Saving Neba

𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐕: Erratic heartbeat, rapid breathing, adrenaline

I didn't care that Josh's snub nose was now more crooked, nor did I care that he was bleeding through a nostril. I wanted to keep hitting him, to let all my emotions out.

Crypta was everywhere on my mind, telling me where and how I should hit him. I could hear people screaming - most of them were the tenth graders asking me to stop. Some cheered on, but none of those mattered.

All I could see was Josh.

He had revived from the shock and swung his hand to where he'd always loved hitting me: my stomach. I was quicker, angrier and strong enough to hold that hand, twist him and turn him so that his back was to me.

Lifting my knee, I hit his spine in annoyance. I watched him fall to the floor, planting his face there. I could still hear myself breathing, my heart beating, my head telling me to go on. Adrenaline or not, I did not want to stop.

When I turned him, the spot on the floor his face formerly lay was bloodstained. So was his face, but I didn't care, not now.

"You. Stay. Away. From. People!" I thundered in between punches.

Josh's hands were annoying, trying to cover his face, preventing me from letting the negative emotions out so I forced them up and held them with my right hand. It prevented me from giving him punches that had serious impact and that made me even angrier.

Even worse, something was preventing me from hitting him further, it was holding my arms and pulling me away from Josh. I think it was Emily, she was screaming at me to stop.

It made me leave Josh's hands and soon they were free. When I looked up, I saw a scared George with trembling hands and quivering eyebrows. He looked around and spotted a small knife on the tray.

"Josh!" He screamed and threw the knife in Josh's direction. Josh pushed me off him and made to grab the knife. I caught the knife before Josh did and pushed him against the leg of the table. I pushed whoever was holding me off me and pressed the sharp end of the knife to Josh.

I didn't know how scary my eyes were at the moment but Josh quivered once he realized the position he was in. "I know what a knife is." I pressed the knife further in. "And I'm not afraid to use it."

George yelled my name and I felt him hold me and pull me to him, trying to keep me as far away from Josh as possible. That only fuelled my anger. Why couldn't they let me finish up with Josh? Weren't my actions enough messages that none of them mattered other than Joshua Watson?

I shifted my hips to the side and gave George the hardest groin slaps I had ever given someone. He screamed in shock and let go of me, but struggled to get the knife out of my hand. Vainly, though. I punched him to the floor and went back to my main target.

"Emerald Prudence Scother!" I heard a male voice call me. An authoritative male voice that made me throw the knife away and stare up.

The slicked-back brown toffee hair of Mr Lucky McMahon and his pair of round brown eyes were staring at me. Beside him was a dark-skinned lanky tenth grader who had once gotten a student expelled with his running mouth. I think his surname was Roy. I glanced at his afro hair before turning back to the principal.

Mr McMahon the Principal walked toward Josh and me, Mr Steve behind him with a disappointed expression, and the lanky teenager with a straight face, pretty much. He stared at Josh and when I looked at Josh, he was lying helpless, his back against the foot of the table, his hands on his side. Blood dripped down his neck and down past his shoulder blade.

I raised my hand as I bent my head to look at them. My knuckles were stained in blood, from the first to the tenth. Now that I wasn't fighting, my head was pounding, my breathing was decreasing, and my legs were losing strength. I held on to our table. Emily and Griffin were beside me looking at me with uncertainty, scared I would attack again. Griffin still held my arm and wrapped his other arm around my waist. It wasn't just for support, I knew, he was scared I would attack again.