E V E R E T T

GASPS, EYE-ROLLS, AND HUSHED whispering had already dominated the tension in the air down the hallway until I could eventually feel all eyes on me. I swallowed hard when their words reached my ears.

"Okay, seriously. What is that guy's deal?"

"Does he have a hero complex or something? It's his third time and it's only his second day here."

"Seems more like he has a death wish. Come on, let's get out of here before Jada loses it."

Some students started backing away before disappearing from the hallway, but I held my ground and sharpened my glare. Jada was a half-head shorter than me with curly black hair and dark brown eyes that scowled back at me with ten times more rage flashing in them.

"Okay listen up, I don't know where you're from and how it's done there but here we solve our matters with our fists. So stay away if you don't want your face smashed into pieces."

I scoffed. "Solving matters with your fists won't do you any good. Why don't you try talking to people instead-"

-She cut me off by clenching her fist around the collar of my hoodie before pushing me back hard against the lockers. "Just get the hell out of my way."

"Okay, okay. Jada," Carmen hurriedly said, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her away from me before the pain soaring down my spine worsened. "Just chill. Calm down. Let him go."

"It's a two-way business here. You stay out of our way, we stay out of your way. Got it? Good. Get lost now," Jada said, looking away while tapping her shoe impatiently against the floor.

"No," I said, causing her gang to groan.

Jada's head rapidly snapped in my direction, her eyes widened completely. "What did you just say?"

Lana, who carried a flat face, stood in silence by the rest of the gang and murmured, "Baka."

Clearing my throat, I folded my arms across my chest and met Jada's eyes. "You shouldn't pick fights like this with the students younger than you."

When she didn't answer but only held her glared fixated on me, I gave Lily and Kevin a small shove in the opposite direction and said, "Come on, Lily. You too, Kevin. Let's go."

We pushed past students who seemed like they had been put in a bottle that had been shaken really hard, resulting in everyone with a mix of impressed, amazed, shocked, confused, and amused faces. Before I heard Kevin mumble a thank you to me while Lily lead the way upstairs to the physics classroom, I heard someone snort as they said, "First Arjun and now Jada. He's so dead."

~

"So what's the deal with The Sirens? Why is everyone scared of them?" I asked Lily and Ali during lunch. We were seated on a table with a few friends of Ali who were engaged in discussing an important basketball game tonight.

"Jada is the gang leader who's probably the sickest schemer around. Carmen is the bike racer. Isha is the flirt and the prankster but probably the most chill of them all. Lana is quiet but the most dangerous one."

I wasn't so sure about dangerous, but she was definitely quiet. In fact, she had been giving me the silent treatment during all three of our interactions.

"She's quiet around everyone? I thought she was only giving me the silent treatment for some reason," I told them.

"No. She's always been kind of closed off, " Lily said, scooping up some tomato soup from the bowl in her lunch tray.

Ali leaned back in his chair and stretched his arm over his head, sighing. "The Sirens only mess with people they have bad blood with though. Like the gang, I used to be in. The Lions who Arjun is the leader of. The Lions and The Sirens are sworn, enemies. If they even cross paths, they can kill each other. Turns out, they now also have bad blood with you. You should watch your back. Especially when it comes to Jada and Lana."

"Seriously? She's out to get me now?" I was totally screwed. The whole "keep my head low" plan I had going for me was tossed straight out of the window. Still, I couldn't resist asking, "But Lana? She doesn't seem that harmless."

Ali and Lily both rapidly shook heads in sync. "Lana's The wolf. You don't see her coming for you when she jumps on you."

The wolf? What was this place and these people? I felt like I was stuck in a crime movie filled with violence and too many trigger warnings that I had clearly been clueless about.

I groaned. "Seriously! What do the school principal and the student council do besides break up fights and waste school money on pizza?"

Stabbing his fork into his plate of pasta, Ali shrugged. "Nothing much. Nothing I've seen that has actually made a difference around here."

"This school seriously needs a good president that can stand up to the students but can also be on their side as much as being on the principal's side, " I admitted.

"Wow. That sounds like a dream student body president. I don't think this school even has one. The members of the student council are just random students who eat pizza together on meetings and leave, " Lily admits, sighing.

"That's so stupid and ridiculous. Don't people want to change things around here? This school sucks and I'm sure everyone knows it, but still, nobody does anything," I said, genuinely annoyed.

"Dude, maybe you should run for student body president," Ali joked, chuckling.

"My parents actually want me to."

Ali almost choked. "Wait, what? Why?"

"Because I was student body president at my previous school so they suggested giving it a try here too."

Ali raised his brows before snorting. "You're not actually doing it, are you? I meant it as a joke and your parents are mad if they think you can join the school council here."

Admittedly, my plan about keeping my head low and breeze through this year was long gone and I had become the target of the two most dangerous gangs in town. If that wasn't the definition of screwed than I didn't know what was. So I came to the conclusion that maybe gathering a team for the student council could be good if I wanted to survive my senior year.

If the student council was a good and solid team, no student, let alone gang could tear us down. Plus, I was pretty sure there were other people than just me who wanted some changes around here. Ali, Lily, and Kevin were examples of that.

The downside was that I was adding more fuel to mom and dad's hopeful smiles because there was literally no way Emma could just simply vanish from my mind. Maybe I didn't want her to leave.

Ali snapped his fingers before my eyes, pulling me out of my momentary trance. "Dude, what are you thinking?"

I met Ali's dark brown eyes before saying, "I guess I'm joining the student council."

***

Author's note: Hi! This was a short chapter but I hope you still liked it. I guess Everett is joining the council after all. Let's see how that goes.

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