Aftermath

Ch 123: The Games We Play

Sang

A few miles from Ashley Waters, we fell into a long line of vehicles headed toward the high school.

Luke unclipped his seatbelt and squeezed between us. "This crowd is going to be unbelievable," he breathed. "A lot more people are here than there were on Monday."

"I'm more worried about us being late," Silas said. "Mr. Blackbourne is not going to happy. North is not going to be happy."

"Yes, I see hours in our future," Luke said with a sigh. "Maybe North won't notice."

Silas let out a snort. "Sure he won't."

The parking lot was filling up, but Silas snagged a spot in the third row not far from where we usually parked. He jumped out of the car, barely beating Luke to the passenger door, which he opened for me. "Aggele mou," he said with a flourish.

Giggling, I took his hand and let him help me out of the car. It had grown dark in the last few minutes, which caused the parking lot to look much different than it did during the daytime. A mass of clouds hid the moon, and I was thankful that at least for now, it wasn't raining.

Luke gave me a brief hug. "I'll see you later, sugar," he said. "Enjoy the game." He hurried off toward the shadows of the main building.

Silas shook his head. "I hope he's careful for once. The last thing we need is for Luke to be arrested."

"How about no one gets arrested," I suggested.

Silas laughed. "Good idea; let's hope everyone can follow through."

As we got closer, I pointed to a parked ambulance not far from the gymnasium entrance. "Is something wrong?"

"It's Ashley Waters, so the answer is usually yes," Silas said. "But this ambulance is here as a precaution. They usually do it only for football games, but our school has a bad reputation." He squeezed my hand. "There was one here on Monday too, but this one is different."

As we slowed down to join the line for the metal detector, I glanced at his face, but his expression didn't give me a clue. "How?" I asked.

Silas held up his finger to his mouth, signaling me to wait.

Several moments later, Silas went through the detectors, and I followed him in, where he took my hand again. "It's full of Academy," he whispered. "Just in case."

Oh. There had been extra Academy personnel on hand during the Homecoming dance as well. I wondered if there had been other times Academy personnel had been around without me realizing it.

The inside of the gymnasium was packed, and the bright lights and crowd caused it to be much hotter than it was outside.

Silas led me to the far edge of the bleachers on the other side from the band. I stood to the side as he leaned in and whispered something to the three boys that were spread out across the third bleacher from the bottom.

Wide-eyed, the boys moved over, leaving more than enough space at the end for me and Silas.

Silas slipped off his letterman jacket and spread it over the wooden seat. "It's not much padding, but it will help us keep our place," he told me, helping me up on the bleacher.

I scooted over to give him space. "How did you make them move?"

"All I did was point out that they had taken more than enough space for the three of them," Silas said with a shrug. "Sometimes people are scared of me because of my size."

My heart melted. "I'm not."

"No, you're not," Silas said. "It worked out; it got us a seat. It's best to be near the edge in case we need to leave." He turned his head to look me in the eye. "Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?"