The Four Of Us

[copyright AubreyParsons ©2014]

P R O L O G U E

FRUSTRATION GNAWED AT my stomach as I shook the can in my hand. Aiming it at the brick wall and trying, once again, to mentally will there to be more paint, I growled when it didn't work. "Damn it," I muttered, shaking the silver can a few more times before throwing it on the ground. The loud crack of metal kitting concrete echoed through the silent night and I winced.

The cold wind whipped my hair around my face and a shiver ran down my spine in anticipation of being caught. I'd been trying to paint 'Fuck The Board' in graffiti on the side of the school with my personal signature—S.K. for Skye—but the damn spray paint wouldn't come out of the useless can.

I don't participate graffiti often, but tonight, I felt the need to prove a point. I'd over heard a teacher talking about a woman from the Board of Education earlier this morning in the cafeteria. She'd tried to say that the poor children and placement kids shouldn't be in the same school as the students with more money and better lives. That we didn't deserve this school in particular, all because it was the best in the area. So, I decided to get some payback. It's not like anyone would figure out who's making the graffiti, anyway. I kept my hood up and out of view for the security cameras, but no one would have recognized me had they seen my face. I was the kid no one noticed, and no one ever expects the quiet ones.

"Holy shit."

I spun around in surprise, heart racing as I recognized three familar faces.

Jay Spencer had hazel eyes, messy brown hair, and pale skin. With a bright smile, dimpled cheeks, and a labret under his bottom lip, he was known to be a hit with the ladies. He was charming, but had a temper rumored to be explosive.

Tyler Luck was the reckless but sweet one. He had dark brown hair that stuck up at every angle, bright green eyes, tanned skin, and a grin like the Cheshire cat's. He threw all of the best known parties when his parents weren't home, and had the most money out of the entire school. It was well known that his parents were borderline rich.

Cyrus Ross was the more serious one of their little group, with bright blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, and a height that towered over most. I'd lost count of the amount of parties I'd seen him guide his drunken friends from, being the obvious D.D. He was practically a mother to anyone he cared about.

Then there was Ryder Williams, the fourth of the boys, who seemed to be currently M.I.A. He had fluffy, dark brown hair, startling gray eyes, and a smile that left girls swooning. He was tall—not as tall as Cyrus, but taller than Tyler and Jay—and I couldn't name a time I hadn't seen him wearing some kind of hat or toboggan. He was admitably attractive, but looks aren't everything.

Ryder was the unofficial leader of their group—the one they all listened to. He had an air of authority, but no one but Jay, Cyrus, and Tyler knew anything about him. He was a complete enigma to everybody, and despite my curiously, I sure as hell wasn't planning to be the one to figure him out.

"She looks just like her," Tyler mumbled, raking his green eyes up and down my body. I didn't blame him for the wandering eyes; I looked nothing like my normal self.

I had on gray skinny jeans and a white tank top, clad in a black leather jacket with combat boots to match. My hair was down, brown eyes surrounded by black liner and mascara, where I usually wore it up with little to no makeup. It was a complete contrast to the oversized hoodies and sweatpants I typically wore, sitting quietly near the windows in classrooms.

If I were in the boy's situation, I'd be staring at me, too.

Before any of them had the chance to speak, I spun on my heel and zipped down the street, determined not to be caught or ratted out. I hoped somewhere deep in my mind that they wouldn't recognize me later, but the hope seemed like a stretch. Who wouldn't remember seeing a girl that was generally known as a quiet teacher's pet, now dressed up like a bad bitch, pulling off an illegal stunt on school property?

"Hey!" Tyler shouted, footsteps echoing noisily behind me. "Wait up!"

I nearly laughed at the command. Instead of following instructions, I turned a corner down an ally and was met with a dead end. My heart pounded anxiously against my sternum as I scanned my surroundings for a possible escape, only to come up short. The fence in front of me was too high to climb—they'd have caught up to me before I made it halfway up.

Okay, so maybe that was going to happen.

I spun around and waited anxiously for the three to catch up. My heartbeat remained at the fast, violent pace as it had been moments before, despite my calm appearance.

Jay was the first to round the corner, hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath. He spit out a quiet curse. "You run fast."

Tyler nodded in agreement as he coughed and leaned against the brick wall to his left. "Why'd you run from us?"

Cyrus opened his mouth to answer before I had the chance to, looking less worn out than the rest of us. "She was vandalizing public property. She's not going to wait around for us to possibly call the cops on her."

He wasn't entirely wrong, but also not entirely right. Those boys always had tricks, deals, and black mail up their sleeves. I may not have been much better, but I certainly didn't really feel like having a heaping spoon-full of my own medicine.

"Oh," Tyler mumbled dejectedly. Cyrus rolled his eyes. "That makes sense."

"Anyway," I emphasized, clapping my hands together. I looked to see if I could slip past without one of them grabbing me, but it seemed unlikely. I decided to try a more casual approach and stepped towards them, turning to slip between Jay and Tyler. "If you'll excuse me—"

"Hold on a second." Jay's arm shot out to block my escape. "Where do you think you're going?"

I raised an eyebrow at the arm against my abdomen. He didn't move it. "Somewhere other than here."

Jay grinned, showing off his award winning dimples. "I've got a better idea."

I glared, automatically distrusting to whatever he could come up with. I didn't know him, Tyler, or Cyrus despite the occasional taunting or rude comments in the school's hallways received by anybody who crossed their paths on a bad day. "No."

Tyler snickered beside us, earning himself a glare from the blue-eyed boy. Jay rolled his eyes back to me. "I think I can speak for all of us and say that we're curious to see this side of you, so we'll make a deal."

"I don't make deals with people I don't believe will keep up their end of the bargain." I shrugged nonchalantly, the thrumming in my ears finally settling despite the chills tracing my spine from the cold.

He continued as if he hadn't heard my comment. "Hang out with us for the rest of the weekend. Let us fuel our curiosity about the type of person you are."

My distrust didn't ease. "If I have plans?" I didn't, but he didn't need to know that.

He shrugged. "Cancel them. If you don't enjoy yourself with us, we can all act like this whole thing never happened."

As I crossed my arms, he finally dropped his. "I won't."

His lip twitched. "You might. And, if you do, we'll keep your extracurricular activities a secret and see where things go from there."

I resisted the urged to swipe away the hair being blown in my face by the cold wind. My cheeks and nose stung and I was more than ready to leave for some place much warmer than here. Even still, the challenging side in me had me asking, "What happens of I say no?"

Jay shrugged casually. He didn't appear fazed in the slightest by the weather. Maybe his heart was just as cold. "We'll tell the school who did the graffiti, and throw in a little gossip about the mystery girl everyone's been dying to know about."

I knew he was bluffing. If he told the school about my graffiti, I could tell them plenty about the boys' own extracurricular activities they had that people were too scared to talk about. Besides, I doubted anyone would believe them if they said the schools' nerdy kid was secretly a criminal, no matter how many people were dying to know. Yet, for some reason, I found myself on the verge of agreeing to his terms.

"Little cliché, don't you think?" I found myself asking. "What about Ryder?"

He ignored my first comment. "What about him?"

"You know he hates me," I shot back.

And it was true. When we were Freshmen, two years ago, I ticked him off in front of the whole school. He'd had some kid pinned to a locker, threatening him while everyone else stood on the sidelines and watched. When I tried to pull him away, he started to mouth off as if I were expected to follow in line like a lost sheep. Instead, I went off, shoved him, and stormed off way to my next class. He's hated me ever since.

I'd had a little attention for maybe a week after that, until Ryder got into a big fight with some Senior over a girl. Thankfully, everyone had forgotten about me by then. Everyone except for Ryder.

"He wouldn't have to know," Cyrus suggested. I guess he was onboard with this whole thing.

"Yeah," Tyler agreed, stepping up with a happy smile. He seemed more excited to have a new friend than to solve the mystery. It was obvious Jay was in this to learn what he could about me—the girl everyone's been talking about for months. "We can hang out on weekends. Ryder usually has plans then."

I grinned despite myself, enjoying the idea of keeping another, bigger secret. "Sounds great. That is, if I have fun this weekend."

The three boys grinned and lead the way to our big weekend plans.