Love and Latin

CHAPTER 4

Alora has managed to land herself detention during her free period. Guess being late to class wasn't the smartest idea, but she was starting to feel a bit stupid lately. This is her first detention.

There are a few students present. Most of them she doesn't recognise except the girl sitting to her left.

Her name is Juniper Garner and Juniper works at the same junk store job as Alora. At school, however, they pretend not to know each other.

Alora is aware of a secret that Juniper would do anything to keep, more than one actually. The first secret goes like this: Juniper's once wealthy parents went bankrupt not too long ago, and non but Alora knows about it.

The second secret involves a boy named Dimitri. This boy hangs with the wrong crowd - otherwise known as Silas' crowd - and Juniper is absolutely in love with him, but it gets more complicated than that.

"I won't be at work today." Juniper whispers to her. Alora is shocked at the fact that Juniper acknowledged her at all.

"Gotta charge your Tesla?" Alora jokes. Their friendship involves - mostly - making fun of their situations. Juniper's aforementioned Tesla was taken away when the bankruptcy happened. Although, 'friendship' was too strong a word for what they are.

Juniper rolls her eyes, smiles, unaffected. She doesn't respond to this, instead, she goes back to staring daggers at the clock, like she has been for the better part of 30 minutes.

"What got you in detention?" Alora asks, facing forward as well to make Juniper more comfortable with answering. If they don't look in each other's direction, the other detainees will think they aren't talking to each other, they'll think they don't know each other, just as Juniper wants it.

"Punched a dude in the face." She whispers back, lifting up her bandaged right hand that Alora just now notices. This is not surprising, Juniper is as tough as they come.

"Why?" Alora whisper yells, earning a few stares from her peripheral.

Juniper takes a moment before answering. "He tried to grope me."

"Looks like he should be the one in detention."

"He got suspended for two days." She rolls her eyes. "And principal Aycock thought to punish me too. Apparently you can't punch students." The principals name was Haylock.

Alora holds down her laughter. "And you broke your hand?"

"Bruised it." She says, laughing to herself.

"Well, the bandage looks badass." Alora says. The smile Juniper directs her way lets her know she's made her feel better.

"What about you? Why are you here?"

"Late to class."

Juniper looks aghast. "I'm proud." She smirks.

Alora rolls her eyes and allows 5 minutes to pass before asking, "Do you know what Dimitri and his friends get up to?" It was a weird question, but to ask about Dimitri was to ask about Silas. And she wanted to know about Silas.

"Why do you want to know?" Juniper asks, suspiciously.

"I've just heard a bunch of rumours..." this wasn't a lie, they were a well talked about group of boys.

Juniper snarls. "I guess the usual teenage boy stuff. They have done some bad shit though, I can't really get into specifics. Maybe tell me what you've heard and I'll tell you what I know." Juniper was the best person to ask about them, because of Dimitri, she was close to them in a way one would describe a sixth toe.

"I heard they burn their cars when they get bored of them."

"True, Silas never burns his though. That's his prized possession."

"I heard they're a part of a gang."

Juniper laughs outright. "False, they are the gang."

"Heard they've murdered someone before, and managed to cover it up." This one made Alora queasy.

"Fucks sake." Juniper says, startled. "The rumour mill is crafty, I'll give it that. But that's not true."

They're talking more freely now, having realised that no one in detention cares as much as they thought they did. The teacher who's supposed to be watching them has been buried in a book this entire time, it seems he doesn't care either.

"Heard one of them is in love with another." Alora says, waiting for confirmation.

Juniper considers this. "I don't know about that. I can guess who's in love with who though. That's not a far fetched rumor."

The bell for lunch rings and Alora is pleased with her time spent here, surprisingly. She makes a mental note to ask Juniper more questions at work as they go their separate ways.

~*•~*•

Silas didn't show up to Latin this morning, but he's here now. Parked in the lot like he just pulled in. He looks up from his phone when he sees a nervous Alora walking up to him.

"Would you relax, I'm not going to kidnap you." Silas says, after noticing her tense shoulders and panicked eyes.

Truth is, Alora is trying very hard to disappear from the people staring at her. She looks at him and spreads her arms in a way that she hopes conveys; 'Well, I'm here. What now'.

"Get in." Silas says, amused.

"This sounds like a kidnapping."

"Do you want me to teach you or not?"

Alora's eyes widen with delight. Of course she suspected this was the reason he told her to meet him in the parking lot, but a part of her was sure this was something else entirely. "Ask me nicely." She says, giving him a stern look despite the joy bubbling up inside of her. She wasn't going to allow him to command her, no matter the circumstances. She gets enough of that from home.

"Alora, failure of Latin, I'm begging you, please get-eth in my car-eth so we can get this over with." He deadpans, faking a British accent on the words he made up.

Guess she'll have to get used to the sarcasm. He opens the door for her and it feels like an invitation to the slaughter. She gets in.

His McLaren looks on the inside just as it looks on the outside. Dark, menacing and affluent. It smells of gasoline and bonfire and underneath that, peppermint. In the back seat are carelessly thrown books, his school blazer and a few bottles of alcohol. If Silas was a car, he'd definitely be this one.

He watches her look around his car as if to say: Yes. This is the inside of my car. The inside of my soul. Take a look around, tell me what you think. Tell me what you have found lacking and then he starts the engine.

"What?" Alora asks, she didn't think they were going anywhere. "Where are we going?"

"If we're gonna do this Latin thing, we're doing it my way."

Alora didn't know what he meant by that, she was beginning to rethink all the life choices that led her to this moment. They leave the school.