From The Gods | Liam Dunbar

two. secrets

more bad than good

-

Making his way to his seat in History class, Joey fumbled with his hands. He was one of the few students there early and he wasn't quite sure why he had rushed. Looking over to his right, he saw Kira talking to the guy he saw yesterday with the red eyes. She was rambling about bardo? What did she know about bardo? Why was she talking to him about bardo? What even was bardo?

"Kira. You forgot all the research you did for that boy you liked." Mr. Yukimura interrupted, handing Kira a large packet of papers as more and more students began to trample into the classroom. 'That's super embarrassing.' Joey thought to himself before Mr. Yukimura walked up to the front of the class to begin his lesson.

"All right, everyone. Let's get started. We were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war. There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail. Who would like to come up and read it aloud for us?" The teacher gleamed, looking around the class for any volunteers. Joey quickly sank in his seat so that he for sure wouldn't be the victim if no one raised their hands. "Mr. Stilinski, how about you?"

Stiles slowly looked up from his desk to the teacher and began to stutter. "Oh, uh, maybe someone else could."

"Everyone participates in my class, Mr. Stilinski." 

"Okay." Stiled grumbled as he got out of his seat and went up to the podium. He remained silent for a while before he began to shake and look up at the class. Joey looked at him in confusion, as did the rest of the class. It looked as if he was about to have a panic attack. "Stiles? You okay?" 

Stiles continued to breathe heavily as the guy Joey pinned as 'Red Eyed Guy' continued to make his way up to him before telling Mr. Yukimura that he was going to take Stiles to the nurses office. 

- 

"Do not forget the chapters on President Carter and the Commission on Wartime Relocation." Mr. Yukimura reminded as the bell rang, indicating that class was over. Joey stayed still as Kira looked at Scott and Stiles' bags before picking them up.

"Here I can carry one." Joey offered with a smile.

"Oh, cool! Thank you!" Kira babbled, handing one of the bags to him. "I'm Kira."

"I know. Your dad made that pretty clear yesterday." He reminded, making the girl laugh. "I'm Joey."

"I know, my dad also made that clear." She laughed out. They walked out of the classroom and went through the halls before noticing a coyote standing on top of one of the stairwells. It growled at the two teens and began to run at them. Kira looked at Joey and he motioned for her to run, giving her the backpack he was carrying. He quickly reached behind his back, unsheathing his sword, but the coyote swiftly ran past him and jumped through the glass window of the locker room door. "Where is she?"

Joey turned around to see Scott and pointed towards the locker room that now had a broken glass window. Scott looked Joey up and down, noticing the sword but ignored it and ran towards the locker room. The coyote ran out soon after and Joey watched it in disbelief. How could that thing run so fast if it was merely just an animal?

- 

"Dad, seriously, I'm okay." Kira told her father as he checked in on his daughter and her fellow student. "Why were you two not head for lunch like everyone else?"

"They left their bags. I was trying to do something nice and Joey offered to help. You do something nice and you make friends. Or so I've heard." Kira explained as she looked at her father with pleading eyes.