7 I'm Bored. Entertain Me.

I barge open the door to the sickbay. A nurse in a pink dress startles when it bangs into the wall. The gauze in her hand slips from her grasp and falls to the floor until it stops at my feet. She follows the movement and soon watches us from the back of the room.

"Help." I simply say. The words are enough for the nurse to nod, still half-dazed from our emergence and make her way to the empty side of Noah to provide extra support. We help him with slow steps to the bed on the right side of the room.

Noah maintains heavy breaths, while his face scrunches in pain at straining his ribs to hop onto the sickbed. I'm immediately at his side, gripping his face and rotating it from side to side while I study the damage of a cut lip and a black eye. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"What do you mean you're fine. Look at those bruises." He grips my hands on either side of his face and slips them gently from his face.

"I'm fine." He says in a clipped tone.

"Noah!"

"Verona!"

Here we are, arguing and having a staredown in the nurse's office. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You know what."

The moment the memory rises, my brain shuts it down. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Why?" He presses.

"I'm not talking about this." I clutch my forehead, the feeling of a headache coming on.

The conversation is so heated that we almost disregard the presence of the nurse in the room. She breaks the argument with an awkward cough from behind us.

"I'm ready for you now." She attempts a smile and waits a fraction, in case we were to deny her. She makes her way to a computer that has its own built-in compartment fitted into the wall. "First, I'm going to need to know your names."

My eyes roam to my brother who is no longer facing me but greeting me with his back.

"It's Verona and Noah Bridon."

"What lovely names." She types them into the system. "Now I'm going to need to fill out an incident report after I have a look at his wounds, so which one would like to fill me in on what happened?"

"It was Striker," Noah interjects, leaving me no room to reply. "Striker Cunningham."

The nurse stares at the screen, contemplating something before she continues typing. "I was going to notify the principle of the condition of your brother, but I'm afraid it won't do much in this situation."

"Why is that?" She moves the mouse and clicks a couple more times before she draws away from the screen and makes her way to Noah. Grabbing his shirt she lifts it up to reveal multiple bruises the colour of light purple lipstick and the blue that surrounds Spongebob's home. I take over holding his shirt as she grabs ointment from her collected supplies, squeezes it onto the cotton pad and dabs it onto the wounds.

Noah tries not to move from the pain.

"Well honey, as you've already seen, Broken Hill isn't a very big place. Striker Cunningham's family are one of the richest occupying this place. He operates the mining business which provides 90% of jobs for this town. Not to mention, he has supplied funding for this school and possesses a position on the school board. Everyone lets Striker Cunningham do what he wants because they don't dare disrupt the peace of his father."

"So in other words, even with his injuries, they wouldn't do anything if it involves him?"

The nurse nods, her gaze apologetic. She taps Noah on his shoulder and silently communicates that she wants him to turn and face her all with her magic finger. "I would suggest finding a way to hide this from your parents at least for a day. Your family witnessing your brother's condition could only enrage them and a sense of hopelessness may overcome them from not being able to properly deal with it."

Grabbing Noah's t-shirt, she lifts up the material once more and hands it to me. I take it from her grip as she takes the stethoscope and places the metal against his chest. "Please take a breath in for me." His chest rises and falls as she studies his breathing closely. "One more time for me."

"What is it?" I ask concerned with the frown that captures her face.

"It said on his profile that he's assigned medication. Do you have it?"

"It's with reception."

"Okay, I'll give them a call. Noah's breathing is working very slowly. While most of it is due to his injuries, with his weak heart, it would be better if he took his allocated medicine so no emergencies occur."

"Okay."

"Verona!" Someone yells from the door and I turn around to see Fera entering the room. Her gaze falls on me first as she searches for something that is not there. Eventually, her gaze finds Noah and her eyes widen on impact. "Omg, Noah." Her hands grip his cheeks as she controls his face, shifting it side to side to see the damage. "What did they do to you? Where does it hurt?"

"Why does this feel like Deja Vu?"

"Deja what?" She raises an eyebrow unfazed in her examination. Noah's cheeks turn bright pink from the close proximity of Fera's face, a reaction of a boy who has never had a girlfriend. He begins to try and swat her hands from his face, but she just clicks her tongue ignoring his efforts. Meanwhile, my concerns have taken a new direction. What was I going to tell Aunt Pia?

"Boy, they did a number on you." She finally relents with Noah's shirt. "God, it makes me so mad! I can only imagine how your aunt will take it."

"About that... would we be able to camp the night at yours?"

Fera gasps dramatically as she raises a hand to her mouth. "A sleepover at mines where we braid each other's hair and paint each other's nail and Noah betrays the male species as he gives away all their secrets." She grins. "How could I resist?"

*****

After allowing us to hide out in the sick-bay for the rest of the day, we couldn't be happier when we left the school building. "So you texted your Aunt that you'll be staying with me tonight?"

I nodded.

"How did she take it?" She studied my face for any signs of concern. It must have shown on my face because she added, "not good, huh?"

"It could have been better." It took a lot of convincing on my part before Aunt relented to allowing us to spend the night. She was adamant that we should have been home after our first day of school. Now I was confident she would panic upon seeing Noah's injuries tomorrow. It was just a relief that we didn't have to deal with it today. It also reminded me that I needed to talk to Noah about what happened with Striker and make sure he never tells her.

We walked side by side, Fera assisting Noah to walk with his arm over her shoulder. I didn't protest when she insisted to help him when we were leaving the office because it was rare that I watched Noah being so hopeless next to a girl. Whether she was aware of it, she made no attempt to show it.

Just when I was starting to fall into a comfortable rhythm again, my gaze locked onto a figure leaned against the school gate. My walk stopped all-together and I stared as his head turned in my direction at that moment. A smile curved his lip as he pushed off the wall and took slow walks towards me. From the gleam in his eyes, he appeared to be enjoying that his sudden presence had caught me off guard.

"You have some nerve!" Fera snarled at his presence, her arm jutting out in front of my body as if to act as my shield when he stopped mere steps away from my face. Hate was radiating off her in waves as she glared him down.

Striker spared her only a small glance before his eyes shifted back to my face. He chose to ignore her all-together as he chose to address me instead. "Our agreement will start now." His voice was commanding. "I'm bored and require some entertaining." From the corner of my eye, Noah seemed to latch forward in an effort to hurt Striker, but Fera held him back.

I knew what I wanted. And it wasn't to go with him.

"I can't," I told him, trying to muster strength in my voice but failing miserably. It came out weak and unconfident. "How about we talk about this tomorrow?" The last words came out rushed as I quickly maneuvered around him and continued my descent to the school gates while hoping Fera was quick to follow.

I only managed to get past the gates before heavy footsteps strode past me and blocked my path once more. I let out a surprised breath as I came to a halt.

"As if it's that easy." He smiled wryly.