Their Little Princess

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The next day, I get dressed and walk downstairs. Xander and Carlo are in the frontway. Francesco is standing next to the couch on his phone. I try to walk past him quickly, but he stops me.

"I'm picking you up after school," He says.

"What? Why?"

"Elijah told me to drive you to the mall," He responds.

"Okay."

I walk into the kitchen and grab a breakfast sandwich off the table. I bite it and walk to the front door.

"Are you ready to leave?" Xander says.

I ignore him, walking out the front door and standing silently by the backseat door of his car.

"So, what? Are you just ignoring me now?" Xander says, "How's that gonna work, I'm your ride to school."

I tap my foot impatiently. His logic doesn't make sense. First of all, I'm not talking to Carlo at the moment either. Plus, since when do we have to have a conversation in order for him to drive me to school? Does he ever give the pride a break?

Carlo unlocks the car from the passenger side and I climb in.

"Are you still mad?" Carlo asks.

I move my focus to outside the window. Deliberately refusing to speak.

Carlo's phone buzzes and he turns to the front, unlocking it and Xander climbs in, driving off.

Throughout the day, it's pretty chill. One thing I notice is that I don't see Emma anywhere. In fact, I haven't heard anything about her when usually all people talk about is Xander and Emma. Maybe she just missed a day?

I spot Gregory by his locker across the hall. He doesn't look too good. He has a dark bruise underneath his eye and a scratch across the bridge of his nose that looks like it wasn't treated properly. And his arm is in a cast and sling. He's using his good arm to take the stuff out of his locker.

I watch him hobble away with a certain scaredness about him. A paranoia you could call it. It really makes you wonder what he got into. I try not to think about the idea that Xander did that. Maybe because I'm certain he did. Which makes him not only unfair but a hypocrite.

On my way to my final class of the day, I bump into Kyleigh, one of Emma's friends. I've seen them around quite a bit, terrorizing the perimeter and such. "Is Emma not here today?"

"She moved away in the middle of the night, some kind of family emergency," She says, shutting her locker and walking away. I'm left standing there in confusion.

She just moved away randomly in the middle of the night? That's really weird.

I head to history, taking my usual seat. Today's lesson is about the gilded era. One of my favorite time periods in history. I love history, it's my best course. I love history documentaries, podcasts, historical-fiction, anything.

After class, I stand up, grabbing my textbook. Logan walks forward, walking toward the front with me. 

"Excuse me, Miss Rossi, could I speak with you?" Mr. Sanders says.

Not alone you can't, what happened with Mr. Jackson haunts me, I don't want to be left alone with a teacher again. I grab the fabric of Logan's sleeve, "Sure."

Mr. Sanders is the one that looked familiar to someone I've seen at my brother's job before, it would make sense that a teacher would have a second job. It's just a weird coincidence. There's a lot of those when it comes to my brothers.

"What do you think your brothers would think about you hanging out with this boy?" The teacher asks as if I'm in on some kind of secret. My face flushes, "What?"