~Chapter X~

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~Madelyn~

"I THINK I MIGHT DIE ALL OVER AGAIN."

I glanced over at Piglet as she regarded my math professor with disdain.

"Can he make this class any more boring?" she complained.

I smiled. "Math isn't suppose to be a fun subject to endure," I said, keeping my voice to low whisper. I chose a seat at the back for this very reason. Didn't want my classmates catching me talk to myself and give them reason to suspect I was mentally unbalanced.

"Ugh!" Piglet grabbed at the strands of her leaf-infested cotton pink hair. "This is too much torture. I must not have been a good student when I was alive."

"You are not good at being a Spirit either," added Blue.

Piglet threw a bland look at her friend. "You're supposed to be my best friend. Why are you being so mean to me like this?"

Blue rolled her eyes, a wet blue strand falling into her pale face. "You continue to call me that when I have no interest being around you. I told you before we are not friends. The dead do not have friends."

It was my turn to roll my eyes.

I let my head fall into my left palm with a low groan. "Can you guys not argue right now. It's distracting me from my lessons. I need to focus."

At the same time they both pointed fingers at the other and exclaimed, "She started it!"

"Is this seat taken?"

I looked up to the face of that voice and halted. "You."

He smiled down at me. "Me."

"What a gorgeous human. Who is he?" Piglet dreamily gazed up at the new student.

Speaking of which. I glanced around the classroom to notice many of my female classmates were giggling and whispering behind their hands about Makoto. Hearts in their eyes and sighs filling the air in breathless clouds of swooning.

The sight was more than a bit disconcerting.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" he continued to ask me.

"I don't think you'd be safe from harm if you did," I said, assessing him.

"Why is that?" His question made me think of the Sparrows. Their aggressive possessiveness this morning when a few football players whistled at me came to mind.

Hansel had reacted like a madman and punched the first guy he saw rather than give him time to come to terms with the black eye in store for him. Even Phoenix joined in. Wrapping a hand around the two linebackers' throats- who laughed with their friend -and growling murderous threats in their faces on the thousand ways he would cut off their dicks and feed it to them as they bled out.

As most girls might swoon over a hot male fighting for their honor as the historic perspective of patriarchy, however I was more annoyed at the blatant ideal they thought I was made of porcelain and couldn't deal with the situation on my own. But that wasn't why I didn't want Makto sitting next to me, or why I was weary of him. It was what he called me this morning that has stumped me.

Little Rose. The nickname no one else but my mother and estranged father and twin brother were aware of, so how the hell did some stranger know it? Makoto was an enigma I didn't understand. He was knowledgeable about my life which lead to my only assumption concluded Makoto must know my brother personally somehow.

"Do you have a phobia about sitting next to people?" he continued as I hadn't spoken for some time.

I shook my head.

He sat down in the empty seat. "Good. I'd hate for us not to get along, but I'm sure you'll warm up to me. I hear I'm very good at making people like me."

"Cocky much?" I said, watching as he got comfortable and took out a pen for notes.

The corner of his lips twitched.

"I think there is praise where it counts." He tilted his head at me. "The social hierarchy would claim so because of my good looks."

I raised a brow, but said nothing.

Blue emerged on the other side of Makoto, arms crossed, and water spilling down her form like tears while studying him. "This one thinks highly of himself."

"Isn't he lovely?" Piglet was suddenly on our joined table. Hands cupped under her chin, flat on her stomach, both legs swung back in forth in a gesture that was cutely disgusting if you looked past the several incisions all over her skin. She fawned openly at him, and the fact he couldn't see her- his left arm passing through her elbows as he followed the written examples from the teacher at the front of the classroom- didn't bother her.

Blue made a face. "Your complete disregard at the fact that you are dead, and he cannot see you makes my head throb. I feel like a bloody idiot being near you."

I could not argue with Blue on that.

Sometimes I questioned how Pink had survived this long in the real world. Was she like this too when she was alive?

"Something on your mind?"

"Huh?"

Makoto chuckled. "You've been staring at me for the past five minutes."

"Oh." I cleared my throat and faced the chalkboard. "Sorry."

"I don't mind the staring. It's always nice to have the eyes of a beautiful girl on me."

I turned back to him with a straight face. "That line won't work on me. Hitting on me will only land you in a world of hurt."

"Because of your boyfriends," he added.

I didn't elaborate. What was I supposed to say? My relationship with the Sparrows was a complicated tale and adding romance has tipped my world upside down. But exclusive dating had never been implied during my last conversation with Kieran at the end of summer break.

I mean...where did we stand? What were the four of us?

Hansel has shown clear interest in me since the moment we met. Kieran was their leader, so naturally it was made clear as to why he held back. As opposed to Phoenix who flirted at times, and completely disregarded me after I rejected him at Morris's lakehouse. Ridley was the only one to showcase his true feelings on the subject of his ultimate dislike for me, so I understood we would never advance past a mutual hate towards each other. He'd never willingly accept me into their group. Not when I posed a threat to Atticus and the Sparrows he called his brothers because of my sadistic family ties.

"Is this the part where you ignore me completely?"

"Yes," I replied steadily.

A sigh that wasn't mine cut through our connection. It sounded close, but nothing that I could see matched the ominous noise. "He always was bad at picking up pretty girls. I'm ashamed to even know him at this point. And I'm not even alive."

Blue stiffened at something over my shoulder. "Maddy..." Her voice wavered.

"Oh. So I can be seen."

In a flash, I spun in my seat and nearly screamed at the horrible being sitting in the chair beside me. Not a lot of things scared me. I had my fair share of creepy encounters over the years that I became sort of immune to the undead that show up. In whatever form they appear to me in. There was even a time when I was ten, and a man in his late forties came to me with half his face smashed in while I was eating dinner with Charlie and Charlotte at a local diner. He was a construction worker who'd been in a accident and was killed by a steel beam.

I couldn't eat Spaghetti for whole year after that. But this ghost?

The young man smiled at me, the slits all over his face ripping open and spilling a river of red down elegant features that used to exist. His skin was in ripples all over, cut through like he had been tortured with a thousand knives from his knees to his stomach and everywhere above. The torn patches of his once white top and blue jeans were torn in places to expose the damage, and the revelation of the incisions told me they were deep enough to have made him bleed out and die.

"Strange. You can see me." He leaned into me and I drew back a few inches at the sudden tearing of his flesh due to movement. Gross. "How is it you can see me when not even Makoto can?"

I raised a brow at him. "You know him?"

"Know who?" Makoto asked me.

"Not you," I said reflexively.

Damn it. Why was this so hard to tell the difference between reality and these ghosts?

I cleared my throat after the revelation of what I'd done hit me. "Sorry. I tend to talk to myself a lot."

He looked like he believed it to a fault.

Thankfully, the bell rang, drawing our attention the evacuating students.

I quickly gathered my books and made haste to find the Sparrows. If I don't show up in time at the cafeteria they'd no doubt come looking for me. There was no telling what they would do if they found me with the mysterious new student. Not when even I found him to be untrustworthy.

"Wait!"

A hand on my arm spun me in place, and I wasn't surprised when light blue eyes looked down at me with a handsome, pale face.

Makoto.

"I was hoping we could talk."

"We can't." I dragged myself from his grip. "It's best if you keep away from me."

"Is this because I know your secrets?" he said as I tried to walk away.

I spun back around and narrowed my gaze at him.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He scoffed. "I'm not dense. You're running from me because of what I said to you, earlier in the hall. Was it the name that stumped you? Little Rose."

I glared at him. "You know that name. How?"

With his hand still on my wrist he pulled me towards him. I fell into his chest and he wrapped those same hands around my waist, hugging me close like a lover. The steady race of his heart started to rapidly increase under my palms where I planted them on his chest, but realization that his wasn't the only one suddenly flipped things inside my tummy.

"I think you know the answer to your question already."

I did. But I needed him to say it.

As if reading my thoughts, Makoto brought his lips down to my ear and whispered the words that would feed into the fear I've tried to ignore these past few months. Of what I knew would come.

"Tobias and Aydin want you to come home."

"Let me think about that," I said, sarcastically, then shoved against his chest. He didn't move an inch. "Are built out of solid rock?"

He sighed. "Fighting me is useless. But know I do not want to hurt you."

With a huff I arrested squirming and said, "What is with the male generation and manhandling a girl when obviously wants to be let go? You know there are better ways than this to get a girl to talk, right? You're failing at the moment."

He chuckled. "If you'd just let me explain-"

One moment I was trapped, and the next Makoto released me and fell to the ground. His weight dropped quick. There was a open cut on his bottom lip all of a sudden. He wiped the trail of blood with the back of his sleeve and stared at the culprit who had punched him- behind me. Strong arms wrapped a then, drawing me back against his chest as if to state possession to our fallen enemy that I was claimed.

"Did he hurt you, little psycho?" asked a familiar voice.

Peaking over my shoulder I was stumped by a pair of hazel eyes smiling down at me like a bright ray of sunshine.

I gasped. "Hansel."

He grinned.

"Miss me, baby?" he teased.

"Yes, she did!" Piglet exclaimed for me.

I rolled my eyes at her.

"I see the last of the Sparrows has indeed returned." Makoto sat upright off the carpet in a sluggish motion that betrayed the anger aflame in his oceanic depths. He stared up with half-lidded eyes, regarding Hansel with a bored expression. "I heard a rumor you're the main suspect in a murder for your ex-fiancee. Charlotte Moon."

Hansel finally acknowledged Makoto. Obvious disinterest shadowed his features, but lurking deeper laid a certain curiosity that headed him in place. Turning towards Makoto I tensed as the golden-eyed prince bent on both knees, arms falling over his thighs, and studied his blue-eyed opponent as if he were a strange creature cast upon us from another universe.

Makoto's handsome features and angelic skin certainly depicted him as something otherworldly.

"You must be the piece of trash trying to intimidate my brothers," Hansel spoke, gravelly.

"Depends on what you mean by intimidate." Makoto got to his feet, righting the wrinkles on his uniform and inspecting the small specs of red splashed on the collar of his purple blazer. He sighed at the damage with a foul look. "This was a new jacket."

"What a shame." Hansel grabbed the lapels of Makoto's ruined coat and drew him close. "That is nothing compared to what I am going to do to you for touching what is mine."

We drew a crowd. Passing students curious to watch the drama hovered like bees to honey, waiting eagerly for the breaking point in which one of these boys threw the first punch. Some even went as far as to pull out their phones to record for later gossip.

Not good.

"We were simply talking. If you want to be a possessive asshole about it, that's fine."

"Hansel," I beseeched. "Let it go. We've drawn enough attention."

He ignored me. "Why did you grab her?"

Makoto didn't bother to remove Hansel's aggressive grip on him and scoffed. "I didn't think flirting was such a crime. Besides she never claimed to be spoken for."

Hansel's mood darkened further. His hands still holding up Makoto whitened at the knuckles. From behind I sensed the climax of this conversation ending with violence and a ticket of suspension. If I didn't interfere soon there was no telling what trouble Hansel could end up in. His grandmother would no doubt withdraw him from Raven Oak and homeschool him as she once threatened.

"Maddy, hurry!" Pink pointed at Hansel with accusation and concern. "Stop your barbaric boyfriend before he hurts Makoto's beautiful face even more."

Blue and I made a face at her together.

"What?"

"It boggles my mind how mentally unstable you are given the circumstances," said Blue, scoldingly. "Must you keep forgetting that you are a walking dead girl? Be more serious."

Pink cringed as if Blue had insulted her. "You mean be gloomy and depressing like you."

"Enough!" I shouted aloud, hinting at both parties to stop.

Silence descended. All eyes on me.

I hated being the center of attention. Tried to avoid it half my life, but these two left me no choice. Getting between the pair I spread them apart- forcefully. Leaving them to do nothing more than glare at each other as the peering students dispersed in disappointment, taking with them the bad blood perfuming the atmosphere.

"Are you two done comparing dicks?" I said, meeting Hansel with crossed arms. "We're late. Now you have to pay for my lunch."

Hansel shook his head with a lopsided smirk. "Whatever you want, little psycho."

"Good."

I shoved him towards the direction of the cafeteria, and he laughed. Starting forward he thrust his shoulder against Makoto as we passed. Typical Hansel. But that didn't disturb Makoto from watching my departure, keeping his gaze solely on me as I continued after Hansel....then paused.

"Don't follow us," I said, not bothering to look up from where I stood in front of Makoto. "You will only cause more trouble for both of us."

He stared straight ahead. Sighed. "I wish I could stop," he whispered so only I could hear. "But I made a promise to your brother."

"To do what? Kidnap me again?"

He finally looked down at me, eyes somber. "When you come back with me and rejoin with your father and brother, it will not be by my hands. That choice will be decided by you."

"Let's go, babe!" Hansel urged, but I didn't move instantly.

"What makes you so sure?" I asked.

"You don't belong here. The time will come when you figure that out."

"Or maybe it is you who does not belong here."

He blew out a breath of laughter. "I know I don't belong at this school." His eyes scanned over the beautifully polished walls. "I am not deceitful like these rich kids. Your Sparrows should prepare themselves. Secrets cannot be kept hidden for forever. When I find them, I am going to unleash their sins from Pandora's Box and rain destruction upon their lives."

I nodded. "We'll be ready."

~

Tensions are rising! Hnasel has finally come back. Drama is stirring hot with Makoto on his first day and already he has become popular even with the ghosts. How much do you guys love Makoto like me?

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Next chapter tomorrow.

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