Chapter Two

No Rest for the Wicked

The class droned on for some time and Michael led his two companions out into the hall, bee-lining for the cafeteria once more. His thoughts wandered as they walked and something tickled in the corner of his mind, like a half-remembered dream.

Michael stopped dead as his head split with pain and a strange tightness twitched in his wrist. He stretched his fingers curiously and watched a vein in his arm fade.

Carter and James stopped a few paces ahead, only just realising he wasn’t alongside them.

Michael clenched his hand tight again and the vein upon his wrist swelled like the sun was beating down on it, inflaming the blood and muscle. The young man was overcome with a distant feeling of being watched, as though someone unseen was standing over him. He let his gaze drift and his eyes swam in an unfocused stare, idly landing on the water-logged ceiling tiles above his two friends.

“Michael?” asked Carter, growing concern in his voice.

Michael wanted to speak but confusion swamped him and the aching roared in his ears. “I don’t think... I don’t... we shouldn’t go...”

Carter rushed over but seemed hesitant to touch him. “Sparky?”

James came too, immediately searching the young man for signs of injury.

Michael closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He let out an agonised grimace and tried to shake it off when a harrowing sound tore from away and above them.

Screams filled the hallway and students leapt backwards or halted in place as the damaged roofing caved in, showering a section of the hallway in heavy-plate tiles, the exact place where Carter and James had stood moments before. Dust plumed up in its wake and the sun shone down through the hole like a stage light.

The three of them stared in horror at the mess before coughing up several lungs of dust and dirt, and by the time Michael got his breathing under control, his headache had faded.

Teachers swarmed the scene and ushered the students away, staring up at the hole in the roof. Many of them muttered predictable things. Worries they’d had before. Angry comments about the school. Judgements of the principal and the like.

Michael had quite forgotten how ill he’d felt only a moment ago and cheekily turned to Carter. “Remind me again why you didn’t go to Harlocy High Private, like all the other nobility in Bright-side?”

Carter chuckled weakly, “The company would be dreadful,” but his easy demeanour was askew as he spared James a concerned look.

Michael caught the glance but before he could ask, James anxiously urged them out of the corridor and into the lunch hall. Open-aired with no structural damage in danger of hurting his friends, he sat them down and they eased back into the same kind of talk which had overcome everyone else.

The half-hour dragged on for some time.

Carter spotted Xavi across the way and excused himself. James draped his rough-spun backpack across his neck, trying to keep his pale skin from burning, all the while wondering what Miss Marlow would say when she found out his Script report was on Riinin church crimes.

Michael idly chewed on an apple which was more bruise than fruit, people-watching all the while. His gaze meandered freely until it touched a group sitting at the centre of the lunch hall, most of whom he only half recognised.

One boy in particular seemed to monopolise the conversation. At the end of each sentence the group broke into awkward, performative laughter.

He watched for a moment longer when he caught the rather oafish boy putting on a performance. He pretended to wake up in the middle of a class, making overly confused faces and speaking only in drawled sentences.

Michael watched him perform it once over again, simply in the interest of the stranger’s commitment when they finally noticed him staring.

When Michael didn’t break his amused stare the boy at the centre of it all pushed himself up and shouted, “What?”

The entire lunch hall fell into a confused stagger of silence.

Michael sighed. He leaned back in his chair and called out, “You haven’t quite nailed my accent but the rest is spot on.” He turned back to see James staring at the loud boy across the way. Michael noticed the dark look in his eye and jokingly muttered, “Seems rather taken with me.”

James waited for the would-be-comedian to look away and settled back down into his arms once more. “How’s Carter doing?”

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Michael glanced across the room and grinned as Carter uttered something which sent four students blushing and laughing at once, altogether exemplifying why he was called Slick. “He’s doin’ just fi-”

The world was ripped out from underneath Michael and he slammed his right knee into the stone, courtyard floor and sending a white spike of pain up his entire leg.

The oafish boy held up Michael’s chair, cackling, “I’m sorry, you wan’ this back?”

Michael flew to his feet and put both hands on James’ chest, stopping him firmly before anything else, feeling his hands rise and fall while the rest of his friend trembled in a deep and cold rage.

“It’s a’ight, I’m alright. James. Look- look at me. I’m fine,” he said, ignoring the pain in his knee as he stared his friend hard in the face.

James stared straight by Michael for a long, haunting moment before finally meeting his eyes. “Are you sure?”

Michael smiled just for him. “I’ve got this. I do.” He gently took his friend’s balled fists and eased them open to stop his fingernails cutting into his palms.

All the while the bully kept laughing. “Aw! Your bulldog upset, is he?” He cast a grin around the cafeteria to find himself very alone in his snickering.

Michael gently walked James back a half-pace and realised it was the best he would get. He turned to see the bully mediating his laughter, somewhat confused by the rest of the room’s stillness.

“You’re from Mid-side, aren’t you?” Michael asked, realising his clothing was a notch above the common garb of Dim-side students but falling far below the standards of those in Bright-side.

He nodded and scoffed, as though it were written on his forehead. “’Course. I don’t have enough diseases or debt or be from this shithole.”

Michael nodded and drove his fingers through his hair. “Look, leave us be and this can be the end of it. You go your way, I’ll go mine.”

The boy stepped a pace closer and his eyes narrowed. “What if I’m having fun?”

Michael could feel James behind him. Not physically but spiritually, the same way he imagined people felt right before a hurricane levelled a town. “What if I say please?”

His face contorted into a grin as he looked Michael over. After a moment, he held his hand out and said, “How ‘bout the apple, pauper?”

Michael sighed. The boy wanted to embarrass him, to let everyone know how big they were and how small he was. Little did he know, Michael was the only thing standing between him and a gruesome beating which surgeons would have given less than even odds on.

“All yours.” Michael picked up the half-eaten apple and dropped it into his hand. “We done?”

The bully looked over the bruised fruit and took a bite, smiling widely at him as juice dripped down his chin.

Michael swallowed against gritted teeth and his jaw ached from the length of his false smile.

The oafish boy turned and began walking back to his table when he ran straight into Carter. Carter threw a hard look at him and the oaf shoved him aside. “Watch it, Huri.”

The shove would’ve been enough, but the word was something else.

Carter’s eyes went wide as soon as he saw his hurricane of a friend. “James, don’t!”

Unfortunately, Michael also drew the line there and Carter couldn’t stop them both.

Michael ripped forward and shoved the bully hard from behind.

The boy stumbled hard but narrowly stayed on his feet. “What the-”

Michael was seething with rage and he bellowed, “You know what, you spineless, shit-heel? You best keep that troll tongue behind your crooked teeth and turn out those malformed ears of yours before I rip them off!”

Carter moved swiftly in front of Michael and James and yelled, “Enough!”

The entire cafeteria was silent as a tomb while the bully barked back, “You think you can touch me, you filthy goddamned peasant, my mother is friends with the Provincial Rep-”

Carter fronted on him, snapping his sentence in half. Carter’s eyes, usually the colour of coffee and chocolate were darker by the second. At once they seemed as black as the wood of a lightning-struck tree. Carter flexed his jewelled hands slowly as he worked the anger from his fingertips. “You are a small man. You are nothing more than that feeble fuckin’ smirk and a snicker that sounds more like dog-sex than it does a laugh. You are pathetic and insignificant and you will die knowing your greatest achievement in life was getting kicked out of all the schools in Mid-side, only to learn there is no first prize for greatest, saddest failure."

The boy stood there, pale and stunned, looking rather like he hadn’t taken a breath the entire time Carter had spoken.

Carter levelled his finger at the boy 's face. "And if I ever hear the word Huri come out of your mouth again. I'll stomp it shut." Carter turned away from the bully, straightened his rich, dark coat and said to his friends, “Come on.”

Three things happened.

The brute snapped out of his stupor and hurled the apple, glancing Carter’s ear and sending it exploding against the wall.

The other two things were Michael and James.

Michael turned on his heel and snapped him in the nose with a closed fist. James came after, driving a hook so deeply into the boy’s cheek that for weeks after, no one could decide if the sound was of a dislocated jaw or a fractured skull.

He slammed into the ground as the others from his table leapt into the scene. Shouts raised and fists rained.

Michael swore loudly as he caught a wild swing from a young woman, sending him reeling into the surrounding crowd. As he bounced back, more kids entered the fray beside him.

Carter ducked and weaved between two students, sniping quick jabs in between their movements. His cloak flourished as he used it to catch and bind away the angry swipes.

James had already sent another boy to the floor when a taller girl rounded on him. He looked at her seriously and noticed the same pattern of freckles on her face as the bully’s. He nodded to the unconscious boy. “He your brother?”

She nodded grimly.

“You agree with what he said?”

She faltered in her fighting stance.

Michael ducked the short-haired woman’s wide hook, pivoted behind her and kicked her hard in the back of the knee.

She cursed and rose again when the bully’s sister barked, “Oh shit, bail!”

The cafeteria doors were flooded with teachers pushing through the crowds.

James, Carter and Michael attempted to make their way with the exiting mob when they ran straight into Miss Heath, standing with her arms firmly crossed.