66Chapter Three
("Very nice," Stiner said, his voice suddenly behind Zach. "I almost didn't see you do it.")
Zach froze, but didn't turn around. Maybe Stiner's voice was just a figment of his imagination- Hands turned him around forcibly, and Zach admitted, as he stared up into blue eyes, that that was a pretty distant hope now.
"Um," he said, trying not to shiver under the unamused look Stiner was sending him, and the way people were already beginning to back away, muttering things about 'Stiner' and 'unhappy'. He remembered himself, and tried to look bewildered. "Do what?"
Stiner's expression said very clearly I'm not even going to bother answering that, and Zach wished he could sink into the floor. What had he done to get this attention? He could see Hidden skulking in a corner, watching them in an unsubtle fashion, and only barely managed to restrain a twitch. Wasn't Hidden the one always telling him to avoid Stiner?
Okay. So. Rule number one of Being Zach, involved what to do when faced with someone you didn't want to see – run away, very quickly, as soon as there's a distraction. There was no distraction. This could be a problem.
"I told you to wait for me after Games," Stiner said, and there was a chill in his voice. Zach squirmed.
"Wasn't my fault," he said quickly. He was a coward; no way in hell he was going to take the blame for something that wasn't even entirely his own fault. It was all Hidden's fault, really.
"I see," Stiner said, but his eyes were half narrowed. He paused, and then cocked his head to one side. "You interest me, West. You'd like to pretend-"
"STINER!" a voice bellowed, and Zach took the opportunity to run when Stiner twisted his head to look at a man stalking into the lunchroom with a sheepish looking panther dangling in the air in front of him. "You're dead, Stiner!" the man howled. "Your familiar destroyed my collection of shiny stuff! I spent years gathering them!"
"Mr. Darkmoon," Stiner began, his voice clearly unimpressed-
Zach slipped out of the room, and turned to look at Hidden who materialised beside him as if by magic. On second thoughts, it probably was magic, but Zach ignored that in favour of glancing over his shoulder in paranoia.
"Dude," Hidden said, his eyes wide from beneath his hood. "How did you manage to get Stiner pissed off at you so quickly? That takes some serious talent, man."
"It's not my fault," Zach whined, for the second time in about five minutes. "He's stalking me or something." And that was a damn scary thought. What if Stiner could do the same weird materialising-y thing that Hidden could do? Zach would be doomed. He would be followed around by an eerie guy with a panther, for no particular reason, and they would materialise behind him whenever he thought he was safe, but he would never be safe, and-
"Dude, you might want to breathe," Hidden said, peering closer at Zach who was near hyperventilation. "I don't think that's healthy."
Zach flipped him off.
"Yo, yo," Hidden said, as if something had just occurred to him. "The sign-up form for the Trials is up. I put both our names down." He looked proud of himself, as Zach stared, aghast.
("Normally around a thousand try out, and about a hundred of them die. Maybe more. Last year, half of the people who entered died." )
"You did what?" he asked, his voice carefully calm.
"Signed both of us up, dude. There's a no backing out contract clause too, so no worries about having second thoughts or anything."
That was it. Everyone was out to kill him. He was going to die a long, painful, miserable, agonising death. In pain. And misery. And agony.
The bell began to ring to the tune of 'I just died in your arms' and Zach swore at the air before stalking off to brood in his next lesson in a decidedly emo fashion, ignoring Hidden's bewildered look.
"Jason Finn, I thought you said you wouldn't cause any trouble," a voice scolded gently from inside the room. Zach poked his head inside his next classroom, not certain he was in the right place as he saw the five foot something girl, with curly blonde hair and wide blue eyes looking up reproachfully at a cowering six foot tall teenager – her cowering brother who just happened to be Finn, 'who you should try to avoid if possible' according to Hidden.
"'m sorry," Finn whimpered. "Kitty, please-"
"Jason-" the girl – Kitty, Zach assumed – began and then stopped as she noticed Zach. "Sorry," she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Zach eyed her warily. It seemed distinctly like his 'cute and innocent' act. "Was there something you wanted?"
Zach's eyes darted over to where Finn was stood, somehow trying to look imposing for Zach and docile for the girl – at the same time. Unsurprisingly, it failed.
"Yeah," he began slowly. "Is this War 1?"
"Oh no," Kitty fluted at him. "That's next door. Jason can show you; he's going there now. I just need to wait for some friends."
"Ah." Zach said, looking awkward. "Thanks." He smiled sweetly at her for a second and her eyes narrowed at him, her mouth pursing before returning the innocent look. Zach twitched. She was trying to out-cute him. This would not be allowed-
Wait a second. Wasn't he always complaining about looking cute? Something was wrong about this situation. He half-turned to where Finn was shuffling indiscreetly towards the classroom exit and half-grinned at him.
"Lead the way, captain," he said with a faint hint of mockery in his voice, and Finn glared.
"Make sure you look after Zach, Jason. I'm sure you'll be best of friends," Kitty said, and Zach paused.
"I didn't tell you my name-" he said, and Finn shoved him out of the door.
"We are going to War 1," Finn informed Zach as soon as the door closed, all hints of repentance vanishing at once. "You are going to sit next to me, so she doesn't. You are then going to shut up and not say anything unless I speak to you first. We are going to be best friends as soon as she walks in the room. You are not going to tell anyone about this. You are not going to tell her about this. You are going to then hang out with me whenever I tell you to out of class. Do you understand?"
"What happens if I say no?" Zach asked curiously. Finn smiled unpleasantly.
"I happen to be quite an accomplished blood mage. Do you know what it feels like to have all your blood slowly start to boil?"
"Noooo," Zach said slowly.
"Do you want to?" Finn asked.
"Oh look, there's the teacher," Zach said, watching as a grumbling Darkmoon stalked to the classroom they were heading to, without Stiner's panther.
They looked at each other, before Finn grabbed Zach's arm and began to manhandle him into the classroom. Zach whimpered – it was the same arm Stiner had seized earlier. Someone didn't like him having use of his arm, obviously.
"Oh no," Darkmoon snarled. "There will be no fun in this lesson. Fun is henceforth banned. There will never be fun again. When there was fun, some bastard Yob decided to destroy my collection of shiny stuff with his pathetic excuse for a panther. Instead, there will be work-"
Someone in the second row began to flip a coin deliberately up and down. Darkmoon paused in his rant, his eyes glued to the coin compulsively, swallowing. "There will be work," he repeated slowly. "When- When-"
Finn was smirking from his place next to Zach. "Wait for it," he said gleefully.
"Am I allowed to talk now?" Zach asked, in between flipping a page in his text book.
"No. Shut up," Finn said, before his eyes flicked over to where Kitty was sitting, chattering happily with a boy who went by Gill.
"When-" Darkmoon said again. "That coin is hereby confiscated. Give!"
The boy lobbed the coin forward, and everyone watched as Darkmoon lunged for it. He caught it and began to stroke it, nearly purring. "My precioussss," he whispered. "Precioussss shiny..."
"I think I'm officially disturbed," Zach commented.
"Don't be. Darkmoon's always like this – that's why I've been in War 1 for the past three years." Finn paused. "And shut up."
Zach hummed and went back to reading. The use of elemental language within spells tends to augment the destructive potential behind the caster. A fire spell cast in languagedefire can make the blaze up to ten times stronger. The basic fire spell 'fireone' can be altered to 'onedefire'…
He paused, flicked his fingers and muttered "Onedefire" under his breath. His desk exploded in a blaze of fire, and Zach yelped, diving behind Finn as burning wood shot out in all directions. No one seemed to notice, except for the one girl who got hit in the back of the head and sprawled out unconscious, and Finn who sent a dark glower in Zach's direction. Darkmoon didn't even pause in his admiration of his precious as he waved a hand and the desk reformed, with a few extra scorch marks in place.
"Shut up," Finn said after a pause, and Zach looked confused.
"I didn't say-" he protested, coming out from where he'd been hiding behind Finn.
"I don't care. Shut up."
"Stiner!" Finn called in a surprised tone of voice. Zach squeaked almost inaudibly as Finn continued. "I thought you were meant to be in Intell – you ditching already?"
"I've been trying to talk to someone," Stiner said, a pleasant smile on his face looking so out of place that Zach was already shrinking back into the wall. "Unfortunately, they keep on trying to slip away from me." His voice turned cold. "It's not putting me in a good mood."
"Who'd be stupid enough to do that to you?" Finn asked incredulously, a smirk working its way onto his face. "You need me to track 'em down for you? 'Cause I wouldn't mind... working out some aggression."
"No need," Stiner said, the smile still in place as he fixed his eyes on Zach. "He's standing right there."
"I was... just going," Zach said quickly. "I'd hate to intrude on your bonding time. Bye-"
Stiner moved in closer, trapping Zach between him and the wall, and Zach whimpered. It was like a bad movie, with the villain getting ready to ravish the heroine – wait, he did not just think that, did he? This place was doing something to his mind, and there wasn't much more time to dwell on this as Stiner turned his head towards Finn.
"You can go now," he said in clear dismissal, and Finn didn't even hesitate in leaving. Bastard, Zach thought bitterly. He'd get vengeance against him somehow.
"That's twice you've run away from me, West," Stiner said softly, leaning in slightly until Zach could have sworn he felt the words being breathed down at him.
"Sorry?" he said, shivering slightly.
"You won't get off that easily," Stiner murmured. "I'd hate to see my reputation slide over something like this after all."
"I could just not tell anyone," Zach said hopefully, before wilting at the look in Stiner's eyes. He tried a different tact. "Um, I'm going to be late for my next lesson."
"I don't care," Stiner said, and Zach nodded. That was pretty much the response he expected. He kept silent, expecting Stiner to continue, but the other seemed willing to stay in place, dark blue eyes studying Zach thoroughly.
"Staring at my clothes isn't going to make them disappear," Zach said, before his mind could keep his tongue curbed.
Stiner didn't seem overly bothered though, giving him a lazy smile. "Shame that," he said, and Zach tensed. He hadn't actually expected-
"Don't worry, West," Stiner said, wrapping a hand around Zach's wrists, lodging him in place. "I like my partners willing."
"Oh. Good," Zach said. "Can you let go then, please?"
Stiner ignored him. "Why," he said, his voice thoughtful, "Would you want to become a ninja? That's something I don't understand. You look like you're good at avoiding attention, and then you hang around with someone as flamboyant as Hidden. It's as if you want to fuck with people's heads."
"He threatened me with a knife," Zach said.
"I'm going to pretend you didn't insult my intelligence with that pathetic excuse," Stiner said dryly. "They may call me a yob, but I'm not stupid."
But it's true, Zach wanted to whine.
"Thing is, West, I don't like mysteries. Especially not when they might interfere with my business."
"I'm just here because my dad was pissed about me poisoning his cat, alright?" Zach snapped. "I'm not here to 'fuck with people's head' or whatever. I'm a ninja 'cause Hidden made me-"
"-And you killed the Healer?"
"Peer pressure," he said, pouting unconsciously.
Stiner didn't look convinced.
"What do you want?" Zach said in exasperation. "I'd kind of like to get to Stealth, 'cause the teachers here seem psycho enough to kill you if you're late."
"Stealth one?" Stiner said. "How convenient. That's exactly where I'm going."
Zach swallowed. "Oh," he said in a falsely cheerful tone. "Great."
Stiner still didn't let go of Zach's wrist as they headed towards the Stealth tower. He probably suspected that Zach would bolt if given the chance.
He was right.
"And why are you late to my lesson, Daniel?" Ms. MacKenzie inquired with a sickly sweet smile.
"Sorry," Stiner intoned, not sounding at all sorry. "West and I were having wild sex in a corridor."
There was a pause, as Zach tried not to gape too obviously. Ms. MacKenzie pursed her lips. "While the fact that you're holding hands does add to your story-"
"-he's holding onto my wrist so I can't run," Zach muttered.
"I don't think West is quite out of breath enough for your story of intimacy. I require proof," she sniffed.
"Uh," Zach said, but Stiner was pulling him closer, tugging his head up – and Zach tried to pull away. This was not happening. Stiner sent him a wicked smirk, altering his grip so one hand looped around Zach's back, pulling him closer.
"Why so resistant?" he whispered against Zach's lips. "This is just getting us out being late." Zach could feel his smirk, even before Stiner closed the final few millimetres, pressing the entire length of their bodies together. Zach tensed up as teeth tugged gently at his bottom lip, not sure what to do – to respond or-
"Is that enough proof, Ms. MacKenzie?" Stiner asked, pulling away, and sounding bored. Zach tried to regain his breath and stop his flush, only now noticing the other students, who were watching with general amusement.
"I suppose so," she said reluctantly. "You can sit down – but I expect tongue next time."