The Eleventh Ward

Chapter 17

I was down to 5 days. 5 days until I had to face my final ruling and goddam was I going to make the most of it. I put on the mascara Ashton had given me when I first got here and sat down at breakfast with a smile.

"You seem way too happy that Erin's gone" said Michael, looking at me closely.

"Less competition for me, ain't that right cocktail" winked Calum

"Shut up. I only have a few more days until I get locked up again so I'm making the most of it"

"Woah what do you mean a few more days?" said Luke, putting his spoon down and leaning in. "How many days is a few?"

"Five" I said.

"You're leaving in five days!" shouted Lacey.

"Yes, now lets go make the fucking most of it" I said. The others were still trying to swallow the news, but Luke never seemed to be shocked by anything.

"Okay then, what do you want to do?" he asked. What I wanted was to kiss him and tell him everything but hey that was off the table. I had no idea what I wanted to do. "I don't know, something". They ended up teaching me how to play table tennis properly. I'd never leant so when we had out tournament a few weeks ago I'd lost bad. And even after hours of them trying to teach me, I was still pretty shit.

"I'm giving up" Calum threw in his paddle, and soon after everyone else did.

"What are you actually good at?" Michael asked.

"Anything else" I laughed

"Dares." said Lacey. "See if she can beat Calum at that" I turned to look at him, and that smirk was all over his face. "Yeah, come on cocktail. See if you can beat me" I felt a lump form in my throat, but I swallowed it down. "What are the rules"

"Its simple. The group comes up with the dares and you take it in turns. First one to refuse to do a dare looses. You take it in turns to go first. Start off easy, but the dares are going to get harder and harder as the game goes on. If you both refuse to do a dare, then the game continues. If one of you are taken to the sponge, the game continues when you return." Calum was staring at me, and when Lacey finished going over the rules, he cocked his head to the side. "Wanna play cocktail?" "Lets go".

By the time dinner started, we had both hit on one of the nurses' (Cal went for Ashton as a joke), scared one of the younger patients, fully embarrassed ourselves and were still waiting for the other to give in. And just because it was dinner did not mean we were taking a time out. We got our food as a group and sat down at the table.

"I gotta say, you're pretty damn good at this" smiled Luke.

"I've been to prison, a game of dares is nothing" It was the first time I'd made a joke about juvie to the group, but they laughed about it so I guess it was okay.

"Its not over yet baby" said Calum from the opposite side of the table.

"Calum its your turn to go first," Lacey spoke up "We dare you to start a food fight" His face dropped, the smirk had been fully wiped off.

"That's like 5 strikes though. Lace I'll end up in the sponge for like 3 days." he begged.

"That's the dare Calum. Do it and stay in the game, or pass and pray Brandi does too" He looked at me, trying to work out if I'd really do the dare that he was too scared to complete. I faked like I was worried too. If he thought I was scared to do it as well, then he'd definitely pass. With one last look at me he sighed. "Pass."

"Brandi, you gonna do it?" asked Lacey. I turned to Calum, looked at him in the eye and said "you fought valiantly" before getting up and taking my tray with me. I walked up to the line at the dinner ladies and stood behind exactly the right person. Will, Luke's room mate. Luke was constantly complaining about how he was an ass hole and snored all night. I couldn't remember what exactly was wrong with him accept he had really bad anger issues, but it didn't matter. If I was going down, I may as well give Luke a few nights of peace. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to face me.

"Hey, Will right?" he was kind of ugly, seemed like a virgin. "Umm yeah, Brandi isn't it?" "Yeah" I smiled. This is going perfectly. "This food is so shit" I joked. "Yeah man, I mean why can't they have any real chefs?" We were trying to be quiet so the dinner ladies wouldn't hear us, and to be honest even if they had I don't think they would have cared. As we were walking back to our own tables, I started again. "I mean this pea is way too hard" I said picking one off the plate and flicking it at his face. It hit his cheek, and straight away I could see the anger boil up in him. "Why the fuck did you do that?" he growled. "Do what? I didn't do anything" I said, batting my eyelashes. "Yes you did, you flicked a fucking pea at me". He was getting mad, this was good. "Will, I have no idea what you're talking about". His cheeks were getting redder by the second. "You threw a pea at me. Like this." He grabbed a handful of peas and threw them at me. "What the fuck?" I screamed, and threw a handful back at him. He went to throw some more at me, but I moved and it hit the person behind me. They then threw some back at him and that was it. Everyone began throwing food, and I was forced to take cover under one of the tables to avoid getting hit by flying mashed potato. The nurses managed to break it up after a minute or so, but the walls and floor were covered, and Will had been dragged out screaming to the sponge. As I was getting up from under the table, I noticed someone put their hand out to help me. I looked up to see Luke standing with his blue eyes looking down on me and a smile spread across his face. I took his hand and he helped me to my feet. "May I congratulate and thank you for putting Will away for a few days" I laughed. "Any time".