by P. S. Power
Joanie physically moved in, which made the place feel smaller for some reason, which had them talking about getting another place. Mercy hated moving, but Joanie promised to do all the work. Josh wondered if they could hire someone to do that? The packing and such? Well, he'd deal with it when it came. If it came.
Warren and several other people had started sending checks for the work done. It was odd. They were all sending way more than he would have charged them for what he'd been doing. They also told their friends about his “services”. He actually had to turn down a few jobs, because it would have required physically going to other states. Josh did manage to find people to handle things in those cases though, so everyone was happy. If a few of the things asked of him were morally spotty, no one asked for anything truly illegal. Not yet.
Now... finally... he had to deal with something else. He'd been putting it off, because really, he didn't want to know. That was cowardly though, so he sat Amy on the sofa in his place, the soft cream color making her fair skin look even lighter. She looked adorable of course, but after the first smile and the fact that he didn't let her distract him with kisses she pulled back a little.
“Um? We aren't breaking up, are we? You look sad... I'm prepared to beg if I must.” She said, her voice playful and somehow still serious, short handing about twenty sentences of speech. He understood.
Then he smiled sadly and shook his head no.
“On the bridge, that song, you don't know that kind of thing from an ancient television show by accident. I... Want you to know that...”
Josh froze, it wasn't something he did often, but he really wanted her to tell him it had been for a musical number someone else had chosen or maybe that she just happened across it on the web and liked the tune. Anything but that she knew it for the same reason Tammy did. It called to her heart.
Instead she looked at the wall behind him and chewed her lip.
“Um. OK. Don't hate me for this?” She said sounding nervous, as if he could ever hate her for anything.
He kissed her and nodded a feeling of dread creeping into it as she spoke.
She swallowed and then sighed.
“That night, when we were in the room and you told me that you loved me? I'd been drinking. I told you that. What I didn't... you have to understand Anthony had been sleeping with my mom, not just once, but a lot and it had happened before, with other guys. Twice to me at least that to Meridith, maybe more. She won't talk about it. I was so hurt when I found out, I'd come home early and found them... I... you can't imagine. At least I hope you can't. No one should have to.”
She got up and walked to the other side of the room, as if trying to get distance from her problems. Or him. She didn't make eye contact staring at the floor instead.
“Just... when Meridith knocked... I... had a gun in my mouth. I was going to kill myself. I'd taken it from Bill's gun cabinet, in his office, earlier that night. I almost pulled the trigger when she knocked, I jumped so hard. Then... you were there.”
The girl had tears in her eyes, but looked down as if ashamed.
“You saved me. That's... why I said I loved you. I didn't really feel that way... we were just friends, I mean, I liked you alright, but I wanted someone to love me so badly. I... It wasn't fair of me. I shouldn't have said it at all, but then I couldn't let go. Someone actually loved me and...”
Ah.
“So you don't love me at all?” He said, his voice fighting for conversational, as if it didn't matter. It mattered, his heart started to shut down. He fought not to let it show. If she needed to go, he'd already promised himself that he'd let go and not try to hold her through guilt or need. No matter what.
“No, I mean yes, I love you now. Don't be ridiculous. Of course I do. I just didn't then. I loved you within a week. Really from the instant you told my mom you were there for me and to stop what she was doing. It's just that I needed you. I love you. I really, really do.”
“Oh good. I was worried for a second there.” He smiled as she came over and held him then they kissed. It was a joyous thing.
“So you're not mad at me?”
“For saying you loved me when you had no real reason to? Not really. I mean that was way better than being told you liked me, but only as a friend. For nearly killing yourself? Yeah, a bit. You know, I don't think I'd have survived that. Even then... You could tell me to go away and I would, or that you loved someone else more than me and I'd accept it, but you have to keep on living. I don't know, I guess it's selfish of me, but I don't want to be in a world without you in it, at least somewhere.”
“OK. I promise. You too? I heard what you said, to Tammy on the bridge. That you'd thought about it. I need you to stick around, even if you can't be with me anymore. So that I know you're in the world, somewhere...” The words were soft and gentle. Almost too soft to hear.
“Always.”
Then they kissed and held each other for a long time.
Everybody left eventually. Josh knew that, he even knew that someday Amy and he would part. But it didn't have to be him doing the leaving, did it? The world wasn't his to control, and a lot could happen, but he could choose his own path, right? After all, it was a real point. Even if she was far away, living in a world with Amy in it was worth doing and always would be.
Josh decided not to let go. Not in his heart at least, no matter what happened. Not ever.
Not of Amy.
And he never did.
The following is a free sample chapter from the exciting new novel
Keeley Thomson: Demon Girl
(Book one of the Keeley Thomson series)
by
P.S. Power
Chapter one
Keeley didn't really care today.
Normally she did well enough on that score, being sympathetic to the plight of others, trying to get good grades and all that stuff. The things that a normal girl should be concerned about. At the moment though, she just couldn't.
Not about school. Not about some stupid dance that she wouldn't be going to anyway, and certainly not about some moronic football game that had no impact on either her life or the world at large.
Nope.
About those things she didn't give a single thought, other than to dismiss them.
It was probably hard to tell from the outside, given what she was doing at the moment, which could easily be taken as a sign of peppy interest or possibly a lame attempt at social climbing. Like she'd bother with that? Moving up the popularity ladder of a high school didn't make a lot of sense, she'd be leaving in a few years anyway. It was actually kind of funny, but Keeley Thomson held her face straight and didn't think about it.
It was work time.
Fun – possibly psychotic – work.
The dance in question was being advertised on a rather nice poster that looked very professional, if she did say so herself. The white was glossy and the letters in the center were made up out of very tiny, slightly irregularly shaped boxes that were blue and orange, as was the football helmet in the center of the piece, surrounded by very sharp looking black print describing how incredible the event would be. The school's colors, as well as a high contrast image that played tricks with the eye, the pattern making the whole thing seem to shift and shimmer a little if you looked for more than a second. That was what she cared about.
The way it looked, not the advertisement itself. More to the point, the way that people would be drawn to it, stopping to read the new message. Staring, trying to force their mind to understand what they were seeing.
At least if she'd done it right.
The game was before the dance, Homecoming, which for some reason was held a full month and a half after the start of the school year at Raintree high. The name of the event always made her wonder who was supposed to be coming home? Obviously someone that wasn't planning to graduate, not coming in that late.
Keeley brushed her long brown hair out of her face, straight and bland, mainly held back with a plain b
rown scrunchy that her mom had gotten her a fifty pack of the Christmas before. A few wisps carelessly flying around this late in the day, knocked out of place by her glasses earlier when she'd taken them off to clean them. She wore one daily and generally got a week's worth of use out of each before something happened. She'd lose them, or use one to hold something together, mark a book page or as part of an explosives package.
It didn't matter. No one noticed overly, because no one really saw her most of the time. In fact, she knew, if she didn't move her little size six jeans back to the far wall in about five seconds she was going to end up in the mess.
That being what she was there for today.
The mess that was about to start in the school's main hallway in three... two... one...
The bell rang, loud and strong, followed by the clatter of hundreds of chairs in classrooms and then even more pairs of feet padding rapidly on the highly polished yellow and blue tile that was supposed to somehow engender “school spirit” in the masses forced to walk the hallways each day, rather than headaches from eye strain. The yellow was supposed to be orange, but no one made bright orange tile in the right color for some reason.
Probably because it was an ugly color. Just a hideous choice.
As depressing as the place was, she'd never noticed any ghosts to speak of, so that plan didn't seem to be working very well. Maybe that's who was coming back? The school spirit? That would work, just in time for Halloween even. She smiled at her own private little joke, wondering if anyone else would have even gotten it if she'd said it out loud. People in general were kind of dumb really.
As the flood of students moved toward her, looking alternately happy and relieved that the school day was done, and the weekend had finally arrived, Keeley pushed her back against the far wall solidly and got ready. If this went as planned she'd need the protection. If it didn't, she'd still need the protection, just for different reasons.
The boy that stopped to look at the poster first was tall, one of the basketball team she thought, which was perfect. Big and in shape. He couldn't make out exactly what he was seeing. So, naturally, the visual illusion catching his attention, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the effect. Right in the middle of the stream of moving bodies. That caused a log jam of teenagers. Not a huge one, it was only a poster after all, for a dance that everyone knew was coming anyway, and advertising a football game that their school only had a twelve percent chance of winning. If that.
But the group in the hall was big enough so that when Quince and his jock buddies came around the corner at a full run, trying to get to football practice before the coach could scream at them for being late, they couldn't stop before the collision took place. Not right there just around the corner, where the poster had been conveniently placed.
Perfectly arranged really.
It had happened before of course, hence the little “trick” Keeley set up for the day.
Only, when the jerks had hit her and tiny Maria Gonzales they'd managed to send them both flying into the floor and Maria into the dentist's office with two missing front teeth. They got put back in, sure, at a decent expense to Maria's parents, but none of the guys had even stopped to see if they were alright, they'd just kept running, laughing while they did.
That pissed her off. The laughing. What kind of monsters knocked a tiny girl's teeth out and just ran away cackling like that?
Keeley had carried the girl to the school office and ridden with her in the ambulance to the emergency room. She'd cried the whole way. It had been pitiful.
This time it was going to be a little different. That was the plan at least.
That tangle of bodies that hit the floor included six members of the football team and nearly ten random students that had been minding their own business, momentarily entranced by the slightly dancing picture on the wall. No one seemed hurt yet, but that was coming. Keeley would make sure of it. Without that part of things her plan was just an annoyance. Time to finish the project and get out before anyone noticed her. Keeley pitched her voice carefully trying to make it sound horrified. A little indignant as well. It was over the top, but most people responded to things like that. Probably because they watched too much TV, and didn't really think anyone would ever be doing something like this. After all, it would be a little convoluted for a school prank, wouldn't it?
“Oh my god,” she called out loudly enough for the whole hallway to hear. “Those guys from the football team actually attacked a bunch of people like they said they were going to at lunch? Well, I guess we'll see if they can really just get away with doing anything here, like they said they could...”
Oh, it sounded phony as anything she'd ever said, but in the pile of bodies it was clear that a few people had heard her and weren't exactly pleased about being “attacked”.
Then she walked away. Slowly. Her hand touching the wall, because as a rule no one walked that close to it. It left a corridor for her to travel in right now. The line was invisible to most people, or at least they acted that way, so she only had to step around one or two guys that leaned in the space, watching the goings on at the center of the hall.
The real mess didn't start until after she was outside, as the six football team members were joined by four others, and they started pushing some of the boys in the hallway, what they were saying Keeley couldn't make out, but it didn't matter, because the whole thing was taking place in front of the principal's office. The first punch came from one of the big guys, a linebacker, who so obviously took steroids that it was almost mean of her to set him up. He triggered into a rage at the accusations people threw at him and couldn't control himself at all. That he hit a tiny fellow about half his weight that wasn't really involved made her wince a little, but it had to be done. Hopefully the kid would be alright. The principle and three teachers tried to jump into the fray, the older man in his reddish brown suit catching an elbow to the eye from one of the football team. Hard.
Classic.
No one deserved it more. It was his failure to call the football team on their actions that set her in motion to begin with. If they'd learned to just walk through the hallway or even slow down on the corners, nothing would have happened here at all. No one had required them to change after the Maria incident though, so they hadn't. Keeley had even talked to the man about it herself, but had a strong sense that he didn't really get what she was going on about. Maybe he'd get it now?
It took a few minutes for things to break up, the whole group of jocks taken into the office along with half a hallway of rather upset students who really hadn't done much of anything at all. A few had been bruised in the “attack” even, the initial one. That would help make sure that the whole thing wasn't just put down to youthful energy or “boys being boys”. That people had the idea it was on purpose in mind already.
No, that had gone away the second the faculty had taken injuries. That part really wasn't anyone's fault, not even the football team's, the adults had gotten in the way after all. If you didn't want to be hit, you really shouldn't jump into the middle of a fight, should you?
OK, it was her fault. She had to own up to that one, didn't she? It had all gone exactly as she'd planned.
As she watched through the large set of nearly floor to ceiling windows she couldn't help but smile a little more. So much so that if Keeley had been watching herself do it, she'd have figured the whole thing out instantly. No one else would though. Most people didn't pay enough attention to her to see that she had any effect on the world at all. She was too... Keeley, for that.
This wasn't justice of course, that was clear. Not even good revenge. Not really, none of the football team had lost teeth over it for instance, but at least they'd pay a little for what they did to Maria, even if they didn't know why. Keeley knew it, so it counted. After a fashion.
The grass was a little spare and weedy under foot, but in Arizona that was only to be expected this time of year. Most times of year. At least the heat wasn't brutal
now. When she'd first moved to the area with her parents two months before it had been incredible. Oppressive. Bleak.
She kind of liked it. The desolate landscapes and warmth all the time touched something in her. It was a beautiful place really, filled with life, if you bothered to look for it. Small things that crawled and scuttled mainly, but there was a simple grace to even the smallest of creatures, wasn't there?
That was the odd part really. Back in Washington state everything had been green most of the year where they lived, here is just wasn't. The contrast sent a thrill through her when she thought about it, pointing out the variety of the world. That everything wasn't just the same wherever you went. It felt like magic to her, almost.
Her mom had thought that Keeley would hate it, of course, and her dad didn't really seem to care about anything but his new job, being a bit self-centered like that. The move really hadn't been a bad thing for her. After all, what was she leaving behind? She'd brought her book collection and just tossed the old childhood memorabilia. She didn't need it. After all, Keeley remembered all that stuff, didn't she? She'd lived it. Keeping Mr. Bun-bun the stuffed rabbit was just carrying dead weight and possibly diseases.
Just as she turned to go home, her worn tennis shoes that had small arcane looking swirls in black ink all over them sending up just a tiny puff of dust with each step, a boy crashed into her. On purpose.
The acting wasn't even good. He didn't do it hard though, just a sudden contact that had way too much control for a real accident. It gave him away. A real impact would have taken her most of the way to the ground, given their size differences.
“Oops, sorry.” The tall blond kid said, as if he hadn't seen her at all, even though the small yard had cleared enough that they were the only two people standing in it now.
“No big thing, it happens.” Keeley replied pushing her thick glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger. It was only the truth after all. People walked, bumped, smashed and hit her at least a few times a week. Most of the time it was because she'd moved in a way that they just couldn't follow, or didn't float out of the way of a pattern that everyone else managed easily without really noticing.
