my entire life, so did anyway, to see what it felt like.
                 He was suprised and didn't hug back after a few seconds. His strong arms wrapped tight around me I thought I'd burst, his lean body towered over mine, I felt small in his arms. "Thank you." I smiled against his chest.
                  "No problem." I pulled back, seeing Alyson's expression look deadly, her eyes on fire. I imagined smoke blooming out of her ears and her cheeks burn red. I felt flustered myself, I've never dreamed of hugging Nathan, but the kind gesture made me more than happy. I was grateful for having Nathan there to save me... Again. I turned to see Clair's mouth hang open, her chewed up food on show. I grimaced.
                  "Ew" I frowned at her. She stuck up her two perfect fingers at me then smiled.
After I ate my food next inbetween Clair and Alyson (since she seen Nathan sit next to me, she persuaded him to shuffle along because she "badly" wanted to sit next to me), Miss Harney walked into the canteen. Her presence making every word evaporate in the air, people stood awkwardly as she walked to the table where the food was, where most kids were.
                 She was in black track pants and a sickly white academy jumper with a clipboard in her hands, her Nike Air Max's where once white now smudged brown. She had long brown hair in a ponytail with light brown eyes that were always mean looking, etched around with slight wrinkles.
                  "Students here should be ashamed," She yelled amongst about 25 of us, her eyes raking every individual. "You are here to be elite, progressive and professional slayers of the Demon Assassination Academy!" She bellowed.
                  "Even though she's a total b***h," Clair leaned in to me and whispered. "She can be real cool, sometimes. I mean, these kids are s**t scared of her!" She giggled.
                  "Miss DeBonn," Clair gasped and straightened up in the seat. I seen Alyson smile from the corner of my eye. "Would you like to share with us what you find so funny?" Everyone turned to Clair and me, I just looked at them. I hated being stared at, especially by strangers.
                  "Just discussing how cool you can be, Miss," Clair added in a cheery tone. "Sometimes."
Miss Harney actually believed her, even though Clair was telling the truth. Like Mr. Lockwood with me, Miss Harney treated Clair like a favourite student, giving her a break here and there. But there are times when Miss Harney can treat her like a petulant child, which made Clair furious.
                  "As much as I trust you," Miss Harney smiled to herself. "I don't think the rest of the bad students believe so." She looked at her clipboard and flipped through some pages.
                 I heard a male voice snicker. "That's bullshit."
Clair's head whipped around to him, he was in a cluster of boys, all hard looking. But no matter what, how defeseless she looked, she'd always bite back. "Shut up, Roids." I obviously knew what she meant, he was built like a tank. Muscles everywhere, even where they shouldn't be. He just gave her a funny look and high fived a kid next to him.
                 "Right," Miss Harney shouted to the rest of us again. "We are going to clean up the forest. Last nights practise was Defeat Practise, so there's lots of dead dummies, and what I mean is, dummies have littered the woods along with lost weaponary and belongings. We need to find anything we can and pile the dummies in a large yellow skip. It's on the outskirts of the forest." She blew her whistle and pointed at the double doors that headed for the planes of grass outside and into the deep, dark forest. A table with torches was next to the doors.
                 "Everyone, please partner up and grab a torch."

         
Me and Clair trudged through the thick forest. Our torch beams scanned the dark abyss. It smelt moisty and rich of mud. The air thick with flies and moths, even a hoot of an owl a few feet away. The dirt ground was littered with pens, clear plastic heart boxes that should contain red light bulbs from the dummies. The sky was a baby blue covered in shadow, the sun struggling to rise.
The tree trunks had deep gashes in them, gun shots or a few blades stuck in them.

"This is manual labour!" Clair breathed as she hefted a dummy into a pile next to a large tree with deep indents in, the bark flaking away, branches bended almost to the ground from the amount of weight placed on them from climbing students.
               "Thought you said Miss Harney is 'cool'?" I smiled as I picked up a shredded dummy with a broken plastic heart and chucked it onto the smelly pile. I'm sure the teachers and staff sprayed these dummies with gas garbage.
               "She is," Clair picked up bent blades from the trampled ground along with a boot and sword grips. "But someone has to do this," She gave me a side ways glance, a smile on her lips. "Just be glad I did this for you, Ammie." She placed unwanted objects into a black bin bag attached to her bag, thick gardener gloves protecting her slight hands from blades.
                "I am glad." I smiled at her while picking up another dummy, grunting while throwing another stinking dummy into the huge pile. I took my gloves off and wiped my sweaty forehead. I must look so unattractive right now.
                "Did you see Alyson's face when you hugged Nathan?" Clair stopped for a while, leaned on a tree trunk and stared at me wide eyed and panting.
                I giggled. "Yeah."
"I haven't seen you hug Nathan before." Clair dipped her head to the side when I was kicking a blade to the side while tugging a dummy out of a thorn bush. "Do you like him?"
                I stopped short, slowly standing up straight.
I haven't even thought of that to myself. But the fact is came her mouth made me think it over. I never liked Nathan in that way, and thinking of him I always think of how he tells me off for my failures and mistakes and makes such a big deal out of it. But, when he rescues me, I feel such a sense of gratitude. Like I couldn't get through the weeks without him (and Clair of course). Yet, I like it when he's around, I feel lighter, better somehow. Like I don't want him to leave, and seeing Alyson's stunned, shocked, angry or worried face when I'm around him makes me anxious to even talk to him.
                 "Well," Clair pretended to look at a watch on her wrist that wasn't even there. "That answers my question." She sighed approvingly.
After clearing up dirty and battered dummies from the ground, bushes and trees, me and Clair started to carry dummies back one by one. The skip was already half full of broken sword grips and dummies that didn't even look like dummies anymore. I seen other students carry dummies through, sweat glistened on almost all of them.
                   Then I seen Alyson and Nathan carry black backs in rubber gloves. Sweat sparkled on his cheeks and neck, his hair lined with sweat. From Clair's recent question that has confused for almost half an hour now, I looked away and hurried back into the forest, ducking my head under a branch. I stopped and looked back.
                   "S**t." I jumped on my feet, trying to spot Clair in the pairs of students around the ugly yellow skip. I lost Clair. At least I was still working.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned sharply to my path of dummies. But the next thing caught me off guard. I walked into a solid branch that had been bent for my head level. I smacked the bridge of my nose off the thick branch, a hollow thud shrilled through my body. Pain speared over my face and I felt my eyes water.
                   "Bollocks." I trembled backwards into a tree trunk, the sound of leaves and twigs breaking under my weight was pushed out as I heard my pulse loud and clear. I pressed my fingers on my nose that began to bleed. I brought back my hands to see red liquid all over my fingers. "Ugh," I tried not to sniffle, it began to irritate me. "That's not good." I stood on shaky legs and turned slowly and began walking towards the skip.
                  I heard running in front of me and some giggles.
A pair of students trotted through the mass of bushes. A girl and boy a year younger than me, I think. I heard them laugh and the smooch of their kissing. I actually felt my eyes bulge and for some crazy reason, Nathan appeared in my mind.
                  I physically shook my head, bad idea since blood dripped everywhere.
I stood out from behind the tree and they were headed right for me. The girl spotted me first, her light red hair bobbed, green eyes sparkled and hands entwined with her boyfriends. Who seen me next, his cool dark tan was beautiful, muscles showed since he wore no shirt and three quarter grey khaki pants with brown working boots, they were dirtied with mud.
                   The girls once sparkling gren eyes soon turned to fear and she screamed. She threw herself into her boyfriend's arms and he soon shrieked along with her, wrapping her up in his muscled arms and ran the way they came.
                  I stared after them.
I looked down at myself. I was still clean. But I did hold out my palms as if I were trying to collect raindrops and they were dotted with blood. Also, blood was leaking from my busted nose. I must've looked scary since it was still this dark.
                 I heard running in my direction again and thought it'd be the couple.
It wasn't. Unfortuneately, it was Nathan. He jogged up the muddy path, hopping over a small growing bush and over a log that had fallen. He flipped his head so his black hair wouldn't go in his eyes, which burned blue.
                He seen me and slowly stopped.
"Seriously," He began walking to me while I heard my heart thud in my chest. I stared at him wide-eyed. "You'd be great in a horror movie." He came to my side, I turned to him. He smelt like body spray still with a hint of sweat. He pulled out a napkin from his pocket and started to dab at my nose. He'd tilted my face upwards so I was looking at him. The concentration in his eyes made me gulp, I still held my hands out and wish the heavy feeling in them woud go away.
                 "What did you do this time?" He spoke softly, his voice like velvet.
"Walked into a branch." I said matter-of-factly, looking around like it wasn't my fault. He just laughed under his breath, still dabbing at my nose.
                 "Idiot." He smiled. He hardly ever smiled or laughed, but in our group, he would. Or with me, he would. With me.
                 I looked away from him, a nearby tree had never looked so interesting. But somehow, my eyes always landed back on Nathan.
                 "How'd you know I was here?" I asked him.
"Simple," He breathed in and started wiping my chin. "I seen a pair of students go in the way you did and they came out screaming. Either you screamed at them or scared them." He stood back and looked me over. "I think the last one was right." He smiled, his perfect white teeth on show, making me blink.
                  "What's going on?" Alyson  beated her way through bushes that poked at her, one thorny bush had her ponytail in it's claws. She abruptly yanked it free, cursing under her breath.
                  "Ammie got hurt." Nathan stood just an inch closer. I looked at him and just shrugged my own shoulders.
                  "Pfft, again?" Alyson cackled like an old witch. "So why are you here, Nathan?" Alyson's eyes looked hurt. I had to slightly narrow my eyes at her to see if I wasn't imagining it. I wasn't, she genuinely looked upset, her bottom lip gently sticking out and fingers fidgeted at her side. I swear, I never will get how she loves this guy. "You were supposed to help me." She huffed like a little child being told they wouldn't have a treat after dinner.
                  "Ammie was scaring students." Nathan sighed in my defense. "I couldn't let that happen.
                  Alyson's eyes darted at me, if looks could kill, I'd be dead, brought back to life and killed again. Her eyebrows so far down her eyes you'd think they'd slide down her nose. "Well, she looks fine now, lets go." She skipped over to Nathan and tugged at his arm.
                   "Are you serious?" He chuckled and looked down at Alyson. "She's bleeding and you say she's 'fine'?" Nathan shrugged off her ar and grabbed my upper arm, guiding me through the forest. The warmth of his hand through my jacket steadied my beating heart, but I also felt guilty for Alyson. Even when she was giving me death stares at my back and probably stomping her foot in frustration, I felt sorry for her. How Nathan treated her like an annoying bug flying around his face and wouldn't go away. She was annoying, though. But Nathan won't give her a straight answer and she can't make him fall in love with her. I sighed.
                    "What's wrong?" He asked sternly. Seconds ago he had been laughing and smiling at me, now he was acting like an old fart. Jesus.
                    "Why do you treat her like that?" I asked quietly, keeping my head up and blinking at the sky so the bleeding would stop.
                    "Like what?" He was curious now, glimpsing at me.
I ignored the looks he gave me and carried on. "You treat her like a doormat," I said through gritted teeth. I knew I was going to give one of my 'famous' speeches, but I couldn't hold it back. "She is there for you. She's pretty, athletic, smart and great at fighting. She adores you, Nathan. She would do anything for you, and has for years, now. She doesn't care how hurt she is as long as she's either by your side or you're happy. Why can't you see that?" I stopped and turned to him, I shook off his arm and pinched my own nose. Tender from the beating I got off the branch earlier.
                    Nathan just sighed and rubbed his eyes.
"Why are you being like this now?" He sputtered.
                    "Like what?" I don't know why I was defending Alyson, but it bugged me how she tried anything and would do anything just for him. "I find it unfair how she does anything for you and you throw it back in her face like a rotten bag of dog s**t." I nearly shouted at him, I had to control the hysteria rising in my voice.
                    "What do you want me to do?" He shook his head at me and stared at me. "Tell her I love her when I don't? 'Cause that'd hurt her more, Ammie." He spoke angrily at me, now my anger burst out like a fire contained in a box.
                    "Give her a clear message instead of pulling hr along like a bloody toy!" I shrieked. "Have you seen the way she smiles at you? The way her face lightens up when you enter a room? It's mean to see her like that while knowing you don't have one ounce of feelings for her like she has for you. I mean I don't even like, Alyson, but her way of love is almost tear-jerking."  This time, I scalded him. He just stood there speechless, open-mouthed and nothing came out of it. "I'll go to the damned nurses office myself." I swiftly walked through the foilage and bushes like mist.
                     I don't know what I had done, but I finally felt better... I think. From the way the words formed in my head, it felt right at the time I said them. But when I spoke them, it hurt me to see his face react to every single word. Now I felt sick, I didn't feel like I helped Alyson, or myself for that matter. I felt worse.

Author's Note

Please ignore grammer blah blah blah :)