nine

                                    

                                          

When Alex Rider asked for Zarah's Hayes last name he might have told her a little white lie... it wasn't like he meant to do it. He just blurted out his question before he could stop himself. An honest mistake. He figured since he had already gone out of his way to ask, it wouldn't hurt to wander a bit more and look her up. 
Looking back at it he felt a little bad, he felt as though he had invaded her privacy, and from what he could tell she was private. Well, he didn't dig too deep, only a simple google search, it wasn't like he searched her up on the MI6 database, as temped as he was. 
He didn't find anything too bad; Or rather he didn't really find anything at all. He couldn't find anything under that name other than an American address and a certificate saying she won her primary school drawing contest. He found her father's Facebook, his profile picture was of a sunset and the only other thing on there was a picture of a toddler in a high seat with the caption Zar, forever my little girl with a heart. 
Looking at it he noted that the little girl's curl pattern was looser than Zarah's was, but then again her curls could have tightened with age and puberty. When Alex was little he had big blonde curls and now his hair was straight as aboard. Other than that the two girls looked about the same, same color eyes, same upturned nose, same brown skin. He didn't know what it was but he kept staring at the picture, everything seemed to line up, but something felt off.
Alex walked out of the school to the track, he had spent most of his day at therapy and decided to go to school for the last period. Athletics was his favorite, it came most naturally to him, though his other classes weren't too bad for him either.
Catching up with the rest of the class they all stood surrounding the teacher, he stood with a clipboard and a box next to his feet. He nodded at Alex in acknowledgment "Alright class today's going to be a fun day, I have a list of group activities we're going to do, so partner up." The teacher told the group, that's when he noticed different activities set up in the middle of the track. 
Alex looked around, he didn't see Tom anywhere in the group but then he caught sight of Zarah. Zarah must have seen him look at her because she began violently shaking her head no. Alex smiled and nodded his head up and down as he walked over to her. The closer he got the harder she shook her head until he was finally next to her.
"Do you want to be my partner?"He asked, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his joggers. He wasn't quite sure why the athletics teacher insisted on them going outside in the beginning of December, when he did ask, he had told him that there wasn't a spec of snow on the ground and he wanted to enjoy the weather, even is said weather was negative one degrees. 
"No." She replied almost immediately, not even bothering to look at him. Her arms were crossed, the end of her long-sleeved shirt clenched in each hand. 
"Why not?"
"Because I don't like you." He could see her grinding her teeth and that caused him to chuckle.
"Alex, Zarah, are you guys partners?" The teacher questioned.
"No."
"Yes," they answered at the same time, their heads snapped toward one another, each conveying very different emotions. 
The teacher looked between them and then down at his clipboard "Okay, ill take that as a yes." he muttered "Our first activity of the hour is a three-legged race, come and get your strings."
Alex heard Zarah let out a small groan, he looked over to her, and that was when he noticed something was missing "Zarah, where are your crutches?"
"Gone."