He Is An Apex Predator

His eyes collides with mine.

There is nothing but loud silence around us. Time seems to be slowly stopping. His gaze is cold and feral.

I am still staring into his eyes. They are not black. I don’t think they are blue either. It feels like I am being drawn in by an invisible force. I don’t look away from those eyes. I do not even remember to.

Am I in a time freeze like the one casted by that powerful wizard in the movies, Dungeons and Dragons?

He looks away first. Taking his attention back to the boy whose head he is damaging. Thereby breaking the spell-like eye contact.

Only then did I remember that I should be terrified. The sight of blood did not make me feel dizzy and faint like it always does. Is it because I am too frozen with fear and terror? I find Maverick holding my hand on the table. He is looking troubled. "I was pinching you the whole time to stop staring at him but you did not even bulge!

You should have looked away! Now this is going to bring trouble." He scolds in a hushed tune.

"Bring trouble? To who, me?" I ask. He is got to be saying nonsense. "You just made long eye contact with Beelzebub of all people. What do you think?" He adds rhetorically.

"But—" I started, he sharply interrupts.

"Wait! Look! He is leaving!" Maverick is right. The boy is on his way out. But he is not alone. He is dragging the other boy along with him. I turn to face Maverick and also voice out in a hushed tone. "Why did everyone else behave like they did not see that? Is that normal here?"

"You have no idea." He answered muffly through a mouthful of food. "That is not right! That boy is going to have a very bad concussion!"

"Shush! Your voice is too loud. Keep it down!" He shushes me like I had spoken something that is outlawed. "Gweneth, you should not be worrying about that guy right now. You should be happy that Calyx did not come at you too. Why did you have to scream and attract attention to yourself?" He is speaking like that is not a normal reaction to seeing violence in broad daylight at a supposed school. Is that wierd compared to what the guy did? "What was that?" I ask.

"You saw for yourself."

"No I mean—why did he do something like that?" 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"I don’t know." He shrugs casually. "He must have done something to piss Calyx off. You would be very surprised to find out that he didn’t do anything wrong at all. One would have a better chance studying the Bermuda triangle than trying to fathom Calyx’s motive and love for violence.

"No one even blinked an eye. The school board, do they not know about this?"

"Oh, they do. Very well. But you can get away with anything when you’re a diamond, gold, platinum." He mentions.

"Are those like, social hierarchy?" It does sound and seems like it.

"Bingo. You can be really smart. So I believe now you can better answer my question."

My frown deepens. "What question? The one that we were on before he came in. What do you think this school is now?"

I stay silent, not knowing exactly how to answer that. I cannot say that it is a great school any longer after seeing that. It had totally killed my impression of this school. "This place is like a jungle. I would have asked you to do a drumroll because you are about to hear Krohn’s history. Which of course, is from when I came and the info I have gathered up until now. ’Cause I’m a great info gathering expert’ But you seem too shock to do a drumroll, so I will just get on with it.

Okay now, picture a jungle." I give him a questioning look. Just do it. It is the core reference of what I’m about to tell you."

"Okay."

"A jungle has wild animals. You know, Apex predators and all the others. They are at the very top of the food chain. Then there are the preys on which they feed on. What I’m trying to say is that this place is somehow similar." I listen more attentively. He leans in to be more earshot closer.

"That guy. . . Calyx Lamont is an Apex predator. If there is a rank even higher than that, that is what he would be. He is insanely rich. He donates hundreds of thousands of money almost all the time to the school community. But those aren’t just generosity sake donations. They are blood fees."

I’m even more spooked. "Blood fees?"

"Yes. It is for him to totally exercise control over other students. He is like the Pablo Escobar around here. So the school board pretty much endorses what he does by covering it up because he often throws money at them ." The bell rings signally the end of recess. "There is a lot to talk about. We couldn’t possibly cover it all in one day. In the meantime—scratch that, "Forever until you graduate, stay out of Calyx Lamont’s way. Avoid him like a plague and be non-existent like a wood-pecker on a tree. He is not a guy anyone can dream of messing with. Understand?" Maverick was very stern in his warning. I wanted to ask if I look like the type to go about looking for trouble to him? But I kept my mouth shut.

The chilling occurrence at school had been on my mind the entire day. Leaving such a deep mark and an unsightly first impression. I feel viscerally scarred. I might as well be the one whose head was broken.

I am currently working my part-time shift at the local noodle restaurant. Moving from table to table to serve customers before finally perching at the counter reading "Burn For You" But my mind is far elsewhere from the electric BL romance novel.