Cross My Heart I'm Dead

Chapter 14

"I still don't see why you dropped me off at the dump." I said and Matt looked at me like I was growing a second head or something. "To me, the school is a dump."

"Oh. We just needed somewhere to drop you off for the time being and we thought we might as well let you stay until the end of school." Matt said as he looked back to the road ahead.

"All that happened was getting 3 detentions, meeting you in class and beating your ass in a fight in front of that class."

"Wow, can we ever leave you two alone and have you not in any sort of fight?" Mike asked and I rolled my eyes, deciding to ignore his comment and return to Derek who was resting his head on the window, looking dazed and worried.

"Derek are you okay?" I looked up to him and he faced me and sent me a forced, sad smile.

"I'm fine."

"Derek, you can tell me." I reassured as I hugged him and looked down at his knee which he could now move and not be hurt. 

"Some of the Jester gang tried to kill me. That's why we dropped you off at the school; it's the one place they can't get to you. None of us got hurt and we decided to get some facts before we came to get you. Cray said he was going to kill you and anyone who got in his way. He might kill me as well and I'm pretty sure Taylor asked him to do this. Nothing will happen to you though. I swear you'll be safe and I'm not letting anyone of them hurt you." He said this without looking at me or any of the others. He just stared out the window, sad and worried.

"That douche is not going to get to either of us. He won't dare kill or attempt to kill anyone in this gang. Especially one of you guys and definitely not you. Did he make you a deal?" I asked as I looked around, first at Mike, then to Matt and lastly at Derek. No one replied for a couple minutes but Matt finally let out a small sigh.

"Cray made a deal that if you were dead and he could see you dead then he'd leave all of us alone." His tone was full of sadness but his face was expressionless. "But we won't let that happen. Nothing is going to happen to us, okay?"

"Okay. So what do we do? Kill them first?" I asked and Derek looked at me.

"When they fought against us today it was just us and John. We were left with just a few bruises but we shot  1 of them so he was unable to walk. We knocked out 2 others and the rest ran away. He should learn that we are not to be messed with. What we do is stay back, defend, protect and stay un-injured. We won't fight first and we must always be aware of our surroundings and who is nearby. We love you Al and there is nothing that will take you away from us," he replied and said the last sentence softly.

"I love you guys as well. I obviously love Derek in a different way though. No one will be able to harm us. Lets just go to wherever it is we're going to go." I replied. Derek wrapped an arm around me and gave me a real smile.

"We're going to my apartment. You know, the closest place to stay except your house." I chuckled and kissed his cheek. The rest of the ride was silent and I couldn't get those words out of my head. They wanted me dead. If I don't die, others will. My friends or me? 

In what felt like half a decade, we arrived outside the apartment block where Derek and I were dropped off as the others decided to go to their own homes. We started to walk up to the door to go inside when Derek interrupted my thoughts.

"Do you want to stay the night?" He smiled down at me and I simply nodded my head. We walked the rest of the way in silence but when we got to the door of his actual room, he spun around on his heel and looked straight at me. "So.. Where is this so called pin?" 

"Do you ever use a key?"

"Yes, but I can't be bothered," I rolled my eyes and got a paperclip from my pocket.