Chapter 4: No Excuses

The principal’s office door clicked shut behind them with a heavy, echoing thud.

The room smelled sharp, like old wood and fresh ink.

Plaques and trophies lined the walls, all polished until they gleamed under the cold fluorescent lights.

Principal Hargrove sat behind a massive oak desk, hands clasped tightly together, jaw clenched.

He didn’t smile.

He didn’t even greet them.

He just stared — a long, hard stare that made Jay shift uncomfortably on his feet.

“Sit,” Principal Hargrove snapped.

The four boys shuffled into the stiff chairs lined up in front of the desk.

Carter winced as he sat down, clutching his ribs. Logan hovered protectively near him, his arms crossed, eyes burning with anger.

Before Hargrove could even open his mouth, Logan jumped in.

“It was him!” Logan shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Eli. “He just— freaked out! Out of nowhere! Started attacking Carter for no reason!”

Jay glanced sideways at Eli, but Eli didn’t react.

He just sat there, silent, still, staring straight ahead like he wasn’t even in the room.

Principal Hargrove leaned forward slowly, his face darkening.

“Is that so?” he said in a low voice, dangerous and calm. “You’re telling me this entire situation started without provocation?”

“Yes!” Logan insisted. “Carter didn’t even touch him! He’s psycho or something!”

Jay clenched his fists but didn’t say anything. He could feel the lie sitting heavy in the air, making it harder to breathe.

Principal Hargrove exhaled slowly through his nose, the way a bull might before it charged.

“This kind of behavior,” he growled, “is unacceptable. Violence will not be tolerated in my school, no matter who started it. You’re lucky we don’t involve the police.”

Logan smirked slightly, thinking he had won.

But just as Principal Hargrove opened his mouth to continue, the office door burst open.

Everyone jumped.

A skinny kid with dark brown skin, a sharp low-fade haircut, and thick black glasses stumbled inside, gasping for breath like he’d sprinted the whole way.

“I— I need to say something!” he wheezed.

Principal Hargrove’s face turned a dangerous shade of red.

“You do NOT barge into my office without permission!” he barked.

But the kid pressed on, voice shaking but determined.

“My name’s Damien King!” he blurted. “And I saw everything!”

Everyone turned to stare.

Jay leaned forward slightly.

Even Eli’s eyes shifted a little.

Damien planted his feet, forcing himself to speak, even as he sucked in desperate gasps of air.

“It wasn’t Eli’s fault!” Damien said quickly. “Logan and Carter have been bullying him for months! They shove him, call him names, mess with his stuff — they even tried to trip him in the hallway last week! I’ve seen it! Everyone has!”

Carter’s face twisted with fury.

“Shut up, nerd!” he spat.

Damien flinched but kept talking, words pouring out faster and faster.

“And today— today they were talking trash about him while he was trying to study, laughing and calling him a coward! That’s why Eli snapped! He couldn’t take it anymore!”

Jay felt a flicker of something deep in his chest.

Relief, maybe.

Finally.

Someone was saying it.

But Principal Hargrove was not moved.

He pinched the bridge of his nose like he was getting a headache.

“I don’t care why it happened,” he said coldly. “Fighting is fighting. Disrespect is disrespect. And interrupting my office meeting without knocking—” he glared hard at Damien— “is still breaking the rules.”

Damien’s mouth dropped open in horror.

“I was just—”

“No excuses!” Hargrove thundered.

He stood up, looming over all of them now.

“You four,” he said, jabbing a finger at Eli, Jay, Carter, and Logan, “will each receive detention for the next three days after school.”

“And you,” he added, turning his furious gaze on Damien, “will serve one afternoon detention for bursting into a disciplinary meeting without permission.”

Damien’s shoulders sagged like the air had been punched out of him.

Jay bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something stupid.

Hargrove stalked around his desk and opened the door wider.

“Out. Now,” he barked.

The five of them shuffled out into the hallway like a shameful parade.

For a second, they all stood there awkwardly.

Logan shot a death glare at Damien before grabbing Carter and stomping away down the hall.

Damien adjusted his glasses nervously and gave Eli a small, awkward smile.

Jay slapped Eli lightly on the shoulder.

“You got people looking out for you, man,” he muttered.

Eli didn’t say anything.

Didn’t smile.

But for the first time that day, Jay thought he saw the tiniest flicker of something in Eli’s eyes.

Something alive.

Something dangerous.

Something that said:

I’m not weak anymore.

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