AMBER EYES (rewrite)

03 | pay your way

I'M FROZEN. A chill goes down my spine as my eyes move to my left, the guy now a bit visible to me from my peripheral vision. I'm debating whether I should bite his hand or not when he quietly opens a door and drags me with him, taking his hands off my face as he closes the door. It's dark in here but I can see the outline of him as he puts a finger on his lips, gesturing to me to keep quiet.

I hear Asher say something outside. I can't figure out what it is but I do hear his footsteps fade away in a minute, my heart hammering against my chest.

I let out a sigh. I can't mess things like these up if I'm going to do it alone. No one is here to save me. I don't even know where this guy came from.

"Can you take your hand off me now?" I say to him, my voice low. His brows scrunch up together before he realises that he's still holding my wrist. He steps back, exhaling.

"No thank you for saving your ass back there?" he asks me, his voice flat.

"I didn't ask for your help." His gaze is so intense that it makes my heart skip a beat. "I could've handled it myself."

"Yeah sure," he mutters in disbelief. "Why were you even listening to them? That's Asher Hale we're talking about. You want him to notice you that bad, huh? That says something about you, doesn't it?"

"Shut up."

"You're a first year, aren't you? If he finds you snooping around him like that, he's going to make your life hell. Literal hell."

I search for his eyes but it's too dark. I can't know what I want to know about him. I've already got multiple questions like—who the fuck is he? Why was he here? Why did he help me?

"What's your name?" he asks me. I'm surprised that he doesn't know who I am but then again, the lighting isn't exactly ideal for him to see me. Plus, not everybody knows what I look like right now.

"Why would I tell you my name?" I deadpan.

"Consider it payback for me saving your ass out there. You're gonna owe me otherwise."

I don't like owing people. "Harley. Happy?"

Even if there is no light in this room, I swear his expression falters in that moment. He is quick to regain his composure, though the damage is done now. I've caught him off guard. Left him to wonder—why is a nerd like me wandering around the hall following the student council president?

I'd underestimated people before. I forget to consider the fact that there are other people around me as well, students I'll have to be careful about. Some of them will be clingy, some will be cold—it's a goddamn gamble here at Redville. You make more rivals than friends.

"You're the first ranker," he says, his words laced in amusement. "Harley Kingsley. Right. You're not how I expected you to be."

"Yeah?" I raise an eyebrow. "And what exactly did you expect?"

He takes a step towards me. I don't back away. Something has changed. "Trust me, you don't want to know." He lets out a scoff. "I'm pretty sure I didn't expect you to be a girl who's following the student council president on her first few hours on the campus."

"I wasn't following him."

"Didn't look like it."

There's something up with him. I just know it in the way his tone changed from the moment he learned my name. I can figure him out later. If he was someone important, I'd think about it more right now. For tonight, he's going to be out of the fields behind the sidelines of my mind. I've got much more important things to wonder about.