Chapter 1 - Chapter One

“I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time down there, Tia,” Sherman slurred as one of his friends gripped her arms and pulled them behind her back.

Tia looked around, worried. What the hell was he talking about? “Down there? Down where?”

Sherman motioned towards the well. “Where else?”

Tia took one look at the well, and then turned back to Sherman. “Are you freaking kidding me?” she yelled at him.

He shook his head. “Such language.”

“Okay, Sherman, I know you’re drunk, but just…stay calm. Chill. Lie down for a bit.”

“No, no. I’m pretty sure I can manage watching you fall down a well.”

“Do you know what could happen to me if I fell down a freaking well?”

“You could die.”

“Exactly!”

“Precisely.” Sherman clicked his fingers and one of his friend—the one that was holding her—started dragging her down the well. Her sunglasses dropped down to her nose.

“Sherman! No. Stop. Make him stop. Don’t be insane.”

“I’ll teach you to turn me down,” he snarled.

“This is insane,” Tia protested as the guy—what was his name again? Tom or something—continued to drag her towards the well. “All I did was refuse to…you know…with you. Throwing me down the well because of that is totally uncalled for.”

Sherman took a big gulp from his beer bottle. “Toss ‘er down, Tommy,” he said afterwards, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No,” Tia whispered fiercely to Tommy. “Don’t do it. You’ll get charged for murder if you kill me, and if you don’t, you’ll be charged with attempted murder. Do you want to have a criminal record at the age of sixteen?”

Tommy was obviously too drunk to understand a single word she was saying, because he completely ignored her.

“Don’t do it,” she begged him, using simple words. “You’ll kill me.”

He faltered then, but Sherman called out for him to push her down the well and asked him what the hell was taking him so long.

Damn Sherman.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Tia screamed as Tommy pushed her up over the edge of the well. She managed to just hang onto the rim.

Please let somebody hear me and come running to help me, she thought feverishly. She then realised it was three in the morning. But one could have hope.

“Okay, guys, this really isn’t funny. I’m getting scared now,” she said, attempting to climb up over the wall. “Please stop.”

“Have fun,” Sherman said before yanking her fingers upwards off the rim and pushing her down the well.

Tia screamed until she hit the water, plummeting straight down until she could feel her leg smashing into the bottom of the well. A streak of white-hot pain flashed up her leg. She scrambled upwards, gasping for breath once her head was above the surface. She groped around for her sunglasses and was relieved when she finally found them.

“You can’t just leave me in here,” she called up to him as he turned and started walking away with his friends.

Apparently they could.

“Dammit,” she muttered. “You people are downright inhumane, that’s what you guys are!” she shouted up to the mouth of the well, knowing that they couldn’t hear her.

Her leg was throbbing like hell, but she couldn’t stop treading the water, otherwise she’d sink. And die. Well, she wasn’t exactly treading water, as she was only treading with one leg.

“Sherman! Get me out of here,” she yelled.

There was no response. That drunken bastard. He was going to get it at school tomorrow. That is, if she lived to see tomorrow.

Dammit. She knew going out alone on a Sunday night wasn’t a good idea. She continued to tread the water. She was getting tired. Her left leg was weighing her down.

“Help,” she called. “Somebody help!”

In the far distance she could hear drunken laughter and shouts, but they all ignored her screams.

“This,” Tia muttered, “is why the country should ban alcohol.”

~

She was barely awake. Just awake enough to keep herself treading. She had fallen asleep a few times, but had quickly woken up when she began to choke on water.

And her left leg was hurting like a dog.

Suddenly, the head of a black-haired boy appeared at the side of the well. He was few years older than her, maybe.

“Do you need some help?” he asked her cheerfully.

“I cannot believe that you even needed to ask me that question,” she muttered.

He looked at her for some time. “I have a plan,” he finally said.

“Great!” She looked up. “Now get me out of here.”

“Before I proceed, I have a question to ask you.”

Tia scowled. “Fine, but hurry. My leg’s really hurting, and I’m really tired.”

“Are you fat?”

It took Tia several seconds to process the question properly. “What?”

He frowned. “Is that a yes?”

“Get me out of here,” she shrieked.

He started lowering the bucket. “Okay, okay. Jeez, it was just a question.”

“I don’t think knowing whether I’m fat helps the situation,” she snapped.

“Actually, it does. You see, if you’re fat, then there’s a greater possibility that the rope might break and you might fall back in again, which would—” he stopped talking when Tia shot him an inhuman glare and promised to make his life a living hell if he finished his sentence.

She grabbed onto the bucket, and he started reeling her up. The sharp metal rim of the bucket cut into her fingers, but she didn’t care. She was finally getting out of there.

When she got to the mouth of the well, the boy let go of the rope and caught her before she could go down with the bucket.

“Got you,” he said, lifting her out of the well. Damn, he was strong. Not that she was heavy or fat or anything like that, but he lifted her out without breaking a sweat.

She quickly slipped on her sunglasses before looking at him properly for the first time. “Uh, thanks. And I’m not fat.”

He grinned; looking at her face and then dropping his gaze down to the rest of her shivering body, taking in her flimsy clothes that were so wet they were probably transparent. “No, you’re not.” He took off his jacket. “Here. You look like you need this.”

“Thanks.” She took the coat, her teeth chattering. “Oh, crap. I just realised. Now I’ve made your jacket all wet.”

He waved her words away. “I’ll live. You said something about your leg hurting?”

“Uh, yeah, but…” she trailed off when she saw that he was in uniform. “Oh my God, are you going to be late for school now?”

He rolled his eyes. “So I’m skipping school for a day. At least I have good reason for it. Come on, there’s this café nearby where I can take a better look at your leg.”

“What are you, a doctor?” she asked, limping after him.

He stopped and put his arm around her, supporting her weight. “No, but my dad is. I used to be accident-prone when I was little, so I may just have experienced every single injury known to man. Or little boys, anyway.” He looked down. “That doesn’t look to good,” he noted, taking in the swollen and battered leg.

“You think?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Does it hurt?”

“Surprisingly, yes.”

She felt his arms move and suddenly she was up in the air in his arms.

“Hey!” she protested. “What are you doing?”

“Carrying you. Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I won’t drop you. You’re not fat.”

She rolled her eyes. “What is it with you and fatness?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have anything against it, if that’s what you mean.”

She knew she had already said this once, but she was going to say it one more time: damn, he was strong. He was walking like she weighed nothing. Or maybe like she weighed a feather. Which basically weighed nothing.

He set her down in a chair after a while. She froze when she realised where she was.

“Here?” she asked him. “Of all the cafés in town, you had to choose this one?”

“What’s wrong with this one?” he asked her. “I like this one.”

“Yeah, well, my parents just happen to run this one,” she hissed. “Now get me out of here before they see me!”

And so he picked her up again and left.

“Is this one to your liking, miss?” he asked her sarcastically, stopping in front of a small café.

She nodded. “I like the colour of the seats. I guess they’ll have to do.”

He set her down in the chair opposite to him. “So,” he said, sliding into his seat, “I just realised I didn’t know your name. I’m Jet Renn.” He held out his hand.

“Tia,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Just Tia?”

“Just Tia.” She smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

He grinned back. “Nice to save you.”

Her eyes caught the badge on his uniform. “You go to St. Morgan’s? What year are you in?”

“Year Thirteen. Why?”

“I’m in Year Eleven.”

“Really? How come I haven’t seen you around before?”

“I’m new. Transferred in two weeks ago after the Christmas holidays.”

“Yeah? How do you like it so far?”

“It’s…interesting,” Tia said, thinking back to the first day she arrived at the school. When they saw that she wasn’t exceptionally pretty, they turned up their noses. When they found out that she wasn’t rich either, they had turned their heads. Of course, after a while, she had made some good friends. “What do you think?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Can’t wait to get out of there.”

“You’re in Year Thirteen, so you’re what, eighteen?”

“Just turned nineteen. I’m one of the oldest in my year. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I’m going to be seventeen in May,” she added, not wanting to look like a child.

After a cup of hot chocolate, Tia was starting feel more human.

“Let’s take a look at that leg,” Jet said, lifting her left leg gently and put on his lap. He poked it in a few places, asking whether it hurt. “It’s broken,” he concluded after a while.

“Broken?”

“Yes, but you should go to the doctor to make sure. And possibly to get it patched up.”

“Great.” Tia groaned.

“So tell me, Tia. How did you come to fall into the well?”

“I didn’t fall into the well. I was pushed.”

“Pushed?”

“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “By that pervert Sherman Guest. He had one of his friends do it when I refused to sleep with him. He was drunk at the time, though.”

“You’re defending him?” he asked her, incredulous. “He pushed you down a well!”

“I know that,” she snapped. “But maybe he was too drunk to know what was going on,” she said after a while.

“Listen, if he was going to push you down a well, he would’ve done it whether he was drunk or sober. The thing is, well, he pushed you down a freaking well!”

She shrugged.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked her.

“Go to the doctor.”

“No, about Sherman.”

She shrugged again. “Nothing.”

“You’re going to let him get away with it?”

She sighed. “I don’t want to make a big fuss about this, I mean, he was drunk at the—”

“It doesn’t matter whether he was drunk or not!” Jet exploded. “He could’ve killed you.”

“I know,” she said. And so did Sherman, she thought dryly. “Just let it go, okay? It’s nothing.”

He looked like he wanted to tell her that it was something, a very big something, but he didn’t. “Fine.”

“Thank you.” She sat back for a while, her leg still on Jet’s lap.

She suddenly remembered seeing him around school, and why the name was so familiar to her. There she was, sitting with Jet Renn, one of the hottest boys at St. Morgan’s, and with her leg on his lap, too. Jet was the guy that all girls fawned over—even the ones that were older than him—and that all the boys followed. But for some reason, he didn’t seem to give a shoot.

She had seen him at school a few times, where most of the girls and the boys were trailing after him during recess. He just acted as if they didn’t exist, talking to only his close friends or sometimes reading, drawing, writing or listening to music and not talking at all. The followers, however, seemed content to just watch him.

Which struck Tia as disturbing and something only a stalker would do, but hey, to each their own.

“I think I should take you to your parents,” Jet said, finishing off his coffee.

She groaned. “Just when I was starting to like you,” she grumbled, and he laughed.

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