(The Ringly's ch. 4)

“But if the killers are students, do you think they go to our school? I mean, they could be in this room right now-”

“So?”

Jackson blinked, “So?”

“Why does it matter if the killer is in the same room as you are?” Briar clarified and took another bite of the meal Jackson insisted she eat.

“They’re killers.”

“They’ve no reason to kill you.”

Jackson pointed his fork at her, “You don’t know that.”

She opened her mouth to respond when slam!

“Sup loners,” Queenie greeted with a false friendly smile.

“Queenie,” Briar acknowledged, somehow mustering even less emotion than usual.

Jackson didn’t even get a chance to respond before Queenie went on, “So, here’s the deal, my friends and I are going to that new horror movie after school-”

“The Spirits of Manchester,” Briar interrupted giving Queenie what Jackson would later swear was a glare.

“-right, yeah, that. Anyway, we’re going and I wanted to know if you two wanted to tag along.” She gave Briar a meaningful look.

Jackson was once again prevented from speaking, this time by Briar, “I’ll be there, Jackson?”

With both girls’ eyes on him, Jackson was only able to splutter out something like, “Uh, yeah, sure, sure, yeah.”

Giving the table one last hard tap, Queenie grinned, “Great! See ya there.” And she returned to her followers with a flash of pearly white teeth and a wave.

There was a moment of silence at the table.

“That was...what?” said a very flustered looking Jackson.

“That was a power play.”

“What?”

“She wanted to see if we would join in with the “cool” activity or embarrass ourselves by saying no. had we refused, it would be unlikely that either of us would be invited to any similar events in the future.”

Jackson frowned, “I didn’t peg you as someone who would...care about that kind of thing,” he said hesitantly.

“I don’t.”

“Then why…” he waited for her to interject. As usual, she didn’t.

The lunch bell rang, interrupting their awkward silence and sending them off to social studies.

School ended fast. Too fast.

One loud, uncomfortable carpool later, a hoard of laughing teenagers plus Briar and Jackson were dropped off at the strip mall containing the dollar store.

Once Queenie had gotten the attention of the whole group, she shouted over the remaining chaos, “Okay, we’ve got forty-five minutes until showtime, so meet back here in ten minutes with your snacks so we can get to the theatre on time! Go!”

And with that, a stampede of very-nearly rioting students took off for the candy isle.

Briar’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she glanced over to see Queenie on her phone, a bag of M&M’s held against the back on it in the same hand.

“You check out the back of the shop when we pass by,” the text read under Queenie’s contact.

“I can’t leave Jackson with your friends,” she replied.

“If you want Father’s titles you’ll figure it out.”

Briar put her phone away and shoved her shaking fists into her jean pockets, only to remove them again because the pockets were too small for her fists.

“Who was that?” Jackson asked. Queenie was looking awfully superior as she strode away, presumably to find someone to entertain her.

“Just my father.”

“Oh, did he want you back early?” Jackson might have sounded hopeful if he didn’t sound so disappointed at the same time.

“No.”

“You really don’t like talking much, do you?”

Briar tilted her head at him, “Are you going to buy something?”

They were suddenly very aware that they were standing in front of the entrance of an increasingly busy store. They stepped off the side with an apology to the incoming customers.

In no time, they were being swept up once again in the crowd of students trying desperately to shove bags of candy and cans of pop into every pocket of their spring jackets and down the front of their sweaters.

One block until the shop, Briar told herself. Even at the group’s unimpressive pace, that block passed quickly.

“This way,” she said as she pulled Jackson down the alley.

“Wha-” he was cut off by a hurried explanation.

“Too many people.”

Jackson stopped suddenly, blinking.

“What?” Briar frowned.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve actually explained yourself before I asked.”

She blinked, then turned around and kept walking.

“Hey! Wait up!”

They came up behind the store. Briar’s eyes turned to the back and...nothing. Too much nothing. They passed by.

When they got to the theatre, Briar noticed Jackson giving her odd looks. Her eyes shifted around on the patterned carpet. Queenie was talking to someone, not one of her group.

“So, you don’t like people?” Jackson asked, making an attempt at conversation.

“No.”

“But you tolerate me.” A glance showed him hiding a smug look behind one of curiosity.

“Yes.” She tuned into Queenie’s conversation, perhaps out of boredom, more likely out of a competitive curiosity.

“-Queenie, and you are?”

“Rory. what movie are you here to see?”

Jackson tapped her shoulder. Briar jumped and stared up at him, or maybe she was glaring based on his facial expression and the fact that he stepped back a foot or so.

“I asked why,” he repeated the question she hadn’t heard, “Why do you tolerate me and no one else?”

She frowned. The truth was, she needed cover. Someone to confirm that she had existed somewhere other than on paper when she took over her father’s titles. For the more thorough background checks. But he didn’t need to know that.

“I don’t know.”

“-yeah, what about you, what school are you from?” Queenie as saying.

“I’m homeschooled. I know what you’re thinking, either I’m a friendless recluse who spends all my time watching Holmes and teaching myself, I don’t know, molecular physics or something, or something like that. Am I right?”

Queenie inclined her head, sending that one curl tumbling back into her face, “You’re not wrong,” she said once she had tucked it back out of the way.

“You’re doing it again.” Jackson’s voice cut though Briar’s eavesdropping.

“What?”

“You’re tuning me out. Retreatinging into your thoughts or something.”

She considered him for a moment, then looked at the clock above the ticket booth. “The movie starts in ten minutes.”

“So? We have time.”

“I’d like to get a good seat.”

Jackson’s face was a pool of emotions, far too many to read. “Why’d you ask me to come with you?” His words were clipped, saturated with something bitter.

Briar blinked.

“I mean, you keep ignoring me. You take an alternate route here without telling me why, and you don’t seem interested in conversation. So why am I here?”

He hadn’t raised his voice, but Briar felt he might if this went on. She had never been good at arguments.

“I...can we just go into the theatre?” Her voice was always quiet, but it had never before sounded small.

They sat in silence in the middle of the theatre through the movie. They walked in silence back to the cars. They rode in silence to their homes.