Max leaned against the hood of his Porsche, waving the yellow Post-it note glued to his finger like a flag. Two words were scribbled on it: Macbeth Assignment.

It was either English or Chemistry. And he absolutely hated the latter.

The night before— after he had gotten home—Max had immediately gotten to work, pulling out a forgotten corkboard from a utility closet, and hanging it up on a bare wall in his study room. He pinned all of Zara's photos against it. He circled all the flaws with a red marker, and jotted down his thoughts on sticky-notes, attaching them to the images. Every once in a while, Max would consider hiring someone to do the job for him, but then his incompetent father would come to mind, and the consideration would disappear.

The satisfaction of proving his father wrong would be greater if he did the research on his own. All he had to do was remind himself that he was doing it for his own good, not for Zara's. He was the victim in this situation, not her.

Max scoffed, shoving both hands into the pockets of his jacket. Remember, I'll be watching your every move, he had warned, and here he was. So the photographic evidence Rubair had used against her was fake, but why her out of all people? Who exactly was Zara and what kind of person was she? All his father ever did was pull wool over Maximilian's eyes, and he was sick of it. It was time to see things for himself, rather than blindly follow orders.

He strode towards the front gate of his school, his purpose clear in his mind.

-:-

As Max trudged down the hallway, he basked in its emptiness. The place was usually a ghost town at seven in the morning, except for the odd student who liked to suck up to teachers.

The type of student Max liked to bully mercilessly.

Even the teachers were cooped up in their lounge-room, adding the final touches to their program for the day. Hopefully, Mr. Pender was in the English classroom instead of the lounge—the last thing Max wanted was to have the entire staff think that he was eager to learn.

Not entirely wrong, but still.

Max's attention snapped towards the slamming of a locker door. He observed the kid, probably a freshman, attempt to hold three textbooks and a binder underneath one arm. With the other hand, he tried to fit the lock into place. The child was so short and feeble, the books seemed to be half his size—it was a surprise that he could even reach his locker. Max had to give it to him, though, he was one persistent little bastard.

That's why he would enjoy crushing that persistence like a bug.

Max's lips curled upwards in a sadistic half-smile as he watched the struggle, making no move to help him. Instead, without faltering, he walked right next to the kid and 'accidentally' shoved him against the locker. The poor soul squealed, violently ricocheting against the metal door before collapsing like a sack of potatoes, his books skidding away from him.

Loving the sound of his victim's whimpering, Max snickered satisfactorily.

He turned into another hallway, his steps slowing when he reached room 143, or his English classroom. Each door had a rectangular window in it, allowing a passerby to partially look into the room without having to disturb a lesson inside. Max stopped right beside that window—the last thing he wanted to do was to have Mr. Lawrence see him awkwardly loitering outside the room.

Max dragged a hand through his hair, then took a deep breath when he heard rustling on the other side.

I'm really doing this.

He wasn't going to lie. Max was a little apprehensive about what he was going to do and was already going through a mental list of responses in the event that his request was rejected.

Before he could think about it any further, he knocked on the door.

"Come in." Mr. Lawrence muttered, and Max obliged. He pushed the door open with his shoulder, quietly entering the room and allowing it to shut behind him. The English teacher looked up from the stack of papers he was grading, and he almost dropped his pen when he saw who it is. "To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?"

Max's steely gaze met his teacher's, and he stood beside the exit with his hands by his sides. "I came here to ask you a question."

Mr. Lawrence blinked in response, his mouth set in a thin line. After a few moments, he broke the silence, "Alright. But first, let me ask you a question." He motioned for Max to take a seat on the table closest to his desk. Without hesitating, Max lumbered over to the table. He sat on its edge, crossing both his arms and legs at the same time. "Why weren't you at school yesterday?" Mr Lawrence asked, knitting his fingers together.

"Something came up, and it prevented me from attending your class," Max replied, a mischievous glint in his eye. The teacher just smiled in response, shaking his head.

"You have been missing a lot of school lately," He said, opening a drawer. He pulled out a red folder, flipping it open and turning it towards Max. The front page was the attendance roll, and Max didn't have to glance down to see the red 'x's' beside his name. "And while you are performing relatively well, there's a lot of content you have to learn in order to do well on your upcoming tests."

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is, that if you have any more unexplained absences, you are going to fail my class." Max kept a blank expression on his face, even though inside, his heart was sinking.
All those damn missions were going to take the better of him.

When Max didn't say anything, Mr. Lawrence continued, "Look, I know that English isn't your favourite subject. I know that, because when I was your age, I thought the same thing." Max rolled his eyes, and the man was either blind or chose to ignore him, because he progressed to ramble on, "But later on, as I delved more and more into the beauty that is the English language, I realised that—"

"Sir, as much as I appreciate learning more about your personal life, I didn't come here for that."

"Alright." the teacher said, leaning back against his chair,"Why did you come? I'm honestly still trying to understand why someone like you would bother showing up this early to class."

"I wanted to ask you a favour in regards to the upcoming assignment." Max ignored his teacher's personal jab in the last sentence, instead trying to maintain the conversation on topic. Somewhere during the rant, Max discreetly checked his watch— it should've taken him only ten minutes to get in and out of that classroom, but along the way it turned into a discussion of his own academic profile.

"Which assignment? We only started the play yesterday. Shakespeare's Macbeth, I mean. We read through part of the first act together as a class, and I assigned the rest as homework," Mr. Lawrence was starting to get restless. He kept scratching his receding hairline and twiddling with his thumbs.

"The list you gave us said that we are going to have a group assignment on the play. I forgot about what exactly, but you are to distribute it sometime during this month."

His teacher's eyes widened in surprise, "Ah, yes. 'Differing Dramatic Interpretations,' my favourite assignment of the term." Mr. Lawrence chuckled. He probably enjoyed watching students making a fool of themselves in front of the entire class, Max could bet that it was the only highlight of his day. "With a group, which I will assign, you are to inter—"

"Yeah, about the groups..." Max interrupted again before Mr. Lawrence could continue rambling on, "I would like to work in a pair—and choose my own partner."

"Oh, that's what this is about! I'm sorry, Maximilian, but just because you come here early doesn't mean you get any special privileges over the other students. I've tried to give you people that liberty, but we all know how it ends." He picked up his pen again and looked down at the paper in front of him, signalling that the conversation was over. But Max wasn't going to get shut down so easily, not after having to endure fifteen minutes of complete and utter bullshit.

Max stood up from his spot on the table and walked over to the desk, planting both of his palms on its surface. He leaned in until he towered over the man sitting before him. "I need you to pair me up with Zara DeRealis."

Mr. Lawrence delicately placed his pen back onto the desk and looked up at him, his eyes darting back and forth as he attempted to read Max's face. "Why?"

Max straightened, his mind going completely blank.

Shit, I haven't thought of that.

"Because I feel like we would work well together."

"Oh, I see. That seems like a good reason," Mr. Lawrence muttered, completely unconvinced. Max wasn't known for working well with other students. Assigning Max to a group was like choosing which wire to cut in order to deactivate a bomb.

"Please. I'll get this assignment done." Max's ancestors must've been turning in their graves. Max never begged for anything, especially not to a low-life.

"Yes, I am aware of this. What I'm worried about is whether you are going to do it well."


"Right," Max said after a brief pause, "I would prefer that you don't tell her about this arrangement."

Mr. Lawrence slowly nodded, his brows furrowing in thought. Max held his breath as he awaited a response, his green eyes boring into his teacher's skull.

"Alright, but under one condition," Mr. Lawrence said, raising a finger in the air, "If I receive one complaint from her. Even just one, I'm assigning you to a different group. She is an accomplished student, and I don't want you to tarnish her. Do you understand?" He held out his hand, and Max shook it, his eye almost twitching in annoyance. What did he take him for? Max would never do such a thing.

"Thank-you, sir. Also, please don't tell anyone about this, I really need you to keep this between you and me." Another please—Max wanted to stab himself for coming across as desperate.

"Of course, of course. Run along now, I have to finish this before the bell rings." 

-:-