Chapter 1
“Hand over the assignment you little shit,” Jared demanded Ian as he shoved him onto the floor of the lecture room.
Ian winced in pain as he struggled to lift himself off the floor. The skinny, shy timid man managed to look up at Jared “No! I’m not giving it to you.” He harshly spat out his grey eyes had a fiery intensity to them. I was shocked he had such a side to him.
Jared’s eyes widened in surprise, and he belted out laughing. “Ha! Finally grown a pair? When did you learn to talk back?” Jared remarked condescendingly. His towering muscular frame came to stand in front of Ian.
Ian continued to stare him down, “We’re a group but I do all our assignments on my own. I’m tired of doing everything and you guys taking credit for it as well. I’m going to tell the professor I did it alone and present the presentation alone tomorrow.” He spat out as he charged towards him.
The muscled jock easily overpowered Ian and slammed him to the ground once more. “It’s cute to see you fighting back but I’m not the one to try this on.” He said with a cruel smile before he went on to repeatedly kick Ian whilst he was on the floor. Ian began to cry out as he tried to roll away from Jared.
As I watched from nearby, I wondered if Ian had a death wish. Had he gone mad? He knew that Jared was far stronger than him so why did he even try to challenge him?
“Help! Somebody help me!” Ian yelled out at the top of his lungs.
Lectures for the day had long since ended and it was just the 3 of us in the lecture room. Ian was a perfectionist. He liked to practice the day before a presentation in an empty lecture room to simulate the conditions which is how Jared and I knew where to look for him.
“Finally realized there's no way out of this?” Jared asked as he kicked him once more on the floor. “It’s long past 9 pm everyone's left the faculty building not even the cleaners are here. You’re the only idiot who studies by themselves here."
Ian stared Jared down the anger in his eyes turned to look at me.“What about you? Are you okay with this?” He asked me. His piercing sliver eyes were begging—no--pleading with me to help him.
My eyes welled with emotion conflicted as to what I should do. A part of me wanted to help him as I remembered what happened between us but I knew I couldn’t betray Jared. I slowly looked away from him letting him know I wasn’t going to step in.
“Making moves on my girl, were you?” Jared mocked Ian. "I can’t believe you seriously thought you had a chance with her.” He said in between laughs. “She was using you idiot, there was no way a girl like her would go for someone like you. You should have known that.”
A flash of anger appeared on Ian’s face. “That’s what you think, do you know she ki---” He started.
I immediately knew what he was about to mention so I stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach to stop him.
"Ah!" He screamed out.
"Ian just give up," I told him.
“I’m going to ask you this one last time just send us the assignment like you usually do and we can put a stop to this.
Luckily Ian finally yielded. “Okay, okay,” he said disgruntledly as he slowly stood up wincing.
He limped all the way to his laptop and began searching for the files.
Jared and I got closer to watch him do it.
"There, I sent it," he said.
"Good,"
"I should...I should have never trusted you," He told me.
"Yeah, you shouldn't have," I coldly responded to him as I walked away
