The scenes from New Year’s Eve formal continued to plague my mind long after the event itself, especially my encounter with Katarina Falcon. Every time I recalled her words, an unease feeling will grow in my stomach. Despite my attempts to think as little of it as possible, it continued to nag at me in the corner of my mind.

Other than that, things had fallen back into a routine after the holiday. It was just school, homework and hanging out. Weekspast by and I found myself getting better at pushing Katarina’s words further and further back into my mind; however, that soon became the least of my worries.

After my exchange with Katarina I went straight back to my room, so I missed it; but according to Elise, who rushed back into the room at some point after midnight, Fred Bowen had caused another scene at the formal.

Apparently, he froze this guy from the Physical’s section into an icy statue next to the refreshment table, whom I happened to know was the guy who asked Natalie for the first dance.

What a weird coincident.

Later, when I oh-so-casually mentioned this to Natalie, she simply blushed and tried to change the subject. Seriously, I had no idea what Natalie see in that guy, she is the walking example of loveliness while he is… okay, I better not say the word.

However, it was in my nature to help all lovebirds in need, especially since Natalie had been such a good friend to me. As for Fred Bowen, maybe having a girlfriend will change him for the better; if not, I would just stick to my original plan and kick his butt.

It took me a while to figure out what’s stopping Fred and Natalie getting together. I mean, it was pretty obvious that the two of them fancy each other for some unfathomable reason; and it turned out to be a slightly trifle matter (or maybe not in the mind of Bowen).

You see, being the school’s renowned bad-boy and the leader of the locals, he wasn’t so keen on people finding out that he fell for a transfer (that’s what they call the rest of us who aren’t born into a POE family). So basically it was just him who was standing between the two of them; since I was pretty certain that no one else in the school would actually come out against Fred Bowen on the matter of his choice of girlfriend. Besides, transfers make up 80% of the school, and no one apart from his little gang has a problem with us.

So really, all I needed to do was get Fred Bowen to let go of his ego and admit his feeling towards Natalie, which is easier said than done. However, I have formulated a plan that might just do the trick, but that would take time, and a volunteer.

When I was scouring for the view of other students on the matter of Fred Bowen and Natalie, I found out that Iago’s teasing about Tom, Diego and me was actually a shared view upon the students. You would not believe the amount of people that were obsessing over the matter of our ‘love triangle’ that simply did not exist. It was downright weird to see my life through someone else’s prespective.

I mentally ran through my interaction with the two of them and decided it would be wise to keep my distance for a while. After all my reputation of ‘the tough new girl’ could only hold off their crazy fans for so long. I don’t think my power can match their sheer number.

One afternoon when I was returning from Mr. Andrewson’s private lesson, I was cornered by a group of girls. At first I thought they were just passing by, but then they started rounding me up. I sighed internally; I should have expected something like this was going to happen.

“Sorry, but can you let me pass?” I asked politely, hoping the whole situation will just diffuse. I never like dealing with fan girls, they are annoying and scream too much.

“No.” the girl in front of me said, placing her hand on her hips. She was actually quite pretty, I hoped for her sake that she was a fan of Diego’s and not Tom’s. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her, because that would only provoke them.

“What do you want?” I asked; putting the books I was carrying in my arm into the safety of my bag. Then I proceeded to cross my arms over my chest and waited for her reply.

“You need to stay away from Diego and Tom.” She said spitefully, her beautiful face twisting into an angry frown. Argh, I hated it when they give me that face.

“I haven’t been near them for weeks.” I reasoned, to my defense it was true. I had barely seen Diego outside of Mental’s common room, and even then we only stop to chitchat for a bit. As for Tom, he never willingly starts a conversation with me anyway.

“That’s not what we’ve heard.” She continued, taking a step closer to me, probably hoping it would intimidate me. If it weren’t for the fact that they outnumbered me massively I wouldn’t hesitate to force a path between them and waltz off. Nothing really fazes me anymore. However, I shouldn’t draw more attention to myself.

“You need to realize that we have been in this school way longer than you.” The fan girl head said, her voice beginning to falter a little with my lack of ‘scared reactions’, “You have no right to just come and steal them off us!”

I took a deep breath to calm myself and glanced at my watch. It was already six and I really wanted to grab a shower before dinner. I hate time-wasters. “I am not stealing them away from you.” I said slowly, “You girls are free to have him. Really, I don’t care.”

However, instead of backing off, the girls circled tighter around me. I put a mind wall around myself in case one of them breaks down and attack me, but before any more action could unfold, a newcomer arrived.

“What the heck is going on?” Tom Triole said, alarmed as he surveyed the scene, taking in my fighting stance and the position of the fan girls.

The fan girls immediately froze. The face of fan girl head was priceless, a mixture of fear, embarrassment from being caught red-handed plus the humiliation and excitement of seeing her ‘idol’ made an interesting mixture. Ew, so she’s actually a fan of Tom’s.

“Beckett, are you okay?” Tom asked, eyeing me worriedly. Wait, he was worrying about me? What is going on?

Finding myself rendered speechless I simply nodded. However he wasn’t convinced; the frown on Tom’s face deepened and he stride past the fan girls towards me.

Grabbing hold of my left arm he looked at me from head to toe, as if checking for any signs of damage. My throats tightened and I could feel a blush coming up on my face. What the heck?

Treating the fan girls like they were invisible Tom pulled me out of their circle, and they made no move to stop us. I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he hand was clutching my wrist and after a while my voice returned.

“I am fine, I could have handled it myself.” I said, even though I actually wanted to thank him. Damn my stupid pride.

Tom let go of my hand and spun around to face me; by then we were a fair distant from the fan girls, who seemed to have all lost the capability to walk and stood frozen in their place. “Really?” He said, rather angrily too. “Was that why you just stood there without saying a word?”

I opened and closed my mouth, trying to think of a good come back but failing. Noticing the weird look Tom was giving me I fought the urge to utter more offensive words. “Thanks.” I said, rather grudgingly. I hated being on the losing-end of the conversation, but he did get me out of a predicament, and my parents have raised me to be polite.

Now it was Tom’s turn to look like a gaping goldfish, obviously not anticipating me to actually thank him. My embarrassment from acknowledging his favor turned into amusement as I watched him struggled for word.

“It’s fine.” He said in the end, but so quickly that I could barely made out the words. “Why were they bothering you?” he added quickly, hoping that a topic change would divert my attention.

“Oh, they are your fan girls.” I said, smiling as I waited for his reactions. "They just wanted to warn me away from you." 

Tom looked completely baffled at what I just said; however after a few seconds his ear started turning red as comprehension drawn on him and the only word that could use to describe his reaction is embarrassed.

Who would have known Tom Triole was capable of being embarrassed, and looks adorable with it.

It was hard not to coo at him, but a smile found its way to my face nonetheless. Then I quickly realised that I was thinking about Tom Triole being cute and shook myself out of it. It must be the fan girls’ thoughts getting to me!

The two of us stood opposite each other in an awkward silence, neither of us seemed to be able to think of what to say, but I didn’t want to leave either. I think I needed to see Mr. Oscar for mental health issues.

“Erm, so, are you going to, erm, you  know…” Tom started, stuttering as incoherent bits of word escape his mouth. Normally I would have understood just fine, but he was still thinking in French.

“I am going to?” I prompted, parroting his words. His ears grew redder along with his face and I swore I could boil an egg with his poor ears.

“Staawayfummi.” He said really quickly, I raised my eyebrow at him, what the heck was that?

After giving me an exasperated look, he muttered something under his breath (again, in French) before turning back to me. “Are you going to stay away from me then?” He asked, rather loudly too.

I leaned back in surprised, not anticipating something like this at all. I thought he would say something along the line of me being delusional. His words echoes through the empty hallway, I didn’t even realise when the fan girls had fled.

“Maybe.” I answered truthfully, and Tom gave me the dirtiest look I had ever seen. This took me off guard and I hoisted my bag further up my shoulder, feeling uncomfortable.

“Well, don’t.” Tom said, crossing his arms in front of his chest, turning his face sideway and avoid looking at me.

“Excuse me?” now I was beginning to think I was indeed delusional. Did he just ask me not to avoid him?

“Don’t avoid me.” He added; turning his head back and looking me right in the eyes with an earnest expression, then quickly averted his gaze onto the floor, pretending to study his shoes. I was taken aback by this development and pinched my arms behind my back.

Ouch. Okay, so I wasn’t dreaming.

“Okay.” I replied, another smile creeping onto my face; Tom immediately looked up in surprised. I smiled at him, my hand adjusting the strap of my bag nervously as I waited for a reply.

“Good.” He said, scratching his hair. His face was still a deep shade of red and I silently smiled at that in my mind. “I, erm, better go now.”

And with that, the well-feared Tom Triole turned and fled like he was being chase by an Original. I chuckled as I watched him rounded a corner just to hurried back to the opposite way.

“Gail!” someone shouted behind me, I turned around to see Owen waving at me. I smiled and waited for him to catch up with me.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, then took a good look at me and added, “Why are you face red? Are you feeling okay?”

I touched my cheek, and sure enough, they were rather hot. Crap, that would mean I was blushing as well. Darn it!

“Oh, I was just, lost.” I said, stuttering slightly. I internally cringed at the lie; although that would have been perfectly true a couple of weeks again. I was usually better at lying than that, but the little exchange I had with Tom just now had totally threw me off and I was definitely acting out of character.

“Again?” Owen said, taking my red face as embarrassment of being found lost again. I rolled my eyes at him; I had gotten lost around the school quite a lot of times already and half the school had learned that while the new girl was not to be crossed with, she can’t find her way around school to save her life. Thank god I can now.

“Yeah.” I said, falling in step with Owen as we set off towards the corridor where Tom had made his hasty exit a couple of minutes ago.

“So, are you excited to go to Pax next weekend?” Owen asked and I nodded enthusiastically. Mr. Andrewson just told me in our lesson that I was qualified to go to the UGE capital next week. I had heard wonderful stories about the place and couldn’t wait to see it for myself.

Owen chuckled, finding my reaction hilarious. Elise and the girls from Metal section had been telling me what an amazing place Pax is, with numerous shopping malls, Old Age architect and monuments that they salvaged from the Ruins; not to mention the amazing restaurants.

Then I remembered I only had two hundred USD that my mother stuffed into my hands plus the five hundred that I saved up since I was a kind. How was I going to make that stretch for two more school years?

Oh well, I guess I could window shop. And spare a few dollars to buy an ice cream or something.

Suddenly, a light bulb turned on in my head and I turned to Owen, who looked at me with questioningly.

“Owen.” I said, smiling innocently at him. “I have a favor to ask.”

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Hey, sorry that this chapter is kind of short - it's sort of a fill-in before the next chapter :)

however, i might not update as quickly over the next few weeks, since I have to help organise a concert :)) so excited!

Anyway remember to vote and comment!

Not long till the end of this book, there WILL be a sequel :) and maybe even two! I have decided on the name, which I will reveal by the end of the book :) so stay tune!

Don't forget to vote and comment xx