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How Not To Become Lunch: 53 - Push Back
HEAVY EMOTIONS AHEAD
Jack couldn’t believe it.
It just, didn’t seem possible.
But today had actually been a relatively good day. He was well aware that the day was hardly half-over, but so far he’d managed to fend off two predator attacks all on his own, and he hadn’t ended up in anyone’s mouth! He’d even made it to the cafeteria and gotten his lunch without incident!
It must have been the confidence. Knowing Ruby was waiting for him on Sunday, and probably thinking about him right now. Oh- and those lessons with Zach and Ozzy were probably paying off too. Speaking of his friends, neither seemed to have shown up yet, though the table was mostly full. More kids had started sitting there again since Fiona stopped coming around, despite Sarabeth’s infrequent visits. But he didn’t think much of either of those things, he was far too busy thinking about a certain girl in a red dress.
They were such pleasant thoughts. If only he could have kept them.
“Jack!”
He looked to find Ozzy, having just rushed through the lunchroom doors. His friend was running toward him, his face racked with… grief.
“Ozzy? What’s wrong? Where’s-”
“Fiona ate Zach!!”
Jack’s mouth fell open, his face twitching through expressions. He couldn’t comprehend those three simple words at first.
“…Wha- what?”
“Fiona ate Zach!!” Ozzy repeated. “In A.P.E.! She came with Arthur! I was right there! They wouldn’t let me talk! I couldn’t tell her! I couldn’t save him!!”
They both went silent for a long moment, except for Ozzy’s jagged breathing. A number of other kids stood up as quietly as they could and left.
“I couldn’t save him…” he repeated. “…All I could do was keep fighting …I couldn’t give up, because if I didn’t make it out, no one would ever even know…”
“…Zach…” Jack muttered.
There was another long, heavy silence, where even the raucous chatter of the lunchroom seemed to fade out somehow.
And then Jack stood up.
“Jack?”
He didn’t reply. He only turned and started walking, almost staggering at first, but gradually gaining balance, and then speed. He walked past table after table, right past the unofficial line between the domains of human and predator, and further still.
Some part of him insisted this couldn’t be real, that this couldn’t be happening, but he knew better than to believe that. He hoped Ozzy was wrong, but he knew that was impossible, that look on the traumatized boy’s face couldn’t lie. How could she have done something like this!? His one last hope-beyond-hope as he approached the table was that it might not be too late, that maybe his friend could still be saved. And with that dismally desperate thought in mind, he yelled.
“FIONA!”
Fiona, every pred at her table, and every pred from several other tables looked his way. Fiona in particular quickly turned to face him, her face suddenly transitioning from prideful joy to startled concern when she saw his.
He didn’t look at her face, though. He looked straight down at her belly. Her full, bloated, still belly.
“Jack!?” she replied, glancing quickly at all the other students now watching them. He didn’t reply instantly, it took him a moment to steady his voice. But when he did, it was fierce and loud.
“How could you!!?”
“Jack calm down! What are you talking about?!”
“You ATE ZACH!!”
“Wha- who’s Zach!?”
“HIM!!” Jack thrust a long, condemning finger straight at the werewolf’s bulging gut.
Fiona glanced down, a memory of the boy she’d eaten during A.P.E. flashed through her mind.
“Him!? He was just some human!”
“Just some-!” And that’s when Jack finally realized. Zach… that first day they’d met, Jack had promised he’d introduce him to Fiona, that he’d have one less pred to worry about… But Fiona had never come back to sit with them, they hadn’t hung out at all since then- since her new class and Arthur, she hadn’t even noticed Zach with them when they passed in the halls.
…He’d never told her about him, and now he was…
*gurgle*
“Well- well-WELL MAYBE YOU’D KNOW WHO HE WAS IF YOU EVER BOTHERED TO TALK TO ME!”
“Hey!” The dragon boy from Fiona’s table stood up and stepped forward, flaring his wings. “I don’t know who you think you are, human, but you’re one more word away from being my lunch!”
“Pyre!” Fiona scolded.
Jack glared at the dragon, not feeling an ounce of fear. Maybe he still felt secure in Fiona’s presence, even now. Or maybe he was just too furious to feel anything else.
“Because that’s what humans are over here, right!!?” he yelled. “No classmates, no friends, just lunch!”
“Jack!” came a new voice. It was Ozzy’s, full of fresh fear to compliment his sizable grief. “What are you doing!? Are you crazy!? Get out of here!”
Jack glanced to his friend, rushing up quickly behind him, wand drawn and pointed squarely at the intimidating, scale-clad pred.
“You try anything with that stick, and I’ll shove you both down my-”
“FORTA PELLERE!”
Onlookers had maybe just the blink of an eye to see Pyre’s stunned face before the dragon boy was sent flying through the air, crashing heavily into a table at the far corner of the room.
But it hadn’t been Ozzy casting the spell.
Jack hadn’t even realized his wand had made it into his hand until after it was all over. He’d moved almost purely from reflex, or perhaps more accurately from training- all those long hours spent practicing with Zach. He was stunned, absolutely stunned. And so was Fiona, eyes wide and muzzle agape.
The other students reacted a bit differently.
Every pred Jack could see suddenly jumped to their feet. His whole body tensed- but not from fear- no he didn’t so much as blink. If anyone else had a problem with him talking to Fiona here, he was preparing for them to say it right to his face.
But none of them advanced. At first, Jack didn’t know why. But a couple quick glances backward, following the sightlines of the preds, revealed over a dozen mages now standing at his back, wands drawn at the ready.
“Edmund? Alexa?” Ozzy muttered.
That helped Jack realize they must be Ozzy’s classmates- Zach’s classmates- from their advanced class.
“Jack what are you doing!?” Fiona yelled, half scolding and half concerned.
“Are you seriously taking his side!? He just threatened to eat me!”
“Of course not! But you can’t just go blasting my friend across the room!”
“You KILLED my friend. You’re DIGESTING him RIGHT NOW!”
“I had no idea who he was!”
“You SHOULD HAVE! Zach’s been sitting with us all week! He saved my life more times- more times than you since you’ve been here!” He gestured broadly to the table of the advanced predator class.
“You should have told me! You knew I was busy over h-”
“Busy ignoring your friends, flirting with Arthur and stuffing humans down your throat!”
“I- These are my friends! And you should be thanking me!! I saved Ozzy’s life!!”
“You and Arthur scared him half to death! He tried to tell you about Zach and you wouldn’t even let him talk!”
“We were in the middle of A.P.E.! He could’ve cast a spell!”
“Ozzy would never do that to-”
“THAT IS ENOUGH.”
…
The words, not even shouted, yet strikingly loud, shook the air. Jack could feel them impact him, and in the following moment, despite how impossible it seemed, there was silence. He saw Fiona look to one side, and he followed suit.
There, walking toward them down the thin line between the masses of predators and humans, was Principal Tengu. He stopped between Jack and Fiona, cutting off their view of each other, and turned toward Jack.
Jack looked up at the immensely intimidating avian predator, and watched the words slip through his beak.
“Jack Eten, come with me to my office.”
Jack took a shaky breath, his latent anger reverberating inside him, none of which he dared direct at the stoic eagle before him. After a moment, he nodded his head.
Principal Tengu turned and started to walk back through the crowd. Jack quickly turned his head away before he could see Fiona again, and proceeded to follow in the wake of the folded wings. They paused at the cafeteria doors.
“The rest of you, back to your seats,” the principal ordered, and then he left, not needing to wait and see if they listened, with Jack in tow.
In the following minutes, a right-minded, level-headed person in Jack’s position should have been worried about a number of things: getting expelled, getting sent to detention, getting eaten as punishment, getting sent to detention and eaten as punishment. But Jack was far from level-headed and right-minded at the moment.
Emotions swirled violently in his head; seas so harsh that even the principal’s authority could only barely contain them. Undirected fury: fueled by hormones and adrenaline. Deep regret: he should have told her! Self-loathing: how could he have let this happen!? Why didn’t he keep his word!? He should have found Fiona and told her about him! Righteous anger: She should have known! She should have seen it on Ozzy’s face! She should have seen him with them!
And churning it all into a maelstrom of confusion, compassion: this was Fiona. He’d known her practically all his life. His longest, closest friend, even after being apart for all those years, all the way up until… Arthur. Arthur… Arthur, ARTHUR, ARTHUR!! Oh how he wished it had been Arthur who he’d blasted across the room!!
Jack was still seething when he finally followed the principal into his office, right up until the point where the avian turned and locked eyes with him. Finally, then, he felt a hint of mortal concern.
“You’re being sent home early. I’m calling for your mother. Stay here until she arrives.”
Those were the only words he said. He held Jack’s eyes for a moment, before he walked back past the boy, back out into the hall, and shut the door between them.
Finally alone, left in silence with no one else to fight, and nothing else he could do, Jack let himself fall to the floor, and he sobbed.