Don't Punk With My Heart (Punk Harry)
Chapter 4
“You’re visiting your deranged brother in the asylum? Good one, C!” Orlando chuckled and moved forward in the queue, grabbing a pizza for himself.
“Grab me a slice, O?” Claire asked, before stacking her plate up with mac-n-cheese.
“She’s totally nuts. If that wasn’t bad enough, she asked him if he’d like to join her! To Zayn Fucking-Hot Malik! C, put that back. Eeww!”
“What? I’m hungry!” Claire protested as Lucy tried to put the slice of pizza back on the table.
“You really are losing it after the break up.” Lucy commented, receiving a death glare from her best friend.
“Grab the hamburger, C! Quick! O, you grab another pizza!” Lucy ordered all of a sudden, rushing over to the counter.
“Wait! So, I can’t have the pizza but can have the burger? I don’t get it!” Claire asked, trying to understand her friend’s logic.
“Well, it’s not for you, you glutton!” Lucy chuckled, watching Claire and Orlando pay for the food.
“What do you mean it’s not for her?” Orlando asked, raising an eyebrow.
“So, it’s a ritual here to buy food for Harry and his gang during break. It’s like a peace offering, you could say. Just so that he doesn’t come after you.”
A shiver ran down her spine as her eyes landed on the table where the group of intimidating guys sat. They looked like they were extremely pissed off and Claire thought she saw a couple of knives and brass-knuckles.
“This is just crazy!” Orlando whispered behind her, making Claire gulp in fear.
“Oh, trust me. This is nothing!” Lucy waved her hand off, slowly beginning to make her way to their table. “Now, remember! Don’t talk to them. Don’t make eye-contact with them. If spoken to, reply back. Just slide the tray over in the table and pretend to be invisible. They should not notice your presence.”
“What about you, Luce?” Claire asked, breaking into a sweat as she got closer to the table and noticed how there was a queue of people offering them food and scurrying off to the other side of the cafeteria. She noticed how the table for these guys was in the centre, like it was for the populars back in her school in New York. She stood behind Lucy in the queue and scanned the area to notice that the jocks and cheerleaders sitting at a far corner from the table at the centre.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to talk to Harry. He really doesn’t seem like he’s in a good mood. Plus, one try is more than enough for a day.” Lucy’s voice had become a squeak by the end of her speech and Claire could tell that she was actually more nervous than she had first let on.
They shuffled forward in silence, watching other people slide the food and walk away. Claire gasped when she noticed a guy accidentally dropping a couple of French fries on one of the gang member’s shoes. The entire cafeteria went quiet and it looked like everyone held their breath as the gang member stood up, smiled at the frightened boy as though it was no big deal before punching him straight in the jaw with a brass-knuckle.
“Shit, Liam’s pissed.” Lucy whispered, as Claire watched the poor guy getting dragged out of the cafeteria as he begged for someone to help him. The queue moved forward and everybody went back to normal, as though they had not witnessed someone getting dragged out to be beaten into pulp.
“Luce, this is really scary. I think I’ll just walk away and pretend like I didn’t know about the peace offering.”
“C, don’t even think about it. Everyone already saw you in the queue. Plus, with everyone already watching your every move, it wouldn’t be long before someone lets the boys know.”
Claire sighed and tensed when she saw that it was Lucy’s turn to offer the food. Lucy kept her eyes downwards as she laid down the food before them. It got pushed all the way to the end of the long table as the guys there spoke to one another without giving Lucy a second glance.
Lucy spun around, gave Claire a nod and indicated her to keep her eyes lowered. Claire nodded her understanding, lowering her gaze to her tray before sliding it onto the table as carefully as she could. She was about to turn away, sighing in relief when she felt a hand spank her left butt cheek. Her head snapped up in shock and connected with Lucy’s, who shook her head, begging her not to turn around to see who it was. Claire licked her lips to control her anger and walk away, but felt someone grab her other butt this time. She spun around, teeth gritted together to find a guy with dyed blue hair give her a creepy smile. He stood up, checking her up and down with like the sleaze ball he was.
“Hot little thing. Aren’t you?”
Claire glared at him, feeling braver than she was before. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he looked the least scary of them all.
“Sit your fat ass down, Rick.” Claire’s eyes went to the owner of the voice and she smiled a little when she noticed that it was Zayn. However, this Rick guy didn’t look so happy taking orders so he turned with a frown on his face before responding. “Or what?”
“Or you won’t be seeing daylight anytime soon.” Zayn wasn’t the one who replied back to Rick this time though. This voice was a lot more deep, calm and menacing than Zayn’s and everyone’s eyes shifted to Harry’s face which was a blank mask.
Rick gulped and slowly sat down on his seat as Lucy pulled Claire away from the table. As Claire was walking away, she couldn’t help take a glance back at the table. Her eyes met with two other pairs; one hazel and the other green. As she turned away, she didn’t notice the former’s eyes shifting away while the latter’s stayed on her.
“Mom, I’m home!” Claire announced, entering the kitchen with Cassie and Orlando in tow. The three of them raided the refrigerator, searching for something to eat.
“Hey, honey!” Her mother entered the room, looking a bit flustered. “Why are all of you attacking the fridge?”
“School!” The three of them answered simultaneously, going back to grabbing food.
“Oh-kay!” Her mother snatched the food out of their hands. “Go change! I’ll make you guys something to eat.”
“You’re a life-saver, Mom!” Cassie hugged her from the side, before rushing to her room.
“Hey, Mom?” Claire asked nervously, fidgeting with her shirt.
“Hmm?”
“I know it’s the week days and all but Lucy was wondering if I could stay at her place today.”
“On school night?”
“Well, yeah. She wanted to catch up.”
“I’m not so sure, Claire. We just moved. I mean, I’ve heard there is a local gang here who does drug trafficking and all these other horrible stuff. I don’t want you wandering off at night. It isn’t safe.”
“I won’t be wandering off, Mom. I’ll just stay over at hers tonight. I promise.”
“I guess….”
“Thank you! Love you, Mom!” Claire hurried away, rushing to her room to change.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Orlando.” Cameron sighed, sitting down on the stool. “Moving all the way from Brooklyn. And for someone who couldn’t care less about me or his daughters. I feel so stupid. I don’t even know if Cassie and Claire are mixing with the right crowd. Lucy is different but the kids here all look so shady.”
“Well, you haven’t seen Lucy yet so you may wanna save her judgment for later.” Orlando chuckled, as Cameron’s eyes widened in surprise.
……………………………..
Claire cussed under her breath when the sky opened up to let the rain pour all over the streets of Holmes Chapel. She looked around for somewhere to take refuge, having forgotten to carry an umbrella despite knowing the unpredictable weather of the country. But everywhere she looked, she only saw tall red-bricked buildings standing abreast with hardly any space between them. She ran farther towards the direction of Lucy’s house but realized she was lost when she couldn’t recognize the buildings in the dark.
Claire stopped running and examined the streets as the torrential rain drenched her clothes and made them stick to her body. Her eyes fell on a shabby looking dark alleyway, which had a side roof shading it from the pouring rain. It looked creepy from the distance but Claire knew she had to take refuge there until it stopped raining.
She scurried across the street and took shelter in the alleyway, rubbing her numb arms to bring some life back into them. A shiver ran down her spine as she tried to look around for any shadow or serial killer lurking in the dark. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she let out a sigh in relief, having noticed nothing unusual.
She took off her beanie and tried to glide her fingers through her hair, trying to straighten out the tangles that had formed. She grabbed the front of her shirt and tried to wring it to drain away some of the water, exposing her mid-riff. Her hands slipped and she almost screamed out loud when she heard a deep voice whisper in her ear, “Didn’t anyone tell you it wasn’t safe to wander around outside at this time of the night?”
Update soon!
9/3/14