A.N: The bold is sign langauge
"I'm telling you, it's always the small ones that hide the most crazy." Michael said, holding a bag of frozen peas up to his bruising eye. "But she does have one hell of an arm."
You could have stayed at the house. Your eye looks like it's getting worse.
He ignored my comment, wincing as he prodded as the dark purple injury.
"You needed milk and I didn't want to make you get it yourself. Besides, don't you like spending time with me?"
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a shopping basket and heading towards the dairy section. The principal had let us go home early, so we had spent the afternoon eating cold pizza and playing video games at my house because Michael didn't want to have to explain to his mum that a girl half his size had almost broken his nose.
"Dude, Emma Parker got suspended for a week."
I looked up from the box of cereal I was inspecting, furrowing my eyebrows at him.
Who?
"The girl that clocked me." He explained, showing me his phone. "Calum just texted me saying that he heard his mom talking about it."
Our friend Calum Hood was like the center of all gossip in the school. His mom was the assistant principal, so he basically knew everything there was to know about what was happening within our little school, good or bad. He had enough dirt on a few students to blackmail them to do whatever he wanted, pretty much. Of course, he would never do that. He was too nice.
"They're saying it must have been stress. Apparently, this is the first time she's acted out violently. Even her brother said she was always such a sweet, quiet girl."
Now that I think about it, she's always been quite reserved in English. And I can't recall ever seeingher eat with anyone else at lunch.
"She's in our English class?"
I nodded, picking up a bottle of grape juice and setting in the basket.
"Hm. Funny, I've never seen her before."
Michael stopped suddenly, putting a hand on my shoulder and pointing across the small store.
"Over there."
Emma was standing by the freezer section, playing with the hem of her over-sized sweatshirt, looking around as her brother searched for something. Her gaze landed on the two of us and she froze, quickly tugging down her sleeves over her hands to cover the brown bandages wrapped around her knuckles. Our eyes met and for a moment she looked as if she were about to break down in tears, but she just turned to her brother, tapping his shoulder and saying something to him. He looked up at us once before nodding to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and leading her down the aisle out of our line of sight.
"Her freak out is the biggest news the school's had since your accident." Michael mused as he took the basket from me, putting it on the conveyor belt in front of us
I froze.
At first, everything was perfect. Luke was sitting on his bed, Green Day blaring loudly from his speakers as he finished shading a panel from the comic book he was working on; The Adventures of Doctor Fluke. His family was downstairs watching some Christmas movie, despite it being the middle of the summer. His mom was just the kind of person who would celebrate holidays the whole year round. He had gotten a B minus on his English test and he found five dollars in his pocket, so overall, the day had been extremely pleasant.
But nothing stays perfect for long.
The first sign of trouble he noticed was how foggy the room had gotten all of a sudden. Maybe someone was taking a hot shower in the bathroom across the hall from Luke's bedroom. When he pulled his ear buds out to go check, he heard the screams. At first, he thought it was just his family laughing downstairs or maybe there was music playing. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, setting his sketchbook on his nightstand and heading over to the door. He gasped as a thick wave of heat hit him like a freight train, nearly knocking him over.
Bright orange and blue flames licked up the walls of the hallway, swallowing everything in it's path.
"Mom!' He screamed, coughing as he backed away from the doorway. "Dad!"
His foot must of caught on the leg of his bed because suddenly he was falling backwards.
Then there was only blackness.
"Luke." Michael snapped his fingers in front of my face and jerking me back into reality. "You still with us? You kind of spaced off there for a minute."
I glanced up from the floor, feeling my cheeks heat up in embarrassment as I realized I was holding up the line.
I'm fine. Sorry, just thinking about something.
He looked at me skeptically, handing me a plastic grocery bag and motioning me to follow him.
It wasn't until he was starting the car that I realized we had forgotten milk.
