I'll Protect You (Original Version)

CSI: Investigation--Paradise Coffee's Special Edition

"You didn't have to rip her paper," Cross snapped at me for the 2,395,0123 time. It was the end of school (a.k.a the beginning of happiness), and while I waited for Alec, Zen, and Minnie to figure out how to use a locker, I stood with Cross. Sophia had recently bid him goodbye, hugging him like a bear would hug a human that took its food while giving me this nasty look over his shoulder.

I waved my fingers, replying with a mocking wave as her smug smile turned into a ferocious scowl. It also made her walk away quicker, which ended the school day in a pretty good mood.

"She said she had two editions of that magazine," I shrugged.

"That doesn't mean you can rip it and drop it in soup. Sophia loves her magazines, Park. It was mean of you to do that to her," he reprimanded me, sounding like my mother whenever she lectured me on bullying Vincent.

Logan Cross sounded like my mother.

I laughed at that thought and he gave me a foul look, his golden eyes burning with irritation. I reached up and patted his head, deepening the scowl. Oh, how I missed angering the King of Cross Academy. That action completed me like peanut butter completed jelly.

Logan's phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of the khakis that he now wore. Uniform policy had previously consisted of a white dress shirt, a deep scarlet tie with dark blue jeans and the blue blazer complete with the Cross Academy insignia sewed onto the side (a golden dragon with wings spread out, complete with a glossy black C centered in the middle).

The uniform was the same for girls--dark blue skirts and all. But the boys now wore khakis. Logan hated khakis.

"Are you going to Paradise Coffee's today?" Logan inquired, tucking away his phone. Instead of utter depression at the thought of sitting by himself in a crowded coffee shop, there was a light glimmering in his eyes, a joyfulness that hadn't been there before now clearly shining out from him.

"Do you have somewhere you need to be?" I instantly guessed. I knew the exact look of hope when your expectance at an event is no longer needed and you were free from attending. Seriously, I get those looks all the time whenever my mother told Jasper and I that the dinner parties were cancelled.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, we both fell on our knees, and cried, "Hallelujah!" to the ceiling of our mother's bedroom. It would've been more effective if she painted a sky with golden clouds and tiny cherubs flying around.

Logan suddenly flushed, distracting my thoughts from the silly tihngs I did with my brother a couple of years back. Logan James Cross, blushing? In public? Well, this was unheard of!

"You're blushing!' I cried loudly, poking his cheek, proceeding to deepen his slight pink blemish on his cheeks.

"Shut up!" he growled, batting my hands away. "I am not blushing!"

I whipped out my phone faster than lightning could strike metal and before Logan could stop me, I snapped a picture of him, pink cheeks and all. His golden eyes, looking stricken with fury and total surprise at the same time.

Logan lunged for my phone, but having the same agent reflexes that he had, I pulled it back just in the nick of time, so that his hand grabbed nothing but air. For a slight second, another spasm of shock flickered across his face.

I never told Logan officially that I had trained myself (accompanied with Archer's limited years of help) to be just like an XYZ agent. Actually, I had pushed myself into Archer's and Six' league--The Order of the Dragons. Naturally, he was surprised that a princess had beaten him in speed. But shouldn't he have figured it out that I wasn't completely normal from that little rescue mission I took back at Cimeria?