The last school bell of the day screamed through the halls of Ridge View High, not with the cheerful promise of freedom, but with an almost metallic, grating urgency.

It was a signal that a shift had occurred, a brief moment of controlled chaos before the great dispersal.

In the courtyard, under the indifferent gaze of the late-afternoon sun, a new scene was already beginning.

The students didn’t pour out; they oozed—a slow, congested flow of denim, brightly colored backpacks, and a thousand different dramas unfolding in hushed tones.

The central parking lot was the immediate destination, a concrete stage bordered by a low chain-link fence that separated the school property from the unkempt, whispering woods beyond.

Near the fence line, where the asphalt was cracked and dappled with pale green moss, three figures clustered around a dented, midnight-blue sedan that seemed to be actively shedding its muffler.

Marcus ‘Mac’ Avery, a junior whose only distinguishing characteristic was an unnerving proficiency in trigonometry, leaned against the sedan’s trunk, flipping a sticky, laminated schedule card between his fingers.

He wasn’t talking, but listening with a passive, slightly worried frown to Chloe Vance, a girl whose perpetually raised eyebrow suggested she found the entire world mildly inadequate.

“I’m telling you, Mac,” Chloe insisted, her voice tight with theatrical exasperation, “they moved the entire lunch period a full six minutes later.

Six minutes! That’s six minutes of prime cafeteria real estate lost, six minutes I have to hear Mrs.

Peterson talk about the Roman Empire’s plumbing system.

I’m going to petition the Student Council.

This is an outrage.”

Mac nodded slowly, carefully, as if the motion might dislodge something fragile in his brain.

“Yeah, Chloe.

Six minutes.

But the plumbing was pretty advanced, right? The aqueducts.

.

.

”

“It’s not about the aqueducts, you delightful simpleton!” Chloe hissed, reaching over to tap him sharply on the forehead with her car keys.

“It’s about principal adherence to the schedule! If they can move six minutes, they can move forty! Next thing you know, we’ll be eating lunch at 3 PM and drinking lukewarm milk.”

A different sound cut across the end of Chloe’s tirade—a sharp, almost musical thwack followed by a heavy, breathless sigh.

The third person in their cluster, Evan ‘Twitch’ Rourke, a wiry sophomore known mostly for his vast collection of obsolete video game cartridges and his allergy to physical activity, had been trying to pull a tightly-stuck flyer off the sedan’s rear window.

He had succeeded in removing the paper but left behind a stubborn, gluey residue that now clung to the palm of his hand.

He was staring at it, horrified.

“Ah, the Gum of the Ancient Gods,” Evan muttered, holding his hand away from his body as if it were a wounded animal.

“Legend foretold of a residue so potent, so sticky, that mere soap would only awaken its true, spiteful power.

I am now officially bonded to this sedan until the next ice age.

” He licked his lips.

“Mac, you got a pocket knife?”

“No, I have a schedule,” Mac said, showing him the laminated card.

“Wait, no, that won’t help.

I think there’s a bottle of hand sanitizer in the glovebox.”

Chloe threw her hands up.

“This is not what I need right now.

Look, I’m just waiting for my ride, and I need a drama-free corner to process the existential threat of a delayed lunch.

Could we just… exist quietly for two minutes?” She ran a hand through her perfectly coiffed, deep-auburn hair.

The drama-free corner was instantly compromised.

A black Ford Expedition, so clean it looked less driven than transported from a military-grade showroom, pulled into the lot’s furthest corner.

It was a vehicle that simply did not belong among the faded Hondas and muddy pickups of the student body.

The driver, a tall man whose dark, almost predatory silhouette was immediately recognizable even from a distance, stepped out.

He didn’t look around.

He looked only at the main entrance, his posture one of immense, unmoving patience.

“Well,” Chloe remarked, her previous outrage momentarily forgotten, “Mr.

Seagal is on time, which is more than I can say for my mother’s Uber service.

Think she’ll get an Oscar for that movie where she played the highly-trained veterinarian?”

“Steven Seagal doesn’t do vets, Chloe,” Mac corrected, squinting.

“He does.

.

.

ancient samurai warrior mystic who is also a black ops agent.

And that’s Lena’s dad.

You know that.”

“Yes, but does he know I know that?” Chloe countered, watching the man with an appraising eye.

“It’s all about perception.

Imagine having to wait in the school pick-up line next to him.

It’s like waiting in line for a hot dog next to a retired mountain lion.”

Evan, still nursing his sticky hand, piped up, his voice hushed.

“You know his daughter, Lena? She’s super quiet.

I’ve had Bio with her all year.

She drew this incredible sketch of a fungus that looked like a tiny, aggressive city.

She doesn’t talk about her dad at all.

I think that’s why people don’t mess with her.

It’s the power of the unknown.”

As he finished speaking, Lena Seagal emerged from the main school doors, moving with a calm, almost unnaturally smooth gait that cut through the crowd’s frantic energy.

She wore a simple charcoal hoodie and carried a stack of well-used textbooks, not clutched defensively, but held loosely, comfortably.

“She’s a total fortress,” Chloe observed, folding her arms.

“I tried to get her to join the Yearbook Committee last week—she’s got great handwriting—and she just looked at me like I was proposing a hostile merger with the Mongolian goat herders.”

Their assessment was broken by the abrupt, loud clearing of a throat just behind them.

Ryan Cole, a senior with a neck like a fire hydrant and a constantly aggrieved expression, stood there, flanked by his two inseparable, monosyllabic followers.

Ryan was the school’s self-appointed authority on all things involving muscle mass and loud engine noises, and he clearly took their casual conversation as a personal affront to the sanctity of the student parking lot.

“Hey, Rourke,” Ryan grunted, his eyes fixed on Evan’s glue-covered palm.

“That your hand, or did you stick it in a dumpster again?”

Evan blinked, looking from his sticky hand to Ryan, then to Mac and Chloe, a slow, comedic resignation settling over his face.

“Ah,” he said softly, tilting his head slightly.

“The arrival of the Alpha Moron.

I knew this corner was too good to be true.”

Ryan’s chest immediately swelled, making the logo on his t-shirt stretch alarmingly tight.

“What did you say, tiny?”

Chloe stepped forward, her face a mask of bored annoyance.

“He said you look like a very nice young man who should be going home now, Ryan.

Move along.

You’re blocking the view of the legendary martial arts film star trying to pick up his daughter.

” She gestured toward the Expedition with a flick of her wrist.

Ryan followed her gesture, scowled at the imposing black SUV and the tall figure next to it, then looked back at Chloe.

“I don’t care who her dad is.

This is my spot.

And you three are loitering.”

“Actually,” Mac interjected, holding up his schedule card, “loitering requires an intent to stay, and my intent is to get home and start the analysis of ancient Mesopotamian pottery shards.

Evan is merely a casualty of poor school maintenance, and Chloe is awaiting her transportation.

We are temporarily static, not loitering.”

Ryan ignored Mac’s precise terminology, his gaze now settling on the retreating figure of Lena, who had passed their cluster without a glance, walking towards the Expedition.

“Hey, Seagal!” Ryan called out, his voice loud, grating, and designed to carry.

“Nice shoes! Did your old man buy them for you with his ninja money?”

Lena didn’t break her stride.

She simply continued, deliberate and composed, toward her father’s car, the quiet strength of her ignoring him a far greater challenge to Ryan’s ego than any verbal comeback could have been.

The sun was now fully dipping behind the western ridge, casting the parking lot into deep, premature shadow, and the air was tightening, waiting.