Beautiful Deception (Bethany Ford Book 2)

Chapter 29: Gracefilled Beginnings

Hi, all!

Sorry for the HORRIBLE updating schedule. I think like three months went by....

I'm so sorry for that long long long break. Anyway, here's a fluffy, but slightly important and heavy chapter. You know I don't write without purpose ;)...

(The gif above cracks me up EVERY. DAMN. TIME.)

Bethany's POV:

*A few days later*

I shuffled through the sleek hallways of my prestigious private school, Gotham Academy. Everyone was in the cafeteria, eating lunch, chatting, laughing, having no care in the world. Acting like normal people.

I was normal now.

No superhero activities, no weekend missions with the Team, no late night patrols. Nothing.

I sighed deeply, feeling like something deep down in me was missing, a chunk of my heart. My eyes glazed over looking down at the polished stone floor of the hallways. I was wandering, stalling. I was hiding.

I didn't think I could sit at the lunch table with Dick and the others. I needed time alone. I felt a little outcasted because now I was the only one who wasn't an active hero anymore. I felt different, separated.

Or maybe it was just me separating myself.

My hand hung in a sling tied around my neck. A hard and heavy brace kept me from moving my arm, keeping it locked into a ninety degree angle.

I fingered the simple silver band that I hid in my pocket, feeling it's cool smoothed surface: a reminder of what had happened. A reminder of the girl my father had killed in cold blood. Every step felt like it took twice the effort as the last step.

"What did you say?" A shrill voice woke me from my dazed wander.

I stopped in my tracks, straining to pick up the conversation that I heard echoing down the halls, a familiar buzz in my chest seeming to snap to life. The hero in me.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Faye's nasally voice echoed closer.

I moved around the corner to see the sight of Faye and two of her friends, in their matching sparkly varsity jackets, cornering a scrawny boy.

The boy began to look vaguely familiar as I slowly approached. His long, floppy brown hair that shadowed his darting eyes, his lanky figure folded as close to the deserted lockers, as if he wanted to melt into them.

"This is all you have, Brady?" Faye's taunting voice had the hint of a smirk, as if she wasn't rlly asking a question to find the answer, simply playing a game of rhetorical questions.

His head nodded furiously and his hair flopped all over his face as his deep gravelly voice rushed, "Yes, yes, yes. I swear. Like, I don't have anymore, Faye."

Brady. That was his name. I had thought it was Bradley. Or Brayden, or something. He had bullied Rose a few years back when I was new to Gotham Academy, back in Kelli's reign.

But things were different now. Brady was a known druggie and Faye was in charge now.

"Hmm." Faye fingered the wad of cash in her slender fingers, "You owe me $450 total for the last hit up, but you only have $430 to bring back for me? That doesn't seem very fair, does it? What do you think, Chelsea?" Faye turned to a similar girl next to her.

Again, with the rhetorical questions. I tossed back my hair and squared my shoulders and slowly began to prowl towards her. Even if I didn't like Brady, I hated bullies even more.