My leader

7

Mom
Hey sweetheart
How was your day so far?
Have you eaten anything?

Me
I'm ok
I'm eating and breathing
Don't worry

Mom
How was class today?

Me
It was good
I am busy now
I'll text you later
Bye

Mom
Ok sweetie
Take care of yourself
We love you
We'll call you later

I feel bad for texting like that and lying to my mom. I didn't go to class today. It's 2 am and I didn't even eat yet. Maya brought me some food and water but I can't eat. Every move I make hurts. Especially down there. Maya threw away the stained sheets and offered to stay with me today but I refused. It was enough me skipping today. I don't want her in trouble too.

She will anyway come later to see me. I wish I had energy to at least watch a movie but I don't feel like it. I am still trying to realise what happen and why me. What will my life be from now on? I am 17. Soon to be 18 and feel like I want it to be over.

My parents being away from me is not helping either. Why me? Why do I have to be the victim of the biggest predator in the world? If I had shut my mouth from the beginning, would it have been different? Was it my fault? Was I too-

My thoughts got interrupted by a knock on my door.
"Come in" I screamed as loud as I could. Even my voice was ducked up. Maya slowly opened the door and closed it behind. " Hi R, how are you? I brought you some food"

Without saying anything, I got up whimpering, leaning against the headboard of my bed. Maya's expression turned into sadness when she saw the breakfast still untouched.

"Raven dear, you need to eat something. You need energy to beat the asshole." " I appreciate your attempt in making me laugh Maya, but I really can't right now. I am not hungry and the last thing I want to hear about is that person."

"Sorry Raven. Did you thought about telling my parents what happened? It's better to tell someone. We have no idea when your parents will be back, and mine are basically responsible for you." she asks me slowly sitting on my bed.

"I don't know Maya. I don't know how to tell people about it. What if they'll judge me? What if they will say that it was my fault? That I infuriated Billie." I ask her a bit afraid to even look at her.

" First of all, my parents won't judge you. They will for sure be by your side. And second of all, don't even THINK about it being your fault. Don't you dare blame yourself. Billie is the wrong here and she needs to pay." I felt her get mad a bit. Not at me but at Billie .

Maya is the best friend I could ask for and her parents are just like mine, loving and caring. But I once adults find out, I'm aftaid of what billie could do to them so I have to be careful.

"I need a little more time to think about telling anyone else. Enough with that. How was your day?"

"Well... weird. With those changes, they decided to make the gang's center here, so a lot of people moved in. There are a couple of new kids in classes. I've met with that girl Drew. She was surrounded by a bunch of unknown people. They think they're better just because they met the leader a couple weeks earlier than us. Oh, and if you don't want to hear about it just tell me, but Billie came in training class to ask who is the best and shit"

"Apparently, if you are the leader, you don't need to come to class. Some ass boy from the other gang raised his hand. Miles was ready to break his hand because it's obvious that is you but I made him shut up cuz-

" Okay, okay I got it. She thinks she's the best but she's not even going to class. Nice" I said rolling my eyes. " Well, not really. After raising his hand, the dude got invited in front of everyone to try and fight Billie. She beat him in like two seconds"

There was a bit of silence, I'm not gonna lie, for someone who's never been inside of a gang before that's impressive. We all basically grew up in the environment. But that doesn't change the way I se her. Nothing could.