Linda

"I would really appreciate it if you guys would just leave me alone!" I shout, turning to face the assholes in front of me. These people have been chasing me around, trying to beat on me because I'm one of the biotic kids. Well, that's part of the reason.

"After what you did to us?!" one of them yells, "No way!" Max, I think his name is. "That was a total accident!" I scream back at him, "I didn't mean to hurt anyone!" "Oh, it was, was it? Well so is this!" His fist then collides with the side of my face, and I fall onto the ground, my left cheekbone stinging. Ugh, I wish these jerks would pick on someone their size. "Oops," he says, over-exaggerating the word, "I'm sorry." He lets out a dumb laugh and walks away, apparently satisfied. The others look back to me. "We'll see you at the flagpole after school," one says, and then they follow Max back to the school building.

My anger starts to bubble up, and soon, I want to rip those idiots into pieces with my abilities... I could do such a thing with the force type powers I've gained, but I'm not supposed to use my biotics outside the club, except for in dire situations. It's that secret. No one knows what we do in the club, and nor do they care. If only I could at least make a kinetic shield... even then, the pain would not be entirely prevented, but it would be severely dulled.

My hand fumbles to reach my face. Once it does, I feel a sharp pain course through the side of my face, and I grit my teeth. I pull my hand away to look at it, and on my fingertips, I can see flecks of red. I sigh, letting my hand go back to the concrete sidewalk. It could have been worse, I tell myself, It could always be worse. I stand up from the pavement and notice I scraped my forearm too when I fell. Wonderful.

The school bell rings, signaling the end of our lunch break. Jeez, I didn't even get to eat anything. I make my way back into the school, people looking at me funny because of the plainly visible gash on my cheek. I walk by one of the teachers, and she stops me while saying, "Hold on, Linda." Great. "What happened to your face?" she asks. "I fell during lunch," I say flatly, "Nothing more than that."

"Linda..." she pulls me aside, as to not hold up everyone else, "Is there something we need to talk about? If you have a problem, fe-" "'Feel free to tell a teacher', I know," I drawl, irritated, "I've heard that speech a thousand times before. I don't have a problem, I told you." "... Alright," she finally gives in, "but I'll be watching you." How comforting.

The bell rings once more, and I look to the clock; 3:00 PM. Finally. I've been dying to get to my Biotics class, let out some steam. Everyone rushes out the door, not even letting our science teacher finish speaking. I grab my back pack from under my desk, sweep my books off the desk and into the bag, and walk out the door. I speed-walk through the lake of anxious teens, heading for our little room, the only place that really feels like home to me.

I head into the spacious room and let out a sigh. Everything is exactly how we left it: a mess. I smirk and close the door behind me; the actual class doesn't start till 3:10, so I have some time to tidy up everything. That's one of my favorite parts about this; I clean everything up using only my powers. That's the job I got.

I open up my hand, and a blue, swirling orb appears in my palm. This is my all-time favorite part-- I simply lift a finger, and a black box on a table to my right lifts up into the air a few feet, a blue aura surrounding it. I swipe my hand to the left, and it flies rapidly into the wall. Another task I was given was to break open this little black box. I beat it on the ground a few times with nothing but my finger. If I tried to lift this box with my physical strength alone, my arms would break. That's how heavy this box is. I've gotten my biotic power strong enough to lift it without trouble.

The smashing of the object has only dented it slightly; so I lift it into the air and act as if I am crushing it with my hand. I can feel an invisible force pushing against my palm, as if I am actually holding something. The box starts to crack, and I smile. My friends always leave another black box for me when I break one, that is supposedly stronger than the last. The box starts to crumple up, and the pressure held in starts to leak. A small airy noise comes out, and I try harder to break it.

The box is almost flattened by the force of me pushing on it, and I am finally able to ball my hand into a fist. The box splits, then dissipates into dust. The blue aura surrounding my hand and the now demolished box also disperses, and I feel my power subsiding. I'm not done just yet... I still have 7 minutes to clean up the room.

After lifting some boxes, and putting away a few things, what would normally take an hour is done in about 5 minutes, and I didn't even break a sweat. "Hey Linda!" I hear a voice behind me, "So, did you break the box?" "Hey Jack. Yeah, I broke the box. Here it is." I lift the individual dust particles from the ground.

"Impressive!" Jack says, smirking, "You're quite strong. Much stronger than even yesterday. Have you been training under my nose?" "Of course not..." I say, "I wouldn't do that. Too big of a risk. My parents are nosy, if you don't remember. I don't get any privacy at my house." "Heh, me neither," Jack admits, "But that's only because of my little sister. She's a pain..." "Well not all girls are pains," I say. "You are," he says, grinning. "Shut up! I'm not a pain!" I yell. "Whatever you say..."

"I wonder where everyone else is..." I say, "It's 3:10. And no one's ever late for Biotics." "I guess they got caught up with something," he says, pulling up a chair with his own powers. He sets it down near the door an sits. I jump onto a table and wait. "Hey Jack." "Mmhm?" he hums. "How strong have you gotten?" I ask. "Eh, I'm getting pretty OK," he shrugs. I gasp sarcastically, and say, "You mean someone as lowly as ME is getting more powerful than the class president!? What is the world coming to!?" He rolls his eyes and smiles.

There's 7 of us right now. There's me, Jack, Ben, Sophia, Alex, Natalie, and Carter. I am the one who deals out the most damage, Jack is good at everything, Ben is more of a defense guy, Natalie is really good at healing, Alex is best at ranged attacks (kinda hard to explain) , Sophie is the person who can sort out different things and can see things that are in hiding, and Carter uses his biotics for speed. You'd have to see it for it to make any sense. We need someone who is good at creating objects out of nothing. But we haven't found anyone yet.

"Linda, have you been feeling something... odd... lately? That the premonitions we sometimes get from our biotics... they're trying to tell us something?" Hm. So I wasn't the only one feeling it. "Yeah. I have been feeling odd lately. Maybe something bad is going to happen?" I say. "In that case, I wish they'd be more clear," Jack says.

I look up toward the clock. "3:15... should we start without them?" I ask. "I guess... but there's not really much we can do without them..." Jack replies. "We can duel...?" I suggest. "Don't you know how dangerous that is?!" Jack says, probably surprised I even brought it up. I look down at the ground in shame. "Sorry..." "...But..." I look up to Jack, "too bad for both of us... I think that's a good idea." We both smile simultaneously.

 

"You ready for this Jack?" I ask, my arms starting to glow blue. "Always," he replies, a blue orb of energy forming around him. Going with a defensive method, are you? Not a problem. I start by triggering my signature move, "Shield Breaker", named that for its immense power, and it's insane damage to biotic shields. It'll crush him like a bug. I extend my open hand out to him, and then curl my fingers as if I am holding something. A blue sheet comes from out of my hand, and once it reaches the barrier, it folds around it. I then ball my hand into a fist and push it forward. A wave of energy washes over Jack, and the shield flickers a few times before going down completely. I smile contemptuously at him. 

"Woah, you got that attack to be that powerful?! One hit and the shield is down?!" Jack shouts. "Yep," I say, as I send a surge of biotic energy at him. This is one of our ranged attacks: "Tidal Wave" is what we call it, and rightly so. It looks akin to a tidal wave. He uses his own unique move, "Levitation" to avoid the attack; "Tidal Wave" doesn't move very fast, but it has a very wide range, and a high amount of biotic damage.  "Ha, you're not going to bring me-" "Enough talk," I cut him off as I throw him to the ground. "Jeez girl, that hurt!" he says, standing up. "Good," I reply, "maybe it knocked some sense into you." 

"How cold!" he says, shooting a blast of energy at me. Here's where I can test out my speed ability. He's using "Lightning Arc", a simple ranged attack that coils around an object and holds it still while it's being electrocuted. I activate the ability as soon as the arc gets close, and I rocket out of the way.

I decide it would be best to distract him, and as I'm deactivating my speed ability, I throw a few boxes at him. I also use "Invisibility", which is another one of my non-teachable skills. It's pretty self explanatory, it just turns you invisible. It's really useful in a fight.

"Linda? Are you invisible?" Jack says, looking around for me. "Oh well, I'll just find you with "Search" and-" I push him up against the wall and hold him there. "Hey! Come on, no fair!" I can't resist laughing at his childish remark, and I deactivate my invisibility. 

"Fine, you've forced me to do this!" Jack shouts. Then, he starts to activate his second special move: "Biotic Dome". This is the only actual attack that doesn't require an initial motion. A small translucent dome surrounds Jack, and it slowly grows bigger, and my unseeable grip on him is released. But that's not the only problem; this dome keeps getting bigger. And soon, it has me up against the wall. 

"Now THAT'S unfair," I say, trying to see him through the dome. I sigh and groan, "Fine, you win!" The dome shrinks back to nothingness to reveal a smiling Jack. "I told ya I'd win."

 

We walk out of the school building and down the sidewalk after finishing up our biotics class. Still, no one showed up. "I wonder why no one showed up today..." Jack mumbles, looking away. "I guess they just had other things to do," I reply with a shrug. I don't have a clue what else they would hold above biotics... 

We walk in silence for the rest of the walk. Jack abruptly stops, and so do I. "Well," he says, "this is where I turn." "Oh, right. That seemed a bit short," I say. "Hey Linda." "Yep?" I reply. "Do you mind coming to school early tomorrow? There's something I want to talk to you about," he says, averting his eyes to the floor. 

Hm. I wonder what he wants to talk about. Maybe he wants to... ask me THAT kind of thing? ... No, of course not. Jack has never shown that kind of interest in me. "No, I don't mind," I say, keeping my voice calm and collected. "Okay. Thanks." And with that, he walks into his neighborhood, leaving me alone.

"Sheesh, I thought he'd never leave."

I spin around to face the owner of the voice. And I already regret it. "Ugh, what do you meatheads want?" I grumble at them. "We didn't see you at the flagpole," one says. "Oh. Bummer. That was today wasn't it," I say in a monotone voice, "well too bad I missed it." "Heh, I knew you were looking forward to it," one of them laughs.

"Now," another says, "we'll give you two options, since we're so generous: either you get on the floor and beg for mercy, or you get the hell beaten out of you. Which will it be?" "How about neither!" I shout as my foot kicks off the ground, and I run towards  my suburb. They weren't expecting that from me, so I am pretty far ahead of them. They're still visible of course, but I might get home in time...

As I approach my street, my speed starts to decrease. My physical stamina is quite low, so I tire much more easily than a normal teen. That's partly why I love biotics so much: I don't have to do any physical work. I can just let my biotics do it for me. It  gets so frustrating when-

I feel something tug on my shirt, interrupting my thoughts, and my shirt starts to chafe my neck, stopping me. "Gotcha!" Shit. I lift into the air and then plummet to the ground, landing flat on my back. It feels as if the air in my lungs just disappeared; as if my lungs just deflated and stopped working. My attacker picks me up by the arm and punches me in the face. As he does so, I can feel the blood pouring into my mouth. He drags me over to a wall and throws me up against it, knocking the wind out of me yet again. He then hits me in the gut, and I fall to the ground in pain.

I spit out the warm liquid coming up from my throat and I somehow stand to face him. "Is that... the best you can do?" I say, my voice slurred. He grins devilishly and  strikes my face again, harder than before. A searing pain crawls across my entire face, and I stagger back, but I don't fall. Seeing that I haven't fallen, he rams his elbow into my left cheekbone, and it feels as if my face has just been shattered. I fly back into the wall, and land on my hands and knees. He gives me one final lick to the stomach, and I collapse. My body can't take any more of it.

My five senses might as well have been reduced to 0. Nothing on my body is working properly. Their talking is disorted to the point where I can't even understand it, and soon it fades into nothing.

Ah... I'm going to have one hell of a time trying to come up with a believable story for my parents. No, scratch that; I'm going to have one hell of a time trying to find my house...

2: Chapter Two

Linda

I wake up startled by the sound of my beeping alarm clock, and once I realize what it is, I calm myself. I hit the button to turn off the alarm and get up out of my bed to stretch, blink the fogginess from my eyes. I yawn briefly and groggily amble out of my bedroom to take a shower. 

I turn the water on and sit down on the carpet as the water warms up. I got into a big hassle with my parents after they saw my face, eyes and nose reddened from tears and exhaustion, cheeks bloody and bruised, even though they never actually worry about me. They sometimes just yell at me because they feel like it. I finally got them to believe I fell and hit my face on the sidewalk. Twice. But they know I'm not that clumsy; I know that they know that I have a predicament at school. They're just not going to do anything about it.

I reach out to touch the water, and end up quickly pulling my hand back. A bit too hot. I turn the heat down a bit and start to undress, leaving my clothes where they fall. 

They don't do anything because my parents don't care what happens to me, as long as I "repay them" for what they're doing "for me."  They want me to remember them when I supposedly get rich and famous. Like that'll ever happen... They're mainly hoping for money. That's all those selfish bastards want... That's the only thing they care for... The only thing they'll get from my is the bird. I'll hold it up for as long as it takes for those shallow retards to get the picture. Gotta make sure they see it.

I should probably just stop thinking about it. It'll save me a lot of trouble if I do. I let the warm water relax my tense body, the sensation giving me a serene and peaceful feeling. I know I can't stay in here for long though; my dad is likely to get ornery for "leaving him cold water."

After a few minutes of cleansing myself, I turn off the water and get out, grabbing a towel off of the nearby rack. I come out of the bathroom with the cloth (which almost reaches down to my feet) wrapped around my skinny (but not strangely so) figure, and I hastily stride into my room; during fall and winter, my house gets really cold, so I feel it is smart to get into my clothes before I get hypothermia.

After I dry myself off and put some clothing on my body, I walk out of my room to eat breakfast. I don't enjoy greeting my mother and father, so I just don't. I have no siblings, so it gets pretty lonely here. I wish that at least one of my parents could be amicable...

 

"Get outta here or you'll be late for school," my dad says, shooing me away. I step out the front door, muttering to myself, "Do I even get a goodbye...?" I plod slowly to school, then remember that Jack asked me to be early. Crap, I totally forgot about that... I hope that he'll forgive me.

He usually walks with me to school. He also invites me to parties, enjoys being around me, and shares things with me that he doesn't talk with anyone else about, which, in fact, gives me a sense of worth. He's one of the most charasmatic and popular guys in the school, although his grades are a bit... average. My parents absolutely adore him. I'm a lot less popular, but flirted with a lot, despite my generally hostile and icy personality. It gets ridiculous with how many perverts I have trying to get me to do vile things, but that's a topic that I'd much rather veer away from. 

Jack and I are great friends, and I think he's one of the only real friends I'll ever have. And by far the closest. Nevertheless, I don't think that he would risk a detention to walk with me, so it's likely that he may have gone without me today... 

A few minutes later, I make a left turn and see in front of me a small grey automobile, parked about 50 meters away from where I stand, directly in the center of the next intersection. The left door of the rustbucket has been left wide open, as if the driver just got out and wandered away. I'm about to call the police on the phone in my pocket, but something stops me from bringing it to eye level; a pool of red liquid comes into view as I near the vehichle. Someone must've gotten hit by this junker. Poor guy...

I walk faster, desiring to see who was injured by the reckless and inattentive person driving the car. I finally get around to the point where I can see the victim, and my blood runs cold with fear.

Lying on the ground in front of the car with bloodstains all over his clothes, is my best friend. Jack.

A pang of despair stabs into me as I bend down to get him off the floor. I knew those premonitions were signaling something terrible. "Oh my God..." I blurt out, lifting his head from the ground, "Jack?!" His eyes open halfway to reveal a fatigued, pained set of deep blue orbs. He's still alive. His breathing is heavy, and he isn't moving very much, but he still has consciousness. 

"W-W-What h-happened...?" he mumbles, attempting to look around. "You got hit by a car, Jack," I say, exhaling sharply while resisting the urge to squeeze him senseless. "Ah..." he says, coughing a little, "My lungs feel like they're going to explode..." "Then... we should... we should get Natalie...!" I exclaim, remembering my fellow classmate. I whip the phone out of my pocket and dial in a series of numbers before pressing the "call" button. 

Natalie

I sloppily write the answer to a math problem on the plain lined sheet of paper in front of me, after deftly figuring out the solution. I smirk as a boy near me smashes his head against his desk in mental agony. Looks like I still rule in the area of multi variable algebra. Linda would be next to me right now, figuring out solutions faster than the eye can interpret, if she'd come to school. She hasn't gotten here yet. 

An abrupt ringing sounds throughout the room, and I feel my right hip vibrating. Shit... in the middle of class? "Natalie..." the teacher scolds as he eyes me suspiciously over his glasses, "Is that a call that needs to be answered?" I already know that my face has probably turned beet red. Well, this is  embarrassing...  I slowly take out the phone,  not saying anything. 

It's from Linda...

I should probably respond. I can feel everyone's gaze on me, and I start to wonder whether I should answer it or not. Linda is a good friend of mine, one of my friends from the biotics club, and I know from experience that she never does anything outrageous without a good reason. Maybe it is important.

"M... May I step outside for a moment?" I ask, almost inaudible, my face still hot as ever. The teacher sighs reluctantly, and then waves me away before going back to sit at his "throne." I quickly stand up and walk away, as everyone's gaze follows me to the door. This better be good...

I step outside, close the door and press the button to answer right as the call is about to end. "What the hell is wrong with you Lin. I'm right in the middle of math class, you fucking know that!" I yell. The students all throughout the school can probably hear me from how loud I'm shouting, but I don't care. "I know," comes her urgent reply, "But I need you right now."

Her tone of voice is worrying me. She never sounds this way; she's always so calm and collected. In fact, that's the very first time I've ever heard her voice quiver. "... What is it?" I say, a bit quieter. "Jack. It's Jack..." she says. "Be right there," I say. If something's wrong with Jack, I've got to be there for him. I just hope that he's well enough for me to heal him.

 

I round yet another corner on my way to reach the location Linda spoke of. I've never been to Jack's house, so the trip is a bit bemusing. "457, 457..." I say repeatedly. That's the address... I think. I look around the street. This is probably the right one, accordingly the 400s all over. "Ah. Here it is," I murmur as I walk up the steps. Linda mentioned that Jack's parents aren't home, so they don't know about his condition.

I'm pretty sure I can fix him up, as long as Linda was holding him together with her small bit of healing capacities. I burst into the house and shout, "Linda! Jack!" "In here!" I hear from the room adjacent to the foyer. I dart into the space to see Jack laying on a cream colored couch, Linda holding her glowing blue hands over the former, who's covered with blood and scrapes and bruises.

"Are you okay?" I ask, but then immediately say, "No, of course you're not okay," as I hustle towards them. "He needs healing, before he dies from blood loss," Linda says, backing off. Jack's half open eyes turn to look at me. "Natalie..." he mumbles, his mouth barely moving.

"Hey, ya dummy. Trying to kill yourself, are you?" I tease him, holding my hands a foot apart as the palms face each other. Doing this motion makes me feel like I'm some kind of warlock from a fantasy movie. "Life just wasn't good enough for ya, huh?" I quip, giving him a smirk. He furrows his brow, before saying, "N-No... I was just-" "Save your breath," I say, "I was only joking." 

A translucent blue orb appears in my hands, and it gets larger as time passes. "Ugh, can you make this take any longer?!" Linda snaps impatiently, "He's dying!" "Yeah yeah, don't get your panties in a knot, Lin. He's got brass ones, right Jack?" I say, cocking my head to the side in a playful manner. His face turns bright red as he struggles to find words. I giggle stupidly and say, "This might sting a bit. Keep your tongue in your mouth, 'kay?"

I release the miniature sphere of light onto his body, and it washes over him, losing its globular form, almost as if it is made of water. He grits his teeth in pain for a few moments, but soon, his shoulder slump down in solace. "There. You feeling any better?" I say. He nods and sits up. "Yeah, thanks. Heh, your healing skills are really amazing. I feel as if nothing ever happened." "Yep. I'm that good," I say, grinning like an idiot.

"Thank God it worked," Linda says, her voice returning to its usual calm tone, "And sorry, by the way. For forgetting about coming to school early and all. I could've prevented this, if I'd-" "Don't worry. I'm fine," Jack replies, "And we can just talk after school. We'll have nothing else to do since we don't have biotics..." I wonder what they're talking about. Maybe it's some kind of date? Ha, it's about time.

"Are we leaving now, or is Jack going to be our teacher?" I say, growing a bit restless. "Ah, right," Linda says, standing, "we need to get to school." "By the way," I say, getting up along with her, "I still haven't forgiven you for calling me in the middle of class." "Oh, that... Sorry. My bad." "That's better, but not good enough. You owe me. You both owe me," I say with a wry smile, "I practically own you now."

"Aw come on! You can't hold a grudge on your best friends, right...?" Jack says. He does have a point. Which just makes it more fun to mess with him. "Who said we were friends?" Jack's eyebrows scrunch together in confusions as he involuntarily lets out a "what?", and Linda frowns. 

I grin at them and say, "Hey, I was just kidding. Yeah, Jack, you may have brass ones, but they need to come out of your purse once in awhile." He returns the smile and says, "I could say the same to you." That little-! "Hey! That's going too far! Now you're just being mean!" "I'm being mean?" he says, laughing as he does so. 

Jack is such an idiot. Which is why he's such a good and reliable friend. "Well... What about Lin?!" Linda's eyes widen in surprise as she says, "H-h-hey now. Don't bring me into this. This is a man to man conversation." "You traitor!!" I shout, tackling her over the couch as she giggles uncontrollably. "What? You're the one who brought me into this!"

Linda

I saunter down the hallway, surrounded by shouts and laughs and morons who will be hopped up on whatever stimulant they buy from the soda machine. I'm headed to the cafeteria, but although it's lunchtime, I'm not sure where everyone else is going. Either around in circles, or nowhere at all. Either way, I'm going to get to the lunchroom first. Perhaps I'll even get a seat outside.

"Hey Lin," Natalie says as she approaches me. "Hey gnat," I reply, patting her on the head. She insists on calling me Lin, so I insist on calling her a gnat. Same level of annoyance, so... She narrows her eyes at me before saying, "Are you actually going to eat with us today? Or do you have to do something else again?" I recall what happened yesterday, with those idiots who were assualting me. They're probably going to do it again today.

"No," I say, resenting the thought, "I'll be eating with you guys today." If they do happen to walk up, at least I'll have reinforcement. "Good," Natalie says, "I was hoping you'd say that. Where's Jack?" I shrug, and say, "Probably talking with his friends." "We're his friends, Lin. Duh," she replies. "Well he's not a loser, like we are. He's actually got friends," I say, empathetically. "Hey, speak for yourself! I'm not a loser! I have plenty of friends!" she yells at me. Well, she's not wrong... Natalie's also one of the most popular people I know, with miles of friends. I'm kind of out to the side somewhere...

"Who cares, as long as he sits with us, I'm fine, so just drop it," I say, not wanting to talk about it. I don't have friends because I don't want the kinds of friends you get in this place; all the people at this school are either wusses or assholes. Definitely not people qualified for a long-lasting friendship. It's as simple as that.

We sit down at a table outside and start to eat our lunches silently, and soon, Jack sits down with us. "Where were you?" Natalie asks, looking to him as she nibbles on an apple. "Just running an errand for Mr. Riley," he says, rummaging through his lunchbox. "That old fart breather? I knew you're a suck up! You despise that guy!" Natalie says. "Yeah, but he gets me good grades in chemistry, so life is good," Jack says with a laugh.

"Ha, found you!" I whip my head around in the direction of the voice, dreading that those delinquents are still going at it. As I suspected, the same three smug sets of eyes stare me in the face. I swallow down the lump that has formed in my throat and mutter, "What do you want?" "Stand up," one says, grabbing my arm and yanking me out of my seat. But before long, the grip on my wrist disappears, leaving me standing there with a bruised forearm. "Don't touch her like that," Jack says, standing over one of the accursed bunch of retards.

The boy quickly recovers and says, "Trying to play the knight in shining armor, huh? Well in case you haven't noticed..." he gestures to his klutzy friends, "There's three of us... And only one of you." I walk up next to Jack, saying, "Make that two." He laughs and says, "What could you possibly do?" Natalie follows, yelling, "Three!" He scowls at us and narrows his eyes slightly. "Is there a problem here?" A big figure tromps up behind the three kids, towering over them. Ben. He's at least a head taller than anyone else in school, teachers included, and has a bulky, muscular build. He's alot more gentle and loving than he looks though. 

The guy in front visibly gulps hard enough to swallow a watermelon, and says, "No. No problems here!" "Let's see what Linda has to say about it," Ben says, looking to me. "Definitely an issue. Problem is them," I say, pointing to the three intimidated punks. "I see." 

He picks two of them up with his right hand, one with the left, and carries them away about ten feet. He drops them on their rears, and dawdles back towards us. "Haha! You had them shittin' bricks Ben! Nice!" Natalie exclaims giddily as she sits back down in her place. "Did I?" Ben asks, returning to his timid, kind personality, "Well, that'd be a mess..." "That was a figure of speech Ben," Natalie says, and starts trying to explain to him what she meant. But I'm not listening to her right now.

Max, I think his name is, looks directly into my eyes, and slightly furrows his brow, before turning to his buddies and saying something too quiet for me to hear. He turns back to me as he stands up and mouths five words. Not out of spite though, which I was expecting.

"Meet me at the flagpole."