you do? Beg Headmaster CloverSpell to get accepted here?"
"What are you doing here, Rick?" I questioned, narrowing my eyes at him as I stood my ground.
If he thought I'd be some pushover after he literally did everything to make sure I wouldn't even get a chance at yet another school, he clearly didn’t know me. From his lawsuit threats and essay format reports of all the injuries he'd endured from the blast. His victim personality should have frightened me away, but I wasn’t going to be feared by his tactics.
With how he looked now, he seemed to be perfectly fine - minus the fancy cane that looked more like a black rod with a red jewel on top.
"I attend here." He seemed unimpressed when his eyes took a long glance down my uniform. I took advantage of that and replied, "Well jeez, what a small world. I'm attending as well."
His deep grimace was quickly covered up with a cocky grin as shook his head.
"Well let me be the first to tell you farewell to yet another school. You won't even last a semester here, Blazing Alice. No one needs a mental freak."
"Who are you calling a mental freak?" I had to look around, being extra dramatic when I looked left and right. "I swear, it seems people are seeing ghosts or something because they're always accusing invisible people of being something that I'm clearly not. Who were you calling a mental freak again? Was it ghost Karen or ghost Becky? If you see dead people, feel free to share. This is a safe environment, after all."
I caught the slight smirk on Westley's lips from the corner of my eye, and I noticed a few other students were now listening in on the conversation, probably waiting for some sort of fight or confrontation to go off the rails and into an explosive fight.
I'd avoid that if my sarcastic temper would follow my internal orders to stay down.
Rick frowned and took two steps forward until we were facing each other.
"If you think this place is where everyone is going to protect you while you play victim, you better drop out now because you've just entered my turf."
His words ignited a burning power within me, and my vision seemed to darken as I purposely moved an inch forward, my body a centimeter from his while I faced him with just as much strife for payback.
"If this is your way of frightening me, Rick, you didn't learn your lesson the first time when I sent your ugly ass out the window with the rest of the broken shards of glass," I reminded, purposely talking a little louder for everyone else to hear. "If this is your way to try and bully me into submission, you're only playing with fire, and if you aren’t careful, you may actually get burned."
His eyes glared at me, growing darker by the second, to the point that they almost looked flooded with black ink.
"You don't scare me, Rick, so listen to my wise words. Don't fuck with me here, because I don't need to play the victim in a school where I fit right at home."
"She's right." The stone-cold voice came from behind Rick, and I looked to see Gabriel's dangerous eyes.
In fact, his entire demeanor oozed with some sort of energy, a power that was hard to describe but made the already tense hallway grow a lot tenser. The students that had once crowded close to get all the deets were now scrambling away, and the heaviness of the atmosphere made me feel like I was in a horror movie about to open the door to a death trap.
"Don't fuck with our Blazing Queen. You wouldn't want to fall victim to her secret move."
His words made me blush as flickers of happiness and relief burst through me. He didn't have to interfere, and yet, it made me feel protected.
"Do you know who I am?" Rick huffed.
Gabriel took a step forward, towering over him like he was a pest.
"I know who you are in this game of school ranks. Before you grow a cocky pair of balls, make sure they're nice and secure for a semester. It would be a shame to see someone kick them to oblivion and you lose your silly popularity rank."
"If you think I'm afraid of your holiness, I'm not," Rick spat out in ignorance.
"You don't have to be." Gabriel shrugged. "I'm not the one you should be worrying about."
As if on cue, Keru came