The Hooded Figure

TEN

Alexander Marauder sounds like this when he sings so listen to the song!

We worked in what seemed to be a comfortable silence, but who knew with this guy. For all I knew, his facial expressions gave everything away, but it's not like I could just rip his hood off and call him out for it. Actually....

Amy, no.

My fingers had paused, hovering over the keyboard as I subconsciously thought over the idea. I shook it off and frowned at myself, wondering what was wrong with me. If he wants to wear the hood, it's his choice and his wish, like he said. I was about to start typing again, when I noticed Trey's hooded figure turn towards me.

"There's ten minutes left, I'm going to go grab some lunch." With that, he logged off and got out of his chair. I couldn't depict the expression I gave his back as he walked away. It wasn't much of anything, but it wasn't neutral either. I decided to continue working, but the hunger was eating away at my determination. I stayed there, typing for a little longer until the bell rang, signalling the end of lunch. I was pretty sure there was a beginners computer course in here during third period so I too logged off and made my way out of the library.

When I arrived at my locker, Layla was already gone and I couldn't see Jade at hers. The second bell rang and the last few students hurried to their classes. I spun my combination and grabbed my lunch before marching off to find somewhere suitable to sit.

As I wandered the halls with my lunch bag in hand, I finally came across a little nook in the side of a hallway. I took a seat on the little bench and took a bite out of my sandwich, pulling my phone out of my pocket. There was nothing to do during my spare. Sure, I could study, but I did that yesterday. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too much studying. I texted my dad and told him I had detention today too because I forgot to tell him yesterday. He replied, telling me he'd be able to pick me up.

So instead of doing anything productive with my time, I just sat there, eating my sandwich in boredom.

-----

If I thought eating a sandwich alone was sad and boring, it's got nothing on being alone in detention with Mr. Bacinski. Yes, he of all people was the detention teacher today.

He'd given me a piece of paper and told me: "Write 'I will not be disrespectful' five hundred times. You can leave when you're done."

I was tempted to ask him what year he thought this was, but I figured that'd only earn me more lines.

As I made it to about one hundred lines, I lost count and had to resist the overwhelming urge to hit my head on the table out of aggravation. The only thing stopping me, was the thought that it'd make my concussion worse. It seemed to be less bothersome at the moment and I didn't want to worsen it. So instead, I recounted the lines and numbered them as I wrote them.

Mr. Bacinski seemed to be enjoying my torture because whenever I looked back, he was watching me with a sadistic smile on his face. I shivered involuntarily and continued writing the lines.

Once I finally finished after about an hour, Mr. Bacinski took my papers with a bittersweet smile on his face. "Good, you can go now."

I said nothing as I grabbed my pencil and exited the room with a grim expression on my face. I grabbed my bag from my locker on my way out of school and I got to my dad's Nissan. There was no Camaro in sight and I felt oddly happy it wasn't here. Trey still wasn't exactly nice to me, or pleasurable to be around for that matter.

I ignored the thought of him as I got into my dad's car. "Again?" He asked concernedly and I assumed he was talking about detention.

"It was a two-day detention, I forgot to tell you," I replied with a guilty smile on my face.

"Two days for chasing your partner away?" He asked incredulously as he started to drive out of the parking lot. I decided not to tell my dad about the concussion, I'd just sleep it off. It was minor and I didn't want him worrying about me.

"Actually, the second day was for attitude," I explained sheepishly while my dad took his eyes off the road for a moment to give me a disbelieving look. "What? Mr. Bacinski brings out the worst in me."

My dad didn't reply as we drove in silence. He didn't seem mad, he just looked as if he had nothing to say.

We arrived home and entered the house together. I skipped up the steps and made it into my room. I threw my bag on the floor in a rush and ran back down the stairs to jump onto the couch.

I smiled as my dad came out of the kitchen and gaped at me. "No fair," he muttered, going back to the kitchen. I smiled evilly before grabbing the remote and turning it on. My mom likes to watch the news in the morning so when I turned on the TV, that was the channel it was on.

I was about to change it, but then I heard one of the anchors mention the young Leo doppelgänger. I returned to the news channel and waited, listening attentively.

"An amazing amount of people have claimed to have found Alexander Marauder, but none have found to be true." A series of images flashed on the screen from Instagram posts. They were all hash-tagged #youngleo in the caption, but none of them quite resembled the boy on the TV from yesterday.

The male news anchor started with another topic that I wasn't interested so I shut off the TV and got up. "Dad, I'm done, you can have the TV!"

My dad came rushing in with a happy smile on his face as he sat on the couch. "Thanks, kiddo." He turned on the TV as I jogged upstairs. I searched through countless drawers to find my earbuds, and once I did, I plugged them into my phone.

I searched up Alexander Marauder on YouTube and decided to listen to some of his songs. He had one album and three singles so I chose to listen to them all and to my surprise, they weren't half bad.