The Fighter *ON HIATUS*

Chapter One: Savior

"Guess what!" I smiled as my best friend, Lillian ran up to me excitedly.

"What?" I asked, a laugh escaping my lips.

"Axel Ferone had a street fight last night."

"This is news, how?" Axel had fights almost every week at this point.

"Well! Apparently he's pissed as hell today because the guy managed to get a punch in. He's got a black eye today."

"Uh-oh," I said, cringing slightly. Axel was kind of a legend in our school. He got into street fighting when he was sixteen, a sophomore. He used to come to school with a face completely bruised and knuckles with a rare cut on them. By our senior year now, he never lost a match. And normally the only sign that you could tell he'd been fighting were the bandages on his knuckles. Guys usually didn't get a hit in, and if they did, it wasn't to the face. Not enough to leave a mark at least.

"Yes. So, avoid eye contact with him in the hallways, huh Delilah? Ooh! Speak of the devil." I immediately looked up to where she was looking, along with everyone else in the hallway.

Axel was wearing a black sweatshirt with a gray t-shirt underneath and black skinny jeans. He had his hood up, but the purplish color of his eye was still very visible. I couldn't take my eyes off of him as he walked by me, when his blue eyes met mine, I couldn't help but gasp. He smirked, looking away and continuing on his way.

"Wow," Lillian said, "he may be a psycho, but... Swoon."

I laughed, grabbing her arm. "Come on, let's get to class. Have I ever told you you're a terrible person?"

"Yeah, probably," she said, grinning.

Class that day was normal. Well, except for the gossip about how Axel was ready to kill someone.

At the end of the day, I was getting my things out of my locker, when a dimple-cheeked smiling boy came up to me. "Landon!" I said, a smile on my face.

"Hey, Delilah."

Landon and I were... Well, I wasn't sure what we were. We "talked".

"Do you maybe want to come over to my house?" he asked. "I have an English project to work on and I was thinking you could help me with it. I could help with your math homework."

"Sure, that sounds good!" I said, grinning. I didn't drive because I lived about a mile away from the school and my mom couldn't exactly afford to just buy me a car, so usually when people invited me over I was excited that I wouldn't have to walk home.

As we were walking to Landon's car, I crinkled my nose at the smell of tobacco smoke. I looked up for the source of it and saw Axel Ferone and a few of his friends. As soon as I looked over, Axel looked up and we made eye contact. He smirked as he blew out the smoke and I quickly looked away.

"How stupid can you be?" Landon suddenly asked. "To smoke on school grounds."

I laughed nervously, nodding in agreement, taking his arm and walking slightly faster to his car.

When we got to his house, we worked on his English project first, before we switched to my math homework.

It was about seven-thirty by the time we got done, and Landon's mom was yelling at him to come down for dinner. "Can I bring Delilah home first?" he asked, making his mom sigh in frustration.

"Why didn't you do that before seven-thirty?" she questioned.

"Oh, it's okay," I said, putting my hand on Landon's shoulder. "I can walk."