Chapter 4

Liam

"So," Mr Larrendale says, looking up at me. "What have you done this time?"

"Nothing." I say. "It was all her."

"Oh, really?" Hailey drags in that irritating way I hate. "Cause I thought we both were fighting. I wasn't really the one throwing fists in the air." She pauses. " Now that I think about it, I wasn't throwing fists at all."

I clench my teeth. This girl is really getting on my nerves. Everything from her white-blonde hair, red-silver eyes and flawless skin to her pearly white eyelashes, perfectly curvy body and amazing fashion sense irritates me out of my mind. It's crazy that I notice littlest details in her so-called perfect face, that she is wearing only a little bit of foundation and nada make-up other than that, and that her face was used to forming smirks and glares, very menacing and dangerous ones at that.

Mr Larrendale looks at her and sighs. "Miss Jones, it's only been the first day, you know."

And then she does the unthinkable. She raises her legs and puts them on the glass covered table, her five-inch boots in Mr Larrendale's face. I look on, horrified and at a loss of words. But Mr Larrendale doesn't even blink an eye.

"And?" She drawls.

He looks away, turning his face away, trying to hide his frustration from us but I saw everything. He was wearing an angry and irritated look, his thoughts showing clearly on his face. He did not want to deal with Hailey and me but he had no choice. "Miss Jones and Mr James, I don't know what to do with you two." Hailey smirks, clearly enjoying the show.

I try to ruin her fun.

"Why not put us in detention?" Both of them looked at me. I look at Hailey but find the smirk widening. My eyes enlarge in amazement. Why the hell is she still amused? Does she never lose her cool? "Nice try, dumbass." She says. Wait did I say it out loud? I sure as hell didn't.

She moves her gaze, still smirking. "What do you think, Larrendale?" Did she just-- refer to the principal with his surname? He glares at her and after a few seconds, plasters a clearly fake smile on his face. "No of course not. Why should Her Majesty step her precious feet inside the detested Detention Room or do chores that would hurt her precious petite hands?" The sarcasm dripped from his words and venom underlined his tone. I'd never heard him speak like this to a student. Does he hold a grudge against her or something? Wait a sec, did they-

"No dumbass," Hailey says angrily and I snap out of the thought train I was in and notice that she is talking to me. "Did I just say it out loud?" I say, confused.

"No. Of course not. But unfortunately for you, I can read facial expressions and emotions very well and am very learned in human psychology. So don't ever think that again." Unfortunate indeed.

"And where are you not?" This third question was muttered out loud from the mouth of our very own principal. Hailey let her very annoying smirk out again.

"What do you mean?" I ask grimacing. I could live without another of her sexy smirks. Wait, what?

"What I mean is that Miss Jones here is one of the smartest people on Earth. Her IQ amounts to 179 which is more than Einstein's and her Grade Point Average is 6.9 on the scale of 7. She is a straight A+++ student in-"

I couldn't listen to it anymore and interrupt him in middle. "So long story short, Hailey here is a genius." The question rolls off my tongue and leaves a bitter taste. The fact that I am a C student and my GPA is 2.7 makes it harder for me to accept it.

Admit it. She's a genius.

Never.

She cannot be better than me.

But the evil voice in my brain goes on whispering, She's better than you in every aspect. Looks, intellect, self-esteem, you name it.

But what about her personality? I counter in my head. That can't be better than mine.

I admit. I feel pathetic right now. But I need to argue, for the sake of my ego.

You don't actually know about that. She could turn out to be completely different from the impression you got from her. She could be completely badass and caring and protective and-

Stop it. "STOP!" I yell out loud, not thinking about the reactions I get from the others and plug my fingers into my ears.

When I look up, I expect to be met with confused, 'what the hell is wrong with this guy is he mental' kind of looks but instead I find Hailey looking at me with a cute contemplative expression on her face, the smirk nowhere in sight.

Then I make the worst mistake of my life.

I look into her eyes.

Those hypnotizing shades of blood red and pearl silver. They make me want to give in to their allure and beauty. How did I never know that these eye colors exist? It's like the ground is giving out under me. I can't look away or move anymore. My breathing fastens to become pants. I can't feel anything; everything is numb and only thing keeping me anchored to this dimension are those eyes. Those petrifying shades of blood red and pearl silver.

So beautiful.

Someone clears their throat and I snap out of my trance, whipping my head towards Mr Larrendale almost hard enough to give me whiplash. On looking sideways, I see a smirk working its way on her face again. I groan.

"Enough you two." Mr Larrendale scolds. The next revelation makes me splutter and choke on my words.

"No punishment."

"No punishment?! No punishment?! " I almost yell in my astonishment. This fight, in normal circumstances, would've earned us a week long detention. Who the hell is this bitch? How is she getting out of punishment so easily? Does her father finance our school or something?

Yeah. That must be it.

I turn to glare at Hailey. She raises one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows at me. All this perfectness gets on my nerves and I get angry. I start yelling, "Who the fuck are you? Why are you getting-"

Just then her phone rings, her ringtone that of the song 'break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored' by Ariana Grande. Hailey's body tenses up as the noise vibrates through her bones. A nanosecond later, the ringing phone is in her hand and she is on her way out of the office.

"Hey, hey." I stop her by grasping her elbow and try not to look at her fully uncovered back. She shakes it off and walks out. I am completely flabbergasted. Principal Larrendale isn't even saying anything! He is just sitting there, staring at me at the door and her quickly disappearing back like we're his saviors. What a douchebag!

Then Stupid Liam took over.

Like the idiot he is, he makes me follow her. Oh, hell.

Hailey

As soon as I got the phone call from Reece, I knew I had to stop wasting time. As much I liked the douchebag staring into my-

Wait, what?

Focus, Hailey, focus. You're getting side-tracked.

Anyway, when Mr Asswipe caught hold of my elbow, I shook it off, ignoring the sparks that flew. I had sworn I would stay away. Without looking back, I walked on.

The phone has kept ringing, regardless of what was happening in the outside world. I pick it up once I reach a secluded spot. "Hailey Jones here."

"Hailey." A deep voice says on the other end. My best friend, Reece. We had been through a lot together, him and I. Had the circumstances been different, I would've considered dating him. But, as usual, Life had to ruin it and there he was, stuck as my personal secretary.

"Yeah, I know. That's my name."

Reece lets out a sarcastic laugh but turns back serious again. (FYI, I actually don't know. I wasn't there. The atmosphere of the mood just shifted.) "We found a lead."

I let out an exhale I didn't realise I was holding in. "How big?"

"Not that big, I'm afraid. But it still is something."

"Wow. Dad's being sloppy." Both of us chuckle. As usual, I couldn't hold in the happiness at hearing of Dad. It was a small amount, sure, but like Reece said, 'it still is something'.

I hear him typing something on the other end. "I need to show you shit. See you in 10."

"Be there in 5." He chuckles, remembering that one thing about me. If someone expected me at sometime, I usually came a few minutes earlier.

Unless it's a teacher. From school.

Then nada attendance.

"Huh. See ya." He hangs up and I bring the phone down from my ear and smile at the picture I keep as his call profile, nostalgic. It is one of us, our faces close together, my right cheek clashing with his left. We were lying on the bed like we used to when our workload was lesser. We used to talk like that for hours, the time spent never boring, but always cherished.

We met when we were in kindergarten. I was different back then. Confident, outspoken and outright blunt. We were on the playground and I clearly remember what happened. Small Reece was swinging very high, for a very long time, and the other kids wanted to come down. I was an outcast, because of my heterochromia and snow-white hair as usual, but I was happy like that. I could observe everyone and everything like that from a distance. So when I was watching them, I started to feel a very bad gut feeling. Something was going to go terribly wrong if I don't stop it. I went to stand at one side as the kids yell for him to stop. But this one kid, he grew quite angry and he decided to catch hold of the metal thing that held the swing and make it stop. Time began to slow down as the swing tilted and threw Reece off on the ground. He fell, screaming quite loudly and I saw that his head was scraped and bleeding. Then my gaze fell on the boys and the swing and I ran to them. The boys' expression were of horror and the kid who was holding the swing let go in shock. I ran faster than the wind and jumped on top of Reece to save his head from being split open by the fast-approaching swing.

Bam!

The force at which the swing hit me and the aftermath of the pain knocked me out. I woke up in hospital bed with Reece holding my left hand and a saline being pumped into my right. My parents were sitting on the bed at the side, tears flowing from Mom's eyes and Dad holding her close with a worried look etched on his face. I had supposedly got 16 stitches, and felt like it too.

Meaning crap.

Since then, we became the truest of best friends. We always had each other's backs and never actually needed anybody else.

Until he came along.

He destroyed my connection with Reece, destroyed the remenants of my relationship with Mom, and whispered poison into my ears. He made me break all my ties to the people who I called my friends when they started telling me to break up with him, thus pulling me six feet under in an even more toxic relationship. He made me his puppet, and almost took over my company. But he never could ruin my relationship with my brother; we always had, even then, a mother-son, older sister- younger brother link.

It was Reece who pulled me out. It was Reece who acquainted me with the reality of my situation. It was him who insisted on it, even though I didn't believe him. He was the one who sat me down and familiarized me with what I was facing, and once I accepted it, helped me and freed me from that hellhole.

I can't bear the thoughts or consequences if I had stayed on there. By his side.

Here my determination kicks in. I will never let find me or near me again. I will never seek affection from anyone like him again. Never again.

Never.

Again.

I will be eternally grateful to Reece Walker.

He's the sensible one in our trio, which at times includes Jake. He's my partner-in-crime. I stride along in front and and he guards my back. He suffers the consequences of my reckless antics while I stand beside him, often hiding a grin. We fought and argued almost every day.

By fought, I don't mean screaming and shouting. I mean actual fist-fighting.

He is the only one equals me in everything. Strenght, thought process, mentality, personality, mysteriousness, and beauty.

Yes. He is as hot as his name and voice sounds.

I wouldn't trade him for anyone.

Okay. Enough reminiscing and nostalgia.

I walk to my sexy sports bike. It's the new 2020 Kawasaki Ninja 650, pearl blizzard white coloured. I run my fingers along its sleek body, smirking. I know there's Mr Asswipe behind me. So, I key it with the keys on the top of the locker, put on my sexy biker's helmet, slide my leg over the bike and sit on it as seductively as possible. The bike roars to life as I start it, and just I drive away, I look back at the d-bag. He's staring at me speechless, with his mouth open. I smirk and he face-palms himself. I chuckle to myself and turn to make my way to Scarlett Industries Co. Headquarters.

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