by Bella King
“What the fucking hell was that?” Mary asked.
“Jacob,” I growled.
“You’re paying for the window, Elise,” Mary said, looking at the damage from outside and shaking her head. “Come inside now. We’ll make some dinner and talk about this.”
“No,” I said, my voice quivering. I tried to keep my anger from exploding. “I’m not coming inside.”
“You need to because it’s almost ten.”
I shrugged. “I have to return Jacob’s ball,” I said, my voice thin and airy, too high pitched to be natural. I gave Mary a crazed smile which caused her to frown.
“Are you alright, girl?” Mary asked, looking at me like I had five heads.
“I will be,” I said, finally walking into the house. I didn't intend to stay there. I had a ball to give back to Jacob, and I didn’t feel safe sleeping in my room tonight.
I walked into the living room, which was where the ball had flown into. There was a dramatic dent in the wall opposite the window. The drywall had been smashed in and white dust littered the floor. I found the steel ball on the floor in front of the dent.
It was still warm from the heat of Jacob’s pocket when I slipped it into my own to ‘return’ to him later. He wasn’t going to get away with the games he was playing that easily. I ignored the glass shards that littered the carpet, crunching over them with my tennis shoes as I left.
Mary stood in the hallway. “Aren’t you going to clean up this mess?” She asked, waving her hand around in front of her like she was trying to swat a fly.
“No,” I said dryly, stepping outside. “Jacob will clean it.”
Chapter 10
Sleep is for those who have no enemies.
I planned to spend my night by the river, sleeping under the stars. It didn’t get cold at night, but there would be bugs. I was hoping that the running water would keep them away from me while I slept.
I hoped that Sarah wouldn’t have a tough time that evening if Jacob’s guys decided to pay a visit to my room, but that wasn’t my problem anymore. I had a mission to accomplish.
I pulled the ball out of my pocket when I got into the woods. I knew that the authorities wouldn’t come in the forest unless they had a reason to, so I would be safe for the night. It was fucked up that I had to break my curfew because of Jacob, but this was war now. Rules were out the window.
The steel ball was heavy, like Jacob had said. It was about three inches in diameter, enough to do serious damage when thrown, as Jacob had shown me when he chucked it through the window and into the interior wall.
I rolled it around in my hand. I could easily trade such an object for a pack of cigarettes and be done with Jacob, but I wasn’t going to let him slide that easily. Besides, cigarettes would do little to appease him if he found me attractive, which I knew was the case by how he looked at me. At the very least, he liked my tits.
Nothing new. Guys had been drooling over them since the beginning of time.
I wished I had eaten something before I left for the night, but it was too late to go back now. I would get caught if I went back out on the road and snuck back home. The cops were crawling over the housing complex at night, waiting for someone to stick a toe outside so they could arrest them.
I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to deface Jacob’s property during the night. I would have to wait until morning to scope the place out. Our curfew ended at 5 AM.
I didn’t know where Jacob lived either, but I knew the area. I had seen him here during the fight that happened Saturday morning. If I watched the houses, I could see him leave. Then, I would act.
The river welcomed me back as I approached it, water running away to some forgotten place. The river was loud in the night, but not as loud as the cicadas. Those noisy bugs were screaming in the trees, but that was a sound that I was used to. I had grown up in the south, and the lower you went, the louder it got at night.
The crickets chirped, the cicadas screeched, and I reclined by the riverbank beneath the stars. It was a beautiful night, and would have been even more so if I knew that Jacob wasn’t sleeping under the same night sky.
I had never been plagued with the same level of contempt for another person, and I ha been around a lot of shady characters, creeps, and bullies. What got to me about Jacob was that he was so fucking full of himself, like he thought he could threaten me while he charmed me into submission. I’m sure that worked on weaker women, but I was no pushover. This bitch fought back.
I closed my eyes and tried not to imagine what animals were waiting to devour my body as I slept. That might be better than what Jacob would do to me once he found out that I had tossed the steel ball through his window as payback.
I chuckled to myself at the thought and finally went to sleep.
Chapter 11
Morning doesn’t always bring a new day.
Morning came, but I didn’t have an alarm clock to wake me up. No worries, the tiny stones jabbing into my spinal cord were enough to keep me from sleeping in. Not to mention that I was covered in mosquito bites.
I sat up and looked at my watch. It was 4:30 in the morning and the sun was beginning to rise. I scratched the pink bumps that had appeared in my arms overnight. Those suckers sure had a feast on me while I was sleeping. I wondered if I had any more blood left in my body.
I rinsed my face off in the river. I figured that the water was clean enough because it was moving so fast and didn’t smell funny. I would need to shower when I got home, anyway. My body was sweaty and stank like I had been running for days. It had only been one night!
I wove through the trees back toward the housing complex, careful to stay away from the road until curfew was over. I didn’t want to get caught during the last thirty minutes of my parole break.
The sun was already shining overhead, heating up the air and the ground as I walked. Even though it was early, the sunlight was bold in its arrival, making its presence known and warning against the coming heatwave that day. I would be spending most of today inside to avoid it.
I came upon the housing unit, finally meandering out into the road a few minutes after 5 AM. I weaved through the buildings until I arrived at the area that I had seen the two men fighting the previous down.
My hand sunk into the pocket of my shorts, clasping around the cold steel ball that had irritated my thigh all night. I scanned the surrounding buildings, but they all looked the same. It was impossible to tell which one belonged to Jacob.
I moved silently around the complex, peeking around corners watching doors until people started to come outside. It would be here for a long time, since I wasn’t sure when Jacob normally got up. I suspected he wasn’t the type to sleep in though, judging by his business savvy and leadership skills. Men like that rarely slept at all.
I looked around, waiting for someone to come outside. A few people left their houses, but most people slept in. I crouched outside of a place that I thought could be Jacob’s because of its position near the two drunk guys from yesterday, and I waited.
An hour passed.
I looked at my watch impatiently, then up at the sun, praying for a cloud to bless me with some shade. The sun was already high in the sky, and the surrounding buildings didn’t give me much shade. Their light gray paint reflected the sun around, causing it to be bright even places where the sunlight didn’t directly touch.
The sound of a door creaking open sparked me back to life just as I almost nodded off in a crouched position. It was behind me, so I spun around and crept alongside the wall, ducking down to avoid being seen from the window, and looked around the corner.
Jacob stood outside, stretching his arms wide and high into the air. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, only a pair of boxer briefs. He had no shame, but why would he with a body like that? His back was impressively wide, as though he spent all his time rowing. There were tattoos stretched across his back, detailing dragons and demonic creatures. They were all well done, but kind of scary.
; I already knew where he lived, so there was no reason to stay there staring at him, yet I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his figure. His skin was tanned from the sun, and his hair was perfectly messy atop his head. Everything about him was frustratingly perfect in a rugged way.
I shouldn’t have been drooling over the man I hated, but if he was a half-way decent human being, I would have been all over him. I watched Jacob take a deep breath in, being present in the moment. Nothing seemed to bother this man, like the whole world belonged to him. In a way, it did. Lakeshaw Academy was in the large palm of his hand.
I was finally able to tear my eyes away from him when he began to look around. I pulled back around the corner so that I wouldn’t be seen and slunk off quietly. Before I left Jacob’s building, I left a scratch in the gray paint, large enough for me to recognize the place in case I forgot which one it was. I didn’t want to demolish someone else’s place by accident.
With my plan going well, I gave myself a mental pat on the back, returning to my own unit to make sure nobody had destroyed it overnight. I was in sore need of a shower before I got my revenge, so a quick visit wouldn’t hurt.
Chapter 12
The days are hot, cold, and everywhere in between.
There was a piece of cardboard from a cereal box covering up the broken window when I arrived. I guess nobody was going to replace the window for me, but I didn’t have the money for it. I bet Jacob did though, so sneaking in a grabbing some cash might not be out of the question if I was sure that nobody was home when I went back to his place to return his heavy steel ball bearing.
I walked into my unit like there was nothing out of the ordinary, finding Mary and Sarah both in the kitchen drinking coffee.
“Where in the fuck have you been?” Mary asked when she saw me.
I was sure that I looked like I had a wild night, with scratches, twigs, and mosquito bites covering my body. I smiled at her, feeling in an oddly happy mood now that I didn’t give a shit about my own wellbeing anymore. “I’ve been out thinking.”
“About what?” Sarah asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
I tapped my chin in thought. “About whether jail is really all that bad,” I responded, staring off down the hall.
“Hell no, Elise. You’re not going to do anything stupid under my watch,” Mary said, waving a frying pan in the air.
I shrugged. “I think I’ll be fine, but nobody is going to tell me how to live my life. I don’t care if it’s just a little thing here and there. I don’t take orders anymore.”
Sarah nodded. “Good on you. Respect.”
Mary shook her head. “Don’t encourage her. Elise,” she snapped, turning back to me, “Before you go getting yourself thrown in jail for god knows what, I need you to fix the damn window. Now, I already cleaned the glass up, so all you need to do is buy a replacement. They’re cheap.”
I shrugged. “Money won’t be an issue. I have a plan,” I answered dryly. I had lost all emotion at this point, becoming cold and calculated due to lack of sleep. I was sure a mental breakdown was imminent as soon as I was able to rest, but my body was in survival mode now. I wished I could stay that way.
Mary sighed. “Just don’t bring the cops to our house, please.”
“I won’t,” I replied, but I knew that if things got out of control that’s how this would end.
I went back into the hallway and walked to the bedroom. I dug through my clothes, looking for something fresh to wear in this insufferable heat. I pulled out the only white shirt that I had and put it to the side to wear after my shower.
I had gotten the shirt at a school event, but never wore it. I figured it was the most generic thing I could wear in case someone saw me defacing Jacob’s property. They wouldn’t be able to pick me out from any other student at Lakeshaw Academy.
In the bathroom, I began to grow tired. I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, and I couldn’t afford to fall asleep after wrecked Jacob’s place. He would be after me then. Maybe a cup of coffee would help, or a nap. A nap would be better.
I climbed into the shower and turned the water on. I felt like I was in the shower more than I was out of it. The weather was to blame for me soaking in the water like a fish. If it wasn’t so damn hot, I wouldn’t need to rinse off every few hours.
I found myself looking forward to school on Monday. I was at less risk of something happening there because of the administration, and I could get lost in the crowd easily. Jacob knew where I lived, so the only way to guarantee that he didn’t murder me in my sleep was to sleep in the woods. I couldn’t keep doing that. I would either get caught eventually or lose my mind.
The water wasn’t even that cold in the shower today. It was running underground, but the soil must have gotten so hot that it heated even the cold water. I scrubbed off the dirt from my sore body and grabbed a towel.
I felt calmer now that I was clean, like I had come from the jungle into civilization, and now I could think more clearly about what I planned to do. I wrapped a towel around my body and stepped back out into my room.
The steel ball sat on the dresser, shining brightly in the sunlight that poured through the window. I went over and closed the blinds, dropping my towel to get dressed. The ball looked at me ominously as I pulled a pair of jeans on and tossed the loose t-shirt over my head.
I began to have second thoughts about this. What did I have to gain from starting a war with Jacob? Was it really that difficult to trade the steel ball for a pack of cigarettes and some cash to fix the window and be done with all this?
I picked up the heavy ball, rolling it around in my palm. This thing looked nice enough to fetch a good price. I might even have enough money left over for a milkshake. I let out a sigh, loosening my shoulders and closing my eyes.
The ball rested in my hand calmly. It would be hard for me to chuck this thing through Jacob’s window. As much as I hated him, if I accidentally hit him or one of his roommates in the head with it, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. Plus, I would be going to jail.
I come to Lakeshaw Academy to avoid jail, and what was I doing now?
I took the steel ball up to my bed, climbing up with the ladder on the foot of the bed so I didn’t have to exert as much energy as I would if I climbed up over the side. I let my body fall hard onto the stiff mattress. I tucked the ball under my pillow and pulled it toward me, squeezing the lumpy pile of cotton in my hands as I pressed my tired head into it. I was asleep in seconds.
Chapter 13
Runaway and live to see another day.
I slept most of the day Sunday, only waking up to eat dinner and nurse a headache from caffeine withdrawal. I popped a few aspirins, ate dinner, and went back to sleep. It was the best rest I had gotten since coming to Lakeshaw.
I ultimately decided to sell Jacob’s steel ball. I easily found a client at school on Monday, selling it for two packs of cigarettes and ten bucks. I turned around and sold one of the packs for another ten bucks, giving me enough to buy a cheap pane of glass to fix the window with.
I chased down Jacob after class and tried to confront him in the hallways, but his goons intercepted me. Apparently, he had bodyguards to keep people from running up to him.
“I need to talk with Jacob,” I said to two bulky men blocking my path with crossed arms.
“Let her through,” Jacob called from behind them.
They stepped away, expressionless, and I walked past them. Jacob wore a confused look on his face as I came up to him. He stood with his arms folded and a foot swung behind him, propping himself up against a sloppily painted white wall in the hallway.
“I have your cigarettes,” I said, pulling a pack of menthols out of my pocket.
Jacob held out his hand, and I dropped them in. He examined them for tampering, then nodded his head. “Good job. I didn’t think you’d actually pull through.”
“Well, you got what you wanted, so you can leave me alone now,” I said sharply.
Jacob smirked at m
e, looking me up and down like I was his favorite dessert food. “I don’t think so.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach at his words. We were done, finished, over. What more did he want from me? I wasn’t his toy. I was a grown woman!
I glared at him but felt weird feeling inside at his attention. I could see in his eyes that he was interested in more than just using me to feed his black market empire at the school. There was something deeper in his gaze that made me feel like I was a fish that had just bitten into his hook.
Jacob had never intended to let me off with the cigarettes. This was a test to see how easily I would break, and I had failed it. The second I had handed over the pack to him, he had gained more control over me. Now, he was positioning himself to pull me in deeper.
“I’m not doing anything else for you. I did what you wanted,” I said, attempting to stand my ground.
Jacob’s widening grin told me that this problem wasn’t going to go away so easily. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
“Where?” I asked.
“Outside. It’ll just be you and me,” Jacob said, pouring sweetness over his voice like syrup on a pancake.
I wasn’t falling for his act. “I’m not going anywhere with you alone.”
“Elise, my goth girl, you are going to do exactly what I say, or I’m coming to your room tonight and we’ll take a walk after curfew. Does that sound better?”
“If you step foot into my home I’ll stab you,” I countered, growing uncomfortable with how easily Jacob could get to me. I felt like nowhere but the river was safe.
Jacob laughed. “Then let’s go for a walk. I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to show you one of my favorite spots to hang out. We could work out a deal if you’d like.”
I shook my head. “I don’t make deals with liars.”
Jacob feigned offense. “Ouch, Elise. That hurt. Why would you think that of me?” His eyebrows squiggled into a mock sorrow. He looked punchable and kissable at the same time.
