by Apryl Baker
She also decided I needed a haircut, much to my horror. I spent a half an hour trying to explain why I didn’t want a haircut, but instead, I find myself staring at my reflection in the stylist’s big mirror, his own expression comforting.
I take deep, steadying breaths. In and out. In and out.
Change is not something I do well with.
“I don’t know about this.” I eye the scissors in the stylist’s hands with trepidation, my apprehension rising.
“Trust me.”
“But to cut my hair that short?”
“I promise, it will be perfect,” Stefan, the stylist, tries to soothe me. “Your hair will be cut to here, just below your shoulders, and allow all that natural curl to come out of hiding. All of this hair, it hides your face. We want everyone to be able to see you.”
No, we don’t, the panic inside screams.
I force my hands to unclench from around the chair arms. My hair is my shield. Whenever I needed to hide, down came the ponytail and my hair swung forward to keep prying eyes away. I’ve hidden behind it for years, my own personal security blanket. To take it away is like cutting off an arm. This is going to hurt.
“Just do it.” I grimace and keep my eyes firmly shut, cringing with each snip of the scissors.
Change. Change is good. At least that’s what I tell myself as I drag myself kicking and screaming into it.
Major brownie points to me.
I’m not sure how long I sit there, listening to the scissors become the death knell to my only hiding mechanism. Nerves eat away at me and I struggle to sit still. What will it look like? What will I look like? How had I let Emma put me in this situation?
A laugh echoes in my head and I go perfectly still. That wasn’t me. I listen, but nothing. Maybe my stress level is too high and I’m imagining things? I’ve never heard voices before, though. This is new and very, very disturbing. Dad will lock me up for sure if he gets wind of this.
“There, all done,” Stefan announces, startling me. “Jill is going to do your makeup, and then you can see yourself.”
Jill is a very pretty girl in her twenties. She smiles, but it’s a bored smile. Her cart rolls over with her and she starts rummaging through colors. I eyeball the massive makeup kit with despair. I have no clue about makeup or even how to apply it. My tortured expression catches her attention.
“It doesn’t bite.” Laughter bubbles in her voice.
“It might as well,” I mutter, feeling overwhelmed.
“Don’t worry.” For the first time since she came in, a real smile flits across her face. “I’ll show you how to put all this on. Every girl needs to know how to enhance her natural beauty.”
True to her word, for the next hour she explains what everything is, why some things work with my fair skin and why others won’t. She patiently shows me how to apply each and every piece of makeup she has picked out for me, letting me do it until she’s satisfied I have the hang of it. Noxzema cleans my face, and then she sets to work on it herself. The whole time I’m thinking to myself, when did being an adult become so complicated, and why is being a woman even more complicated? Do girls really spend hours on makeup and hair? Seems a little pointless, but if it’s normal, then I’ll learn.
“I’ve done my worst.” Jill gives me a cheeky grin and turns me to face the mirror.
Truth time.
I crack an eye and almost fall out of the chair.
No, it can’t be me. I stare at my reflection in open disbelief.
The girl who stares at me is…wow.
“You like?” Jill asks.
Emma saves me from answering when she comes over. She must have seen them turn my chair around. “You all done?” She stops and the look of shock on her face is comical. “Alexandria?”
“Beautiful, yes?” Stefan admires his handiwork.
“You look so grown up.” The wonder in Emma’s voice is telling. She and Dad refuse to believe I’m twenty years old. The new haircut must have finally made her realize I am all grown up.
Maybe change isn’t so bad after all.
No, it’s not, the voice in my head whispers. Be a little daring.
I blink. It sounds so real, like someone talking to me. I catch the faint smell of musty leaves and fresh dirt. What is wrong with me?
It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, I chant over and over. It’s not real.
“Alex, are you all right?”
I focus on Emma’s worried voice and count to ten. I will not panic, not here. Biting back the fear, I flash Emma my best smile. “I’m fine, Emma, better than fine, really.”
The worry remains in her eyes, but she forces a smile. “You look beautiful, baby girl.”
“Thank you.” I look back at the girl in the mirror and see a stranger staring back at me. My hair is curly. Not tight curls, but loose curls that catch blue highlights when the light hits my ebony hair. The blue in my eyes seem darker, the odd color flaring in them.
The girl looking at me from the other side is pretty, a little unsure of herself, but dare I say happy? She’s going to take some getting used to.
“We have one more thing we have to take care of.”
I glance up at Emma, and she’s digging through her purse for her debit card. Offering to pay for the haircut and makeup will earn me yet another glare. I learned my lesson in the third store we’d visited. She’d sent me and Jason cowering to the other corner of the room when we tried to pay for the new couch. The woman is vicious.
“What else do we have to do?” I ask as we walk back out into the mall’s main corridor. Jason is suspiciously absent. I’m betting we’ll find him at one of the game stores. He’s obsessed with his PS4.
“It’s a surprise.” She has her phone out, texting. “I swear, your brother always manages to get lost when we go to the mall.”
Sure enough, he’s at Game Stop. Emma does not look impressed when she finds him glued to some war game they have on demo. She threatens to drag him out by the ear if he doesn’t get off this instant. I snicker at his embarrassment. Several other guys in the store are doing that cough laugh thing. Jason quickly abandons his game and hightails it to the car, muttering threats of getting even. His outrage grows when Emma wants to drive. He hands over the keys grudgingly before yanking open the door and slamming it behind him once he’s in. Emma rolls her eyes. She’s used to Jason’s theatrics.
Instead of heading home, Emma drives for another twenty minutes before she pulls into Hollister Automotive. Jason perks up and looks around, his eyes caressing the new vehicles that line the lot. She parks and then gets out, motioning for us to follow her.
It’s not until I climb out of the back seat that my brother notices me. He stops in his tracks and just stares. “Alex?”
I laugh at his dumbfounded expression and follow Emma inside, leaving him to gawk. It’s not easy to shock Jason, but I think I did. Like me, he had no idea what a simple haircut and some makeup could do for a person.
“Here she is.” Emma motions me over to where she is talking to a guy in a cheap dark blue suit and a snake oil smile. Car salesmen. They’re all sharks.
“What are we doing here, Emma?” Jason asks from behind me. He must have gotten over his shock quickly and chased us inside.
“Alex needs a car,” Emma explains, beaming at me.
“What?” Shock floods my voice. A car?
“Yes, a car. Your brother got a new one when he turned sixteen. It’s your turn now.”
A car? My brain stutters on the word. She wants to buy me a car? Dad is a structural engineer and Emma has her own graphics design company, so I’m not so much worried about her spending the money, but a car? I never expected that.
An hour later, I am the proud owner of a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Emma tried to put me in a car, but I pointed out we were in West Virginia and not North Carolina. I would need a four-wheel drive in the winter to get around. Much to the delight of the sales rep, Jason also traded in his old Chevy
for a truck. Neither he nor Emma had thought of the winter.
It took a bit to convince them to let me drive by myself, but I needed a little while to think and process everything. Jason understood after a minute and pulled Emma to the truck. Emma is a little bitty thing. Watching her climb into the truck ended with us laughing hysterically at her. She gave us the hand and buckled her seatbelt.
The leather seats of my new SUV are cool to the touch and I sigh, letting some of the stress of the day go. Learning to drive is something I’m proud of. The institute had a program for those being released back into society that teaches them the things they need to know, like driving. It took me a bit, but I learned and I love it.
Jason pulls out first, and I follow. The new Jeep has GPS, and we’d programmed it for home in case we got separated. Modern technology. I feel a little out of the loop. So much has changed, and I’m lost, left out. Silly, I know, but there it is.
That laugh tickles my subconscious again and I tense up. You’re overthinking this, the voice says. Just relax and have some fun.
Relax? So says the imaginary voice in my head that is not supposed to be there. How am I supposed to relax when I’m hearing voices? I scramble to try and remember the early signs of schizophrenia. It usually occurs in the early twenties, and I am right there in that prime age group.
The laughter in my head roars, and I flinch. I turn the radio up and drown it out. I focus on the road and the loud music. Soon, my breathing goes back to normal and I can almost convince myself I imagined it.
Almost.
Chapter Five
I whine low in my throat.
This is not my forest. How had I gotten here?
The unfamiliar smell of the sea burns my nose. I can hear the sound of the waves as they crash against the cliffs. Seagulls scream their challenge from above.
I see an opening in the trees ahead. Going down, I creep forward on my belly, careful to stay hidden in what little shelter the trees offer.
A lone wolf sits on her haunches, staring out over the cliffs at the sea beyond. Her profile is proud, arrogant, even. The wind blows toward me and I sniff at the smell of the other wolf it carries my way.
Her scent is familiar to me.
Confused, I whimper.
She must have heard me somehow because now she stares straight at me. Impossible. Her hearing can’t be that good.
The scent hits us both then, quickly and unexpectedly.
This is a scent I know, one I’d been tracking. This scent screams danger to me. I scan the area, seeing nothing.
My head whips around, hearing the challenge the other wolf howled. She isn’t staring at an unnamed threat as I expected, though.
No, she is stalking toward me, her teeth bared, snarling in rage.
My ears flatten against my head and I stand to meet the challenge.
She leaps.
***
I claw my way out of sleep, my breath coming hard and fast, my body drenched in sweat. I gaze around at the unfamiliar confines of my new bedroom, and the walls seem to shrink in upon themselves, becoming constrictive, oppressive.
Every inch of my skin hums with a strange energy, pulses with one basic desire. The need overwhelms me, overrides every other thought.
Run.
I spring up, throw the covers off, and dash to the front door. It doesn’t even creak when I open it. Every nerve in my body snaps to attention and an unknown force takes over.
I run.
It doesn’t register when I jump the five-foot-high fence separating the apartment complex from the trees behind it. The familiar smell of the woods surrounds me, comforts me. My bare feet touch the dirt and I weep with relief. The wind sings its ancient song in my ears, and I cry out with delight as I run headfirst into the night. I can hear the startled sounds of the small animals and laugh when they scurry out of my path.
Alive. For the first time in years, I feel alive. Joy fills me as I run. There is no dark cloud hovering. It’s just me, the wind, and the dirt beneath me. My skin is hot, and the breeze only fans the flames, and I burn hotter from the inside out. My skin is stretching, twisting, screaming for release. It doesn’t scare me. I know it should, but I welcome it. I’m free. There’s no fear, no guilt…only joy.
A howl sounds to my right, and I shift in that direction. The cells in my body explode with the need to find that lonely howl. The fire intensifies in my blood, driving me toward the sound. My feet push harder, faster, eating up the ground as they fly through the trees.
I’m not sure how long I run, but I stumble at last, exhausted. The howl still reverberates in my head, and I can’t stop, can’t rest until I find it.
“Excuse me?”
That voice. Do I know it? I skid to a stop and fall. My eyes focus on the dark angel coming out of the woods and toward me. It’s the guy from the diner.
A chorus of howls rise up into the silence of the night. I stand, ignoring the pain from my bloody knees. Everything in me screams to run, to flee. Danger.
“Stop.”
My body freezes at the command and my head snaps back to where he stands. He’s no more than thirty feet from me. I can see every detail about him with perfect clarity. A plain black t-shirt does nothing to hide the muscles straining against the cloth, and a pair of worn, faded jeans hug his hips. A hole is starting to wear through the right knee. It’s tiny, almost unnoticeable, but not to me. His dark hair glistens in the moonlight, but it is his eyes that hold me captive. They glow in the moon’s soft light, their emerald color so brilliant, it almost hurts to look at them. I can no more look away then I can stop breathing.
“Are you hurt?”
I can only shake my head, words escaping me. I try to say no, but what comes out sounds like a growl. It should bother me, but it doesn’t. It feels too good. I feel good. The fire inside blazes higher, igniting every nerve, every cell. I welcome the heat. It chases away the dark, the nightmares, the panic, and the fear. I embrace the fire.
He approaches slowly. His eyes glow brighter, and I shiver under that intense gaze. A cold wind surrounds me, envelopes me in an icy cloak. The wind beats at me, slowly cooling the fire inside. I fight it. I need the heat. It eats the darkness.
The cold intensifies and I whimper, afraid as the fire dims and the darkness reclaims me.
He moves closer, each step slow and measured, until he’s standing in front of me. The fire burns out, leaving me cold and empty. His eyes soften, their glow diminishing, and he looks away, breaking the hold he has on me. I stagger away from him until my back comes to rest against a tree trunk. My sanity starts to return in slow degrees. With each second, I come back to the reality that is mine. The cool wind remains, but it is only a gentle breeze.
I close my eyes and lower my head and die a slow death inside as I realize where I am and what I must look like. I’ve been running through the woods in the middle of the night in nothing but my night shirt, which barely covers my bottom. I’m a mess, filthy and bleeding. Oh, God, what must he think of me?
“Are you hurt?” He repeats the question and moves closer.
No, no, no, no, no! This can’t be happening. What is wrong with me?
Strong fingers grip my chin and force my head up. My eyes open, and all I see is the blazing green of his eyes. The ice is gone. They aren’t cold or hard. Instead, they’re full of concern.
“Are you well?” The accent in his voice is distinct, but his English is very good. He’s from Romania, if I remember correctly.
“Cold,” I manage to get out. With the heat gone, I’m freezing. His fingers are the exception. They are hot against my skin, like a brand.
“I see why.” He grins and stares down at my bare legs. “What are you doing out here at this time of night? Is almost three in the morning.”
“Running.”
“With no shoes?”
“Apparently.”
“Do this often, do you?”
I sigh, and then my eyes widen with a sudden rev
elation. The dream. It was the dream of the wolf that had driven me out here. All the emotions in the dream had still been with me when I’d woken up. They’d morphed into the insane urge to run, hard and fast, through the night.
A small gasp escapes with another realization. I remember my dream! I never remember more than a few flashes or hazy images, but I remember the wolf. A smile spreads across my face, and then another thought slams into me.
“Why are you out here at this time of night?”
His face closes off faster than I can blink and his eyes harden again. “I could no sleep, so I take walk.”
He’s lying.
I start at the sound of the voice in my head. That is definitely not my voice. It’s the one from earlier today.
Calm down.
Oh, damn, there it is again.
“Miss?”
Don’t trust him.
“You as white as a sheet. What is wrong?”
What’s wrong? Besides the fact I’ve lost my mind and am hearing voices? I’m just peachy.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you are no fine,” he snaps. “You are injured.” He points to my bloody knees.
I frown at the accusation in his tone. It’s as if my getting hurt has offended him. Well, excuse me for falling.
“I said I’m fine.”
A snort rolls through the air. “Come, I see you home. Is no safe out here alone.”
Safer than with him.
This is so very not good. Schizophrenia. It has to be. There is no other explanation.
“Is getting late.” Impatience sharpens his tone. “You need to get home.”
My eyes narrow. There is something about this boy that grates on my last nerve. He’s gorgeous, mind you, but he’s also irritating beyond belief and very, very bossy.
