First Bell, First Blood
White and light pink Nikes shuffle across the pavement of the Neptune High parking lot as Cas Harlow approaches the massive group of students surrounding the flagpole. On that flagpole was a new kid, Miles Morales, duct-taped naked to the pole.
Whispers from other nearby students echoed, and the sight of the younger male completely mortified made Cas feel sorry for him. Stupid things like “I heard it was from one of the biker kids that did it,” “Why hasn’t somebody cut him down?” and “Yeah right, I’ll do it. I don’t want to be up there tomorrow,” the last one made him give the kid a judgmental side-eye as if he had lost a little more faith in humanity.
“Smile,” Joshua Stanton said, taking a picture with his phone and putting it in his pocket. He continued to laugh at the poor kid with the word ‘Snitch’ across his chest in white paint until Cas looked up and cringed at the sight.
“Move,” he said, disgusted and feeling the shame and secondhand embarrassment for the new guy.
“Hey! Who died and made you the” Joshua was cut off by Cas pulling out a pocketknife, making him step aside, but not without him calling Cas a freak before walking away. “So, you’re new here, huh?” Cas asked as he looked up at him while cutting the tape from Miles’ sides. “Welcome to Neptune High,” he said as he could hear multiple students around him booing for cutting the kid down.
“Go, Cadets!” Cas said with fake enthusiasm. The sarcasm in his voice flew undetectable by most in the crowd, and when the class bell rang, all of the students began to clear out and head to class.
Miles bit his lip, unable to believe this was happening to him on his first day. He looked at Cas’s buzzed head, avoiding eye contact, before looking up until the back of his head pressed on the metal pole behind it. “Thanks for helping me out, man. I owe you,” he said as his feet hit the ground. When the last piece of tape was cut, he dropped to the floor and landed on his feet.
Miles glanced at the bag the guy was holding and then looked up and over at the guy who helped him down. “I’m Miles Morales. Who are you?”
“Why do you want to know?” Cas asked curiously.
“Because usually when someone has seen me stripped naked, generally speaking, I should at least know the name of the guy that saved my ass.” Miles chuckled as they went through the double doors.
“Come on, you can change in the restroom around the corner, and I’ll stand watch outside the door while you get those on. Make sure no one is coming this way or trying to mess with you before I go to class,”
When they reached the corner, Miles ran as fast as he could. He was relieved the restroom was where Cas said it would be, around the corner.
“It’s Cas. It’s nice to meet you, Miles. Here, you can change into my spare gym clothes until we can find out what those dickheads did with yours,” he said. Cas tossed in his gym back and kept looking around every corner until a moment later. Miles came back out as the gym uniform fit him perfectly.
“All right, Sheesh, I knew I looked good, but if I knew I looked this good, I would have transferred sooner. Can’t wait to get my own,” he said somewhat jokingly before Cas turned his head, giving a glance, and then smirked. “Yeah, Neptune High’s color combo of Black, Blue, and Green agrees. All right, I got to go to class. I’ll see you around.” Cas said, then turned to walk down the hall to his AP English class.
well, thank you very much. And I’m open to a few ideas down the line. However, the book is nowhere near finished....