Arise

Chapter 20

When we are almost there Bryony launches herself at Brandon and hugs him tightly. "You're home." She says softly. He lowers her to the ground and studies her face looking for something he recognises.

"Bry!" He says before squeezing her even tighter. Jay gets up and walks more calmly towards Brandon, they have a bro hug before they pull back.

 "Unbelievable, I never thought I'd find you again." Jay looked absolutely speechless.

"We missed you so much." Bryony says with tears in her eyes.

Jamie's POV

We all sit down at our table, mine and Bry's eyes glued to Brandon, scared that he might disappear if we look away. "What made you want to move here of all places?" Bry asks.

"I wanted to come home." Brandon says.

"We're happy you did. Where are you staying?" I ask.

"The orphanage." He mutters.

"Not anymore you're not." Bryony says whilst bouncing in her chair. "You're coming with us, I refuse to be split up again. Plus, with you here we are invincible." She says with a giggle. She flutters away to her next class leaving the rest of us at the table.

"What does she mean?" Ella asks.

"We'll explain later but right now we gotta get to class." The bell then rings signalling that we have five minutes to get to class. Everyone heads off to their respective classes, Penny and I walk towards English. Abbie scurries up next to us.

"Hey guys." She says.

"Hey." Penny and I say simultaneously.

"Are we going to the performance after school?"

"Yeah of course." I say to her.

"Cool, I'll see you then." She says with a smile, before walking towards languages.

"Is it just me or is she acting weird?" Penny asks.

"That's an understatement." I sigh and carry on through the corridors until we reach 473. I open the door and all eyes turn to me, one of the downsides to being popular. I take my seat pulling Penny down with me.

"Today we are studying a newspaper article." Our teacher says, she hands out a piece of paper to each of us. When I see the title I have an urge to hit her, 'TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL FOUND TORTURED AND RAPED.' I read on to the next line:

'A girl who goes by the name Bryony Danvers.'

I tear the paper into pieces making the teacher turn to me, "Why on earth did you do that?" The old bat asks.

"Because this newspaper article is about my baby sister."

"Oh well, it's part of the curriculum."

"I don't give a damn. I refuse let my sister's story be used in something as trivial as this. Hand the papers to me." I address the class, they collect the papers and they pass them to me. "And before you tell me to go to headteacher, I'll go willingly. So I can get that bitch to get rid of these, in the meantime I suggest you find something else to do."

I stalk out of the classroom and head straight to the headteacher, her assistant protests as I storm through her door and into her office. "Mr Danvers, what can I do for you?" She asks me.

"Don't bullshit me. I'm here because of these..." I throw the papers on to the desk so that she can see, "I want them gone now." I state simply.

"Excuse me young man, but you don't have the authority to tell me what to do in English class."

"This is about my sister and everything she went through. What about her? When she takes English? Do you want all of those horrible memories to come up again? You remember last time, she didn't sleep properly for almost a year, she almost died. So do something about this, before I do."

"What could you do?"

"Maybe share about your relationship with the student Mark Smith or maybe the fact you sometimes smoke weed with him, oohh what about I tell them what really happened last year with your mother, how you killed her." Her face goes a ghostly white. "I see we are in agreement, I want them gone by the end of the day." She nods slowly. I storm out of the room towards the library, might as well do some studying till 4th period.

Chelsea's POV

Third period is P.E, Jesse and Brandon and I are stood waiting for the teacher to turn up, the others are dancing about and chasing each other around. Just as we are about to turn around five heavily armed men appear and the bottom of the astro turf. 

They'll reach here in five minutes, thank goodness for this eyesight. "Get Bryony." Jesse whispers to me, I sprint inside. I run through the corridors before reaching Bry's math classroom. 

I throw open the door, "Bry need help." That's all it took, she jumps up, grabs her stuff and sprints to P.E. Me following along behind her.

We get there and the people are just reaching us, the other students are noticing him. I hear a voice in my head, 'No weapons, hand to hand.' it's Bryony. We nod with her words and pounce on the newcomers. We throw punches and blocks, testing each other, they go down quickly. The other students watch us, "Call the police!" Bry says "Seriously? You're lucky we've been taking self defence classes for years. Five heavily armed men come over and you don't think to call the police?"