Interrupted Heart

24 | HIDDEN AGENDA

"What's going on in here?" Ace and Malik both visibly jolted quickly turning to face me.

"What do you want? You're such an annoying runt." Malik pushed himself in front of Ace attempting to intimidate me.

"Do you even know what a runt is?"

"A pig." Malik replied too confidently.

"It's actually the weakest or smallest one of the litter. You can relate to that. I don't see a muscle in sight." Ace snickered lowly his back still turned towards me. His very visible muscles on the other hand tensed with his laugh. Recently Ace hadn't really been spending time with me, only Malik and just from being in his presence for a few minutes, I knew that I didn't like him. Ace was never mean to me that didn't stop Malik from attempting to be. I clearly didn't need a knight in shining armour but it was weird how Ace wasn't openly defending me.

"Ace, what are you up to?" I peered over Malik's shoulder trying to see what Ace was concealing.

"Mind your business, bitch." Malik spat, taking a step closer to me. My heart thumped in my chest not from anger but from the familiarity of that word. Ace whipped himself around so quick I could have sworn my vision rippled as if we were in a superhero movie.

"Hey! That's enough." Ace grabbed his shoulder yanking him backwards.

"You're not even old enough to be using those kind of words anyway." I folded my arms watching Malik, waiting to see what he would do next.

"I'm 15 years old. You're the one that just stopped breastfeeding." He retaliated, laughing at his own weak joke.

"That's not what your Mum said the other day." I teasingly smirked and raised my eyebrows at him.

"You're lucky Ace is here otherwise -."

"Otherwise what?" I took a step towards him.

"Malik, I'll come and find you later yeah?" Ace stood in between us trying to diffuse the situation. Actually he was stopping his friend from losing his chance to reproduce in the future. I had an older brother that taught me self-defence. Enough said.

Malik attempted to bop confidently out of the room. His dark eyes never leaving me until he walked straight into the door frame.

Ace and I both stifled a laugh as he disappeared from sight mumbling incoherently.

"You know your mouth is going to get you into trouble one day, Ny." Ace smirked. I shrugged.

"You like how I talk and besides, don't try and change the subject. I'm not slow." Ace didn't respond so I continued. "So, are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"Nothing, Nyla. Chill."

"Chill? What are you hiding on the right side of your mattress then?" I pressured him. He sat on his bed.

"I hate that you're so observant."

"I hate that you're suddenly keeping secrets from me." I shot back. "Ever since Mal-."

"It has nothing to do with him, okay?"

"Well, you've just proved that it does." He must really think that I'm gullible. No matter how well you think you can lie or cover up something, I would always find out the truth plus more. Ace sighed reaching over to whatever he was hiding.