Preys of the Alpha Predators

7: Project Partners

CHLOE

“No way, Miss Janice,” I told as I barged into her office, “Kyle can't be my partner for this project, I can't work with him.”

“Take a breather,” our homeroom teacher replied, barely looking up from what she was typing on her laptop, “and take a seat.”

I slumped on the seat opposite her, still worried and anxious about what it’d mean for me if I really partnered with Kyle.

I couldn’t even even imagine that and that was why immediately after seeing his name beside mine on the list, I wasted no time to dash here. To the one person that I know would be able to undo this.

Miss Janice took her sweet time typing away before she finally looked up at me, “So, what’s the problem?”

“Kyle, Miss Janice,” I replied and her eyebrows quirked questioningly, “he’s my partner for the school’s project but we can’t work together… there’s already the history of our bad blood because of all the articles I’ve written about him so I’m sure he won’t even make this easy for me at all and I can’t gamble that 10% because of someone like him.”

“What makes you so sure you’ll be gambling away the 10%?”

“Because of Kyle… I don’t think things like this will work on him, he’s…” irredeemable, corrupted, will always be found doing vile things, has broken all sorts of rules in Empire High, “he’s just a typical bad student and you know how much my grades mean to me, I can’t… I can’t screw it up because of him so please, can I just get another partner, I don’t mind, I can even take more than a partner, I can take up to 5, just anyone but Kyle.”

“Calm down, Chloe, I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

It’s that bad. I’m the only one that knows just how bad it is.

“And you have to partner with Kyle, no one else will be able to handle him but you.”

I opened my mouth to talk but she beat me to it, “Remember the three months of volunteering service you did at HUG, a mental health facility last year?”

I nodded slowly, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“Remember Wondergirl?”

Wondergirl… that was the name of the female patient that I sort of became friends with during those three months. She was different from all of us, she was different from the rest of us, didn’t feel the things we could feel, didn’t see the things we could see.

Her weirdness made her father, who was her only family abandon her because he didn’t want a child who found joy in watching others suffer, who skinned a lizard alive when she was only 4, who enjoyed watching others inflict pain on each other, who was withdrawn and didn’t like playing with other kids.

He abandoned her and she was taken in by a facility that followed up on her case and got her diagnosed with an antisocial personality disorder, something that made her brain different from ours.

She was still reclusive by the time we started the volunteering program that I wasn’t even interested in but had to do because it’d look good for my scholarship applications but Wondergirl made me fall in love with it, made me develop a flair for anything mental health and at the end of the three months, I was able to bring Wondergirl out of her reclusive state, was able to make her interact more freely with others, was able to make her more humane.

What I didn’t understand now was why she was bringing this up.

“What was Wondergirl diagnosed with again?”

“Antisocial personality disorder,” I replied, still confused about where she was going with all this.

“And you were able to influence her positively during the time that you volunteered with her?"

"Yeah," the last time I checked, she was sitting for her high school diploma exams but that still doesn't explain what that has to do with Kyle King and this project.

"Good, so now, Kyle was diagnosed with a form of antisocial personality disorder after he went through something traumatic when he was young and if you've actually paid attention to him, like I'm sure you have since you've written a couple of news articles about him, you'd notice that he's actually unusual."

Yeah, Kyle was unusual but a form of antisocial personality disorder? That was unbelievable. I mean he's unusual and weird but he still looked perfectly normal. He was the definition of everything bad but he had friends I've seen him relate perfectly to so I was finding it hard to believe that he's actually antisocial.

Can also be called a sociopath.

And a part of me couldn't stop wondering what the traumatic incident was and how deeply it had affected and scarred him.

"So because you already have experience with this, with working with someone that has the same disorder, that's why we're trusting you to do this with him, and trust me, he already has a professional he's seeing. We just need someone to ensure his seamless life at the school."

Wow. I wasn't even sure of what to say or think. This was a lot to take in but working with Kyle? That's like toying with fire. I was going to get burnt. I was sure of that.

Memories of our last encounters flashed unbridled in my brain, causing an involuntary throb in my core and an instant anger at my reaction followed.

I still couldn't believe that I had allowed someone like Kyle to do that to me, that the sinister look in his eyes had promised that he'd do more.

And a part of me, a twisted, dark, and unhinged part of me was looking forward to it.

I had to be crazy and I knew I had to run away from him as far as possible but here I was, getting roped into a project that'd make us spend more and more time together.

It was crazy.

"I trust that you're going to do it," Miss Jessica's voice interrupted my thoughts and she was looking at me expectantly, "You're the only one for the job."

"Yeah," I answered meekly, knowing that there was nothing I could do. I had to do it and deep down, there was a part of me that wanted to see how this would go.

How I be able to influence someone like Kyle King?

A couple of minutes later, I stepped out of the office after Miss Jessica had run me through the structure the project was going to take only for me to stop in my tracks as that familiar cologne filled my nose and my eyes met the dark ones that haven't stopped tormenting my dreams and my reality since over a week now.