Under the Stars (a lunar chronicles Modern AU)

Chapter Five: Beaten

A week later and Cinder was ready to talk to Kai!

... Or she wasn't...

She was kind of freaking out, though she wasn't sure her encounter with Thorne last week helped in the slightest, perhaps making her even shakier.

She hadn't spoken to him since, and he hadn't called or texted her.

She thought her and Iko had gone over this plan enough times, but she had forgotten everything as she got ready to leave that evening, even letting Iko put a little makeup on her to cover the bags under her eyes and the spots on her face (She wasn't sure if she hated the spots or the makeup more). But after a moment of realising what she was actually about to do she had locked herself in the bathroom and refused to leave.

"You can't back out now!" Iko complained. "I mean, I didn't even tell Thorne, and if I go another minute without something happening I'm going to burst!"

"I can't do it," cinder said, covering her face with her hands.

"I did not spend a week stalking that boy and looking like a complete creep so you could back out now!" Iko shouted through the side of the door. Cinder backed away against the shower door. Of course she felt bad, Iko had been really excited, and she'd been hyped up too until she realised she was actually going to speak to Kai.

She was actually going to speak to the guy she'd had a crush on for years.

She couldn't do it.

"Am I going to have to learn to pick a lock?" Iko asked, "Because that requires going on pinterest and my laptops like five steps away from me and I'm sitting down."

"I just... I'm so scared Iko. I've never done anything like this before," Cinder said, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"I know you are, just let me in okay," Iko said, her voice calmer now.

"You promise not to drag me all the way to Kai?" Cinder asked.

"I promise," Iko said. Cinder got up from her stop on the floor and unlocked the door, sitting down opposite Iko, her legs crossed and her knees touching the other girls.

"How about I come with you?" Iko asked. "I'll sit at another table and I'll be there if you freak out."

"Can't we put it off until tomorrow?" Cinder asked.

"Nope, then you'll never do it and you'll spend the rest of the year moping, we're going today or not at all."

"I vote not at all," Cinder said.

"Cinder! You are going to do this today! I am not spending the rest of the year watching you look as if you're about to die!" Iko shouted, grabbing Cinder by the arms and pulling her to her feet.

"I will sit a few tables away and watch with the stealth of a ninja! In fact, I will be so incredibly ninja like that all the other ninja's will bow down to me, now come on!"

---

A shadow fell in front of Scarlet as she left the coffee shop and she spun to see what it was, but was met with a fist in her face and a foot sweeping her legs from under her. She fell on her side, her right arm screamed with pain as she hit the ground with a thud. There was a kick to her back and she cried out.

She heard a snigger behind her, and for the first time she saw the faces of the two boys who were attacking her. One, the one who had kicked her, jumped over her fallen body and crouched down in front of her, a smirk on his face.

"You think you can take Winter's place?" the boy said, his words slightly slurred, laughing to himself. His face was bloody and his clothes were ruffles and ripped; this wasn't the first fight he had gotten into tonight.