Burn- A Gone Series Fanfiction

Chapter Five

AT 6:55PM, THERE WAS A DECISIVE knock on the door, startling Andy from her thoughts. She looked at Dekka, who shrugged to say she didn't care and continued with her work, knowing exactly who would be on the other side of that door.

Andy shuffled herself to the edge of her bed, and stood up from where she'd fallen victim to the YouTube vortex for several hours. She swung the door open to reveal Diana Ladris, who was leaning against the doorframe, inspecting her nails.

"Andy," she smiled, lowering her hand to grab Andy's own. "Let's go. Caine's already there."

"Ah," Andy smirked. "That's why we're rushing." She shut the door behind her, leaving Dekka alone in the room.

Diana tugged on her arm, pulling her along as she strutted down the hall, flicking her dark hair behind her as she walked. She turned to Andy and moved her hand to her shoulder. "Nice afternoon?" she asked. "What did you get up to?"

Diana liked to pretend to be cool, calm, and collected, but it hadn't taken Andy long to realise that she was, in actual fact, a very clingy person. The way she'd pulled Andy out of the room, and the everpresent hand on her shoulder-- she was going to have a hard time escaping this girl.

"I met some people in the common room, but I didn't stay long."

"Who?" Diana questioned. Her eyes narrowed, as if there may be a wrong answer to her question.

"Uh, Benno? Some others too, but I didn't catch their names."

"Hm," Diana seemed to consider Andy's words carefully. "Benno's alright. Most of his friends are idiots, though. I'd stay clear of them."

"Idiots? The same way Caine's an idiot?"

Diana sighed. "Caine's a different breed of idiot. The narcissistic, tunnel-vision, blows-his-own-horn type. Benno's friends are just plain stupid."

They headed down the stairs and along the corridor leading out of the dormitory block. Andy nodded, getting the gist of what Diana meant, but not allowing her to dictate who she may or may not decide to hang out with. "What's for dinner?" she asked.

Diana smiled. "You're lucky. It's burgers. This time last week we had some weird stew thing that was so bad we all ordered pizza from Perdido Beach instead."

Perdido Beach was the closest region to Coates Academy. It was a small, coastal town consisting of only a few streets of houses and the bare necessities of a town centre. Andy had been born there, but there'd been an explosion at the nuclear power plant a few months before, and her family had eventually decided to move away as a result. Her mother-- being her paranoid self-- had insisted the family pack up and move a few miles away where she believed any radiation leakage wouldn't reach them.

Now, it seemed, she didn't care where Andy ended up-- radiation or not, as long as she was far away, it didn't seem to matter.

The cafeteria was already busy by the time they got there, and Diana made a beeline for the queue, picking up a tray and handing it to Andy. She glanced over at their table and spotted Drake and Caine laughing together; they hadn't spotted the girls yet. Diana nudged the girl in front of her in line and nodded her head to the side, gesturing for the girl to move back and let them pass. Only when the girl stepped aside did Andy recognise her as one of the few she'd bumped into this afternoon -- Zara. She smiled sheepishly at Andy, but said nothing, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself. With a quiet sigh, she moved to the back of the line.

Diana rolled her eyes and turned back to Andy. "You'll find that this school has a fairly even distribution of pushers and pushovers --and it's not hard to work out who's who."