Pusher

eight.

Ellie had talked me into watching my first slasher flick back when we were in the sixth grade. That is, if you count locking me in her basement as a form of persuasion. By the end I had developed a phobia of coal mines, showering in an empty house, the dark, and blonde girls named Jeanine. I slept with the lights on for a whole week afterward and vowed to never watch a horror film again.

Sure, I had experienced anxiety before the movie. Any kind of test sent a cold sweat down my spine and I had always dreaded walking into class for the first day only to discover, once again, I didn't have any friends waiting for me.

But those trivial bits of middle school life were nothing compared to the completely irrational, unhindering paranoia that clouded over me. My eyes flicked over every room in a constant scan. I imagined all sorts of unnerving sounds and dark figures, always trailing not too far behind. I was a nervous wreck.

Today felt as though I had been transported back to the sixth grade, but this time I wasn't dodging a blood-thirsty psychopath. I was plagued by my fear of Maverick Weir.

So, basically the same thing, right?

Dante's warning rung in my ears for the rest of the day. I could picture his swollen, black eye every time I closed my own. My lunch was dumped into the garbage can, untouched. I lost my appetite with the dread of my Current Events class. How was I supposed to sit next to that delinquent, the one who who very clearly wanted to smash my face in, for an entire hour?

I thought about marching down to the office and faking ill until they let me drive myself home. I was surely pale enough to pass. But the notion, clawing at my mind as I rummaged around in my locker, was too little, too late.

My locker door clicked shut, a broad hand spread out across the surface. The knuckles were bruised.

Maverick stared down at me with dark eyes and a slight tilt to his lips. With that one stony look my breath was lost before it reached my lungs. I froze with wide eyes and white knuckles as I gripped my books to my chest.

"People have been saying the strangest things about you," he said, his voice as smooth as tar, and his dark tone matching the color. He inched a step forward.

"I don't really keep up with rumors." I swallowed my fear and aimed for a casual tone. It came out too light with no conviction to weigh it down.

He stepped closer still, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a crooked smirk, and I shrunk back. My back pressed into the lockers. The metal sent a cold chill across the base of my neck.

"Have you been dealing behind my back, Angelica?" My name was spoken like a threat.

"I don't know what you've been smoking, but you might want to lay off for a while." My offensive might have worked if my voice didn't sound so small. Now would be an invaluable time to channel Ellie's unfaltering confidence. "I'm not the kind of girl to go around selling pot."

Maverick pressed his hand into the locker above my head and leaned over me. He hovered dangerously close, and my cheeks burned under the intensity of his gaze. I shuddered out a thin breath and tried to sink further into the lockers. The metal was stiff against the notches of my spine.

"And I'm not the kind of guy you want to be lying to." His eyes narrowed just a touch and his smile twisted into a threat. He was so close I'm sure he could hear my thundering heartbeat just as well as I could.

"It's not a lie."

Oh, but it clearly was, and the both of us knew it. I had only moved an inch to the right, meaning to duck out of his uncomfortable confrontation, before he planted another hand into the locker beside me, blocking my path. He wasn't letting me out of this one easy.

"You want to rethink that answer." It wasn't a question, not even close. His mouth had fell into a flat line, all his twisted humor drained from his eyes.

I met his hard eyes with my own, my jaw tight. My stomach flipped, wanting desperately to spill the truth and the lunch I never ate. But would he forgive and forget with a simple confession?

No. Maverick had a warped sense of justice and an easily wounded sense of pride. My only hope of getting out of this was with another lie.

My eyes dropped halfway and landed somewhere off to the left. My fingers curled against the locker and I let my meager mask break completely.

"My cousin needed some help making his rent this month. It was just a one time thing." The fear that had been racing through my veins leaked into my words, carried by a hushed voice hardly above a whisper.

I met his stare again. The breath in my chest was stuck there with the silent prayer he had a soft heart, or at the very least, a susceptibility for doe eyes. My lie was convincing enough, but I was still melted into the palm of his hand and subject to his mercy.

And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure if he had any at all.

He shifted his hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingertips trailing along my jaw and the pad of his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. My skin burned in the wake of his touch.

Maverick's dark eyes followed the path of his fingers and then flicked up to meet mine. The edge of his lips twitched up, a motion so slight it could have simply been another trick of my imagination, and then he spoke.

"Don't cross me, Angel."

He dropped his hand and left, leaving me still pressed into the lockers and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.