𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞

𝟏𝟔

OMG!! THANK YOU GUYS FOR 850 READS! that is absolutely insane. i love you all.

***

"Run," Jayden whispered as he quickly slipped his hand into mine and began tugging me in the opposite direction, breaking into a run. I turned my head to find the rest of our group running after us, as well as the burly security guard and his pounding steps as he ran after us.

"Hey! Stop them!" He yelled at bystanders as they watched our group run past them. We probably looked crazy, to be honest. We were all beat up in some sort of way, and there are a lot of us, eight to be exact.

I turned my head again to gauge how much faster we needed to run to outrun the security guard. I found that he looked as though he was starting to run out of breath. His strides were sloppy and he was panting very heavily.

"I'd say give him another minute or so before he stops," I panted out to Jayden. "We need to find somewhere we can hide for now."

"Agreed. Follow me, I know somewhere we can go," he said to me. He wasn't even panting. He must be used to running because this much running is inhuman.

Jayden's grip on my hand tightened as he pulled me sharply to the left and down a familiar hallway. It was then that I noticed our surroundings. We were on the fifth floor and were passing the elevators near the rooms. We shortly arrived at a set of automatic sliding doors that led to the more deserted side deck. Josie had taken me out here just last night. We all stopped running, knocking into each other slightly as we all stood flat against the wall a couple feet from the door, so it looks almost like we disappeared.

We could hear the security guard's thumping footsteps come to a halt as he realized he had lost us. Though the doors were closed, his voice was still audible, though muffled.

"Damn it, I lost them," he almost mumbled to himself. He then spoke into what sounded like the crackling of a walkie-talkie, "I got 7 or 8 kids fleeing from a fight scene. Pretty brutal if you ask me, the other guy was on the ground. Kids look pretty beaten up so stay on the lookout." The walkie-talkie then clicked off as we heard his footsteps retreat.

We all let out a breath we didn't know we were holding.

"Holy shit, that was a close one," Jayden said with an airy laugh.

"No shit," I laughed with him. Not for long though as I remembered just how badly my nose hurt and how intensely it was still bleeding. I reached my hand up and cupped my nose, "ouch."

Jayden looked over at me with remorse written all over his face, "I am so sorry, Blondie. You know I would never do that on purpose. It was a complete fluke. I can't believe it even happened. Let me make it up to you."

I reached over with my non-bloody hand and touched his arm, "Jayden, I told you, it's fine. I'm fine. There's no need to make it up to me. The whole reason you got in that fight was because of me anyway."

"No, it wasn't. It was that asshole's fault, not yours," Jayden told me sincerely.

I merely smiled at him with a wince from the pain of moving my nose too much.

"Let's take a look at that nose shall we?" Jayden said as he ushered me to one of the chairs against the wall and crouched in front of me. "Can someone go get her some tissues or something? There should be a bathroom around the corner, just watch out for security guards," Jayden said cautiously.

"I'll go," Charlie said as he walked over to the doors and peeked out before walking cautiously to the bathroom.

"Okay Blondie, you're gonna need to take your hand away so I can see how bad it is," Jayden said as he put his hand on my knee. The action sent butterflies roaring in my stomach, but I ignored them at the idea that Jayden was asking me to show him my bloody ass nose.