Unbroken

Chapter 13: Birthday Celebration

A/N: My apologies for the long wait. I hope y'all enjoy and that it was worth the wait. :) (as an added bonus, it's about twice as long as a normal update).

Emma:

Kacen and I slid into the room just minutes after the late bell rang. Luckily, Mr. Drake didn't seem to notice our sudden appearance. We were still able to grab our normal seats. It seemed that most of the students here preferred to keep the same seat they'd taken on the first day of class. We stayed silent during the class, only speaking when we headed in different directions for the next period.

Rook was sitting at his desk and appeared to be watching the door for someone. When I entered the room, he smiled. "Kacen seemed a bit better last period. Whatever you did during lunch seems to have helped."

My cheeks heated as I took the seat next to him. "I didn't really do anything special."

"That's not what he said."

Biting my lip, I couldn't stop the smile from taking over. I liked that I'd been able to help Kacen, even if I didn't feel that I'd done much.

As the bell rang, signaling that class was starting, we both fell silent. I tried to pay attention to the lecture, especially considering she was going over the project I'd have to do soon, but Rook kept distracting me as he'd glance at me thoughtfully when he thought I wasn't looking at him.

School was finally finished for the day, and all I wanted to do was go home and take a nap. I'd used my brain so much in my trig class that I thought my head would explode. Hurrying out the front doors of the building, I wanted to escape before I did something awkward, like asking Nix to walk home with me again. He probably spent a lot of time with his friends, anyway.

I made it to the bottom of the stairs outside the building when I heard someone calling my name. "Emma!"

Frowning, I stepped out of the way to glance back towards the doors. Nix shoved through a couple of people who were walking slower than my elderly great-grandmother. "Would you fuckers get out of my way? And quit taking up the entire pathway while you're at it!" he barked as the group of kids stopped to talk to each other without bothering to move out of the way.

A couple of girls glared at him as he leaned on me, gasping for breath. "Can I help you?" I questioned, blinking at the familiarity with which he dropped an arm over my shoulders.

He held up a finger, coughing into the crook of his elbow. "I hate running."

I could relate to that, but I still had no idea why he was running after me while shouting my name. I tried not to think about the attention he'd drawn to me as I started to shake.

"I should have told you-" He paused to take a deep breath, adding, "That I'd be walking home with you."

"Oh." I blinked, not sure what to say to that.

He chuckled. "You're one of us now. You don't think we'd let you just walk home by yourself, do you?"

That was exactly what I thought. "Don't one of the others drive you home?" I asked the only thing that came to mind.

"Nah. We're all going home to do our homework, and then Rook will go grab some dinner and a cake. After that, we'll go to Kacen's to celebrate his birthday," he explained.

"Oh, that makes sense," I replied, wishing I could take the idiotic words back as soon as I spoke them.

"You're coming with, by the way, even if we have to kidnap you."

"I... what?" I was invited? Would my parents even let me go spend time with three boys I barely knew in a house without supervision? It was different the other day, when I'd been able to claim Kacen's parents were at his house. "I don't know that my parents would be okay with that."