Not Quite Parallel

{16} Run

RAYNE POV

Once, when I was seven years old, I had gotten suspended from school for getting into a fight.

It was not a real fight, where you punch and kick and you win without getting a speck of dirt on your clothes. No it was a fight where a group of three girls had pushed me into a puddle, so I retaliated calmly by standing up and slapping those grins off their faces. I walked away bruised, with swollen eyes and I was sent home to change clothes. 

But I had left proudly, with my head held high, because I knew that I had stood up to the bullies.

Ten years later, my low tolerance for bullying has not changed one bit. 

It is not my fault that Lieutenant Angelica had that look; it is that look that all bullies have, that you know when you see it, but you never actually know what it is. She had it, and she was looking at us. 

Why try to negotiate with a bully?

You cannot win either, because bullies always get what they want in the end. I always thought it took some special kind of coward to be able to bully people, to be able to attack people both physically and verbally. To be able to make the brightest of people feel so small and cloudy that they would rather not show their beautiful faces at all. 

Bullies go to the special layer of hell, that layer reserved for the Earth's Nazi's and people that talk in the theatre.

There should be no room in the universe for bullies. 

"I know everything about you Rayne. I'm in contact with someone who watched you grow up."

But there she was, right in front of me, smirking and... I just couldn't help it. 

"HOW DARE YOU?!" Are the exact words that fly out of my mouth before I can catch them, “Watched me grow up?! How did you know I’d be the one here- actually, you know what? I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!!" 

And that is the truth... for the first time in my life... I can say with absolute finality that I don't care.

It is an odd feeling, not caring; does it always feel this free?

“All my life I’ve been told that I’d be sent away when I turned sixteen, dreading- then the way all my friends up and left, it’s like they get older and then the symbols... they change you. THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED, not everyone comes back, it needs to be changed. And peace will not accomplish this. I don’t want peace with you.”

Angelica's smirk freezes, and the next word out of her mouth is, "Run."

And you know what?

I truly don't care about the consequences.

Because I know that when we fight for our planet, I'll fight until I can see these bullies brought down. I want to see it with my own eyes. I'll face punishment from Kiara if I have to, I understand that this was supposed to be a peace negotiation. But if they wanted such an job done properly, they should not have trusted teenagers with it. 

"Rayne you just got us in the shit now," is Blythes intelligent remark. 

I roll my eyes but run faster, I know we're going to be hard pressed to get back to our ship, but as long as we can find out way back then we are on the home stretch. Figuratively speaking. 

In theory it sounds plausible, but when you take into account that Rpry is recovering from a life threatening disease you start to second-guess matters. 

Rowan, being the most reliable animal in the universe -yes that's including Blythe. Come on she used to be a pirate how reliable can pirates be? - is sort of remembering the way we went. The problem is that we have to go back to the big room before we go back to the ship because she only knows our way from where we've been.