A Guide To: Isla

How To: Revenge

      GLASBRAW UNIVERSITY. THINK Hogwarts minus the magic, the castle, the owls, the feasts and basically the whole Harry Potter-ey aspect of it, and add in a crumbling chapel, brand-spanking new sports fields and a very, very competitive school spirit- seriously. Like, Fourth of July patriots except more inter-Uni sports matches and less fireworks.

      And because of that bloody school spirit, Isla O'Grady found herself standing in Berkham University's rugby fields waiting for the boys to come back from God-knows what prank they had decided to pull- Isla is known to be a blabber mouth when pissed and she gets pissed a lot, so the boys don't tell her anything before these escapades. Also, her best friend is a rat. Like, would-sell-you-to-the-Devil-if-she-heard-you-talking-in-class kind of rat. So, there's that.

      Sure, Isla has a little school spirit- she'll wear her Glasbraw's logo with pride until the day she leaves but she will not stand behind this cricket pavilion for two hours in the middle of winter while some rugby wankers go joy riding around the field in her goddamn car (a crappy old Ford KA, but it was hers and she loved it) and leaving her to freeze her arse off so they can get back at the Berkham boys for foaming the pitches on their campus last week.

      The only reason she agreed to this was because the rugby captain had a bloody gorgeous body and had planned to take her back to his dorm after. To be honest, she'd rather go to bed- she could swear her internal temperature was dropping below 37 and she was definitely feeling the oncoming effects of hyperthermia.

      She huffed, white steam billowing out of her mouth as she stomped her feet in an attempt to bring feeling back to her toes. Chris had chucked her his jumper before she had gotten out of the car telling her to "keep warm, babe. Kind of cold out there." Yes, Chris. No shit.

      The headlights of her car had stopped spinning and started slowly advancing towards her.

      Fucking finally, she thought. Her toes were about to drop off and she would probably feel warmer inside a freezer. She snapped open the door and took one look at Jimmy sitting in the drivers seat.

      "Move." She glared at him and he lent back slightly into Chris on the passenger side, as if her not-boyfriend would protect him from her anger (Isla also has a tendency to be slightly violent when angry- it was one time, and Kem's nose is only slightly crooked now- and, at present, she was fuming), "Fucking move, Jimmy, I swear to God."

      He scrambled to the back seat of the car, practically diving into Kem's lap, with his feet hanging over Elliot's leg.

      "I'm gone! I've moved, woman! Jesus, I would prefer to keep my manhood attached to me!" He exclaimed, as he covered said "manhood" with one hand while the other pushed him up into a more comfortable position.

      "Yeah, Isla. We couldn't disappoint the ladies like that. How would they survive without Mini-Jimmy here?" Kem stuttered out, in between gasps for breath. All four of them seemed slightly winded, trying to recover from whatever the hell they just did to the fields. Seriously, Isla could hardly see anything out there, but she knew the ground was wrecked. It was Autumn (formally known as the 'rainy season' but it was England for God's sake. Wasn't every season the rainy season?) and it had been pouring non-stop for three days - the ground was already a mudslide even before the boys had attacked it.

      Isla knocked the car into gear and began driving out of the gate, past that bloody pavilion and back onto the road. The Berkham fields were separate to the university campus and the rest of the town so there was no one around to have noticed the boy's antics.

      The three of them were in the back were recapping the events and ignoring the stony gaze she had set on the road in front of them. The heater in her car was broken so she was still struggling to warm up- until she felt a hand on her thigh. Now, Isla's car was small. It was tiny, alright? But even with the minuscule amount of space in the vehicle and the three rugby lads squashed into the back, that doesn't mean they can't see everything. Namely, the everything that was going on with Chris' hand right now.

      If he thought there was any chance she was going back to his after that, he was sorely mistaken.

      That said, his hand was slipping further up her thigh, and his palm was warm and he'd reached that spot on the inside of her left leg that was extremely ticklish and she almost forgot her hands that were about to drop off and her ears that stung and her teeth that had, somehow, stopped chattering and her-

      "What the fuck is that?" Isla jumped as Chris' hand slipped off her leg and his eyes followed Elliot's hand.

      "Is it a drag race?" Jimmy's eyes were wide with excitement at the thought.

      "Either that or a fucking car chase." Kem chipped in. The lights in the distance were blazing and there were at least a hundred people milling around the race track-like marks in the ground. The cars were moving so quickly they looked like two blurs in the night sky.

       Chris looked at her. And she knew. Of course. Of course they were going to make her stand in a field for two hours for some petty feud just to make her go stand in another field for two hours because they wanted to watch two pretentious wankers chase each other in beaten up cars on a dirt road. No fucking thank you.

       Then again, Chris' hand was back on her thigh, and his tongue just darted out from between his lips and he is biting his lip in the kind of way the he knows she likes and for God's sake, she can't get any colder than she already is, right?

       Kem grasped her shoulders in his hand and squeezed. She slowed the car to a stop.

       "Isla, you've never been to a race before and I can tell you they are fucking brilliant."

       "Seconded!" Elliot's eyes were trained on her as he said this, his hand in a prayer position as he basically begged her.

       "I hate you guys. I hate you guys so much, it's incredible. If I die because I got frost bite, you all better cry buckets at my funeral. Fucking buckets." She narrowed her eyes at each one of them, but she knew they didn't take her seriously as their eyes were still flicking to the left, to the drag race (to her own personal hell).

       They had already passed the road that led up to the track so she had to turn the car round before they entered the field.

       There weren't as many people as she thought when she first glanced at the race track - around 40 people huddled at the finish line with another 20 or so dotted round the track, which itself was winding and long, probably nearly a kilometre in length, though Isla was tired so that was most definitely an exaggeration.

       The boys led her over to the end of the track where the large crowd had gathered to cheer in the winner - a guy, possibly a few years older than Isla, with hair so dark, it was as if it melted into the night itself. He seemed like one of those boys who was fit and knew he was fit, and made Isla immediately hate him. His eyes were trained on the ground, as if he couldn't hear the people yelling his name; like thunder clouds on the stormiest day, echoing throughout the crowds, the words reached her, reached into her, and implanted themselves into the forefront of her mind so she couldn't forget about them even if she wanted to:

       "Abel! Abel! Abel"