Amara settled into the teacher's chair, calmly surveying the room. For the first time all semester, the atmosphere in Grade 7C had swung a full one hundred and eighty degrees into total silence.
The students who'd been branded unruly and unmanageable were suddenly bent over their notebooks, faces down, copying out the promise line by line, page by page. A few of them had gone slightly pale. They understood now that this new homeroom teacher was not to be underestimated. The memory of how fast Amara's hand had snapped up to catch Adam's baseball was still vivid, proof enough that the beautiful woman at the front of the room possessed serious combat skill.
The unusual hush from 7C soon became the talk of the halls. A couple of teachers passing by peeked through the window glass, marveling and a little baffled by the rare sight.
Meanwhile, in the still-empty school cafeteria, Adam and Ava sat in a far corner, cooling off after their walkout.
"Adam, I think we're going to have some trouble with Miss Wells," Ava said, breaking the silence, looking straight at her twin. "She's a pretty tough teacher."
Adam blew out a rough breath. "Drop it, Ava. Don't waste your breath on that annoying woman. She and Dad are exactly the same — both of them a pain," he snapped, taking a swig of the iced chocolate in front of him to cool his temper.
Ava didn't push it. She knew her brother's moods too well when he was irritated. The girl just opened a cold bottle of water she'd pulled from the cooler and drank it in silence.
An hour flew by. When the time on the board ran out, a few students were still in a panic, not yet finished with all ten pages. Luckily, Amara gave them an extra fifteen minutes. For the kids of 7C, this writing assignment had turned out far more nerve-racking and sweat-inducing than any end-of-term exam.
"This is such garbage luck. We finally get a homeroom teacher who's actually tough. It's all the principal's fault. Why'd he have to send someone as brutal as Miss Wells to our class?" Theo grumbled to his deskmate, Rio.
Rio scoffed, folding his arms after turning in his barely-adequate assignment. "Yeah, this is on Mr. Darrow. After school I'm telling my dad. I'll have him get the board to fire the guy," Rio shot back, smug, leaning on his parents' power.
While the students stewed, Amara was back at the front of the room. She began writing a few basic math problems on the board. Her teaching style was firm but no longer frightening; she called students up by name to solve the problems — problems that honestly weren't hard for a seventh-grader who bothered to pay attention.
As the break bell drew near, word of Miss Wells's toughness spread to every corner of the class. The students grew frantic, wracking their brains for a way to slip free of their annoying new homeroom teacher.
Adam and Ava, just back from the cafeteria, walked straight into the still-taut atmosphere. Far from chastened, Adam immediately started plotting fresh mischief for the next day. He crossed to Rio's desk, leaned down, and whispered something into his crony's ear.
Hearing the sly plan, Rio's eyes lit up at once. A wicked grin spread across his face.
"Ooh, that's a great idea, Adam! We'll glue that annoying teacher's skirt to her chair so she can't get up tomorrow!" Rio whispered back, then laughed with satisfaction alongside Adam, picturing the super-glue trap they'd set on Amara's seat.
Late that afternoon, in the sprawling city, Amara sat lost in thought on the porch of her modest little rental. The mug of warm tea in her hands slowly went cold. Her mind was still back in Grade 7C — specifically on the look in Adam's eyes. There was something about that boy that wouldn't let her rest. The lines of his face and the sharpness of his glare kept reminding her of someone from her past — someone she'd fought with everything she had to forget. But what unsettled her more was the pain buried in there. Adam wasn't simply badly behaved; the boy seemed to be carrying a deep, unhealed wound.
Meanwhile, in a grand mansion in the city's most exclusive district, the mood was anything but calm. Adam was sitting on the edge of his enormous bed, brooding, when the door to his room was suddenly flung open.
Bang!
"Adam!"
Zachary Thorne stood in the doorway, breathing hard. He hadn't even changed out of his work suit. His handsome, mature face was flushed crimson with fury. Behind him trailed Grandma Miriam, the twins' grandmother, her expression anxious — afraid her only son might do something rash to her beloved grandson.
"You have humiliated me! Why did you skip out during class today? And the principal himself called to tell me you had the nerve to throw a baseball at your teacher!" Zach thundered, his voice filling the room.
Rather than cower, Adam pushed himself to his feet. He stared his father down without blinking, his gaze a direct challenge.
"Wow, that new teacher's really something. Not even a day on the job and she's already running to tell on me to you," he sneered.
"You . . . you really need to be taught a lesson, Adam!" Zach barked, taking a step forward.
"Go ahead, Dad! Even if you want to throw me out of this house right now, I'm not scared!" Adam fired back, his voice starting to shake with the emotion boiling up in him. "You've never once cared about me or Ava! It's like you never even wanted us in this world!" he shouted, eyes brimming, both fists clenched hard.
A jolt.
Adam's words landed like a dagger in Zach's chest. His anger spiked in an instant. Before he knew it, his right hand flew up into the air, ready to slap his own son's cheek. Adam squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the blow.
But the seconds passed, and the slap never came. Zach's hand trembled violently in midair, held back by whatever sense he had left. He lowered it slowly. Laying a hand on Adam would only take their already-fractured bond and shatter it beyond repair.
"What I truly regret isn't your existence, son,* Zach cried out inside his tormented heart. *It's that you had to be born from the womb of that she-devil" the woman who trapped me and destroyed your father's whole future.
Unable to hold back the tightness crushing his chest, Zach abandoned any thought of scolding Adam further. He turned on his heel and strode out of the room without another word.
The moment Zach vanished down the hall, Grandma Miriam rushed over and pulled her beloved grandson into a tight embrace.
"There now, sweetheart, that's enough . . . don't fight your father," she soothed.
A moment later Ava, who had been hiding behind the door, trembling, crept inside. She approached her brother with a look of concern.
"Adam, are you okay?" she asked softly.
Adam gently pulled free of his grandmother's arms. He wiped the wet corner of his eye, and in its place a spark of burning anger flared. "Ava, tomorrow I'm getting back at that horrible woman. I will never let her last long teaching at our school!" he said, teeth clenched, eyes glinting hard.
Ava nodded in full agreement, backing her twin completely. "Don't worry, Adam. I'll make sure our plan tomorrow works and drives that new teacher to quit, just like the others."
Listening to her two grandchildren, Grandma Miriam, standing nearby, felt a chill run down her spine. She'd never imagined that resentment and the wound of too little parental love could push children so young into thoughts this sharp and this reckless.
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