Offenders (15)

As Dex and I sat in the bleachers watching Lena and Anthony try out for track, the stronger boy was not happy at all. But I wasn’t really expecting him to be, since he was Dex and all.

“I don’t get why we had to wait for them,” he muttered as he sat back in the bleachers.

I glared at him. “Because we’re their friends.”

Dex made a face. “Doesn’t mean we have to wait for them.”

I didn’t understand why he couldn’t at least pretend like he wasn’t having a horrible time. It wasn’t like he was the one that had to run around the track a bunch of times. That seemed much worse than just sitting here watching them do it.

“Dex.” I didn’t even turn toward him. I kept my eyes on the track. “Be polite for once, won’t you? We’re here to support our friends.”

Dex scowled. “Aiden and Kristie aren’t here.”

“Probably because they’re off making out somewhere,” I shrugged, even though I knew that that definitely wasn’t what they were doing. 

“Then maybe you and I should go off and make out somewhere.”

“Dex, we’re not moving from this spot.”

“That’s okay with me. I don’t care if people watch.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. “They’re almost done, okay? Just calm down.”

“This is so boring,” he groaned.

I was about to pull my hair out. “Oh, my goodness.”

I wouldn’t be able to take this for much longer. Sometimes Dex really did act like a child when there was no reason to. He couldn’t just sit there quietly for fifteen more minutes? He couldn’t have just talked to me? It shouldn’t have been that hard to come up with something to say.

“Violet?” a new voice called out before I could do any damage to my hair. I looked up in surprise to see Tom. “Hey.”

I forced a smile. “Hi, Tom!”

“Hi, Tom!” Dex mimicked under his breath, so quiet that Tom didn’t hear him.

I’d been avoiding Tom since the day he had caught me using my powers, even though he had no recollection of it. It’d only been a few days and we’d only spoken a few words.

“What are you doing here?” he asked me. 

I nodded my head over to where my two friends were standing on the track. “We’re just here to cheer on Lena and Anthony,” I answered.

“Some of us against our will,” Dex muttered again, but Tom still didn’t hear him. I was sure glad for that.

“So, what are you doing here?” I asked, afraid an awkward silence would fill the air if I didn’t speak.

Tom jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the coach. “I help Coach Henry when I’m free after school.”

I nodded. Now I didn’t know what to say, and it became silent. Oh, no. Please don’t let him feel awkward...

“Both Lena and Anthony are very good,” he finally said, and I let out a sigh. I was glad I didn’t have to think of something to say. “Especially Anthony. I’m actually surprised. It’s like he has super speed or something!”

I forced out an obvious fake laugh, but Tom luckily didn’t realize that it was fake. Dex rolled his eyes.

“Lena’s good, too,” I complimented, not wanting all of the attention to be on how fast Anthony was. “She’s faster than I thought she’d be.”

Tom nodded, but said nothing more about her. He then glanced at Dex, who wasn’t even looking in our direction.

“So, I was thinking,” Tom began, and this seemed to get Dex’s attention even though Tom was talking to me. “Maybe we should swap numbers.”

A bubbly feeling erupted in my stomach, and I couldn’t help but smile. Dex, however, looked like he wanted to reach out and break my phone. Which he could have easily done.

“Yeah, of course,” I smiled. I then looked over at Dex and glared. “It’s not like anyone would have a problem with it.”

Dex huffed and looked away.

Tom and I swapped phones, putting our numbers in before giving them back to each other. Dex stayed silent.

“Alright,” Tom smiled once we were finished. “I should probably get back to Coach Henry. I’ll text you later!”

All I could do was smile back at him. “Okay!”

And then he was gone, and it was only Dex and me once again. Silence enveloped us as we watched people run around the track.

“So that’s why you wanted to sit through their tryouts so bad,” Dex said suddenly.

I turned toward him in confusion. “What?”

“You wanted to see Mr. Punching-Bag over there,” he said, nodding his head in the direction Tom had left.

I frowned. “No, Dex, I had no idea.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

“Do you think if I knew Tom would be here, I’d bring you around to make your stupid comments?” I snapped, and Dex seemed to think about that for a moment. “And don’t call him Mr. Punching-Bag.”

“It’s what he was the other day.”

“Just shut up, Dex.”

“Sorry we’re late!” the familiar bubbly voice giggled from behind us, and suddenly Kristie was sitting beside me and Aiden was sitting beside Dex. “What’d we miss?”

“Nothing important,” Dex grumbled, leaning back farther. “They’re almost finished down there. Then we can go home.”

Aiden sighed. “Finally.”

I scoffed. “I can’t believe you guys. You can’t just be supportive of your friends?”

It was especially annoying since Aiden had just got here and hadn’t had to sit through the last forty-five minutes with a whining Dex. This was why I needed Anthony around. He definitely leveled out the entire team.

“I’m not going to make you guys sit through my basketball tryouts.” Aiden then leaned over and grinned at Kristie. “Though it’d be nice to have your support.”

Kristie giggled as I made a throw up sound. Dex rolled his eyes at me.

“That’s how I felt two minutes ago,” he told me.

When tryouts were finally over, my friends and I made our way out into the parking lot to find our cars. My phone suddenly chirped, and I pulled it out of my pocket to see a text message from Tom. I immediately grinned. 

“Jeez,” Dex scowled from beside me. “Stop making it so obvious that you’re talking to lover-boy.”

I glared back at him. “Mind your own business, Dex.”

“It is my business.”

“It is not!”

You’re my business. Therefore, it’s my business.”

I shook my head and decided not to argue with him any longer. Nothing good ever came out of fighting with him, so it’d be best if I just stopped without saying anything else. The last thing I needed was an angry Dex.

“Ooh, so you got a text from Tom, huh?” Lena questioned, grabbing my phone from me so she could look at the text. “I wonder what it could be about!”

Before Lena could read it, however, we were cut off by the sound of screeching car tires. We turned in shock to see a car coming straight at us, not looking like it was about to stop anytime soon. We all to a position of action until the car cut a sharp left so that it was now right beside us.

“What the—” Lena started, but before she could finish what she was going to say, she was suddenly being pulled into the car and it sped away.

“Hey!” Dex shouted, but that did nothing.

“What just happened?” I demanded, turning toward my friends as if they had the answers. They looked completely dumbstruck.

“Well, we have to follow them!” Kristie cried, looking around the parking lot for our car. She’d forgotten where we’d parked.

“But how?” Aiden asked. “The car’s long gone!”

My friends and I were panicking. What were we supposed to do? Lena had just been kidnapped! And we hadn’t even seen who had taken her!

This was bad. This was so bad! What were we supposed to do, who were we supposed to call? The police? What if it had something to do with superhumans? Were we supposed to call Hank and Nay? What if it wasn’t something to do with superhumans and then we just worried Hank and Nay?

When I patted down on my pocket to grab my phone, it wasn’t there. I then I realized that Lena had it!

“Get to the car, now!” I ordered, grabbing Dex’s phone from his hand and taking off toward where we’d parked. “Come on! Hurry up!”

Anthony was at the car in seconds, starting it up. I jumped into the passenger’s seat and Aiden got into the driver’s seat while our other three teammates got into the back.

“So, what are we doing?” Dex asked. “And why did you take my phone?”

I was too busy punching my number in to answer him, and Aiden pulled out of the parking lot, though he had no idea where we were going. And neither did I, yet. After making sure my number was correct, I clicked track.

“Lena has my phone,” I informed them, out of breath from running and from the nerves. “We’ll be able to find her from the tracking device in it!”

The map opened on Dex’s phone, a red dot appearing miles away from our blue one. We found her!

“Being in the DAU sure has it’s perks sometimes,” Dex couldn’t help but commented.

I couldn’t help but think of Tom. “And sometimes it doesn’t.”

“They’re still moving!” Aiden informed me as he watched the moving red dot.

“Go!” I shouted, and Aiden hit the gas.

After fifteen minutes of following the moving red dot, we were so close that we were practically on top of it. Yet I saw no trace of the car. And we were now in the middle of the woods.

This made me feel uneasy. There were so many horror movies where the characters were stuck in the woods with an unknown killer. Not that who we were dealing with was a killer. At least… I really hoped they weren’t.

But even if it wasn’t a killer, none of us knew who we were dealing with. None of us knew who had taken Lena or why they had taken Lena here. Part of me was hoping it was just Malicius and Lynx while another part of me really hoped that it wasn’t.

When we saw a log cabin right where the red dot on the map was, we knew Lena had to be inside. My stomach was doing flips as we got closer to it.

I jumped out of the car the second Aiden had stopped, my teammates following right after me. We couldn’t waste any time.

I was up the porch, pushing the door open without a second thought about it. But I then suddenly grew scared as I looked into the dark cabin. I had no idea who was in there. I had no idea what they could have done. But Lena could have been inside, and that was all that mattered.

“Lena?” I called out, cautiously entering the dark cabin. “Lena, are you here?”

“Are you insane?” Dex growled, grabbing my arm and yanking me behind him. “Don’t go in first!”

I wanted to tell him that I could take care of myself, but thought better of it. I bit down on my tongue and followed after him, our other teammates right there with us.

“Lena?” Kristie called out. “Lena... Are you here?”

It was so dark that I could barely see what was around us. My teammates and I were clustered so close to each other that I could hardly breathe.

“Yeah,” a gruff voice suddenly said, and then I heard something click. “She’s here.”

A light suddenly illuminated the entire room, and we spun around at the sound of the voice. I gasped when I saw a teenage boy standing there, his arm around Lena’s throat with her pressed against his chest as he held a gun to her head. 

“Don’t come any closer,” he threatened, pressing the gun harder against Lena’s head. “If you come any closer, I’ll shoot.”

I looked at our surroundings. There was nothing I could have thrown that would have caused a sufficient amount of damage, and I was so lousy at my powers that it probably wouldn’t have even made it to him.

Dex was already invisible, being completely undetected from Lena’s captor. There was so much trash all over the floor that I knew it would be difficult for him to move around without being noticed. He was going to have to move slowly and carefully.

He was our only hope now.

Aiden raised his fist at Lena’s captor and engulfed it in flames. “Put the gun down,” he ordered.

This boy seemed surprised to see that Aiden was on fire, but this did not make him drop the gun. I was just glad he didn’t shoot when Aiden moved.

This boy holding Lena captive was familiar. It took me a moment, but I finally realized that I had a class with this guy. A class I also had Lena in, too.

I didn’t know his name because I’d never really cared enough to learn it. But now... I really wished I had.

“You’re the one who’s been leaving Lena notes, aren’t you?” I demanded, even though I was sure I didn’t have to ask that question. 

This boy smirked. “Look how smart you are.”

Dex had said that we should ignore the letters and they would go away. Obviously, that was not true. Ignoring them had not been the best decision. We should have gone to an adult. Someone could have done something so this didn’t have to happen.

But here we were, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. And all because we’d kept the secret to ourselves. Even Aiden and Kristie hadn’t been aware of the fact that Lena had been getting notes from an unknown sender.

“You don’t have to do this,” Anthony tried to reason, tapping Aiden on the shoulder. With one look, Aiden sighed and put out his fire. For some reason, this made me feel a little uneasy.

Suddenly, Dex appeared behind the stalker, though he didn’t see him. Without a second to spare, he punched the stalker right in the side of the head.

This made the stalker drop the gun and let go of Lena. Kristie scrambled to grab it. As soon as she did, Aiden grabbed it from her, just in case.

Lena was breathing so heavily that I thought she may have been having a panic attack. She dropped to her knees and Dex and Anthony crouched down beside her. She clung onto Anthony and began crying into his shirt.

Surprisingly, Dex’s punch did not knock the stalker out. He was stumbling, but he was very much awake.

“Give her back,” he spat, taking a step toward Lena. “Give her back to me!”

Knowing my powers pretty much did nothing for me, I did the next thing that came to mind. I tackled the bastard.

We crashed onto the floor, and I lifted my fist and punched him in the face. I was so angry and now that he had nothing to threaten us with, I wasn’t going to hold back.

Growing up, I was always weak. I had few friends and when they were bullied, I could do nothing to save them. Then I was locked away for five years and didn’t understand why friendship was so important. But now... Now this guy was threatening my best friend and he was not going to get away with it!

I punched him again. “Kristie!” I shouted over my shoulder at her. “Call Hank and Nay!”

She pulled out her phone and started tapping. She then looked up at me in horror. “There’s no signal!”

Another punch. “No signal?” I tried to think of what to do as I punched the boy again. I then turned toward my brainy teammate. “Anthony, you have to run.”

He stared at me with wide eyes. “What?”

“You have to run and go get Hank and Nay!”

“No way!” Anthony shook his head adamantly as his grip on Lena tightened. “I’m not just leaving Lena here!”

“If you go, it’ll be faster!”

Anthony still didn’t look like he wanted to leave, but he knew he had to. He removed Lena from clinging onto him and passed her to Dex. She was still sobbing and shaking.

As I punched the stalker again, Aiden appeared beside me. “Violet,” he said, but I didn’t stop punching. “Violet, you need to stop!”

No. No. I didn’t want to stop. I just wanted to keep punching him. I wanted to keep hurting him.

The pictures on the walls suddenly began to shake and fall from their places. Light bulbs burst, glass cracked. And I kept punching.

He was bleeding from his nose and mouth. His eyes were so black that I was sure they wouldn’t clear up for months. I wasn’t sure if the bloody gash on his forehead was from me or from when Dex hit him.

“You’re monsters! Monsters!” he shouted, covering his face before I could punch him again. 

“I’ll show you what a monster is!” I reeled back to punch him again, but someone was suddenly grabbing onto my wrist to stop me.

I looked back to see Dex, a look I couldn’t read in his face as he stared down at me. He looked straight into my eyes and he almost seemed... afraid.

This snapped me out of whatever trance I had been in. My whole body went limp, and I fell to the floor beside the stalker. He tried to get up, but Dex hit him one last time in the back of the head, and he was out like a light.

He was a bloody mess. My knuckles were stained with red. What had I done?

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This was all written on my phone. If there are typos, that's why!

So, I'm going to be gone for a week because of my yearly week-long family reunion. I think this is my fourth year going since I've joined Wattpad, so people that have followed me for a long time will probably know.

I was able to write a lot last year and the years beforehand during the trip but this year I actually have to do things, so...

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :)

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