I pushed her playfully as we turned to keep walking to our first class. “Girl,” I tsked. “I need to have my own copy. Besides, we both know your Dad’s hands always shake while holding his phone up for longer than 5 seconds and your mom will be crying, which means she won’t be all that steady either.”
Plus, I was gonna take my copy, clean it up, and do some fancy stuff with it before I gave it to her for her birthday next week. It didn’t matter that it would be recorded with my phone. I had a gift with computers and stuff. For now, computers were just a hobby of mine, but one day…
Katia agreed with a shy grin before we stepped into our first torture session of the day.
A few hours later, I headed toward the lunch area to buy my ticket for tonight’s football game - the one my best friend would be singing the National Anthem for - her first time with such a large crowd. I was proud of her. She worked hard for this. I was hoping to make the video epic enough for her to use later, when she finally caved to her real desires to apply for Julliard. Her dream school.
I barely stepped out the double doors that led to the outdoor patio area - a large circular set up with picnic tables, trees, and lots of dead grass, surrounded by the school buildings that housed the classrooms - when I heard the ominous sounds of a fight off to the side. It was more shaded in that area, due to a few larger trees. A perfect place to pick on someone out of the semi-carefully watching school security.
With an eye roll and a head shake, I lifted my foot to keep walking. I was used to the fights the idiots in this school did on the regular. Not my problem.
I stalled though when the words being yelled reached my ears.
“Give me my money, Randy. Or you’re dead.” A boy’s voice growled out.
We had a big school - nearly 3,000 kids -and Randy wasn’t all that unique of a name. But something in my gut twisted anyway.
No, not possible. He wouldn’t be in a fight. His coach would kill him. I took another step away, then stopped with a sigh. I cursed to myself, spun, and jogged over to the fight.
I pushed my way through the growing crowd just in time to see a large kid, with a pitch-black mohawk, knee another boy in the stomach hard enough to make him fold over. The kid, who was now on the ground, coughed and groaned. I recognized the short brown hair that stuck up in every direction like he forgot to brush it this morning.
Which he probably had. I left earlier than usual this morning since Katia and her mom picked me up. He had been lagging, so he drove in on his own. Which also meant I wasn’t there to remind the nitwit to do little things… like brushing his hair.
“I ain’t got it.” Randy coughed some more, trying to push himself off the ground to stand back up. As shaky as his legs were, I was pretty sure he had been hit more than once already. “Not yet.”
The much larger kid pushed him back over with his foot and leaned over him with a sneer. “You made the bet. You promised to pay it back last week. You didn’t.” He pulled his leg back and swung it forward, right into Randy’s rib cage. Making him gasp for air.
“Stop!!” I yelled, unable to stand by and let any more harm come to him. I ran forward to stand between the two boys, raising my hands to stop the bully from causing further damage. “Stop. Please.”
He sneered at me before glancing down at Randy again. “You’d be wise to dump his lazy A and get yourself a new boyfriend. He’s worthless.”
I lowered my arms with a defeated sigh. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my brother.”
“Go away, Fi. I can handle this.” Randy moaned as he tried to push himself up off the ground once again.
I glared at him. “Yeah, you’re doing a bang-up job of handling things all right.” I turned back to the boy who now had his arms crossed over his chest, a smug look on his face. And a creepy interest in his eyes. I held back the grimace when I noticed the metal spikes along his eyebrows.
“Sister, huh?” He stepped closer to me, blatantly checking me out now. “Guess you got all the looks as well as the brains. I bet you and me can work out a deal.” He lifted his hand and picked up a small piece of my long brown hair that was over my shoulder.
