Stay by my Side

Stay by my Side - Chapter Twenty-Four

For a moment, time just seemed to stop. Lila slowly turned her head to face Adrien, and for the very first time, Adrien saw her true self. Her angry glare shot straight into Adrien's soul, and he felt himself shiver in slight intimidation. But intimidation wouldn't keep him from the truth.

Distracted slightly from wanting Lila to stop staring at him, Adrien quickly tipped everything out of his bag in order to access his video camera faster. Leaving the items all over the floor, he picked up the camera and turned it on, showing it so everyone could see.

"What is this? It's illegal to record other people without their permission!" Lila said to him, before turning to the principle. "Make Adrien turn it off!"

The principle turned to Adrien, mouth open and ready to speak, but Adrien cut him off. "Father told me to do this - so feel free to discuss it with him." His voice was cold, and he tried to make the same expression as his father did when he dealt with annoying media questions. It seemed to do the trick, as the principle backed down, and - against Lila's frantic complaints - the video played.

They watched silently, as Lila crept into the locker room - very obviously glancing around as she moved, probably making sure no one else was there - and headed for Marinette's locker. She struggled opening it for a while, but eventually took out a thin but strong pencil, and forced it into the locker and downwards, pushing against the lock and eventually opening the locker door.

Once the door was open she put back her pencil, as the doors lock automatically when they're properly shut, and swung her hair away from her shoulders and chest, her necklace dangling from her neck. She quickly removed it, and carefully placed it into the locker, slightly shifting it so it'd shine in the light, making it quite noticeable to anyone who would next open the locker.

Once making sure the necklace was positioned perfectly - the principle, teacher and Marinette recognising it as the position they found the necklace in - she shut the locker closed, and quickly walked away, doing a small glance around the corners to make sure no one spotted her, before skipping off and out of sight of the camera.

Adrien stepped forward and turned off the camera. Once the camera was turned off, Adrien picked it up, and walked a safe distance away, slightly wary of Lila attacking him. The room fell into a long silence before the Principal interrupted.

"Marinette, Mr and Mrs Dupain-Cheng. Adrien. Please step outside for a moment."

Adrien and Marinette's parents nodded, and went to leave the room, but Marinette didn't move.

"M - Marinette?" Adrien asked, turning around to glance at her, confused. He noticed how stiff she was. "Marinette, we did it. Lila isn't able to disprove what's in the video camera. You clearly didn't take anything. Please leave the room with me. Are you okay?"

He followed her line of sight, down towards his spilled items. "Oh! Right, I should grab these now." He quickly darted to the ground and began grabbing his items, and placing them into his bag, Marinette's parents immediately jumped in to help. Marinette however, just slowly moved towards the ground and picked up one item, holding it securely in her hand, staring at it.

"M - Marinette?" Adrien asked, glancing back at her again.

As he did so, he quickly realised what she was holding.

His Chat Noir cell phone.

... shit.

---TimeSkip---

"Why did you call me here?" Lila's mother asked the Principal, sitting down calmly next to her frantic and scared daughter.

"He - umm... A - Adrien tricked them! Marinette pretended to be me, and made Adrien record it. They stole my necklace and made it seem like I framed Marinette when actually they teamed up, stole my necklace, and are both trying to get me into trouble!" Lila frantically came up with on the spot, waving her arms around in desperation.

The Principal frowned. "That's enough Lila. Anyway Ms, your daughter lied and tried to get Marinette into trouble. We saw the camera, and the evidence is damming. Lila wanted Marinette to get into trouble, so she pretended Marinette stole her necklace. In addition, Adrien has told me that Lila has been bullying Marinette both verbally and physically, which a glance at our hallway cameras should be able to prove."

"C - Cameras?" Lila muttered, her face growing even whiter. Her mother frowned at Lila's reaction, starting to believe the Principal.

"Alright, so what's your intended punishment?" She asked.

"We can't really expel her, as there aren't many other schools she could go to around here. However, we'll be notifying all the teachers about this, and she'll be having after school detention for the next month. Technically nothing was stolen, so we can't punish that part. We'll be doing our best to keep Lila and Marinette as separated as possible."

He frowned, and his eyes grew cold, as he stared at Lila. Lila flinched but remained calm as he continued to speak. "However... if we catch Lila bullying Marinette again, then she will be expelled - I don't care how difficult going to another school would be for you both." His eyes sharpened as he continued to stare at Lila. "This is your only warning."

Lila felt beads of sweat run down her head and slowly nodded.

"O - Okay."

Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Sorry for not updating yesterday, I had work (I have a part time job) and I struggle to update on days I'm working. I hope I haven't annoyed any of you with the delayed update...

Sooooo... Marinette recognises the phone! I wonder if she'll figure it out? I guess we'll seeeeeee

The story is almost over! Only a few chapters left! Thank you all for supporting the story, it means a lot to me.

But for now...

Peachy out! 😊