Chapter 6

"Okay guys, welcome to the third Y.A.K.S. meeting of the year!" Callum said, laying out a couple boxes of Girl Scout cookies on a desk. "Help yourselves to a couple cookies."

"So what exactly do we do here?" I asked, raising my hand cautiously. "This is literally my second meeting, so I have no idea."

"Not true!" Callum argued. "That thing on Sunday was a meeting."

"As for what we do, we kidnap people." Trayvon said dryly.

Becky hit Trayvon's arm lightly. "Oh shush. Mr. Herbstreit helps us control our powers better. Usually, we hang out in here, get acquainted, then we head up to the roof for training."

"Oh." I said, rubbing my hands together nervously.

"Perhaps Anneliese should just watch for today." Edward suggested. "We don't want what happened on Sunday to happen again."

"What happened on Sunday?" Mr. Herbstreit asked cautiously.

"Based on what was recorded, Anneliese had some sort of power surge while she and Edward were fighting. In short, we threw Anneliese into a fight with Edward, Edward slapped off her glasses, and she had a panicked power surge until she passed out." Keisha explained, pulling up a video I had no idea she recorded and showed it to Mr. Herbstreit.

"When did you record that?" I asked, giving the video a perplexed look. "I don't remember the laptop facing me..."

"My power is communicating with different forms of technology." Keisha explained, taking her glasses off of her face to reveal a slight blue hue to the glass inside. "These glasses refract blue light since most of what I do is stare at screens all day. Basically, I connected with my laptop, and my laptop recorded what I saw."

"Nifty."

"You really bit the dust there, didn't ya?" Mr. Herbstreit said, smirking at me.

I felt something boil inside of me, like I was about to punch Mr. Herbstreit and his smug face. I could almost picture how easy it would be, imagining electricity forming in my hands and shocking him to the ground. Edward came up behind me and gently out his hand on my shoulder. "Calm down."

I took a deep breath, feeling the anger lessen. "Fine. Whatever."

"On that note, I think it's safety head up to the roof." Callum said, opening the classroom door as we all filed out. We silently walked out of the classroom. I held up the rear, Edward standing in front of me. Once we passed a hallway, I saw a girl with tan glasses, mousey brown hair, and shiny braces arguing with a group of kids much taller than her. She was very curvy, from her pear shaped body to her wide hips, but I always thought that curvier girls were cuter than skinny girls like me. They stand out a bit more. She looked like she was in trouble.

I slowly started breaking away from the group as Edward turned around, giving me a concerned look. "What are you doing?"

"I... I realized that I forgot one of my school books."

"But we're going to go-"

"I'm gonna be observing anyway. Not like I'll be missing much. I'll meet you guys up there." I said, quickly turning away as I walked down the hallway, once Edward and the others were gone, I quickly stood at the entrance to the hallway with the girl arguing with the other kids. I think she's from my math class, but I can't remember her name for the life of me.

"Come on, Evans. People would actually like you if you weren't so..." One of the girls said, tossing her long black hair over her shoulder.

"So what Jill?" The girl with glasses asked, clutching what looked like a science project tightly to her chest.

"Fucking weird."

"Like seriously. What even is this?" A somewhat familiar voice asked. I looked over and saw Zelena snatch the project out of the Glasses Girl's hands.

"Stop! That's something I'm helping my moms with!" Glasses Girl argued, trying to snatch it back.

"Like maybe you'd be popular if you actually tried to put an effort into your appearance." The girl next to Zelena argued, toying with her bright red hair.

"I'm fine not being popular." Glasses Girl argued.

I was getting tired of this. I came out of my hiding place, walking next to Glasses Girl as Zelena's eyes got wide. "Anna?"

"What exactly is going on here?" I asked, crossing my arms as I glared at the three girls in front of me.

"We're just having a friendly conversation." The red haired girl said, blowing a bubble into her chewing gum that I didn't notice she had.

"Really, because calling someone weird and taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission doesn't look like a friendly conversation to me." I said, zeroing in my gaze on Zelena. "Honestly, Z, I thought that you were better than this."

"Why are you getting so high and mighty? You were like this too back in the day." Zelena said, glaring at me angrily. As much as I didn't like her bringing this up, she, sadly, was right. Zelena and I were the mean girls back at school. Nobody wanted to get on our bad side. We were bullies. Once Zelena moved away, though, I realized that how I acted wasn't right. I guess I was so desperate to keep Zelena as a friend that I went along with whatever she said since I've never been good at making friends. I only had one other friend back home, and even then we were just acquaintances. I guess that I expected that Zelena would've grown out of this too. Guess I was just fooling myself.

"Well after you moved away, I realized that this was stupid and petty behavior. Now give her back her model." I said, glaring at the other black haired girl.

She smirked, purposely dropping the model at her feet as many pieces shattered at our feet. "Sorry..."

"Let's go guys." Zelena said, glaring at me as the trio walked down the hall and turned the corner.

The black haired girl paused for a second, looking over at Glasses Girl almost mournfully. Zelena called for her, causing the black haired girl to run down the hall.

Once they were gone, Glasses Girl ran out from behind me as we both crouched down to pick up the shattered remains of her model. I awkwardly smiled at her. "I'm sorry about your model."

"No, it's fine." She said, pushing up her glasses and giving me a smile of braces. "I was worried that they were never gonna give it back!"

"But it's broken."

"Yeah. Broken, but not unfixable." She looked up, laughing nervously. "You're in my math class right... Annabelle?"

"Anneliese."

"Oh my God, I am so sorry!" The girl apologized. "I don't usually get names wrong."

"No, it's fine. I'm kinda new here, so I don't really expect a lot of people to remember my name." I said, pushing my glasses up.

"I'm Erika, by the way." Glasses Girl said, biting her lip nervously. "Erika Evans. Your parents didn't happen to name you after-"

"Princess Anneliese from Barbie's The Princess and the Pauper? You bet." I said, laughing as we both stood up. I set the pieces that were broken on top of her model. "Same story for you?"

"Yeah..."

"So what is this thing anyway?"

"Um... My moms are both on the board of directors at the Treatorian Collective, and they're trying to get a statue erected at Central City Park with all of the board members."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. Let's just say that it's not easy being the daughter of Lava Rock and Superstretch." Erika said, laughing a bit, giving me a confused look. "So... Zacharias said that you used to be like them. If that's true, then why did you help me? There has to be some kind of ulterior motive here, right?"

"You mean I can't just help you because it's the right thing to do?"

"That's really why you helped me?"

"Yeah. It was the right thing to do."

"Well... Thank you."

"No problem." I said, walking down the hallway with her as we got to one of the staircases.

"Promise that you won't ignore me in math? I... I'm usually the target of bullying, so I don't really have any friends."

"Why don't you tell your parents?"

"Well, one mom insists that I fight my own battles, and my other mom says that if things get too out of hand, then she's gonna step in." Erika explained. "Just... Don't ice me out completely, okay?"

"I wasn't planning on icing you out at all." I said honestly, taking out a piece of paper and sloppily writing my cell number on it as I placed it on top of Erika's broken model. "I don't really have a lot of friends here either. I think that maybe, just maybe, we could both use a friend."

Erika's face lit up as she turned around and pushed the back door. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Can I text you later?"

I rolled my eyes, laughing a bit. "That's why I gave you my number, silly!"

"I'll talk to you later then, okay?"

"Talk to you later."

"Bye." Erika quickly exited the building, running to a black van as the door opened up and she sat down in the van, waving as it drove away.

As I started walking away, Zelena cornered me in the hallway, blocking both of my exits with her arms. "What the hell was that for, Anna?"

"What are you talking about, Zelena?" I asked angrily, trying to duck under Zelena's arm. She quickly moved her arm down to block my exit again. I noticed that the two girls she was with weren't near her. "Where are your little goons at?"

"Gretchen and Jill had to go home. Why the hell were you defending Evans?"

"What'd she ever do to you?"

"That's not the question."

"Oh, I think it is. I know that I also used to be a bully, but come on, Zelena. Erika's a nice person. From what I've seen, she doesn't deserve this!"

"Neither did most of our victims back home." Zelena said, glaring at me angrily. "Why are you being so judgemental? You should be joining us!"

"Joining you? No way! I may have been a bully back then, but I'm a different person now. Maybe you're the one who needs to question who she associates with." I argued back, feeling that there was some other meaning to her words, but pushed the thought out of my mind.

"Excuse me," A voice said. I turned in the direction of the voice and saw Edward walk towards us, an angry expression on his face. Once he was closer to us, Zelena quickly put her arms down. Edward looked between us, a hard expression on his face. "Is there a problem here, ladies?"

"No, of course not." Zelena said, quickly separating from me. She glared at me hard. It was hard to believe that there used to be a time we used to be friends, especially with how she was acting now. "Just be careful, Anna. Any choice you make could land you in the middle of the crossfires."

"You be careful too." I said, crossing my arms as Zelena walked away. "You never know who your true friends are until someone stabs you in the back."

As soon as Zelena was gone, Edward crossed his arms angrily. "You went to get your textbooks, huh?"

"Oh shut up. I don't need any judgement from you on top of everything else that's going on right now."

"... Why?"

"Because I basically just put a target on my back for helping someone that my ex best friend and her new friends were bullying."

"I heard her mention something about you being a bully?"

"I wasn't a good person, I admit that."

"So what-"

"Last year, back when Zelena and I were friends, I... I called one of my classmates a hoe because she got pregnant and didn't remember who the father is. We did worse things than that, but that’s just one small example. I'm not proud of it, but... I was scared that Zelena would leave me because I wasn't like her. When she left, it was months after... Whatever happened to me that spawned my powers and I didn't want to draw attention to myself." I bitterly laughed, shaking my head as Edward led me up to the roof. "I guess this is the universe getting back at me, huh?"

"You may have been a bad person then, but at least you're trying to be better." Edward said, his face softening slightly. I didn't realize until then that he was glaring at me. "All a person can do is try, Anneliese. That's all a person can do."

"You mean you aren't angry that I lied to you?"

"Oh, I'm angry, but I understand why." Edward said, smiling a bit. "Don't beat yourself up over it, okay? Everything is gonna get better. Let's just go up for training, okay? Everyone's getting worried."

"Right." I said, trying to push my encounter with Erika out of my mind.

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