08 | vicious

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v i c i o u s


When you play with fire, you're bound to get burnt. And I played with fire, I forgot to wear fireproof gloves, I forgot to keep my heart safe.

You see, for all the good I saw in Callum, I forgot to see the bad. The bad that everyone had spoken of thus far. I put him on a pedestal, because he had protected me and helped me through my most difficult period.

I failed to realise that he was human, that he was capable of hurting people. Capable of hurting my friends – as he had done for weeks and months before. Capable of hurting me.

My heart thudded painfully in my chest and I watched numbly, helplessly, as the jocks pounced on my friends. My feet were frozen to the spot, and try as I might, I could not will myself to move, or speak, or do something, anything. All around me echoed the sounds of scuffling and shouts and yells. Jason and the others were no match for Greg and his posse. They never stood a chance.

And through it all, Callum stood there, his face expressionless and posture unmoving. He surveyed the situation around him like he'd seen it before, so often that it no longer fazed him. It frightened me, made me wonder what it was about high school that created façades for everyone, made us different people from who we really were.

For years, I'd only heard of how Jason and the others had been bullied. But never had I ever seen how it all went down. Never had I ever seen my friends suffer right before my very eyes. But now they were. Now it was happening. And I could do nothing.

A particularly loud yell of pain from Jason sprung me into action, and I found myself rushing to his aid as he attempted to fight off Greg, who had him in a headlock. Latching my hands on Greg's arm, I attempted to pull him away from Jason.

"Please don't do this," I begged, but his grip was vice-like and he didn't budge.

My eyes flickered to Callum, an instinctive reaction that I immediately berated myself for, and I realised that his gaze was on me, unreadable and foreign. His eyes met mine, and he quickly looked away.

"Got them all?" He asked smoothly, his eyes surveying the room. My friends were completely outnumbered. "Let's go then."

They began to leave, but still I hung onto Greg's arm, trying and failing to pull him back. "Stop, please," I pleaded. "Don't do this."

Greg stared at me, his gaze softening. Maybe he remembered our previous encounters, all the words we'd exchanged thus far. "Scout, let go," he hissed.

"Let's just bring her along," Keith, one of the other jocks on the football team, said impatiently, his arm closing around my waist as he pulled me off Greg.

Jason looked livid. "Don't touch her!" He yelled, his face red as he attempted to struggle away from Greg in a last-ditch attempt to come to my aid.

I felt Keith roughly tug me away, my grip slackened and I felt myself being dragged away. But quick as lightning, Callum had pulled Keith away from me, pushing him roughly against the wall.

"Don't touch her," Callum warned, his eyes flickering to mine for an instant. But they were blank, cold, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. "Let's get going," he muttered, brusquely, and the other guys shuffled out with my friends.

And as I stared at Jason, his blue eyes boring into my terrified ones, I could see it all. The disappointment, the pain. I could almost hear his voice in my head –

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