Page 39 of Greased

“That exact carefree attitude will be the same thing that allows Scarlett to be hurt again. She shouldn’t be here.” His teeth clench. The anger deepening in his expression. “She. Will. Fucking. Die.”

I jolt at his tone. Before any of us can reply, he turns around and storms off. His anger in regards to me is actually surprising. My head feels like a mess as I watch his retreating form. Why is he so angry when last night he didn’t seem to care?

“Don’t worry about him, Scar. It must be shark week,” Sonny jokes, attempting to lighten the mood. Yet, Dawson’s bullshit has seemed to shake me out of the haze that seems to come over me when I am in the presence of these men. I shake Nicky’s hand off my shoulder as I find myself again.

“What the fuck was that last night?” I demand, looking between the four men standing in front of me.

“I don’t have any kind of explanation for what that was last night, Scarlett. But as for my – our – actions, you more than deserve an explanation. Just name a time and place and we will tell you everything,” Pike says as he steps closer to me. “But until then, we are going to be hanging around like bad smells. The way we handled shit was wrong and while I can’t speak for the other guys, I won’t let you down again.”

A shred of me wants to break down in front of Pike. But a bigger part of me is wild with anger. Wild at how they have treated me. Beside myself with resentment towards the men in front of me. No matter how pretty their faces are, they can’t expect me to fall to my knees.

Not today Satan.

I nod, “Unfortunately Pike, you already have. I’m not a stranger to heartbreak but it's going to take a bit more than that to butter me up.” I watch his face falls. I pull up the straps of my bag and sigh. “Right, well I need to go to admin.” I nod towards the building feeling slightly awkward all of a sudden. Pike, Nicky, Dacre and Sonny all rush forward to usher me there. Their enthusiasm to get back into my good books fills me with way too many ideas on ways to fuck with them and more importantly, make them grovel.

No, I’m going to make these motherfuckers get on their knees and beg to be forgiven.

I take a look at the timetable handed to me by the adorable lady at administration.

First up, Maths. Ugh.

“Fuck, Maths first thing on a Monday morning is brutal,” I groan.

Nicky takes my timetable from me and looks it over.

“It looks like we have almost all of the same classes together,” Nicky hands me back my timetable. “We’ve got training Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays as well.”

“What do we actually do in training?” I question.

“Rhodes or your Dad hasn’t explained it to you yet?” Sonny queries, his brow frowning slightly.

I shake my head. “No they haven’t. A lot of the conversations since they came back into my life have been more about catching up on lost time. There have been a few things mentioned about the Birds but I am still pretty clueless, really.” I grimace, realising just how much I amgoing to have to learn. The weight of it feels like it might consume me. The pressure to live up to the expectation my father has in place for me.

“Ok, that gives me a good idea on what to go off then. Once we hit our junior year, we are required to start attending training. While those of us that will inherit the leadership roles and have been training for years,” Dacre begins, “The rest of the greenies only start then. Think, learning how to infiltrate high profile companies, setting up legitimate businesses to filtrate profits from our illegal businesses, weapons, and combat. Some of us go into the tech side of the gang. Others go into the dealing side. Basically, we learn the ins and outs of every activity in the ‘Underworld’. When the Pres took over, he didn’t want a bunch of unreliable gang bangers controlling the masses. He wanted people with their heads screwed on and this was the outcome.”

I nod taking in the information. It makes sense that he would feel that way and by the success I can see that they have achieved, it's a no brainer. The idea of infiltrating a business though seems unimaginable to me. For some reason, the weapons and combat seem more tame, if that is even a possibility.

We continue the hallway and take a couple of different turns until we reach a classroom with a few stragglers filtering through the door.

Taking in my surroundings as we walk down the hallways, I feel like I’m in one of those American high school movies. Lockers line the walls with couples unable to keep their hands off each other. In Australia, lockers are a rare commodity. Only a select few schools have them. The majority of us have to carry all of our textbooks around on our backs. Surely the government should provide some kind of compensation for chiropractor appointments.

Not only that, but the fact that American schools seem to be one massive building with all the classrooms inside, versus Australian schools that have a heap of scattered buildings normally dedicated to a single subject.

I didn’t fail to notice the number of stares the guys and I seemed to get. Seems my return is hot gossip amongst the masses. I wonder just how many of these people I used to know before. Were they any of my friends? My enemies?

Every time I even attempt to bring up the conversation on who my old friends were with Rhodes, he becomes cagey and steers the conversation in a different direction.

Almost like he wanted to keep me all to himself.

Weird.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Rhodes comes up the hallway flanked by the two burley guys I met last night, Jethro and Wyatt.

They have this presence about them that demands respect. Either that or they have a ‘don’t fuck with me’ sign on their foreheads. Students hurry out of their way, clearing the hallway almost immediately.

“Hey, Scar,” Rhodes says as he embraces me.

“Hey, baby bro.”

---