0 8

v i c i o u s

When you play with fire, you're bound to get burnt. And I played with fire, I forgot to wear fireproof gloves, I forgot to keep my heart safe.

You see, for all the good I saw in Callum, I forgot to see the bad. The bad that everyone had spoken of thus far. I put him on a pedestal, because he had protected me and helped me through my most difficult period.

I failed to realise that he was human, that he was capable of hurting people. Capable of hurting my friends – as he had done for weeks and months before. Capable of hurting me.

My heart thudded painfully in my chest and I watched numbly, helplessly, as the jocks pounced on my friends. My feet were frozen to the spot, and try as I might, I could not will myself to move, or speak, or do something, anything. All around me echoed the sounds of scuffling and shouts and yells. Jason and the others were no match for Greg and his posse. They never stood a chance.

And through it all, Callum stood there, his face expressionless and posture unmoving. He surveyed the situation around him like he'd seen it before, so often that it no longer fazed him. It frightened me, made me wonder what it was about high school that created façades for everyone, made us different people from who we really were.

For years, I'd only heard of how Jason and the others had been bullied. But never had I ever seen how it all went down. Never had I ever seen my friends suffer right before my very eyes. But now they were. Now it was happening. And I could do nothing.

A particularly loud yell of pain from Jason sprung me into action, and I found myself rushing to his aid as he attempted to fight off Greg, who had him in a headlock. Latching my hands on Greg's arm, I attempted to pull him away from Jason.

"Please don't do this," I begged, but his grip was vice-like and he didn't budge.

My eyes flickered to Callum, an instinctive reaction that I immediately berated myself for, and I realised that his gaze was on me, unreadable and foreign. His eyes met mine, and he quickly looked away.

"Got them all?" He asked smoothly, his eyes surveying the room. My friends were completely outnumbered. "Let's go then."

They began to leave, but still I hung onto Greg's arm, trying and failing to pull him back. "Stop, please," I pleaded. "Don't do this."

Greg stared at me, his gaze softening. Maybe he remembered our previous encounters, all the words we'd exchanged thus far. "Scout, let go," he hissed.

"Let's just bring her along," Keith, one of the other jocks on the football team, said impatiently, his arm closing around my waist as he pulled me off Greg.

Jason looked livid. "Don't touch her!" He yelled, his face red as he attempted to struggle away from Greg in a last-ditch attempt to come to my aid.

I felt Keith roughly tug me away, my grip slackened and I felt myself being dragged away. But quick as lightning, Callum had pulled Keith away from me, pushing him roughly against the wall.

"Don't touch her," Callum warned, his eyes flickering to mine for an instant. But they were blank, cold, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. "Let's get going," he muttered, brusquely, and the other guys shuffled out with my friends.

And as I stared at Jason, his blue eyes boring into my terrified ones, I could see it all. The disappointment, the pain. I could almost hear his voice in my head –

I told you so, Scout, I told you to be careful. I told you he was trouble, I told you he was notorious, but you never listened.

How right he was. I never listened to all the warnings, all the gleaming neon lights that cautioned me to stay far, far away from Callum.

The room was silent once more, and it seemed like the temperature had dropped low as I found myself in the room alone with Callum, who was the last to leave. He was hovering by the doorway, reluctant to leave.

My heart clenched at the sight of him, and my voice was shaky when I spoke, "Where are you taking them?"

"The guys' changing room next to the gym," he replied, softly. "Greg and the others won't be done with them for another ten minutes, but you can get to them after they're done."

Taking a deep breath, I headed towards him. I hadn't a clue what to do – hit him, perhaps, or yell at him – but when he was merely two feet away from me, I found myself unable to do a thing. Instead, my courage failed me, and I pushed past him.

But he didn't let me go. His fingers closed around my wrist, his grip desperate and urgent. It was different this time. I'd always craved for his touch, but the second his skin came into contact with mine, I found myself flinching away.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, "You know I would never have done this if I had a choice."

"But you did anyway," I returned, evenly, wrenching my arm out of his grasp. "And that makes all the difference."

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The changing room on the third floor was restricted only to guys, but I could hardly care less. Blatantly disregarding the male sign that was stamped on the door, I pushed it open and hurried in. The place smelled of gravel, the stale stench of sweat and violence.

There were soft murmurs, and a distinct string of swear words that sounded immensely familiar to me. But when I glanced around, there was no one in sight.

"Jason?"

The voices stopped.

"Scout?"

Relief surged through me. "Where are you?"

Inching further into the changing room, I rounded the corner, and was greeted by a sight that both appalled and horrified me. Each of my friends were in a respective shower stall, their arms and legs taped spread-eagled against the wall, and stripped down to nothing but their boxers.

I let out an involuntary gasp, and Henry let out a bitter chuckle. "Oh, hey, Scout. How're you doing?"

His sarcasm wasn't lost on me, and I knew that they were all thoroughly embarrassed to have me see them in that state. But I ignored him and headed straight to Jason. I immediately began working on the tape on his right wrist – no doubt it was hurting given that he was taped far too tightly.

"You shouldn't be here," Jason said, quietly, as he watched me. "We can handle this ourselves."

"I'm sorry," I told him, hardly able to meet his eyes. I felt like if I looked at them, I'd see nothing but disappointment. "I'm so, so sorry."

"I'm going to kill Wright when I get out of this."

And this was it – his words encapsulated the essence of the never-ending cycle that they were entrapped in. Revenge that could go on forever and ever, until you could hardly remember who started it in the first place.

Yet, was there even a point in reiterating what I had thought? Things had reached a point where my opinion no longer seemed to matter. So I remained tight-lipped, silent, as I continued to work on the tape.

The second his wrist was freed, Jason gently pushed me away. "I'm fine. Just wait for us outside, alright?"

"But – "

"We're fine, Scout. I think the other guys are just embarrassed having you here. We all are."

"Okay," I murmured, a little hesitantly, and headed for the door.

A couple of students were standing around in the hallway and they cast strange looks in my direction as I exited the changing room, but I ignored them. My heart was still pounding in my chest, and as I stood guard near the changing room, I found myself glancing around anxiously, wondering if there were any more potential pranks within the vicinity.

Jason was right – never let your guard down, because you could never tell when someone, or something was going to hit you. And hit me hard it did – not physically, but emotionally – although in the grand scheme of things I was fast realising I couldn't even be considered a victim.

"Scout?"

A familiar voice shook me out of my thoughts, and I glanced up. It was Dave, a tentative smile on his face as he headed over to me. Apart from Jason, I was closest to Dave and I couldn't help but feel relieved that he wasn't there to experience the pranking earlier.

"Hey," it required an almost Herculean effort to force a smile onto my face.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, when he came up. But one look at my expression and the smile on his face faded, replaced instead with worry and concern. "What happened?"

I opened my mouth to tell him – the ambush, Greg, the jocks on the varsity team, Callum, everything – but the words failed me, and instead, I found myself inhaling a deep, shuddering breath and glancing away.

But just as Dave was to ask another question, the door to the changing room swung open. Jason and the others stepped out, calmly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just transpired, as if they hadn't been strung up with tape in nothing but their underwear mere minutes earlier.

It all seemed normal, they behaved like an ordinary group of friends. But I could see it all – Jason's lips pressed into a grim line, his eyes narrowed; he was practically seething. The other boys were an equal mix of embarrassment and annoyance, but none of their aggravation was tantamount to what Jason seemed to have.

"Let's go," he said, shortly – and, to my utmost surprise, did something completely unexpected. Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he veered me off in the direction of the stairs and we began walking, the other boys following slowly behind us.

His action made my heart stutter, but it wasn't in a good way. It made a wave of apprehension surge through me, I was tensed, my hands were clammy. This was familiar to me – Jason had always done this back when we were still friends – but somehow, Hell Week had driven a wedge in our friendship that no amount of fixing could ever mend.

There was nothing calming about his touch, and I felt like I was on stranger tides. Jason used to be my anchor, he used to be the one who docked me at the harbour and made me feel safe. But the waves were now choppy, and while I had craved for his friendship, something had shifted between us.

And I knew, then, that things never really were going to go back to normal – no matter how much we pretended that it had.

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But if things were unfixable with Jason, it was the same way between me and Callum. For when I saw him leaning against his car, waiting for me in the parking lot that afternoon, an overwhelming feeling of disappointment surged through me – a feeling so crushing it felt like a punch to my stomach.

His eyes were focused on screen of his cell, but when he heard the soft sounds of sneakers scuffing against gravel, he glanced up, eyes widening as he noticed me barely a few feet away from him.

"Scout, wait," he immediately headed over to me, and there was something unusual about his gaze, something desperate and frantic.

It made me stop in my tracks. And perhaps it was in my nature to be patient and kind, even though the situation did not warrant me to be. But his expression tugged at my heartstrings, and I looked at him and waited for him to speak.

"I – " he faltered as he noticed my expectant gaze.

"How could you?" I blurted, feeling a hot rush of anger surge through me.

For a split second, he seemed almost apologetic, but in the next moment, they were gone and he was back to his impassive self. "I didn't have a choice in this. You know I would never have done it if I actually had a say in how things worked round here. If Greg and the others wanted me to lead the ambush, there wasn't any way I could refuse because they're my friends."

"It's not an obligation, Callum."

"It is," the sharpness in his tone took me by surprise – he looked as angry and lost and exhausted as I was. "I need to have their back, as they've got mine so far. It's how friendship works in high school, Scout, without a bunch of people supporting you – you're nothing."

As his words clicked in my mind, I took an abrupt step back. Because Callum made perfect sense, he was right to say this – there was nothing wrong with his mentality, nothing wrong with wanting to stick up for his friends.

But there was something terribly wrong with the way he and his friends behaved. And the way that the acted terrified me.

"Well, then," I said, my voice a deadly calm, "I guess this is where we draw the line, because I can't have you hurting my friends, and you and your friends clearly think you can."

Without waiting for his reply, I turned to leave. Both Dave and his other friend, Kirby, were waiting for me at the other end of the parking lot, and each step I took away from Callum was painful, it felt like there was a tidal wave pulling me back.

It is painful, I told myself, but you have to do it all the same.

Because some things in life were like that. Sometimes you needed to take a step back and see the bigger picture. Getting stuck in the middle left you breathless, gasping for air, claustrophobic, entangled within the stupid fights and overwhelming feelings.

And I was tired and exhausted, so I needed to walk away from this. And from him.

But I had only taken a few steps when a hand closed around my wrist. His skin was rough against mine, and he pulled me to a complete halt.

"What were you expecting, Scout?" He sounded angry, but there was a definitive sadness in his tone that almost broke my heart. "Did you honestly think you could change me for the better?"

No, no I didn't. Because I knew what was in store for me the day I chose to fall for him. He was notorious. And there was no changing him, there was no taming him.

"No," I returned, softly, and shut my eyes to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks. There was a way to stop the tears, but there was no way to stop my heart from hurting. "I just expected you to have a heart."