I do not want you to walk ahead of me,

I do not want you to walk behind me,

I want you to walk by my side forever.

Zoe walked towards Mr Hemsworth's office with a feeling of apprehension. She couldn't understand if the feeling was a good or bad one. But she didn't dismiss the feeling, knowing that her gut instincts have helped her survive in more ways than she could count.

Zoe kept on walking behind the gang, knowing what is to come.

"Sam! Move your fat bum out of the way."

"Ow! Stop bumping into me. Can't you see I am stuck behind these Quinto twins."

"Ew! Ew! Ew! Get your germ filled hands away from me. God knows where they have been."

Zoe just stood there and watched all of them start shouting together. They were all stuck in the doorway trying to get in at the same time.

Zoe was starting to get a headache from all this. She looked up and saw Mr Hemsworth's pained face from the top of her friends.

Looks like we travel in the same 'I-Have-A-Headache' boat.

Zoe stood up straight and spoke, "Move!"

Everybody stopped shouting and looked at her and when she raised one single eyebrow at them, they turned and marched into the room in a single file.

Zoe entered the office and closed the door behind her.

"You have them quite under control. I must say, I am impressed," says Mr Hemsworth amusingly.

Zoe smirked and looked at her friends who were standing there not meeting her eyes and said, "They know not to irritate me early in the morning."

"It has got nothing to do with control." She looked pointedly at Mr Hemsworth when she said that.

Mr Hemsworth just chuckled and motioned for her and her friends to take a seat.

Zoe declined by saying, "we have a class."

The "make it quick" was implied in her tone. Zoe wasn't one to miss her lessons and nor were her friends no matter how popular or badass they may seem, so she wanted to meeting to get over with.

Mr Hemsworth just nodded and sat in his chair.

"Where is this new student you wanted us to meet?" asked Zoe.

"Why he is in this very room with us" said Mr Hemsworth and pointed towards a figure facing the windows, with his back towards them.

Zoe's brow crinkled in displeasure. She was always aware about her surroundings and she had been in the room for almost a minute without realizing the presence of another person in the room, was unacceptable to her.

The figure turned and Zoe's eyes widened imperceptibly with recognition but she hid before the new guy saw and the hard mask was back in place.

He heard them enter but didn't turn around to acknowledge them. The dean only said that a few students would help him getting around on the first day.

Probably some kind of wanna-be's. He thought.

He heard the dean mention him and he took this as a cue to turn around, ready to face the oh-so-familiar look of awe on their face. He was fed up of it.

He noticed a lot of things when he turned. One of them was that none of them had a look of awe on their face. Second and the most important of all, the girl that he saw walking across the campus this morning was standing right in front of him.

She was more beautiful than he thought. She had a steel-your-breath kind of charisma.

Enchanting and familiar eyes, he thought. He had seen those eyes somewhere. They were like a long forgotten memory.

And those were staring really hard at him. Her face was completely closed off, giving nothing away.

He slowly walked towards the girl. He didn't miss the stiffening of the bodies behind the girl.

The girl on the other hand was completely relaxed. Her posture suggested boredom.

When he reached her, he extended a hand towards her and said, "Hello. My name is Rafael."

The girl simply looked at his outstretched hand and then back at his face, and then turned around and asked the dean, "So how long do we have to show him around?"

Rafe let his hand slide back down, not disappointed or angry just surprised. Nobody had ever disrespected him in this way.

The dean shot a warning look to the girl before turning to Rafe and said, "She is Zoe. My most prized student."

Zoe. Even though a nice name, Rafe thought her name would be a bit more exotic.

When he came out of his thoughts he realised that the dean had already introduced the other people.

He mentally made a note to get their names later.

The dean turned to Zoe and said, "Zoe, the reason I asked you and your friends to show him around is because...."

The dean hesitated. So Rafe looked at Zoe in the eye and said, "I am the Prince of Tazkash."

Zoe POV

Zoe knew that he waiting for some sort of reaction from her but that was not going to happen.

Sam whistled from behind her and said, "He is a lot more pricy than we thought."

Lily smacked his head and shushed him.

Zoe kept on looking at Rafael. The turned to Mr Hemsworth and asked, "And why is it so important that we show him around? I mean there have been students here before who were royalty. What is the big fuss?"

Mr Hemsworth said, "The big fuss here is that Rafael, here, doesn't want anybody to know his identity. He wants to have normal education with utmost respect for his privacy."

Zoe snorted when Mr Hemsworth said 'normal education'.

Zoe asked, "Then why are we privy to this information?"

Mr Hemsworth replied, "Because I know you can keep secret. Also you will be working together a lot in the coming few months so I didn't want any trust issues later."

"Smart move," commented Kaiden.

"But if you want him to remain incognito that is not the right way to go," said Max.

That is the first time he said anything after entering the room.

Max moved to stand behind Zoe, which did not go unnoticed by Rafael.

"If he is seen with us then people will think that he belongs to a very wealthy family and it won't take long for people to dig up information on him and then this whole act goes for a toss," reasoned Max.

Mr Hemsworth said, "I have already thought of that and we are going to go with the story that he is a scholarship student and an asset to this school."

"So instead of making people think he is wealthy, people are going to think he is super smart," said Xander.

"Smart and hot," said Julia.

Xander looked at her disapprovingly and then glared at Rafael, silently telling him to stay away from his girl.

"If everything is sorted out, we'd like to be on our way," said Zoe.

"Yes Zoe. You may. Mr Rafael, please take this papers and show it to your teachers. That will be all."

Rafe POV

He moved to take the papers and leave.

He saw Zoe turn and leave, but before leaving she murmured something to the guy that was standing close to her and left the room without a back glance.

Rafe didn't miss the worried glance everybody sent her way when she left.

They all turned towards him and motioned for him to follow them out.

I have got to learn their names, He thought.

They left the dean's office and Rafe noticed that Zoe was nowhere to be found.

One of the girls opened her mouth to start talking but Rafe interrupted her.

"Before you say anything, I have to say and ask a few things."

The girl made a 'go ahead' motion.

"Okay. First, please call me Rafe. Second you guys will have to introduce your selves again as I had a lot on my mind during the introductions."

His pride, not letting him say that he spaced out.

Slowly everybody started introducing themselves and shook his hands.

Lastly, "I am Max." No hand shake.

"So the girl who left, her name was Zoe right?" asked Rafe.

"You remembered her name. Figures;" murmured Xander.

Before he could question him, Max replied, "Yes her name is Zoe."

"So, let's show you around campus. Mind you the campus is huge so you will only be to attend classes after break," said Julia.

"By the way which classes do you have after break?" inquired Sam.

"AP+ classes," said Rafe.

"Cool. Then you are with us for the rest of the day as we all have AP+ classes too," said Lily.

Max and Kaiden remained quite during the whole conversation. Silent spectators.

"Where did Zoe go?" asked Rafe, genuinely confused.

Nobody replied as they all kept looking at each other.

Finally Max replied, "Let's show to the campus, Your Highness." He turned and started walking.

The way Max said 'Your Highness', it was almost condescending.

Rafe realized that Max didn't like him.

He sighed mentally and prepared himself for a long day, all the while wondering, where is Zoe?

Q1) why does Zoe hate her grandfather?