Paralyzed ▹ Luke Hemmings

04

"Where do you think you're going?" a familiar voice rang in Luke's ears. Luke froze just as he was taking his textbook out of his locker for next period. He knew exactly who was here to torture him, and he didn't know what to do. Should he just run the other way? Should he just stick around to see what he could possibly want?

Luke slowly closed his locker shut, revealing the devilish sight of Ashton Irwin leaned up against the other, staring at him with an evil smirk on his face.

Luke stumbled back a few steps. "Uh, I-"

Ashton's fake smile faded as he pushed himself off the lockers, towering over Luke with his arms crossed over his chest. "I..I-" Luke tried to find a word to say to Ashton, but nothing was coming to him. He frantically glanced from side to side for help, but it was no use: the whole hallway was empty, because Luke was already running late to third period. "I have your math homework?"

Luke tried to swing his backpack around to grab the papers inside, but he stopped and whimpered under his breath as Ashton slapped his econ book right out of his hands. Luke was shoved up against the lockers across from his own. He could tell that Ashton was very, very pissed off.

"I'm angry, Luke," Ashton fumed, grabbing his victim by the collar. "I don't know why, but I am extremely irritated at the moment."

"W-why is that?" Luke stuttered. Half of the time, Luke never knows why Ashton is angry when he is. What he does know, however, is that whenever Ashton Irwin is mad, he likes to take it all out on Luke Hemmings.

Ashton pulled Luke forward, then slammed his back against the cold steel lockers. Luke flinched and gritted his teeth, trying his best to not give Ashton the satisfaction of seeing him cry out in pain. "Wow Luke," Ashton laughed. "You've gotten tougher, yeah?"

"I...I don't know."

Ashton looked Luke up and down, as if he was a grizzly bear deciding what to do with it's human piece of meat. You could really see it in Ashton's eyes that he loves this. Apart from getting drunk at parties every weekend (which Luke has learned from the countless snapchat stories and pictures of him on peoples' instagrams), Ashton finds such pleasure and torturing Luke. Luke doesn't understand why, but he just deals with it. Luke just deals with things. He never really does anything about them.

Ashton rose his fist in the air and Luke turned his face the other way, bracing himself for the pain. But he blinked his eyes back open when another voice entered the empty hallway.

"Ashton, dude. What the fuck?" Michael Clifford said, joining at Ashton's side. He gave Luke one false look of worry, but it quickly disappeared, replaced by an evil smirk. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

"G-guys, please," Luke stuttered, shaking his head. Ashton gasped and re-gripped Luke's collar, shoving him so hard against the lockers, he thought his feet were off the ground.

"Don't talk back, freak," he snickered. "Maybe if you stopped standing there like a little bitch you would actually do something. You make this too easy for me, sometimes, you know that?"

I can't do anything. Luke thought helplessly. He just decided it was no good of him to talk back to Ashton and Michael like that. Both of them scare Luke too much for him to try and stand up for himself.

Ashton shoved Luke forward and grabbed him by the forearm, as he followed Michael towards the boys' bathroom, with Luke stumbling after them. When Luke saw Michael turn and push the dark green door open, his eyes widened and he gulped. "What? No!" he blurted out.

Ashton dragged Luke into the boys' bathroom and chuckled. "Why not, Luke?" he asked, looking at him over his shoulder. "Its just like old times! Remember freshman year?"