STAINED SOULS

Chapter Two

Bidii High: Five Years Ago

Tina was heading to grab dinner at the cafeteria when she suddenly decided to change her mind. She wasn’t feeling hungry anymore. She wasn’t a fan of food, so skipping a meal or two wasn’t that much of a big deal to her.

But for the past week she was certain she probably had just two or three meals.

She wasn’t hungry and she only ate because her desk mate would force her into it and sometimes because she didn’t want to faint at the assembly while the deputy principal was addressing the school.

Her health was deteriorating, she could feel it from her clothes.

They weren’t fitting like they used to before.

She was not okay, she wanted to talk to someone so bad, but she had made an oath, with the rest of the guys never to talk about what happened that night.

The next day after what had happened, she wanted to tell the truth, she told Patrick that she couldn’t keep such a huge secret, she was going to go insane. Patrick was worried.

He was the one that had committed the murder and if the truth came out, then he would be on the receiving end. He would earn more years than the others. There was no way he was going to let her talk, so he called an emergency meeting with the rest of the guys.

They needed Sorcha to also be there so they were to hold that meeting out of school.

This wasn’t the first time for students to escape school and go out to do whatever they wanted to do. Patrick and his group of friends had done it before, but it was a first for Tina, but he somehow convinced her into doing it.

He claimed it was necessary.

She should have just said no to them, because what they made her do is what she would prefer to call dark and horrific.

Everyone in the group didn’t trust the other, but they didn’t trust Tina more, after all she was the new girl in the group, they weren’t sure enough if she wouldn’t try to sell them out.

So, they initiated her into one of their stupid gang rituals.

Tina didn’t even know that group had so much mysterious stuff.

They claimed the only thing they could do was do a blood oath.

Tina had heard of people doing that, but she never actually thought they would go ahead to do it. It just sounded insane to her. It was a stupid and crazy idea, but they insisted she had to join in.

She even remembered Paul threatening to turn everything on her if she didn’t make the oath and went ahead to reveal their secret.

She was always scared of Paul, so with a very heavy heart she did the blood oath.

Everyone had to bleed their arm with a razor and then they would hold hands to have their bloods connected. She didn’t believe in that crap but the others did, and that was the thing with such rituals, as long as everyone had faith in it, then the consequences would be dangerous.

After that scary meeting, Tina made it a point to avoid the rest of the guys in school.

She was mad at them for making her do something she didn’t want to.

She was done with people thinking the decisions they made for her were right. She even avoided her boyfriend. He had taken part in forcing her to do it. He was her boyfriend, he was supposed to defend her, not push her into it.

The main reason why she didn’t even want to go for dinner was because she saw him sitting on her bench. She had moved back to the bench she used to sit on before she joined the Elite group and started dating Patrick.

Her best friend Sophia who was also her desk mate was seated there and she seemed to be uncomfortable with Patrick and his friends sitting with her. Tina could see it, and she wanted to help her friend but she didn’t want to face everyone. Another reason she was Avoiding Patrick was because she knew he would want to know the truth about what the principal had been rumbling about that night. She didn’t want to talk about it.

She let out a sigh of relief when she saw the guys standing up one after the other. They could finally let her best friend have her meal in peace.

She turned around and decided to go back to class for the preps.

She had to forget that night’s meal, like she has been doing with the rest of the meals.

Sophia had convinced her into having dinner and now she felt bad for not accompanying her again. When Sophia had asked her why she wasn’t okay, she lied that she had broken up with Patrick and so she wasn’t taking the heartbreak so well.

Her friend had been there for her, telling her how she would be okay and that was just her first heartbreak and it would only make her stronger. Only if she knew that Tina was far from okay.

Just as she was walking through the dark alley that led to the classrooms, she felt as her body bumped into someone.

She quickly murmured and apology but wished she could take it back when she heard the voice of the person she had bumped into.

“What, just because you forgot your glasses now you can’t see?” Paul asked sarcastically with an intention of pissing her off. She didn’t even wear glasses.

Tina wasn’t in the mood to get into yet another fight with him.

She had been doing that when she was part of the group, now that she wasn’t anymore, she didn’t want to waste her energy.

She was tired of him always reminding her of how she didn’t fit in in their group and they were better off without her. Now that she wasn’t part of their group, she expected he wouldn’t be so mean, but this was Paul Mazu, being mean is what defined him.

Especially when it came to Tina.

The two of them just had bad blood between them.

Tina made her way to walk past him but she felt as he held her arm stopping her.

She wanted to snatch her arm away, but somehow, she didn’t. She didn’t understand why having Paul around her made her heart race.

That was probably because he scared her.

But she wasn’t sure if he did scare her. She knew what being scared felt like. Like when the principal pinned her to the wall and covered her mouth so that no sound would come out, that was scary, but this, she just couldn’t explain it.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Paul asked her.

She was thinking of ignoring him, but her yearn for freedom was way more than her pride.

She wanted to breathe; she couldn’t do that with him this close to her.

“I said I was sorry.” She just wanted to go to class.

“Yea, I heard that.” He said but he didn’t let her go.

“Please excuse me.” She said as she tried to make her way past him, he was still holding her arm, but she just wanted to walk away.

He stared at her and gently moved his fingers over the skin on her arm. Her heart skipped a beat.

What the hell did he think he was doing?

“Why are you so cold?” He asked the question.

He just didn’t understand why she never bothered to put on a sweater or jacket, it was something he had noticed and he would see how Patrick would sacrifice his jackets all the time.

“Well, in case you didn’t notice, it’s cold outside.” Tina felt so good giving him such an answer.

Anything that would make him feel less of himself, she would go for it.

“Yea. I have, but it seems like you haven’t, where is your sweater?” he asked with so much concern that surprised Tina. Even he himself was surprised.

He didn’t want her to know he cared so much about her.

She kept quiet and bit her lower lip nervously. She didn’t have an answer for the question, or rather, she didn’t want to reply.

“Tina?”

“I don’t have one.” When she joined school for the boarding session, her mother had bought her a good number of sweaters and jackets, but she just didn’t know how she lost all of them and even the one that she had she lost it in class a week ago.

She couldn’t even tell her mother she had lost all her jackets; her mom would go insane.

“But doesn’t Patrick give you his?” Paul asked recalling the number of times he saw him giving her his jackets.

“I lost two of his favorite jackets, so he always takes them back once I get to the dormitory.” She said with so much innocence like she was an eight-year-old child who was being interrogated.

Paul was just mad at Patrick for valuing his stupid jackets than the beautiful girl he had in his life.

Yes, Paul thought Tina was very beautiful, the world could just go ahead and sue him for it.

Then a thought crossed his mind, he gave her his jacket that fateful night. She never returned it and when he asked Patrick about it, he told him to tell him the price, since they were bros for life, he chose to let it go.

Maybe Patrick told him that because she had lost his jacket too.

“What about my jacket? Please don’t tell me you lost it too.” He asked and she looked away.

She lost it the same night.

She had hung it on the bed before going to sleep, when she woke up the next morning, she couldn’t find it, she told Patrick about it and he said he would talk to Paul.

It seemed like he didn’t talk to him.

“I’m sorry, I will pay for it, I promise.” She knew she didn’t have the money to afford a jacket he owned, Paul was a rich kid, but she still had six months before graduation, she would try to save up.

She didn’t want Paul making her feel bad on a daily basis because of that jacket.

“You don’t have to.” Paul said and she watched as he took off his current jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She quickly took it off.

“You can’t give me this, I don’t want to lose it too.” She was already indebted to him; she didn’t want any more trouble.

“I’m sure you won’t.’

He didn’t know what he was talking about. Tina had bad luck when it came to sweaters.

“But if…” he cut her off by placing a finger on her lips to make her keep quiet.

“I’ll make sure you don’t lose this one, I hate to see you this cold.” He helped her put it on and she didn’t try to argue this time.

This was the first time Paul was ever being nice to her so she didn’t want to ruin that moment.

Just then her stomach rumbled.

It was demanding to be fed. Too bad it was past dinner time.

“Did you eat?” Paul asked her and she shook her head as she bit her lip even deeper.

This was embarrassing.

“Come, let me find you something to eat.” He said and held her hand as he led the way to the cafeteria.

It was that little act of kindness that evening that made Tina fall for him. Well, she didn’t realize it immediately, but by the time she graduated from high school, she still had the jacket he gave her and he was taking her on their first date after the graduation.

And five years later, they were still together.

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