Rejected

Chapter 30

Tab POV

Alex was a completely different person in the arena than I was expecting. She moved with speed and precision I hadn't seen in her before today. Her form was strong and her attacks were measured. She could have easily put all three of the Deadly Triad in comas, but she displayed her control by giving them varying degrees of injuries, probably correlating with how mad she was at them.

"Remind me never to get on her bad side." Tyler joked. We all watched after her as she headed for the main entrance. "Hey, where is she going?"

"I don't know." I knew that most of the students were going to spend most of their night with the family that came to see them graduate, but Alex looked like she didn't plan on seeing us after the challenge. "ALEX!" I called trying to gain her attention and hopefully bring her over to us.

"She didn't even turn to acknowledge us..." Myles stated when Alex was out of sight.

"Maybe she's got somewhere to be?" Zack tried to explain away the hurt.

"Like where? It's not like she's got any friends here. No one knew she was attending this school." Tyler countered.

"Well, it's better than thinking she just doesn't want to see us." Zack huffed as he started walking towards the door. "Come on, if she's not going to come to us, we'll go to her." Zack, Tyler, Myles, Opal, Kole and myself all took off in the direction we saw Alex leave and tried to catch up with her. It wasn't as difficult as one might think. She hadn't gotten too far and everyone we passed seemed to be looking in her direction.

As we got closer to her Tyler picked up his pace. I watched as things seemed to slow down. Tyler came up behind Alex and put his hand on her shoulder, I'm assuming to turn her around and give her a proper greeting. Instead Alex took Tyler's hand, flipped him over her shoulder and pinned him to the ground with her knee. Then she pulled a dagger from her boot and held it to his throat. The color drained from Tyler's face and his hands went up in surrender as a growl ripped from Alex's chest.

"Whoa, Alex... Relax. It's just me." Tyler's voice was shaky and his breathing was uneven. It took almost a full minute for Alex to stop growling, then another minute for her to remove the knife from Tyler's neck.

"What do you want?" Alex's voice was cold, void of any emotion.

"Why did you run out of the arena without saying anything?" Myles asked from a few feet away, he had maneuvered Opal behind him in a protective gesture.

"I didn't run."

"Not the point... now, get off me." The color had come back to Tyler's face and when Alex did remove her knee from his chest he got up slowly. "You didn't come see us when you were done. We haven't seen you in a year and you don't seem to care. What gives?" Tyler moved back to stand with the rest of us.

"Did you need me for something?" Alex questioned with a frown as she followed Tyler with her eyes.

"We wanted to catch up. See how this past year has been for you. Find out what's new." Zack answered.

"A lot has changed in the last year. A lot that I need to deal with alone." Alex supplied as she turned and started walking away. A few steps and she paused, turning her head to face us. "I don't want you following me." then she continued. The guys and I were stumped. This was not the Alex we knew, this was someone completely different.

"I don't understand. Didn't y'all say she was nice?" Opal stated, watching Alex leave.

"She was. But something changed. That's why we wanted to chat with her, find out what happend." I scratched my head in thought. "If we can't get Alex to talk to us, the only other person we can talk to is that Deadly Triad guy. The one that's not unconscious." Turning on my heels I led our group to the infirmary where I knew all three of her "instructors" would be for observation.