"For you? I'd hold the skies on my shoulders, if it came down to it."
*****
He didn't think she'd ever look his way. Let alone, stumble into him- and into his life. But all things happen for a reason, and sometimes- when you love someone from afar...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THE SOUND OF something being slammed against a locker echoes through the corridor.
Multiple gasps follow, and that has me turning.
What was happening this early in the morning?
"What the fuck did you just say?"
I have to contain my own gasp.
That deep, rich voice was familiar. But I had never heard it resonate with that much malice or venom. Ever. It was almost frightening.
Despite my instinct telling me to ignore it and walk in the other direction, I step into the crowded corridor. I slip through people until I find a spot next to a wall, almost secluded - but with a pretty good view into the scene.
Atlas had someone from the football team pushed up against a locker, with his hands curled around the guy's collar. My eyes widen as the guy in his hold coughs but smirks tightly.
"I said," the footballer, whose name I couldn't remember, chokes out, "that your little bitch-"
I wince as Atlas slams him against the locker again, with an echoing thud.
"Call her that, one more fucking time," he snarls, "And I'll force feed you your own tongue so-"
"What is going on here?"
Most students disperse immediately at the sound of Principal Saunders' voice.
"Jackson! Philips! This is unacceptable - to my office, now!"
Some of the students that had remained to get some last-minute inside scoop details, disperse at the threat of going to the Principal's office.
I wasn't quick enough.
"Dunnams!" he snaps, his eyes zoning in on me as I try to slink away, "You as well!"
What?
I blink in surprise.
I had no reason to be in the principal's office.
But the annoyance in his expression tells me that he is still miffed with our previous interaction - because he got one-upped by Mikael.
Atlas' head snaps towards me. His eyes widen when he sees me standing there, and then he turns to Saunders, his jaw tight.
"She didn't do anything," he grits, pushing the footballer away roughly, "Why is she being punished?"
"Don't argue with me, boy," Saunders says, his voice reprimanding, "As a bystander, it is one's responsibility to intervene or raise a complaint when they see a fight."
I blink some more in surprise.
Was he being serious?
"Seriously?" Atlas retorts harshly, voicing the thought in my head, "There were plenty of them standing-"
