worth [naib/eli]

chapter 9

"Since when were ya so close to him?" Norton sneered, pulling William's hand off harshly and standing his ground. "Since he saved my life," William took a step forward, towering over Norton. He was half a head taller than him, but Norton didn't flinch. "Which, by the way, I found out those people were one of your goons," William growled.

It was after school, and William was walking out of the school gate when someone tackled him to the floor. He would have stood his ground but he was taken by surprise- it caused him to fall to the ground in an awkward angle, spraining his ankle. The male who was pinning William down narrowed his eyes at him, his blue eyes glinting. "What's your problem, dude?" William tried to push the male off, but the blonde just punched him in the nose, knocking him back to the floor. William groaned in pain as the male got off him and proceeded to kick his ribcage, hard.

William was pretty sure he'd die, right on the school grounds, when someone yelled-

"Hey! Stop that!"

It was Eli. He was running over, and before anyone could react he kicked the blonde male away and stood in front of William, who was gasping for breath. The blonde stood up, dusting himself off. "Tsk, another one of you getting in my way. So hard to get cash nowadays." The blonde stared at William- who had regained his composure and was trying to stand up- and walked away swiftly.

Eli held his hand out to William, who took it gratefully. "Thanks, Clark," William was beginning to stumble out of the school gate when Eli caught him. "Let the nurse patch you up before you go. And you can call me Eli." He smiled.

William didn't like to owe anyone, so he complied, returning Eli a smile of his own.

He found out who the blonde was when he saw him walking beside Norton. They were passing William's class. His name was Mike, William overheard Norton addressing him. He didn't catch anything else, other than "Naib" and "keep" and "Clark". It didn't bother him at that moment since Norton was the good guy, star captain that practically everyone looked up to. Even though the blonde had beef with William, Norton couldn't be up to anything, right? Plus, whatever they were talking about involved Naib, who had a terrible background. It seemed fake, but there was evidence to back all the rumors up.

William didn't know why Eli didn't believe it, or why he even bothered to make friends with Subedar.

Eli also had taken a disliking to Norton, who was pretty much harmless. William was confused, and the only explanation Eli ever gave was that "his gut tells him something's up with Campbell". William quickly got used to Eli's random "Campbell's up to something" rants, and after Naib joined them for lunch he stopped talking about it, which William was glad for.

It was a shock to William when he found out- Eli was right.

Norton had a few people who "worked" under him, going around to target people to beat them up and steal from them. Norton didn't know Mike had gone for William, or that William found out about Norton's little "gang". William made sure Norton didn't find out that he knew, either. Whenever they trained together, William acted as usual. Norton didn't suspect a thing. But all of it has probably been revealed due to this little incident.