𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐒 𝐌𝐄

─ ❝ act xxi ❞

⎡ act xxi - party talk ⎦

┊❝ You're going... right? ❞┊

── "THANK you for helping me out of that situation," (Y/N) began, currently the girl sitting in the library with Sawyer, Shariah, Alina, and Kira surrounding her, all with sympathetic and kind gazes that she was somewhat unused to. "Dylan and Ian... they do this a lot, I think. From what I've seen over the past few months with them... they like to blackmail people and use them as their own personal servants or something."

"Oh, we know," Shariah sighed, propping her head up with her fist. "We've seen what they've done, and have tried reporting it, but..."

"I know," (Y/N) stared down at her lap, thinking about the school's headmaster. "I tried, too."

"It's fucked up, isn't it?" Kira groaned.

"Mm..." Alina nodded.

A wave of silence passed over the small group upon the solemnity of the situation, Sawyer glancing towards (Y/N) to see that her hands were still trembling. Silently reaching over, he hesitantly placed a hand over her own before giving her a soft, comforting smile as if to say that she was alright now, and that she didn't have to be so scared. Though such words weren't exchanged between them, the earnest look in Sawyer's eyes was enough to (Y/N) for her to also give him a wavering, but strong, smile back.

"On a lighter note, though... Alina's and I's birthday is this weekend, and we've invited a couple people over," Kira began as she set her hands on the table and leaned forward. "You should totally come. Me and Alina can even take you shopping for a new dress! You're going... right?"

"You don't have to, if you don't want to, of course," Alina chimed in, giving her sister a pointed look. "So whatever you want, we'll accept."

"No, no!" (Y/N) waved away Alina's words with an awkward chuckle. "I'd love to come. As for shopping... I think that would be a good idea since the only dress I had..."

She stopped.

Her expression immediately soured.

Noticing this, Alina stated, "How about this afternoon after school?"

"Huh?" (Y/N) met her gaze.

"To go shopping."

"Oh, uh..." she flicked her stare to the side of her eyes, thinking about her dad and what his reaction would be if she asked him, ultimately settling on the hopes that he would still be in clinic instead of getting off work early. "Yeah. That works for me. Thank you... for helping me, and all that."

"No problem," Kira shrugged.

As the group continued chatting and talking, (Y/N) occasionally able to chime in here or there, her heart feeling light whenever they wholeheartedly included her in the conversation, she wasn't aware of the rather hostile emotions swirling within the two boys that she had promptly and utterly left. Dylan and Ian were currently loitering at the back of the school in the empty lot where they had taken (Y/N) before and where Carmen had burned her, the former angrily smoking a cigarette while the latter merely stared off coldly in the distance.

Neither were pleased, instead their moods fouler than they usually would have liked.

"Ugh..." a pitiful groan could be heard underneath Dylan, currently a junior boy splayed out on the ground being used as a chair.

It was a humiliating existence.

Then again, neither Dylan nor Ian cared.

"So, are you gonna do it?" Ian questioned Dylan after several, agonizing seconds of silence passed between them other than the boy's intermittent groaning of pain. "Post those photos and that video of (Y/N), I mean?"

"I am," Dylan uttered lowly, his honeyed eyes glowing with rage as he side-eyed Ian.

"And?" He leaned backwards.

"What?"

"Is that it?" Ian scoffed.

"Of course it isn't," Dylan chuckled, his lighthearted smile anything but friendly as he stomped down on the wrist of the boy he was sitting on, immediately his scream of pain piercing through their eyes. "As Leon here so delightfully informed us of, (Y/N)'s supposed new friends are gathering together this weekend. For those twins' birthday, or whatever the fuck they're doing."

"And you want to go there?" Ian questioned with a raised brow, not entirely convinced. "Why? What will that accomplish?"

"Our presence there will mainly serve as a reminder that even if she thinks she has left us behind, she is still nothing," Dylan mused, his eyes curving in delight upon thinking of how (Y/N) would react once she saw him there, practically craving the fear that would light up in those pretty eyes of hers. "Once she realizes that, she'll come crawling back since, at least with us, we don't lie."

Ian didn't have any visceral reaction, but from the way his cold eyes glimmered with unrestrained amusement, one could tell that he was more than looking forward to seeing (Y/N) again.

A sudden pinging from the phone in Leon's pocket suddenly grabbed the two boys' attention, dark shadows falling across their faces at the noise. Yanking the device from Leon's pocket, Dylan pressed his cigarette to his lips as he glanced over the screen, his eyes narrowing when spotting a text message at the bottom with Shariah's name scrawled across the top. Grabbing a fistful of Leon's hair and yanking his head upward, Dylan demanded that he open the phone. When Leon did, Dylan quickly opened the text messaging app to Shariah's profile, snickering in delight upon doing so.

"What?" Ian questioned, having a feeling that just by Dylan's expression alone, whatever was on Leon's phone had something to do with (Y/N).

"Well..." Dylan sighed in contentment as he held up the phone to show an address and Shariah's confirmation that said place was where the party would be held. "Now we know where (Y/N) will be. All we need to do is show up."

"Perfect," Ian smirked.

With a sinister grin, Dylan stood up before dropping Leon's phone and grinding it under his shoe, the glass casing cracking and shattering under the force. Taking one last drag, he then flicked his cigarette onto the poor boy's body as well, finding it hilarious when his jacket caught fire and he had to hurriedly shrug it off before the flames could eat away at his skin. As the two boys walked away, their hands shoved in their pockets, the reveled in the simmering feeling of victory that was soon to come.

Oh, how they couldn't wait.

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To be continued...