Braxten High

Chapter 5

Azriel's POV:

My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. Beside me, I see Ayden wearing the same look of confusion. "Gabriel Orion?", we both questioned in unison in a rather high-pitched voice I was ashamed of.

When Zara was, uh, passed out on me, she mumbled 'Gabriel' a lot. I thought it was her fancy boyfriend or something, causing me to scowl. Wait, why do I care? Oh well. But Orion? Wasn't that her last name?

"Yeah. Gabriel Orion. He was Zara's elder brother and she was really close to him. He was all she ever had close to a parent around her as a child." Scarlett began, and then clammed up again.

Ayden prodded further, "What happened then?" Zara curled up into herself, hugging her knees to her chest. I found myself watching her closely, and it looked like she was deeply pained by what she was about to say.

She sighed and began,"Freshman year of high school, Gabriel drove me to school. On our way", she continued, smiling through tears, "We were arguing about how peanut butter would taste in a chocolate chip cookie batter; he and I used to bake together often,"

"When we reached school he said he'll be waiting there after school to pick me up while messing my hair up. He knew how it annoyed me" she stopped speaking and took a deep breath.

I couldn't help it. I sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her. Scarlett sneered at me but didn't say anything as Zara leaned into me, mainly because I'm pretty sure she was silently crying too.

Zara quietly continued, "I never saw him again, except when the police rang the doorbell to my house long after school was over. I hitched a ride with Scarlett's driver that day and didn't think much of it, as Gabe often disappeared. It was odd though. Anyway, the police showed me a picture of a corpse and asked me if I recognized the bloody mess"

"I said I didn't, but my heart clenched for whoever it was. But the cop insisted I'd inspected closer." She was shaking at this point and I quietly pulled her closer to me as she sobbed.

Seeing as she couldn't continue, Scarlett spoke up silently, a contrast to her usual annoyingly loud voice. "It was him. It was Gabriel. He had been run over by a heavy vehicle. Everyone thought it was an accident but I knew it wasn't. We all did. But we let it go because her parents did not want to cause an uproar in the public. But seeing the vandalism directed towards Zara today, that too at school..." she tried to hold in her tears as I unconsciously rubbed soothing circles on Zara's back. Ayden seemed dumbstruck too.

And then we heard the second-period bell go off. I reluctantly let go of Zara and glanced back at her and her friend as I was leaving with Ayden. "Sit together at lunch?" I asked her with a small smile. She nodded in response and smiled back and with that we left. 

-zoie and dawn