Section 22 by Scott Kira

Author:Scott, Kira [Scott, Kira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Star Printing
Published: 2021-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Les is waiting outside my house Friday morning when Ely and I leave for school. He looks pretty comparable to the last time I saw him, except in the daylight I can see a black-and-white tattoo of a lit torch on the side of his neck, and his shirtsleeves aren’t rolled up to his shoulders today. He still looks scary.

“Nice to see you again, Heaven,” he says with an easy smile.

“Don’t,” Ely practically growls.

Les rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t antagonize Ely further. “You need to stay away from the underground for a while,” he tells Ely.

“Ryan?” Ely asks.

Les chuckles. “Higher up than Ryan. You’re in real trouble this time, James. That warning is coming from the top.”

“Shit,” Ely mutters under his breath.

“The top?” I ask.

“The underground of Moonshadow is run by a single person, believe it or not,” Les tells me. “And that person has strictly forbidden Ely from showing up to any parties for the immediate future.”

“For how long?” Ely asks.

“I’d give it a month,” Les answers.

“What?” Ely snaps. “I thought you were covering for me.”

Les laughs again. “I did, asshole. I can’t work miracles. Just stay away for a little while until everything goes back to normal.”

“You suck, Culler,” Ely says.

“Too bad for you—you need me.” Les grins. “I’ll see you two later, I’m sure. Keep him out of trouble, Heaven.” He nods to me, dark curls falling over his forehead, and then jogs off.

“He’s not bad when he’s not trying to scare the crap out of me.”

Ely snorts. “There are worse people in this town, I guess.”

“Tell me the truth,” I say, stepping in front of Ely. “Are you in real trouble?”

“Not as of now.”

“But you could be later?”

“It only takes a second to get into trouble, Heaven. It’s staying out of it that’s difficult.” He takes my hand and squeezes lightly.

I can’t say I’m exactly reassured, but at least it doesn’t sound like we’re going to get jumped on the way to school.

The morning goes by in a blur of lessons. I guess Ely’s whole persistence plan worked since over the course of the week, our teachers have slowly given up and Ely and I have been successfully sitting together. Because I’m a generally pessimistic person, I don’t trust this new development. I haven’t figured out why they didn’t just expel us, and I don’t like that question hanging over our heads. Ely, on the other hand, doesn’t seem worried in the slightest.

By lunchtime, I’ve almost forgotten about our visit from Les this morning.

“You really are incapable of keeping your mouth shut in class, aren’t you?” Ely teases me as we head for our usual table.

“You know, if you’re going to sit with me, you could stop me from raising my hand when I really shouldn’t get involved in the conversation.”

“But I like hearing what you have to say.”

“You’re the only one,” I mutter, sitting down and pulling a book from my bag—a boring textbook, not a fun one.

“Do you happen to know what I did to piss off the glaring redhead?” Ely asks before I can start reading him anything.

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