Dellings Secrets of The South

Chapter 27

Sakura

I barely slept a wink last night. I was stuck in my head with everything that was happening and now that I walked down the stairs to go to training I could feel how heavy my body was. Drops of water was still sliding down my back from my shower, my hair partly damp and stuck to my neck.

It was supposed to be another ordinary day, except ordinary wasn't always ordinary at Southside so when I passed by a window and saw the reflection of someone staring at me I didn't react. Instead my blood ran cold.

"Going somewhere, crippled?"

Clenching my jaws, I turned to meet James. His lips were bruised, eyes blacked but he stood up tall, putting on his brave face with his friends behind him. I guess he wanted round two.

Still in the same spot, he looked around me in search. "Where's your little friend? He and I aren't done playing yet."

"You touch him again and I'll widen that gap between your teeth."

For a split of a second I saw what looked like fear flashed in his eyes, but I couldn't savour the moment before one of his friend erupted in laughter and like the follower that he was James laughed too. He convulsed into hysterical laughter. Crackling away as if it was funny.

When it all quiet down one of his friend was the one to spoke up. One that was new in the group I noticed. He had his brows pierced, a giant scar lined around his neck where it should've been a fatal wound. Like most of everyone here he had his hair short but the small white button on the right of his chest where ours had nothing, stood out to my eye. It was just a small difference but yet a big one because no one wore a uniform like that here.

"She's a feisty one." He commented, his unwanted eyes running down my body, salaciously, undressing me then with a filthy smug he looked at James. "The feisty ones are always more fun to pin down."

I recoiled, not realising I took a step back until I felt the window hit my back.

James seemed surprise with the comment too, I saw when his brows slightly twitched with surprise but it wasn't long before he plastered on his disgustingly twisted smile just to please his friends.

"Were they feisty on the east?" Another guy asked and the new guy nodded, touching his tongue to his upper teeth.

"How do you think I got the scar?"

I felt my blood run cold. I should've been screaming, I should've launched on one of them and attacked but standing there my body just froze in shock, in fear, in confusion. It was like my mind just went blank, and all my skill of self-defence evaporated in the cold air.

James took a slow, calculated step towards me, preying on me with his friends separating to walk on either side of him, circling me. "Let's see how feisty she can get."

Then a voice called from behind them. "Sakura."

Immediately, they all turned around, the new guy slouching to hide his face while the others looked in different directions. The commander walked just two steps closer into ear shot, peering around the shoulder of the new guy who was blocking his view to me.

"You're needed in the meeting room." He said and I heard James whisper so slightly in my ear as I passed him, "What did you do now, crippled?"

The feeling of his warm breath near my skin made me want to run, but even so I kept my composure, walking slowly pass them all. I didn't realise that my hands were shaking until I tried to bawl them into fist at my side and had to press so hard to the point of my nails digging into my skin.

I was scared, terrified but I couldn't understand why.

It was James.

I could fight James and I bet I could fight them all but even so, with the mystery that was waiting for me in the meeting room, I couldn't shake off what just happened. For the first time in Southside I felt helpless and it wasn't even by a commander.