Chapter 27 When your shovel is more famous than you

Chapter 27 When your shovel is more famous than you
Hazel’s POV
I gasped, more startled than afraid. I was yanked forward and collided chest-first into something hard. Not muscular-hard. Bony-hard.
He grunted. I stumbled. Then his hands snapped to my shoulders, steadying me roughly as my world tilted.
And then－
Cyan. Cyan eyes. Stupidly blue with a hint of green. The kind of blue that should belong to romance novel covers, not delinquent shovel lunatics.

I blinked. He frowned immediately.
“Should’ve known it was you,” he muttered. “Ginger Snap.”
Excuse me? Did he just-

I narrowed my eyes, ignoring the blood, the swelling, the fact that he looked like he fought a lawn mower and lost.
“Well,” I said coolly, “given your current resemblance to a crime scene, I was impressed you still possessed enough cognitive function for name-calling.”
His jaw tightened immediately.

He released me and straightened to his full height, which, rude, turned out to be very tall. Like, why did he get to be tall and annoying and stupidly hot? Who authorized this?
He brought the cigarette back to his lips and inhaled slowly, eyes closing like he was savoring a fine wine instead of lung damage.
Smoke drifted toward me.
I flailed dramatically, waving my hands. “HEY! unlike you, I actually valued my lungs. They were delicate. Refined. Not accustomed to being marinated in stupidity and nicotine.”

He didn’t even look at me. Just limped back to the spot where he’d been sitting and dropped down with zero grace, one knee bent, the other stretched out, elbow resting lazily on it like he owned the entire block.
I studied him despite myself: the blood, the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched slightly around the cigarette.

He was hurt. Badly.
I noticed his movements were slower now. Careful. Like every shift hurt.
Good. We were both limping today. Equality. Something warm and petty bloomed in my chest. Schadenfreude. Delicious.
Which meant－
I was about to be annoying on purpose.

This could be my only chance to psychologically annoy him after what he did to me… there was no way I was gonna pass this up.

I grinned wider.
Mischief mode activated.



Lila’s and Zeke’s POV- Class 10-A
The classroom was vibrating.
Not metaphorically; literally. Desks rattled with tapping feet, whispers ricocheted off the walls, and someone in the back was reenacting a fight using two rulers and a pencil case like it was a cinematic masterpiece.
Kael’s name was everywhere.
“Gravedigger,” someone whispered reverently.
“Blackridge boys,” another said. “Three of them.”
“And Kael just-” a guy made an explosion noise with his mouth.

Lila sat sideways in her chair, chin propped on her fist, listening like her life depended on it, while Zeke slowly turned his head from left to right like he was watching a tennis match he didn’t sign up for.

Tessa aka Ponytails had climbed onto her chair. Onto. Her. Chair.
“I’M SAYING,” she announced, “THIS WASN’T A FIGHT. THIS WAS A DECLARATION OF WAR.”
“Aren’t we already at war?” someone muttered.
Ponytails ignored that. “Kael didn’t even look stressed. He looked－”
“－hungry,” Zeke said under his breath.
Lila snorted.

“Geezzz still can’t believe Kael took on three guys on his own. WITH WEAPONS and won.” Someone whispered.
Ponytails stomped her leg on the table. “Won is an understatement. He restructured them.”
“That’s not a word for fighting,” a boy muttered.
“It is when Kael does it.”

Lila leaned closer to Zeke. “They’re going to mythologize him by lunch.”
“They already are,” Zeke replied. “By tomorrow he’ll be bulletproof.”
“And shirtless,” Lila added. Zeke grimaced. “Please don’t.”
The chatter surged again, how Blackridge boys ran, how teachers pretended not to see, how someone swore Kael smiled while bleeding.

Ponytails said while practically vaulted over a chair, “My husband, Kael could take on a hundred men if he wanted to.”
Silence.
Dead. Silence.
Every head turned toward her.
Someone else coughed.

“…A hundred?” a guy near the door said carefully. “With a shovel?”

Ponytails crossed her arms. “First of all, it’s not just a shovel. It’s Thrasher.”
“That…doesn’t help,” he replied.

“You’re underestimating him,” she snapped. “Kael doesn’t fight like normal people. He fights like－ like－”
“－a raccoon with unresolved trauma?” someone muttered.
Ponytails pointed aggressively. “Exactly.”
“He’s feral,” she continued. “I’ve seen him stare down three seniors with nothing but a cigarette and disappointment.”

Zeke leaned toward Lila, whispering, “I think half this room is confusing trauma with superpowers.”
Lila didn’t answer. She was watching Ponytails mime Kael “dodging bullets” with a pen.
“…Do you think Kael’s okay?” Lila asked suddenly, her voice quieter than the chaos.

Zeke opened his mouth－

“OKAY?” Ponytails interrupted, shoving Zeke’s shoulder aside like he was furniture. “HELLO? He’s KAEL. You don’t ask if he’s okay. You ask if the ground is okay.”
Someone sighed. “That’s biologically impossible.”
“You’re biologically impossible,” Ponytails shot back.

The class stared.

A girl whispered, “Is she okay?”
Lila slowly turned back to Zeke. “I kinda respect her delusion.”
“She scares me,” Zeke whispered back.

After a while, the teacher gave up on restoring order and started pretending this was a group discussion—Lila grabbed Zeke’s arm and yanked him toward the back of the room before Ponytails could declare Kael Immortal.
“Do you think Hazel’s coming today?” she asked.
Zeke snorted. “Nope.”
Lila nodded, satisfied. “Good.”

Zeke narrowed his eyes. “…Why do you look like that?”
She planted her hands on her hips, chest out, chin lifted like she’d just enlisted in a war.
“Because now we can do what we talked about yesterday.”

Zeke squinted. “We talked about Algebra”
“And justice”, Lila added.
She leaned in, eyes shining like she was about to confess a felony.
“Our plan to teach Zerran a lesson for messing with Hazel.”
Zeke’s soul visibly attempted to leave his body.

He slapped a hand over her mouth so fast it echoed. His eyes darted around the room like snipers were perched on the lockers.
“ARE YOU INSANE?” he hissed. “Do you want us dead? Missing??”