That night, I stood outside the dorms waiting for Lolly, who was covering Lucas in goodnight kisses. Wes stood leaning against the wall outside the Class B stairwell. He was watching me with that lopsided smile like he was waiting for me to make a move. If he thought I was going to act like Lolly he was sadly mistaken. Lolly may not mind the looks she was getting from the kids heading into the dorms but I didn't want the added attention. Especially considering Bertha and Toby were huddled nearby with a few others.

Wes pushed off from the wall and grabbed my hand before I could step back.

"So I don't get a kiss goodnight?" he asked in a smooth voice that sent chills down my spine.

I wanted to, really I did. But my focus kept darting to the whispering figures in the hall. I had to make a decision, if not to protect my own ass then maybe to protect Wes. 

Giving his hand a quick squeeze, and an apologetic smile, I said, "Night, Wes."

Without waiting for him to answer, or to even catch his expression change like I knew it would, I let go of his hand and darted off into the girl's dorms.

After lights out, I tossed and turned in my bed regretting my decision. I kept picturing how Wes' face must have looked after I had left him hanging. The image haunted me even after I had fallen asleep. His face filled my dreams and my rejection turned those dreams into nightmares. Around every corner stood Bertha, Toby, or a random kid, watching and mocking my feelings for Wes. The nightmare turned and twisted to Wes beating the life out of one of the laughing hyenas that stalked us around the building. Soon it wasn't just Wes who was covered in his victim's blood but me as well. My hands were covered in the red sticky substance and when I looked down at the beaten face of Big Bertha, it slowly morphed to Kelly with dead eyes.

I awoke in the middle of the night, covered in sweat and my heart racing. My clothes stuck to my body and I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep anytime soon, especially like this.

Grabbing a change of clothes and a towel, I stepped out into the hall hoping a guard wouldn't stop me and send me back to bed. I lucked out, no guards were in sight. I lightly padded off to the showers but stopped at the entrance when I heard the sound of voices come from inside. Standing with my back against the wall, I listened trying to get an idea of what was going on. But as hard as I tried I couldn't make out any words, so I tiptoed inside and darted behind a shower curtain.

Now that I was closer, the voices were easier to hear. Though I didn't know who was talking, I could still make out that there were at least three different girls in the bathroom with me.

"Why are you all so special?" one asked.

"She's not going to say anything," another voice said.

"Hit her again," a third girl demanded.

So maybe it was four girls, and the fourth just wasn't speaking. The other three quieted down but soon the sound of a loud smack echoed through the large room.

"You gonna talk now?" the first girl shouted, her voice echoing off the walls.

"Do it again."

"You hit her too much and you'll knock her out. Then she's really not going to answer us."

"Look, we just want to know why you and your friends are getting all the special treatment. You skip classes, hang out with Class B criminals, that big black officer is practically yalls bodyguard, why?" the first girl, the leader I assumed, asked.

Whoever they were talking to remained silent. Girl number one was starting to lose it, her voice growing louder.

"Answer me damn it......Tell me why!" 

As she screamed the last couple words the sound of flesh hitting flesh broke the air several more times, followed by the sound of scuffling feet.

"Come on, let's go."

"No, she's going to answer me!"

"No she's not, now let's go before the guard's show."

The scuffle sounded closer and soon through a crack in the curtain I caught a glimpse of three figures quickly leaving the bathroom. Once I was sure they were gone, I jumped out of the shower I was hiding in and headed for the back of the room, where I was sure they were holding their little meeting. As I rounded the last stall I found Alicia huddled on the ground.

"Shit," I whispered as I crouched down to get a better look at her. She didn't budge, she just stared at me like a frightened animal.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Alicia, just let me look."

She said nothing but tilted her head back for me to examine her face. Her bottom lip was busted and a dark bruise was starting to form below her right eye. There was also a cut on her eyebrow and a few more bruises along her jaw. Whoever did this, swung with heavy hands.

As if guessing my thoughts, Alicia finally spoke, "I'm not telling you who it was."

Of course, she wasn't, since when did Alicia make anything easier. 

I opted for a different piece of information and asked, "What did they want?"

She pushed from the ground and shakily got to her feet as I stood back to give her room.

"Just a bunch of jealous bitches who think we're getting special treatment."

Sounded close to what I overheard, but I couldn't wrap my head around why a group of kids would care so much. Yeah we weren't in our usual classes, and Lucas, Wes, and Declan got special privileges the other Class B kids didn't, but so what. We weren't getting in anyone's way if anything we should have been flying under everyone's radar since we were hardly around the rest of the population.

But in a place like this with kids who held deep issues and possible anger problems, they would look for any reason to target someone else. Unfortunately, we were the only ones who stood out enough to target, and Alicia was the only one of us who didn't walk around with the group. She was easy pickings, especially alone at night. Then again this could have been me if I had gotten here before Alicia did. Only I would have thrown something at them, whereas Alicia could have only disappeared, and I had a feeling that was a lot harder to do when the group of attackers already knew she was here.

Alicia walked over to the sinks and started wetting some paper towels. She dabbed at the bloody scrapes on her face and winced with each touch.

"Let me help."

I took the paper towels from her hand and was surprised she didn't fight me. Instead, she turned to me and let me clean her up.

"Look, I know you don't like us.."

"Who says I don't like you?" she asked, cutting me off.

"Well, that's the way you act. But you need to stick with the rest of us, we have each other's backs, and that includes you."

"So you're going to walk me to the bathroom if I need to pee in the middle of the night?" She asked with a small smile. 

I was so used to her usual snark that this lighter joking tone caught me off guard. When the initial shock wore off I offered her a smile of my own.

"If that's what it takes," I agreed.

Once she was cleaned up she waited by the sinks for me to shower and we walked each other back to our rooms afraid to walk the halls alone. From this point on we were going to have to watch our backs. It was becoming more and more obvious that the kids here were going to find reasons to come after us, whether it was the idea of getting special attention or the fact that some of us were coupling up. No matter what someone was going to have a problem with something. We just needed to be extra careful.

The next morning, Alicia waited outside mine and Lolly's room. Lolly looked surprised but I was happy Alicia was taking my advice and sticking close. When Sage came out into the hall we walked to breakfast together, as a group.

In the cafeteria, I looked at the faces around us trying to catch someone paying extra attention to us but was coming up empty-handed. Wes tried to get my attention by holding my hand or scooting closer to me. It felt nice but I was too distracted to truly appreciate it. The kids here had it out for us and I refused to let my guard down, especially after last night.

After eating, we all headed down to the training room. Ms. Pierce had another stack of metal chairs waiting for me. I was starting to get the hang of bigger objects but I had other plans.

Wes was off to the side with Mr. B and a sparring dummy. He had been training to fight with his hands until they could figure out what his abilities were, and today I wanted in.

"Shouldn't we all be practicing to fight?" I asked Mr. B who stared back at me silently.

Ms. Pierce appeared beside him only seconds later. Sometimes I wondered if she was the teleporter and not Lolly.

"You haven't perfected bigger objects yet, you need to focus on that," she explained.

True, but I wasn't giving up that easily.

"What happens if someones right on top of me, or there's nothing around for me to use. Shouldn't I learn how to defend myself."

She seemed to be thinking about my words pretty carefully. Finally, she looked to Mr. B who gave her a quick but serious nod. Without answering me, she walked to the middle of the room and clapped her hands getting everyone's attention.

"Chloe has brought up the idea of everyone learning to defend themselves without their gifts. Mr. B and I think its a good idea. So stop what you're doing and line up along the wall, it's time to teach you to fight."

As we lined up along the wall I caught Alicia looking at me. Before anyone could notice she mouthed the words "Thank you." and shuffled to the end of the line.

Mr. B instructed us, with as little words as possible, for the rest of the day. He taught us how to throw a punch, elbow strikes, how to use our knees as well as perform an effective kick to the torso. The guys seemed to already be skilled in the basic moves we were being shown. As for most of us girls, we were struggling, all except Sage.

After lunch, I watched as she fought with one of the dummies and pulled off moves I had only seen in karate movies. She pulled off a perfect roundhouse kick followed by a strong palm heel strike and knocked the damn dummy over.

When she looked up and noticed me staring she quickly acted embarrassed, her cheeks turning a deep pink.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, my eyes opened as wide as saucers.

"Gramps put me in karate as a kid."

I knew I looked impressed as I patted her on the back.

"My twins a ninja."

She laughed and pushed me away.

It was my turn to beat up one of the dummies but I wound up hurting myself more than the stupid dummy. After another failed long knee kick, I was ready to give up. Some great idea I had, I couldn't even do the basic crap Mr. B showed us. I was better off sticking with the chairs.

"Need help?"

I turned to find Wes smiling at me. Only this wasn't his sexy smile, this one clearly said how hard he was trying not to laugh at me. I wanted to smack the look off his face but after how horrible I had done with the dummy, I knew going after Wes would only humiliate me more.

"Please," I replied.

I stood in front of the dummy and he walked up beside me as he said, "With the long knee, you want to make sure you're moving forward while also bringing up your knee. It helps if you can grab your enemy as well and pull them towards your knee, it'll give you a harder hit. Just make sure you aim for the soft tissue parts of the abdomen."

He demonstrated his words by moving me out of the way and grabbing the dummy by the shoulders. He pulled it down while raising his knee and connecting to the rib cage area. Afterwards, he had me try and by the third try, I was starting to get the hang of it.

"Thanks, Wes."

"No problem, maybe now you'll stop ignoring me," he said with a bit more seriousness than I think he intended.

Hearing him say that, I hung my head and looked at the ground. I hadn't been trying to ignore him, not really. I just didn't want to draw attention to us around the rest of the Landry kids.

When I didn't answer him, he stepped forward and hooked his finger beneath my chin. He pulled my face up so I was forced to look into those gray-blue eyes that trapped me like a moth to a flame.

"Will you at least think about going to that dance with me?" he asked me.

"We don't even know when in its."

"That just means you got some extra time to make up your mind."

His lips pulled to the side in a small smirk and my knees felt like they were going to buckle.

"I'll think about it."

"Then at least let give me you something else to help you decide," he said in a low gravelly tone.

Before I could ask what that something else was, he dipped his face down and pressed his lips to mine. If I thought my legs were going to buckle before, that was nothing compared to now. As he deepened the kiss, I grabbed onto his shoulders to help hold myself up. When his lips were on me like this I couldn't think of anything, not the dance, not the stares we got in the hall, and not the kids that were out to get us. My mind was blank and I knew that I was already a goner for this boy.

Wes pulled away and I had to fight to open my eyes and come back to reality.

"Just let me know about the dance."

I nodded and watched as he walked off.

If the kids here didn't kill me, then Wes sure would.