“You little bitch,” he snarled. “Look what you did to me! I’ll have you expelled and your father fired for this.”
“I’ll take my chances. You felt me up, you old creep. You’re the one who’ll lose your job once I tell them what you did,” said Gwen, her voice trembling with rage. She had moved clear of the desk, ensuring she had room to move and react, ready to employ the unarmed combat skills that had been drilled into her over the last eight years.
“Who are they going to believe? A respected teacher? Or a sixteen-year-old girl who was just upset at getting failed and wanted revenge?”
Maloney wiped across his nose with the back of his hand, a long string of clot and mucous smearing onto his sleeve. He looked down at the mess, clenched his hand into a fist and stepped forward. As the teacher closed on her, the rage that had burned hot began to cool, allowing Gwen to think clearly again. She was leaving this room, and if it had to be through this repulsive specimen of man, he’d be left a broken mess by the end of it.
As the class door was shoved closed on his heels, Ethan pulled up short, his brows drawn together in concern.
“Come on,” muttered Jaego. “If we don’t get moving we’ll be late for the next class.”
Ethan didn’t move, instead turned to listen at the door.
“Something’s not right. If he was just going to give Gwen a detention like us, why did he have to empty the class and close the door? I reckon we should hang out for a second, you know, just in case…”
Jaego’s face clouded as he understood his mate’s line of thought. “He’s a teacher, mate. He might be a douchebag, but surely she wouldn’t be unsafe with him?”
Ethan bit his lip for a second, undecided. “I heard a rumour about him and one of the girls in a different class. Something about him just then made me think for some reason it might not be just a story.”
From through the door came a cry of pain, then the muffled sound of a man swearing.
“Jesus, what the hell was that?” said Jaego.
Ethan didn’t answer, just grabbed the handle and shoved his body into the door.
Gwen glanced over her attacker’s shoulder as the door burst open, smashing into the wall adjacent as Jaego and Ethan tumbled through the entrance. Maloney dropped his fist at the intrusion, frustration clear as he turned to face the two boys.
“I thought I told the pair of you to get out!”
Ethan ignored the teacher, looking at his friend who still had her fists up in a fighting stance. “Are you all right? We heard a shout.”
Gwen took a breath and lowered her hands. “I’m fine. It’s Maggot here who has the problem. The bastard just assaulted me.”
“Pure lies!” said Maloney. “She attacked me for no reason—look at my face for God’s sake!”
A slow smile dawned on Jaego as he took in the mangled visage of the teacher’s face—broken teeth, smashed nose and bloody shirtfront. “Looks like you got what you deserved, sir.”
“The creep threatened to get my father sacked if we didn’t come to ‘an agreement’, and then he felt me up.”
Maloney backed a step toward the far corner of the room and away from the two boys, eyes furtively dancing between the students. He was starting to look nervous. “It’s her word against mine.”
“No,” said Ethan. “It’s the word of three students against you. I bet if we talked, there would be others who would come forward to tell their own stories.”
“So, you might want to re-think trying to get her dad fired, or ours for that matter,” said Jaego. “You ready to go, Gwen? Looks like old Maggot needs a trip to the sick bay to tell how he tripped and smashed his face into a desk.”
“Yeah, might want to get maintenance onto that loose floorboard as well,” said Ethan, his eyes as hard as flint.
Gwen gave Maloney a look of disgust as she walked for the door. As much as she wanted to run, she was determined to not give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much he’d rattled her.
Once she was in the corridor outside, her pace steadily increased until she escaped the building, pushing through the exit as if breaching the surface after a dive. Above, the sun burned down pitilessly from a blue expanse, empty of even a tendril of cloud. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to still the worm of fear in her gut that Maloney might follow through on his threat. Only time would tell.
The sound of approaching footsteps made her open her eyes. Jaego and Ethan stood at the entrance of the building, looking unsure of what to do.
“Are you ok, Gwen? Is there anything we can do?” asked Ethan.
Gwen looked up at them, words failing her.
“If you’d rather be alone, we’ll give you some space,” offered Jaego.
Gwen looked around the place and the thought of Maloney seeking her out once again came to mind. Alone was something that she definitely didn’t want for the moment. “No, it’s all right. Thanks for your support in there.”
She glanced at her watch and saw that the next lesson had started ten minutes earlier. Gwen knew she had given her dad a promise that she’d not draw attention to herself, but after what Maloney had done, that plan was already blown out of the water. It didn’t matter, there was no way she’d be able to concentrate on anything that afternoon, and she’d probably only get herself into further trouble.
“You know what? I need to escape this place for the afternoon. You guys want to join me?”
“Yeah, why not?” said Jaego before turning to Ethan. “How about we take her to the house?”
“Yeah, that works for me. I need to drop something off there myself.”
“Did you guys just say you have a house?” asked Gwen with one raised eyebrow.
“It’s nothing special,” said Ethan, “just one of the abandoned properties that we fixed up a bit. Jaego and I hang out there sometimes when we want to escape Viperob for a few hours. But it’s on the other side of the island. We’ll have to make it a brief trip because there’s a big storm forecast for this evening.”
Jaego snorted and pointed a finger up at the sky. “I don’t see a single cloud up there. They never get those weather reports right, and besides, we’ll only be gone for a few hours.”
Gwen looked between the two blokes. “So, are we going or what?”
Ethan finally shrugged. “Yeah, ok. Let’s ditch this place.”
Chapter Eleven
“Aren’t you all supposed to be in class or something?”
The security guard manning the exit from the Viperob complex didn’t even bother getting off his chair. His interest was firmly on a video playing on his phone and he barely even glanced up.
“Nah, we have a couple of free periods, so thought we’d head out for a walk and get some exercise,” said Ethan.
“Whatever,” shrugged the guard. “It’s not like you’re the first kids to ever wag school. Go have some fun, I didn’t see anything.”
Without needing any further encouragement, the three teenagers bolted before their luck changed. Once outside the wall, they set off at a jog until they were out of sight of the Viperob complex, knowing that the next official they ran into might not be so accommodating.
As they slowed to a walk, Jaego emitted a short laugh. “Taking a walk to get some exercise? No wonder he knew we were wagging, you idiot. What kid takes a walk for exercise? With all the personal training crap they make us do each week, that’s the last thing we’re going to want to do.”
A slight blush crept onto Ethan’s cheeks. “Yeah, well you come up with something better next time then.”
Gwen smiled, but didn’t get involved. Every step of distance she put between herself and the school buildings made her feel lighter, like she was escaping a weight she didn’t know she’d carried. They walked down a deserted street. The buildings to either side were empty of life and in varying states of disrepair. But with that desolation came an interesting comfort in not being watched. Anywhere you walked within the walls of the Viperob complex,
you could be sure there was a camera somewhere documenting your movement.
A stray a lock of blonde hair came free and tickled her cheek as she walked. Gwen pulled it back and went to re-tie her ponytail when she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. She touched the source of her discomfort gingerly, feeling something sharp wedged into the skin of her scalp. Her fingertips came away tipped in scarlet and tacky with blood. Gwen thought the ache at the back of her head had just been from headbutting Maggot, but he’d obviously managed to inflict some damage on her in the process.
“Ah, Gwen? I think you’re bleeding,” said Ethan.
She looked up from her own fingers to see the boys regarding her with worried expressions. “Give me a break, it’s not that bad,” she muttered. “Can one of you check it out? It feels like there’s something stuck in the wound.”
Jaego came closer, gently moved strands of hair aside until he could see. “That’s so cool. Hey, Ethan, you got to check this out.”
“What’s so cool? What’s in there?” asked Gwen as both boys now gawked at the back of her head.
“Um, you know how you smashed out Maggot Maloney’s front teeth?” said Ethan. “Well it looks like you took one of them with you as a souvenir.”
“Are you telling me I have one of that bastard’s teeth stuck in my head?” she asked, face wrinkled in disgust.
“I’m afraid so.”
Gwen shuddered in revulsion. “Get it out of me. Now!”
“All right,” said Ethan. “But you realise this is going to bleed like crazy when I remove it?
“I don’t care, just get it out!”
“Ok, just checking.” Ethan removed a pocketknife from a pouch on his waistband and flicked open a narrow blade. Steadying himself against her head with his other hand, he brought the tip of the blade against the tooth. “Right, don’t move for a sec.”
“Just hurry up or I’ll do it myself,” snapped Gwen.
Ethan dug the tip of the blade into the base of the tooth shard and flicked it out with a smooth levering motion. Now that the plug was removed from the wound, the puncture began to bleed freely, soaking the back of Gwen’s collar crimson in moments.
“Here, shove this on it,” said Jaego, holding out folded tissue. “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
Gwen gratefully accepted and pushed it firmly against the bleeding point with a free hand as she stood straight again.
“Don’t worry,” said Jaego. “Our place has got some stuff we can use to wash the wound, and we’re only a ten-minute walk away now.” On receiving a curious expression from Gwen, he shrugged. “Ethan and I get cuts and scrapes all the time when we’re diving. The sooner you clean them out, the less likely you have to pay for an expensive course of Bacteriophages. There’s some manky bugs out there just waiting to give you a wound infection, and from the yellow tinge of old Maloney’s teeth—I’d say it was covered in its own special batch.”
A sour taste touched the back of Gwen’s throat at his words. Yes, the sooner they got to the house and washed it out, the better.
Ethan wiped the blade clean on one of his pants legs and returned the knife to its pouch. “Let’s get going.”
Gwen grit her teeth at the burning sensation coming from the wound after having it cleaned, but it was a good pain, like the filth from Maloney’s tooth had been cauterized. Ethan had helped her scrub the wound clean with a bottle of sterile water before carefully applying a few drops of prophylactic bactericide into the puncture wound—the cause of her burning sensation. The solution had a secondary function as a coagulant to stop any further bleeding. Despite her discomfort, she couldn’t help but smile wryly that Ethan had only warned her of the pain after applying the solution. It’s not like she would have chickened out. She’d take a bit of pain any day of the week to avoid the certainty of rancid infection that came with a human bite.
He’d left her to it after that to clean her shirt of the worst of the blood in privacy. A faint pink stain remained at the back of her collar, but she was past the point of caring as she shrugged back into the shirt. It was still damp in spots, but it would do. She left her hair out to dry, and it hung free to just past her shoulders in honey coloured ringlets as she walked out to the find the boys.
Ethan glanced up from the Tri-Lob cage he’d been repairing on the table before him and couldn’t help but smile. It was the first time he recalled seeing Gwen with her hair out and it suited her. He risked a quick glance head to toe checking her out, then with self-discipline, firmly held his gaze at face height. She’d just been assaulted, and Ethan knew the last thing Gwen needed was another bloke leering at her.
“So, what do you think of the place?” he asked, standing up with the half-finished Tri-Lob cage completely forgotten.
At his prompting, Gwen studied the room. They were in the bottom level of a two-storey house on the south side of the island. Set less than a hundred metres back from the coast line, it commanded an uninhibited view out to sea. Constructed from solid blocks of sandstone, the building looked to be one of the oldest on the island. Its thick walls had stood up to the previous hundred years of abandonment better than most, but it was clear the boys had worked hard at restoring the building.
Where glass had once shut out wind and rain, removable shutters now provided protection. The boys had carefully patched the slate roof with random tiles sourced from other houses, so that the house now wore a crown of patchwork colours. The room they stood within held most of the treasures the mates had collected over the past few years of exploring. Gwen wandered around the room, stopping here and there to inspect an item more closely before moving on again.
“This one’s beautiful,” she said, gently running her hand over a carved wooden armrest of a chair. “Is it strong enough to use?”
Ethan walked over, the corners of his mouth raised in a slight smile. “Yeah, it should hold your weight fine. That chair’s one of my favourites; Jaego found it in a building a few streets away. Somehow, the room housing it had stayed watertight, so after we lugged it back here, all it needed was a light sanding and oil. Jaego’s got a real knack for restoration projects like that. He worked out how to do most of the repairs around the place, I just provided the free labour.”
“My ears are burning? Should I be worried,” said Jaego from the doorway, one eyebrow raised.
“I was just telling Gwen to blame any of the major repair faults around the place on you, mate.”
Jaego snorted a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s because this idiot can barely swing a hammer without smashing his thumb!” He gave a wave to both to follow. “You can’t stay sitting in the dark all day. Come outside—it’s in shade now, and besides, I’ve got a surprise.”
With curiosity piqued, Ethan followed his mate with Gwen not far behind. They climbed up a level and out onto a wide balcony. The afternoon sun was now behind the house, casting a shadow across the space. Combined with a slight onshore breeze, the temperature was perfect. A few folded blankets were on the tiles as cushions, while an unmarked bottle made from amber-coloured glass and three tumblers sat in the middle.
Ethan took a seat on one of the blankets, leant back against the wall and kicked off his shoes with Jaego and Gwen following suit. Ethan reached out a hand and picked up the bottle. It was around thirty centimetres tall, the body in a rectangular shape before sloping in to the neck. Ethan uncapped the top and took a sniff, his eyes widening in surprise.
“Is this what I think it is?” he asked.
Jaego grinned. “Yep. I swiped some of my dad’s homebrew. I just topped up the other bottle with some water—I bet he’ll never notice a thing.”
“He makes the bloody stuff, as if he isn’t going to notice a difference in taste,” said Ethan.
Jaego shrugged. “What’s the worst he’ll do? Ground me for a week? It’s not like he’s going to turn me into security. I can just imagine it—‘My son needs punishment for stealing my alcohol,’” he said in a deeper voice. “‘And while you�
�re at it, you may as well arrest me for running an illegal still in the first place.’”
“Hey, if you’re willing to take the risk, it’s not like I’m complaining,” said Ethan before taking another sniff, his nose wrinkling at the strength of the vapour. “Well if it tastes like crap, we could always use it as paint stripper.”
Jaego snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Not bloody likely, this is good stuff!” he said, looking mildly offended. “I figured we’d try it together to celebrate our big find the other day,” he said with a conspiratorial wink at Ethan. “And seeing as we have our first guest to the place, you’re welcome to join us, Gwen.”
“Why not?” said Gwen. “After all that’s happened today, I don’t think this will make it any worse.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Jaego, pouring a thumb-width measure into each glass.
The three teenagers took a tumbler each. “I guess we should make a toast to something before drinking?” said Ethan, eyeing the contents of his glass a little warily.
“Good call,” said Jaego. “I’ll do the first one. Here’s to Maggot Maloney losing his job for being a dirty old perv!”
Ethan and Gwen took a tentative sip, while Jaego knocked back his glass in a single swallow. With eyes watering, he gasped for air. “Damn, that’s strong stuff,” he said, pouring himself a second measure while his mates tried not to laugh.
The clear liquid had a strong taste that Ethan couldn’t say he liked, but it left a pleasant warmth through his chest and stomach. He stretched his feet out and reclined, happy to think of nothing and just enjoy the quiet company of his friends.
“So, what was your ‘big find’ that warranted the celebration?” asked Gwen.
Ethan’s eyes shot open with surprise. “I’ll give you a free tip. If you want a secret kept, don’t go sharing it with that big mouth,” he muttered at Jaego.
The Viperob Files Page 8
