The Tale We Lived

Chapter 2: Part 3

Naya froze.

"What do we do now?" Naya asked, rapidly looking from one to the other.

"We just play it cool." Carina said, inhaling.

Syren stared at her incredulously and snapped her fingers in her face.

"Uh, no. This is not a movie. We get out!"

"Well the exit is over there, were Stevie is." Carina explained.

They held hands worriedly and looked around at their surroundings, searching their minds for an idea.

"Let's just blend in." Naya whispered, as they trudged to a dense crowd of older kids, "Don't worry, not a lot of people were listening in anyway, I don't think anyone noticed it was us who told her."

But Carina's attention had shifted from her to Stevie, who was now off of his bike and surrounded by a crowd of friends. His long, golden curls were falling in his eyes, a cigarette dancing his lips. He was clad, as always, in all black, his shirt ripped up the left sleeve (Marina caught a bunch of girls whispering about a fight he had gotten in earlier that night). Three or four other boys spoke to him at once.

He was looking, however, over at Sierra who was standing a distance away, and smiling. Carina held her breath, summoning the courage to look at Sierra, who was shooting daggers with her eyes, her lips pursed and her arms folded tightly across her chest, Nellie and Paulie standing defensively at her side. Naya inhaled sharply beside Carina as Sierra began to make her way over to Stevie. All thought of getting away escaped their minds, as they stood frozen in place, watching the events unfold.

Sierra grabbed Stevie's arm and led him away to the shade of a tree.

"Hope one of them gets hit by lightning." Carina moaned.

Nobody else seemed to be paying attention, and what reason did they have to? But the argument between Sierra and Stevie broke out immediately as Sierra began thrashing her arms around. She looked as if she was on the brink of tears and Stevie was just shocked, clasping his head and shaking his head over and over again.

"Guys..." Syren murmured.

Sierra's passion definitely intensified as she stepped forward and jabbed her finger in his chest, still speaking furiously. Now people were begin to notice them.

"Guys," Syren said again, "Do you think we should..."

Sierra said one last thing before throwing her hands up in the air and turning around to storm away. It was when Stevie grabbed her arm to stop her that she snapped. In the blur of a split second, she spun around and slapped him— SMACK—across the face.

Carina could've sworn she heard it from where she was standing in the crowd, or that could have been because suddenly everything went pin drop silent.

"Run." Syren said.

And that was what they did. They spun around and began to push through the crowd, careful not to make a noise as people around them began to murmur. They reached the ramp where Jeovann and Killian were now going head to head. Carina looked around wildly for the exit only to find that they were facing the back of the ramp, near the dense border of evergreen trees.

"The exit." she murmured, turning back around.

Syren grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"They're still there. You can't go there without them seeing you. We have to blend in here."

"Why do I feel like he never told her?" Naya gasped for air.

"Because he didn't, clearly. What scum, she should be thanking us, yeah let's tell her that—"