(Song of the chapter: Scars to Your Beautiful - Alessia Cara)

I've got this place
That I've filled with empty space
Oh I'm trying not to face what I've done
My hopeless opus

I counted the cracks in the sidewalk as I made my way to school, listening to music from my favorite band. 

Over the weekend I'd fully recovered from almost drowning at the hands of a schoolmate and nearly being shot by cops, and now I was ready for life as usual to resume. Which, honestly, included even more horrors.

I'm in this race and I'm hoping just to place
Oh I'm trying not to face what's become of me
My hopeless opus

Rounding the corner, I pondered those lyrics. I was almost always in a race – against my bullies and others who tried to hurt me. Sometimes even against those who loved me. Placing in the race would mean that it was finally over and I didn't have to keep running anymore. I wanted that so, so badly.

Then I looked up and saw him standing there. Guess you'd better start running again, a voice drifting from my unconscious warned.

I usually made it to school twenty minutes early, in order to beat the hallway traffic and also to avoid having my day get off on a bad start because some bully managed to splatter me with something heinous before 8:30AM in the morning, but there stood the leader of them all standing just a few feet away from me.

I froze in surprise, not expecting to see him there. I'd become so used to having my mornings free of confrontations, I'd gotten lazy about covering my tracks and hadn't even taken the time to switch up my routine. And now Jacques knew my pattern. I hated the feeling of helplessness that washed over me.

Jacques smirked at my expression. He remained leaning against the building, tossing a football in his hand and just...watched me. 

He didn't look like he was in a hurry to approach so I felt a tad better, but I did not like the look on his face, not one bit.

"Are you stalking me now, you psycho?" I called across to him, my tone snappy to mask my fear. "That is fucking creepy, Jacques."

"Well, good morning to you too," he drawled, straightening. I immediately stepped back, putting more distance between us. His lip twitched at my reaction.

"I just want to talk," he said. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Not yet, anyways."

"I don't believe you and I don't want to talk to you!" I called back, wincing at my volume. Jacques was just speaking normally yet here I was, nearly yelling even though he wasn't that far away from me. I was too scared out of my mind and really didn't want to listen to whatever he wanted to talk about. He'd never wanted to just talk before.

I needed to calm down. I am a badass assassin, I told myself. 

I've infiltrated super-secret government facilities and I know ten different ways to kill a person with a can opener. This punk-ass high school student is nothing to me.

My mind immediately cleared of all thoughts when said punk-ass started walking towards me. I frantically backpedaled and stupidly, stupidly, backed myself into a tree.

Jacques's smile was a baring of teeth as he closed in on me. The hand not holding onto the football slammed into the tree at the other side of me, cutting off my exit.

"See, now you don't have a choice." Jacques leaned down to look at my face with a pretentiously thoughtful expression.

"Why do you always have to make everything ten times more difficult, Loner?"

"Go screw yourself," I managed to get out through gritted teeth. My pulse was jumping erratically and I needed to get a grip before I dug myself an even deeper grave. I forced myself to take regular breaths.

Nothing in Jacques expression showed that he noticed my efforts at reigning in my panic. In fact, he wasn't even looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the street. 

After staring for a moment he raised the hand holding the football to check his watch.

My curiosity managed to force my mind off my fear. Was Jacques waiting for something, and did that have anything to do with what he wanted to talk to me about?

He felt me staring but didn't look up. "You would've missed the show if you'd just walked into school like that," he informed me.

"What are you talking about, psycho?" I asked.

He speared me with a stare then. "Have I ever given you any indication that I prefer 'psycho' to 'Finn'?"

His gaze was deadly, and hearing him say that name shook me but I held my ground.

"Do I look like I care? Eat my farts, psycho." Woo-hoo, my courage was completely back. Probably not for the best.

Jacques suddenly regarded me as if I was something very interesting. His palm lifted from caging me in to take a strand of my hair and twirl it around his finger. 

I stiffened at the touch but tried not to act like it bothered me. He knew, though. Jacques's crime had never been being stupid.

"I wonder," he said, sounding speculative, "what it would take to finally break you. Though I guess I'm about to find out."

My mouth hadn't helped me one bit during this whole time, so I just kept it closed. After a minute he let go of my hair and replaced his hand on the tree, but he kept his gaze on me.

"A little birdie told me that we're gonna have a few new students in school today."

"Alisson?" I guessed, thinking of his petite, brunette cheerleader girlfriend. She also the principal's kid, and would be the likely informant. 

They were regularly deemed 'couple goals', and it was actually quite sickening how good they looked together.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway," he rushed on, eager to get down to the details, which caused me no small amount of anxiety, "these kids already have sort of a bad reputation."

He paused. "Scared yet?"

I looked at him dryly. "Of what? And why would it even matter to me that we're getting new students? I've already run down my quota of care for the year."

"Well, rumor is that they do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want to do it. They're accountable to no one, and if they get in trouble they have tons of money they could use to get right out of it. Just think of the amount of pranks people like that could pull without getting any punishment, and who better to pull them on than the biggest loser in school?"

I blinked. "You know, it sounds like these kids are just more expensive versions of you. What's the matter, you jealous?"

Jacques' eye twitched. His hand closed into a fist, and for a few seconds I saw just how much he wanted to hurt me. 

I held my breath, waiting, but the moment passed. He swung hair out of his face heedlessly, and when his eyes fixed on me they were once again just their normal evil.

"Avalon," he spoke slowly, as if talking to a child, "they're the Four Horsemen."

He stated it like it was supposed to mean something to me, but I could only blink at him in unfeigned cluelessness.

"The who?"

Jacques cocked his head at me then, staring at me with something that alarmingly resembled pity.

"Oh yeah, that's right. You have no life," he mumbled to himself. I stiffened, affronted, not that Jacques cared that he'd just insulted me.

"It's the name of their YouTube channel. It's run by the girl in their squad – her name's Lilith – and they have a really massive audience, like almost two million subscribers. Nearly every kid in our school watches their weekly videos. Except you Loner, but then again, how would you when you have no friends and don't know shit about what's happening in the real world?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, like they could somehow shield me from the sting of his words.

"I know stuff," I grumbled, sulking.

"Do you?" Jacques asked with a raised brow, sounding like he cared not one bit.

"Like what?"

"Like that Zayn left One Direction." I forced myself to look smug though I knew I probably sounded pathetic.

"So there."

Jacques just looked at me. Before he could retort with something truly caustic, which he most likely was about to do, the sounds of cars driving into the parking lot behind us interrupted our little conversation. 

He grabbed my arm and shifted us into a position where students passing by couldn't immediately see us, but still allowed us to have a good view of the parking lot.

I gave him a questioning look. "I don't want people to see me just talking to you," he explained. 

I held back an eye roll. How charming.

"Anyways," he continued, "the reason they have such a large following is because they have very good connections. Lilith once dated a supermodel, Brandon – the blond – has these movie star parents in Hollywood, and Rhyland's father is CEO and founder of Masonneries Incorporated. He's literally a mega-billionaire. No one is exactly sure what the redhead has going for him, but he's Rhyland's best friend and super-hilarious in their videos, another reason why they have so many subscribers, so no one cares."

I counted; that was four people in total. Lilith, Brandon, Rhyland, and the redhead. I didn't fail to notice that he didn't name the one person without any money or famous connections. Money talks, as they say.

"So what does any of this have to do with me?" I asked, trying to figure out why he was telling me this. The look he got on his face immediately made me want to stuff my words back in my mouth.

"Well, Loner, they're YouTubers, and the thing about YouTubers is that they are always looking for interesting content that lets them keep and gain subscribers." He leaned in uncomfortably close.

"Some would say you being pummelled by countless dodgeballs, or having the entire contents of the lunch lady's garbage dumped on your head in the middle of the cafeteria, is interesting content."

My eyes widened at the implication of what he was saying, but he didn't even let me finish processing his words before he continued.

"Honestly, I should have thought about doing something like this earlier," he mused. 

"But I don't have their audience or their influence. Just imagine the comments though. Almost two million people either saying how pathetic you are, or suggesting other things we could've done to you."

I'd never had a Twitter, Facebook or any sort of social media account. I couldn't even fully comprehend what that would be like. Hundreds of thousands of people seeing me at my weakest and most vulnerable.

I felt like my whole world was crashing down around me. "You'd post that online for the entire world to see?" I managed to get out.

Jacques' eyes were merciless and... cold. Jack Frost was actually a really clever moniker.

"I told you, I can't. But they can," he said, shifting his gaze towards a flashy blue car that just drove into the parking lot. I followed his gaze.

"Of course the bastard drives a better car than mine," Jacques muttered under his breath, but I was only half-listening. 

The car – it looked like it was some kind of Porsche – came to a stop and its doors opened all at once. Four black clad figures stepped out and my jaw nearly dropped. They looked like they all belonged in front of GQ magazine.

There was the blond guy who removed his sunglasses and blinked his hazel-brown eyes at the sunlight, running his hands through his hair in the most attractive way I'd ever seen. 

He was soon joined by a smiling redhead who elbowed him playfully before slipping off his own glasses and placing them in his back pocket. His green eyes seemed to smile along with his lips. 

Then they were both joined soon after by a waist-length brunette who snuck behind the redhead and placed her own sunglasses in his back pocket. Her bronze colored eyes looked like they sparkled. They squinted shut as she threw her head back in laughter when the redhead turned to glare at her.

The last guy, the one who'd been sitting in the drivers' seat, got out but didn't yet take off his sunglasses. Lilith, I deduced since she was the only female in the group, flung herself behind him in an attempt to hide from the redhead. 

He looked at her over his shoulder and lowered his shades in what seemed like amusement. I couldn't make out his eyes from where I was standing. Lilith reached out to snatch his glasses from his face but he easily swatted her away.

That was the only glimpse I got before Jacques gripped my chin and turned my face back to his. I noticed my heart was beating very fast now.

"It doesn't have to be that way, though," he said, picking up our previous conversation. "I have a solution that'll work great for the both of us."

I didn't think I'd like this 'solution'. "Which is?" I asked, trying to keep my cool.

He smirked at me malevolently, tossing his stupid football in the air and catching it.

"I'm going to cool it with the... after-school activities," he told me. I just blinked at him.

"I'm going to stay away from you, and I'll also spread the word that for a week or so, no one should harass you publicly. That way, you won't land on their radar and the cyberbullying thing won't happen. Since I won't be using up my time to deal with you," he explained, "I'll use that time to get in with the Four Horsemen."

I almost rolled my eyes then. One thing Jacques loved almost as much, if not more than bullying me, was maintaining his social status and becoming even more popular amongst people.

"But," he said, eyes fixated on me. I stilled. "Doing this out of the kindness of my heart won't be enough for me," he told me. "You have to agree to meet up with me outside of school after school hours whenever I ask you to."

No. Just no. 

Eight hours of school for five days a week was the extent of my misery. After school I always left the bullying and everything behind, went home to wash off whatever grime had attached itself to me that day and tried to somewhat enjoy the rest of my day. That was my pattern, another pattern I'd grown comfortable in that Jacques now wanted to strip from me.

As if he could see the refusal on my face, Jacques turned my gaze to face the Four Horsemen.

"Me or them," he asked. His meaning was clear. The devil I knew or the devil I didn't.

"What would I be doing in this outside school time with you?" I asked, turning back to him.

His grin did nothing to reassure me whatsoever. "Whatever I want."

Wasn't that ominous? If this were a movie, viewers off-screen would probably be yelling at me to GET DA FUQ OUTTA THERE, BITCH!!! 

I looked back at the Four Horsemen. The last dude, the one with black hair, had an arm across Lilith's shoulder and the rest of the group were crowded around him, listening to whatever he was saying. 

I focused on him. There was a strange magnetism around him which I could feel from where I stood, something that drew those people to him. Jacques had that about him too, but it was a pale fraction of what this guy had.

Watching them, I imagined them laughing and recording while people did what Jacques had said and felt my heart ache. Right then, I believed that the tiny part of my being I'd managed to keep alive for seven years of Jacques' torment would finally shatter into a million pieces if they bullied me too.

"Fine," I told Jacques through gritted teeth. His smiled like the cat that ate the canary, and I felt very much like a canary.

"Good girl," he said condescendingly, tapping me on the cheek.

My anger flared and I thrust his hand away. "Don't touch me," I spat.

When his eyes darkened, I thought to myself that I shouldn't have done that. All my buried fear came flowing back into me.

"I can and will touch you however and whenever I want," he spoke deliberately, gripping my arm tighter with every word. My teeth started to ache from the pain.

"Because I own you now. Do you understand?" he said quietly. 

My heart leapt into my throat. When Jacques got quiet, my lifespan got a hair shorter.

I knew I should hold out and not let him get to me, but I really wanted him to stop.

"Yes," I said, not looking him in the eye so I wouldn't antagonize him further.

The school bell rang then and he let my arm go. I fisted my palm, not wanting to massage my injured arm in front of this douche.

"Good girl," he repeated even more condescendingly, smacking my face this time. I gritted my teeth and forced my gaze downwards submissively.

I saw his shoes retreating and allowed myself to look up. He smirked and waved the football at me while walking backwards.

"Enjoy the rest of your week, Loner," he told me before turning around and bouncing off through the school doors.

Once he was gone I leaned against the tree and held my limb gently. I tugged down my sleeve and inspected the area where Jacques gripped me. 

It would take a while for bruising to show on my tan skin, but I could definitely make out the marks his fingers had left.

I was rubbing the area gently when a shadow fell across me. I instinctively looked up and saw the black-haired boy standing in front of me. I completely froze.

Poseidon, Zeus and Hades, that is one beautiful boy. 

He had the most aesthetically pleasing, almost uncomprehendingly perfect features I'd ever seen on any male except from Jacques. In fact, scratch that – this dude was leagues away from Jacques. 

Jacques was now ugly, and no one was crying about it.

He was tall, almost 6'3, and he had that broad chest that narrowed at the waist like he worked out often. His hair was so dark in the light, it looked almost black. But that wasn't what really sent my heart skipping. It was the fact that he wasn't wearing his shades right then, so I was staring directly into his vivid blue eyes.

I stared into them and had a vision of waves crashing at a shore. He looked away from me for a moment and towards the direction of the school Jacques had just gone through with a distinctly un-nice expression on his face.

Un-nice. My brain has obviously shut down. 

Now that he wasn't facing me my thought process had returned. I realized that I hadn't moved since I first looked up at him, and still had a hand on my bruised arm and my mouth was still very much agape. I quickly snapped my jaw shut and tugged down my sleeve.

He turned back to me and I saw the ocean again. 

Ocean. He had ocean eyes.

God, how cheesy was that? What was happening to me?

"Was he bothering you?" he spoke then. His voice was such a rich timbre, it scrambled my brain again. And that could be the only explanation for what came out of my mouth then.

"No hablo español," I said, walking backwards, away from this beautiful male specimen. I realized what I said and turned, flat out running into the school before I could see his expression.

So much for staying off the radar. I didn't deserve my 4.0 GPA.