I’m a little surprised by how noisy They are as we walk to the cafeteria. Usually They’re silent the day after justice. But not today. Just being in the building makes Them tremble with agitation.
I shush Them, silencing Their internal dialogue before opening the double doors to the lunchroom. I am immediately assaulted by a wall of sound. Voices raised in excitement, angst, and gossip roll over me. The clanging of trays on the food line provides a background beat. It’s enough to make my breath catch, for anxiety to claw its way through my chest.
They flutter in the back of my mind, urging me to leave. You don’t need this. You have us. They want to quench my nervousness with the sweet screams of justice.
I take a half step backward and stop. It would be so easy to listen to Them, to run away. But I can’t. This little bit of normalcy is something I need. I crave it the way They hunger for the fear of the guilty. Hanging around people is the only thing keeping me from being just like Them.
I ignore Their whispers and walk calmly over to the food line, where I select a thick slice of chocolate cake and a bottle of chocolate milk. Chocolate calms Them, and I need all of the help I can get. I grab a bottle of water as well, since good hydration is essential to good health even in cold weather. I pay for my food, courtesy of the money from Alders’s wallet, and at the end of the line I turn around and survey the lunchroom. Like every other school in America, or at least the ones on TV, the cafeteria is segregated by coolness. The band geeks sit at one table, the regular geeks at another, the jocks are next to the popular kids, and so on. The only question in my mind is who to sit with.
I glance around the lunchroom, gnawing on my lip as I think. The popular girls’ table is out. I did that back in North Carolina, and I don’t have the patience for the petty infighting and jealousy that comes along with that group. I don’t play an instrument, so the band geeks are out, and I can’t fit in with the regular geeks. Besides, they would see through me in record time. Smart people tend to realize there is something calculated about my responses. It’s one of the downsides of being possessed by vengeful, mythological monsters.
There has to be a group high enough on the social ladder to give me a life but low enough that I can still be mostly invisible within the student body. I give myself a mental kick. I should have researched the student body before enrolling. The answer to every problem is on the Internet.
Just as I’m beginning to feel hopeless, while They debate killing a nearby janitor just for a distraction (he cheats on his wife with the neighbor), I spot a table of guys and girls laughing back against the far wall. For the most part they look like they walked out of an ad for jeans, one of those “we’re casual and yet so stylish” setups. Their clothes are nice but not new enough to be cutting edge. There is none of the piercings and colored hair I associate with the druggie crowd, although one girl does have a minuscule nose stud. Her eyes meet mine across the cafeteria, and a flash of something flits across her face. Sorrow undercut with hope, excitement, and yearning. She smiles at me, a sign of welcome.
Bingo.
Anticipation swells in my chest as I hip swivel around a jock holding a freshman in a headlock and move toward the back of the room. Kids at other tables watch me as I go. I ignore them, and I’m relieved when I don’t even feel the need to injure anyone. The Furies have finally settled down, and Their silence is a welcome relief. With Them quiet I can try to make some friends, try to fit in. I want to belong.
I’m surprisingly good at it.
“Hi. Y’all mind if I sit here?” I ask softly when I get to the table. All eyes turn toward me, and the guys scoot over so that I can sit down, right across from Nose Stud Girl.
“Hey,” she says with a smile. She’s a mousy little thing. Her bangs are on the long side, and her straight brown hair partially obscures her face. “You’re in my chemistry class. Corinne, right? I’m Mindi, with an i.” It’s an awful name, like her parents wanted her to be a porn star. Still, she seems really nice. I like nice.
I smile widely. “Nice to meet you. It is Corinne, but y’all can call me Cory, with a y.” Mindi’s face flushes, but I give her a friendly grin. She smiles back, shyly.
Everyone around the table introduces themselves. Tom, Adam, Jocelyn. There are two boys and three girls, counting Mindi. They all seem pretty nice, and I mentally pat myself on the back. Maybe I’m finally getting good at this making-friends thing.
One of the girls, a blonde with frazzled hair, doesn’t introduce herself but instead just ignores me. I beam at everyone anyway, ignoring the blonde in return. “Wow, it’s so nice to meet y’all. And they say Yankees aren’t friendly.”
Mindi grins. “‘Y’all’? ‘Yankees’? Lemme guess, you’re from the South.”
I nod enthusiastically. “Savannah. Prettiest city in the entire U.S. In fact, they say that when Sherman came through with his army, he found the city and her squares so beautiful, he didn’t have the heart to destroy it. This was after he’d burned Atlanta, y’know. During the War of Northern Aggression.” It’s overkill, but I can’t help it. It’s something my grandma would have said, and the words slip out of their own accord. The memory of her makes me a little sad.
Bleached Blonde makes a rude sound, but when I glance at her, she isn’t even looking in my direction.
One of the boys shoots me a sheepish grin. I can’t remember if it’s Tom or Adam. Either way, that little bit of friendliness makes me feel better. “Hey,” he says, “maybe you can help me with my report for history. I’m doing an essay on the causes of the Civil War. You know, from each side’s perspective.” I note absently that he’s pretty cute. Brown hair on the longish side, freckles across the bridge of his nose, wide brown eyes that remind me of a puppy dog. I bet most girls would love to go out with Puppy Boy.
Me, I couldn’t care less. With Them in my head boys are off the menu. It’s hard to think about kissing someone with Their constant noise.
Still, I have to be nice. “Sure, I’d love to help.” I shoot him my megawatt smile, and he flushes. Even if I wanted to, I can’t return his interest. The last time I kissed a boy, he ended up in intensive care. Kevin Eames. He had eyes the color of honey, and sweet lips to match. He lived next door to my grandma, and always smiled at me like I’d hung the moon. The night after I handed down my first-ever justice, he caught me sneaking back into her yard. He thought I was sneaking out to meet him like he’d asked me to. Kevin was two years older, and I thought I was in love every time he looked in my direction.
Unfortunately, They didn’t feel the same way, and all it took was a single kiss for Them to burst forth in a hail of rage and heat. My control wasn’t so great back then, and by the time I reined Them in, he was unconscious and my grandmother’s azaleas were charred to a crisp.
Still, it shouldn’t hurt anything to help a guy with his homework. Nothing screams “Not a psychotic killer” like a little tutoring.
Bleached Blonde turns her glare on Puppy Boy. I wait for her to strike, for her to let loose with an angry barrage of words, but she says nothing. She reminds me of a hyena. I can even imagine her large nose replaced by a spotted snout. I file that fact away for later. Hyenas are sneaky and unpredictable.
“Hey, what’d I miss?”
Mindi squeaks and jumps up from the bench. She scurries around the table and throws her arms around a tall boy with midnight hair who appears from out of nowhere. He stiffens and pats her back awkwardly before extricating himself. Everyone at the table shifts uncomfortably, like a distant uncle from prison has just crashed family dinner. Mindi turns around, and he adds another few inches of space between the two of them. She doesn’t see his look of panic, and her face glows with joy. “Cory, this is Nikolas. Niko, this is Cory. She’s new, all the way from Savannah.”
I wait, expecting more from her. She says his name the way someone would say “my boyfriend” or “the love of my life, who I absolutely cannot live without, ohmigod, isn’t he wonderful.” But there’s no oth
er label attached to his introduction. I glance around the table, studying everyone’s reactions. They all look anywhere but at Mindi, who’s grinning like she just won a reality show competition. Even Nikolas looks a little uncomfortable that she’s so glad to see him.
I ignore the tension and stand, holding my hand out to shake. Nikolas looks at it a long moment before wrapping his fingers around mine. His hand is large and warm, and my much smaller one disappears. “Nice to meet you, Cory. Sorry you’ve been exiled to the boondocks.”
A warm blanket of calm settles over me, and my mind is silent. Completely and utterly silent. Not even a hint of Their whispers. I take a deep breath. I haven’t felt this way since I was in Saint Dymphna’s. Then, I was heavily medicated. Now I’m just holding a hand. A guy’s hand. I clear my throat. “Yeah, thanks. It’s nice to meet you, Niko-Nikolas.” I say it as much as a joke as to give myself a moment. Holding his hand is doing upsetting things to my internal organs. My heart beats rapidly, and if I didn’t know that I was in perfect health, I might be worried.
He smiles, but the expression is pained. I wonder if he knows what I’m feeling, even though I’m not sure myself. I want to follow up my earlier comment with something witty, but his eyes hold me captive. They’re blue, but completely different from mine. They’re a shade that reminds me of how the ocean looks right after a hurricane blows through, wind tossed and angry. A slate gray shot through with darker shades of navy and flecks of cornflower brightness. Clichéd but true. His stormy eyes stop my heart for a second. “Call me Niko.”
I blink, and reluctantly pull my hand from his. I smile, unsure what else I can do. I am unsettled by those cobalt eyes that see too much. Niko watches me intently, so I tilt my head to the side. “You look familiar . . .” I murmur, stalling for time. He doesn’t, though. There would be no mistaking those eyes, or that unruly hair. Never in a million years could I forget the sadness that swirls so hypnotically around him, etched subtly into his expression. Or the way my chest feels light and constricted at the same time.
He’s not for you.
No, no, no! He is wrong, wrong, wrong!
I swallow dryly and try to ignore Their grumblings. I have the feeling that Niko is assessing me, waiting to see what I’ll do next. It’s not a feeling I like. Part of me panics, thinking that the moment has gone on too long, has stretched into something awkward. I snap my fingers and smirk, breaking the mood. “Charlie, on Hope’s Forge. You look just like the guy who plays Charlie on Hope’s Forge.” I have no clue if that show’s even popular here, but it was back in Virginia. I cross my fingers that no one noticed the tremor in my voice.
Mindi twists around and tilts her head back to inspect Niko’s face. It’s amazing that I forgot she’s here, standing between us. She squeaks again in excitement. “Ohmigod, she’s right. Of course, Charlie’s eyes are brown, but around the chin, and the hair . . .” Mindi nods, reaffirming my assessment. “You totally look like Charlie!” she yelps, and everyone at the table laughs nervously and looks away. Whatever the joke is, I’m not in on it.
The crisis averted, I sit back down in my spot and shovel a couple of bites of chocolate cake into my mouth, hoping the sugar will shut Them up. They yammer nonstop, hissing warnings about the danger of boys. I take a few deep breaths and try to calm my pounding heart. I have to forget about Niko. I have just made my first friends in forever, and I have to find my way around a new school. That’s plenty for a first day. It’s not like I can afford to lose my head over a cute boy.
The Furies can’t read my thoughts unless They’ve manifested, but if They notice my distraction, They’ll try to take advantage of my weakness. I have to be strong. It’s like They have Their own little space in my head, right between the childhood memories and my most embarrassing habits. I’m thankful for that bit of privacy, although I think They can sense my vital signs. An increased heartbeat or a bit of fear makes Them appear more quickly than if I summon Them. Keeping calm is key to controlling Them.
There is definitely something symbiotic about our relationship.
Mindi sits back down across from me, Niko next to her. I can feel him watching me, but I avoid his gaze and keep eating. I can’t afford another incident so soon, another lapse in self-control. It’s bad enough that I let a little thing like a handshake scramble my brain in the first place. I can’t spend the rest of lunch making puppy eyes at him. Even if it takes everything I have not to look at him.
Puppy Boy slides down so that he’s right next to me. “Chocolate cake and chocolate milk, huh? Not a very nutritional lunch.”
I blink and start to stammer out an excuse, until I realize he’s teasing. I smile. “Oh. Well, it’s sort of a bad habit. I always eat dessert first.”
He grins back at me, and I’m surprised to realize that we might be flirting. “Oh, yeah?” he asks. “Do you have any other bad habits I should know about?”
I don’t have to fake embarrassment at his question. Before I can answer, he starts to ask rapid-fire questions about my last school. He makes me nervous, but his unwanted attention is a nice distraction from the conflicted emotions roiling inside me. I answer his questions patiently, lying as necessary and meeting his eyes as often as possible. Like Dr. Goodhart once said, eye contact is important to establishing trust.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Bleached Blonde looking at Puppy Boy like he should be something on the lunch menu. The only time her gaze shifts is when Mindi leans over to whisper into Niko’s ear. The blonde’s lips thin in irritation at their closeness. She sees me watching her, and without a word stands up and leaves. No one at the table notices, so I figure this must be a regular occurrence.
The bell rings, signaling the end of the lunch period. I hurriedly drain my chocolate milk, since the sugar rush is silencing Their unwanted advice. Puppy Boy offers to take my tray for me, and I accept. I wait for him near the door, since during our never-ending conversation we’ve discovered we have history together right after lunch. He has offered to show me where the classroom is, as though I could get lost in the small school. Perhaps Puppy Boy is going to be more trouble than he’s worth.
As I breeze out of the double doors of the cafeteria, Niko stares at me, his stormy gaze intent. I wonder what he sees, if he has somehow glimpsed the monster that exists just below the well-maintained surface. I crane my neck, and over my shoulder I see a smile spread across his face. The real thing, not the polite façade he showed at the lunch table. A thrill of excitement runs down my spine, and I wrap my arms around my middle.
Not good, not good at all.
SANCTUARY
I waste no time getting to my car after the final bell. Returning to high school has been more than I bargained for, and my head pounds from Their constant diatribes and the effort to restrain Their murderous nature. I am desperate for food and physical activity—two things that help me control Them. By the time I manage to get my car into gear, I can see Adam (I discovered Puppy Boy’s name when the teacher called on him during class) on the snow-covered lawn of the school, turning in a slow circle. He’s probably looking for me. Right now I don’t want to be found.
I’ve gotten pretty good at not being found.
I speed down the school’s long drive, barely making the light and turning onto the main road. Driving soothes me. The motions require no thought. I don’t have to pretend to like a certain type of music or follow current trends. I can drop the character I’ve created for myself and just be lovable, murderous me.
It’s a bigger relief than it should be. Especially considering how much I want to be around other people.
My mind wanders, and I think about the day They came to me. It seems like forever ago that I was trapped in a dark place, shivering and broken and waiting for death. They came to me then, in the moment when I’d lost all hope. They offered safety and revenge in exchange for my help. They saved me.
But some days it feels like I traded one kind of darkness for another.
A horn ho
nking startles me from my reverie, and I turn onto the side street just as the left turn arrow changes from green to yellow. The person behind me follows too closely, and when I pull down my alley, a gray minivan speeds past, their acceleration an audible middle finger.
I am definitely making friends today.
I put the car in park and head inside. My stomach growls, reminding me that my last meal was all empty calories. I move into the kitchen and pull out several hard-boiled eggs and a cold grilled chicken breast from the fridge. It was supposed to be my lunch. Since it looks like I’ll be in lockdown every day at lunchtime, I make a mental note to pack something for tomorrow. I eat the food standing over the sink, since I don’t have any dishes. The yolks of the eggs I don’t eat; instead I feed them to my cat, Odysseus, who pads into the kitchen as soon as he hears the refrigerator open. Odie, as I call him, is ten years old. He’s the only remnant I have of my old life, a constant reminder of all that I lost.
It was pure luck I found him that night after taking care of Annie’s daddy. He was wandering through my old neighborhood, his collar bearing the address of one of the neighbors. They must’ve adopted him after Grandma died, but I got him back. Heartbreak took me to her boarded-up house, but finding Odie eased a little of that pain.
On my way down the hallway I catch my reflection in the mirror. The mirror came with the apartment. I thought about junking it, since as a rule I dislike mirrors. The face that smirks back at me is nothing more than a cleverly crafted lie, and I hate seeing it. But I loved the mirror’s wrought iron frame so much that I kept it. Now I stop and stare like I always do. Not because I’m vain, but because I’m watching, waiting for a sign that I have less time than I think. It was Alekto’s first lesson.
Your eyes are the windows to your soul. Use them to see what darkness lurks there.
Vengeance Bound Page 4
