The minute I walked into the school building on Monday, I knew it was nothing like other school days.

Maybe it was the odd silence filling the small hallways when even with very few students there would usually be noise.

Maybe it was how all the teachers seemed to be waiting in the hallways conversing rather than actually being in the classrooms.

Maybe it was the smell of fish which was only served as hot lunch once a month and was the one day everyone regretted, since everyone who bought lunch ended up going home sick.

Maybe.

Definitely the last one.

My feet carried me down the small hallways with lockers on the walls. My locker was a gray metal color, and even before reaching it I knew what I would find.

I was almost tempted to avoid going to my locker all together because of what it was.

But I couldn't avoid it. It was inevitable. At some point in time, some day, I'd have to face it. Face him.

Everyone had the ability to choose their lockers, and since we had established a certain alliance over the past couple years, Zander had decided to choose a locker next to me. Specifying that he chose a locker next to me, not the other way around. Although I probably would've done the same for him since he was the only person I really liked in school.

My eyes found him the second I turned the corner into the next bland hallway. He was shoving books in his locker, but was much quieter than usual, a lot like many of the other students.

I quickly put in my combination and opened my locker.

He turned away from his locker and more furiously began shoving books into his bag.

I grabbed a couple of books that I knew I'd need for my day at school, and began putting them into my own bag. I watched him carefully as he struggled to shove more books into his backpack. As he was trying to pull a binder out, a girl suddenly rushed past and the binder flew from his hand, landing next to my feet with papers splayed all over the floor.

Automatically, I bent down and began picking up the papers, eyes focused on the ground.

Then Zander's hands joined mine, pulling papers that had strayed farther from the binder and piling them up. I finally looked up to hand the papers to him and our eyes made contact.

His brown eyes were dark and almost scary in a way. Then, like he had back at my apartment, they moved down to my wrist.

Fortunately, I had decided beforehand that it would be a really good idea to wear a long sleeve shirt. Even so, I pulled the elastic fabric farther down, covering most of my hand, yet most importantly covering my wrist.

"Class will begin in one minute exactly," a robotic voice announced through the speakers.

I backed away from Zander, picking up my bag as I did so. Without looking back, I walked in the opposite direction from the papers that he was quickly putting back into place in his binder. My hands shook as I increased my speed. It only took seconds to get to my first class of the day, and I knew it would only be seconds more before Zander would walk into the classroom. It was ironic how instead of being my only source of refuge in school, he'd become my only source of anxiety.

The glass desk in front of me came to life as I sat down behind it. Although books and paper were usually necessary as teachers wanted students to still be able to write with their hands, the majority of actual work done in school was with the school desks. We each had our own account that could be used to log in to any electronic desk in the school, which was also where we could look anything up, write anything, and use for practically any purpose that someone could think of. Except they refused to allow us to use the desks for any "non-school related" purpose. Doing so could probably get you suspended, but I'd personally never seen that happen before. They weren't too strict about giving out suspensions, since in the school's opinion, suspensions were rewarding people for breaking rules. Of course, they weren't really allowed to change the rules since they were only a school, not the entire Board of Education.

I logged into my own account as the teacher waited patiently for everyone else to finish coming to class and log in.

A quick glance around the room showed me that everyone had showed up, even Zander, who was sitting a couple rows away from me. It was almost sad how small our school was.

"Good morning, students," the teacher said, sucking in a deep breath of air and smiling brightly at us like she had to muster up enough determination just to do that. "Today we will be focusing on-," she began.

"Ma'am."

The heads of everyone in the class swiveled to focus on the door in unison. My anxiety quadrupled.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but we must do a check of your class. This procedure is taking place in every class," a broad faced police officer stated from the doorway of our classroom. Behind him stood two guards in complete black outfits. I could make out the sharp glint of metal in their back pockets and questioned what their purpose here was. The police never came into the schools. If there was an issue or if someone had done something and they were trying to figure out who did it, they would just call the security guards. The officers were an entirely different matter. It meant that the process that they were about to go through with wasn't one ordered by the principal, but one ordered by the government itself.

It was extremely difficult for me to feel safe around the police officers once I realized that.

"We'll only be a couple minutes."

The officer in front made a hand motion to the two black covered guards who began moving towards the large horde of students. They started at the front right corner of the room, staring down at a girl with red hair named Bea for a second before grabbing her arm, leading her to cry out, "What are you doing?!"

The male police officer lifted her shirt sleeve which had been long enough to cover up the screen that displayed her thoughts for the world to see. Then, he gripped her arm tighter and pulled her out of her chair.

The teacher looked immediately alarmed. "Excuse me! What do you think you're doing with my student?!"

"We apologize Miss, but it isn't exactly in your ability to challenge our instructions." The guard began to attempt to lead her towards the door by forcefully pulling her farther from the rest of the class. Her eyes were wide and she stumbled on the tiled white floor as she refused to move away.

"Let me go!!" Bea shouted, digging her heels into the floor, trying to create enough friction to stop her movement.

"Please comply and come along peacefully." The main police officer was staring Bea down, eyes trying to force her into submission. Bea wouldn't even bother to look at him; her hands were now gripping the glass desk as tightly as she could. She kicked out at the guard still pulling her away, and managed to hit him in the shin, causing his grip to loosen. But he took mere seconds to recover. He was quickly back to business, this time holding her shoulder instead of her arm to have more power over her movement. In response, Bea fell to the ground, her entire body dragging on the floor, and at the last second she managed to wrap her arms and legs around one of the nailed in metal legs of her desk, holding on to it for her life.

The entire class was frozen in shock. It didn't feel real. Bea's cries that hadn't even come to my attention until that second. The tears welling up in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks to stain her clothes as her horrific yells came out.

Why were they doing this?

Why was I unable to move?

I wanted to. I wished I could stand up. I wished I could scream at the guards to stop, because she was innocent. She hadn't done anything wrong. She'd only been sitting there quietly, hoping for another uneventful day where she could just go through school and probably get back home to eat dinner with her family.

And now she was flailing on the ground, shouting for a police officer to let go of her as she clung desperately to a metal pole, the only thing stopping her from being taken away to whatever would await her.

"NOVA!"

My heart froze.

Not from my name being called by Zander, which was shocking enough in itself to give me a heart attack.

But from the cold hand of a guard gripping my bicep.

I felt my body lifting from the warmth that my chair had provided. My feet tripped across the hard floor as I was shoved towards the front of the room.

What?

My mind wouldn't work properly.

I was pushed in the back again, and I fell to the ground, both hands flat out on the cold tile. From my new perspective on the ground, I could see Bea being wrenched away from the metal pole, and heard a sharp clanging noise as her hand slammed against the metal while being pulled away. Accompanied by it was a loud crack, sounding way too much like a bone breaking.

I was so mesmerized by what was happening to Bea, and still drugged by the feeling of not believing any of it was real, that I didn't even notice when the guard behind me grabbed me by the shirt collar and began pushing me towards the door. My stumbling didn't do anything to even lessen the pace the guard was pushing me along at. Once I was almost in line with Bea I heard a shout.

"Hey!!"

To my shock, the guard holding me actually paused for a second to turn around. I wished I could too, but moving my head in any direction lead to my shirt collar chafing the back of my neck. I didn't need to look to know who it was. Zander was trying to stand up for me. He was trying to stop them from taking me.

"Leave her alone!"

It seemed that wasn't a statement the guards had been looking for. Instead of acknowledging Zander's words, the guard holding me threw me forward so that my head landed only inches away from Bea's, whose tear-streaked face was pale and who was clutching her right hand that had banged against the desk as the guard began dragging her across the floor, no care at all for the fact that her head was banging against the ground.

And even that wasn't enough to stop her from fighting. She kicked, and screamed, yanking her body across the floor as she was slowly removed from the room.

And then it was my turn.

Except before the guard could move, a figure pushed me to the side, and my view of the guard was blocked by a dark obstacle. A dark denim obstacle. Zander had pushed me to the side and was now standing in front of me. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and the expression in his eyes was intimidating enough that I could barely stare at him for more than a couple seconds.

"Move," the guard said, deathly quiet. I could see the guard's fingers, how they twitched in anticipation. How they waited anxiously just to wrap themselves around that metal hilt and give the guard every single bit of power that he needed so that he could get exactly what he wanted.

Zander had to move. It was obvious in the guard's body language that he was definitely willing to do whatever was necessary to complete his given task.

But Zander didn't want to.

My feet moved without me paying attention to them. My mouth opened automatically. My body responded in a way that felt rehearsed, like a secret part of me had plotted against the rest of my body beforehand just to create this moment.

"I'll go." I forced myself to stand in front of Zander, just as the guard was reaching behind him into his pocket. "I'll go," I repeated, as if one time wasn't enough.

The guards hand fell away from the gun, and a look of triumphant satisfaction crossed his face. "Thank you, for cooperating." He grabbed my arm anyway, and began to lead my out of the room.

As I walked out, I took one last look at Zander's face filled with regret and defeat.