Her Knight In Rusty Armor

Chapter V

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Dark Hair, Dark Tattoos, Dark Aura
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The entire past week had been rather uneventful, unless you'd call trotting after Kate productive, or perhaps being scolded by the teachers, especially Sir Bucket – great name, might I add – who had resorted to insulting me in every Physics class we would ever have.

For instance, Wednesday.

"So Ashton, caught up with your good ol' friend yet?" he questioned, smirking amusedly as his gaze flickered towards Booger Billy. He earned a laugh from the students, amongst whom, much to my disliking, I caught Kate grinning rather broadly. I passed him a crude glare.

"I really hope you drown in a bucket of Billy's snot, Sir," I shot back, as the entire class erupted into cackles. Kate's lips twitched, too, and I noticed her trying to bite back the laughter threatening to splutter out of her mouth.

Well... At least the students praised my sense of humour, huh? Plus, the girls would giggle childishly whenever I'd make my way past them. Their hostilities on the locker incident had died down by now, so my reputation was quite fine amongst everyone.

'Hey, look at that good-looking new guy with the ear piercing! He seems friendless, but he's hot!'

Just the usual, y'know.

Friday came up.

Sighing, I slipped on a casual white t-shirt, proceeding to match it with casual trousers, then tightened the laces on my trainers. As I walked out of the walk-in closet and into my bedroom, I glanced at the curled-up white heap of a blanket on Kate's bed.

Of course, she was still asleep. She always woke up after me and slept late, too, doing God knows what while I'd snore my heart out. I walked up to her, blindly poking at her through the shield of her blanket. Basically, I was her alarm clock at that point.

An alarm clock was better than acquaintances, though, right?

She, however, gave zero signs of life. Instead of trying to wake her up, which was rather futile, I walked over to the dressing table and eyed the picture frames placed on it as well as on the bedside table.

They were mostly pictures of her, standing between a plump, lively man and a thin, pretty woman, all three of them nesting huge smiles on their faces. They seemed happy. She seemed happy, which was a rather peculiar sight, given how she was usually sulking whenever I'd notice her.

Eyeing her sleepy figure, I walked up to her, wanting to grab her attention in any way possible. And so, I pinched her, causing her to squeak and tumble over the side of her bed. This served her well, though; she'd been giving me the cold shoulder since the day we had had our respective introductions.

Don't fret, I'm a gentleman when it comes to pinching.

Expecting that she's just glare me off, I made my way to the door while humming, only before she grabbed my outstretched wrist with such force that my body jerked backwards. I rounded up on her, my eyes swarming with confusion; she seemed drowsy, her hazel eyes half open, yet they had an eerie shadow lurking inside them...

She was mad at me now, I could feel it.

Before I could act, she slapped her hand across my bare cheek with all the force she could muster.

My face immediately went numb, the pain gradually spreading throughout the left side of my face. Her lips narrowed into a thin line while her slanted eyes bore into mine, her hair extremely disheveled. It seemed as if she was out of her mind, as if she had a rough night...