by Nicole Thorn
“Ice cream?” I heard from Hale as he approached.
I turned and he had his same old cocky smile on his face. “No,” I frowned. “We’re playing football.”
“Flag football,” Jenna corrected me.
Hale looked just as pleased as I was. “I’d rather just have the ice cream.”
“That makes two of us.”
Jenna gestured to the box sitting on the benches. “Shut up and go pick your team.”
I was less than shocked when Hale decided to go with the same team colors as I picked. It just meant that we could stand on the same side of the field outside.
Once we were out there, that was all we did. The rest of the class ran around like crazy people and all we did was watch, judging.
Jenna walked over and threw her hands in the air. “Oh come on! Can’t you two just pretend that you care about this class?”
We exchanged a look.
“Whatever,” she snapped and stormed off to coach the class.
I stared at the running students and decided that maybe I should made some kind of effort. Though I wasn’t sure why. “Should we play?”
“Sure.”
I was on my back before I could register what was happening. Then I was staring up at a grinning boy who I sometimes hated more than I liked.
“What the Hell did you do that for?” I asked him.
He propped himself up on his hands. “You wanted to play the game.”
“This isn’t how you play,” I shoved him off of me and sat up. “This isn’t tackle football. And we’re on the same team.”
He stood. “So?” He held a hand out for me. I didn’t need it, but I took it anyway. Story of my life.
I decided that maybe we didn’t have to play after all. The game was almost over so I figured it would be okay to just sit in the sidelines. Jenna didn’t bug us so I took that as approval.
Once Jenna finally cut us loose I wasted no time going back to change back into my civilian clothes. Hale told me he’d be waiting for me when I was dressed. Like every other day.
Things with him were getting comfortable and it was starting to worry me. It felt okay and I knew it was an illusion. Mom was happy with Dad, but that was part of it. You get the good but then comes the bad. And it wipes away any and all memory of happiness. Then come the lies. You remember things as better than they were as your mind tries to forget the pain and make you think that everything will be alright again if you open your heart up once more.
So these were the good times. The times that my mom said made it worth the sorrow and grief that would come later. And I was happy when I was with him. But I don’t think that this is enough to make what was to come worth it.
It almost felt like enough. Close, but something was missing. Off maybe.
Things felt different now. I was starting to forget what it was like to be all alone. It was a dangerous thing to do. My resolve was slipping and I needed to hold on to it. I needed to remember all the reasons that I was fighting. But day by day I cared less about those reasons.
The scent of death hit me when I was about twenty feet from my locker. It caused me to stop dead in my tracks. No one else seemed to smell it but that wasn’t much of a surprise. I had a heightened sense of smell and the dead thing, whatever it was, must be newly dead.
Tentatively, I started moving forward. I was trying to figure out where it was coming from when I saw my backpack on the ground. Not where I left it.
Well…this wasn’t a good sign.
Still, because I wasn’t very smart, I walked forward. The lock on my locker was gone and when I saw that, my stomach dropped and nausea hit me. I knew what I would find, but I opened the locker anyway.
The first scream came about two seconds after the coyote pup fell out of my locker. Then the rest of the screams came and I wasn’t sure if mine was in the mix or not.
A handful of screaming girls took off to get Jenna, but all I could do was step away from the animal. Blood was pooling from its throat and what wasn’t soaking into the fur was staining the white tile. It had been hanging upside down in my locker, bleeding onto the bottom of it. Now that the locker was open, it was getting everywhere. I grabbed my backpack before the blood could reach it.
Jenna came running in with wide eyes that only got wider when she saw what everyone else in the room was staring at. She was followed by Hale and a couple of the girls that went to get her.
Hale rushed to my side. “I heard the girls. What happened?”
Kenna laughed harshly. “Like you don’t know, Psycho. So instead of leaving flowers you just kill an animal so show affection?”
“Shut the Hell up, Kenna,” I spat out.
Jenna held her hands up. “Kenna, you’re not helping.”
“Oh come on. Don’t act like we’re not all thinking the same thing. We know what he is. Is it much of a surprise that the killer killed again? Hey, Freakshow,” she turned to face me. “Maybe you guys can have a bunch of little deformed freak babies that you can sacrifice to The Devil for his favor.”
I went at her but Hale grabbed me. He wasn’t strong enough to hold me. But unfortunately with Jenna’s help, he was. Barely.
“Kenna,” Jay said as she held me. “Get out of here. Now. All of you need to go.” Almost every girl took the hint and bolted. Some crying, some too stunned to make noise. Kenna glared at me and Hale on her way out.
“I’m going to kill her,” I growled. “I’ll sacrifice that bitch for The Devil’s favor.”
Jenna released me and laughed lightly. “We both know you’ve already got his favor.”
“Good. Then he wouldn’t mind if I used what he gave me and ripped her apart.”
Hale held me by the shoulders. “Rory, stay calm please. Though your anger is quite beautiful to see, I doubt you could tear a person apart. Best not find out.”
“You have no clue what I can do, Hale. I’ve told you before that I’m not what you see me as. When someone does something that hurts me, I get back at them. It’s hardly ever pretty. I’ve done some bad things in my life. I’ve hurt people. And guess what, I don’t regret a damn thing.”
Jenna grabbed me and spun me to face her. “What do you think your father would say right now if he could see this from you?”
“Which father?”
She looked disappointed in me. “You know which one. Franklin.”
“He knew what I was.”
The look on Hale’s face was so lost. But I was too distracted to realize what I was saying in front of him.
“And that never mattered to him. He loved you just the same because he was your father.”
“He wasn’t my father. And the man who is wouldn’t just sit back and let this happen to him. He’d do far worse than I’m even capable of.”
“Yeah. He’d do worse because you’re not him. You may come from him but his choices aren’t yours. Franklin was your father. Once you cool down, you’ll remember that.”
“I won’t cool down until I know who the Hell put a dead animal in my locker.”
“That’s not for you to do. That’s my job. I’m the teacher here, not you. So go home and let me do this.”
“You know that I can find the source better than you can.”
“How?” Hale finally spoke and it ripped me from the bubble I was in. I ran over my words and made sure I didn’t say anything too incriminating. I was in the clear.
Jenna crossed her arms and stared me down. “Yeah, how?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. I wasn’t sure what she was going for here, but I wasn’t falling for it.
“Because it’s connected to me, not her. Someone picked me out and I should be the one to find them.”
“Hale,” Jenna said. “Take her home, please.”
“But—” I started, then I was dragged out of the room and to Hale’s truck.
I didn’t talk on the way home. I was too busy trying to figure out who did it. I had plenty of suspects. I’d made a handful of lifetime ene
mies for the words I’ve said or my actions. Brooks and Kenna could be behind it.
Revenge. That’s what this was. Trying to get back at Hale and I in one move. A new rumor of his guilt would spread and it would give us Hell.
When we got to my house, he brought me inside. No one was home but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Hale walked with me to my room and closed the door behind him. I dropped my backpack on the floor and decided I needed new clothes.
“I’m gonna shower,” I said.
“Okay,” he sat on my bed. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
I didn’t fight him. I just grabbed my jammies and went into the bathroom. I figured I wouldn’t need real clothes for the rest of the day.
The shower was quick and too the point. I just wanted the scent of steam to wash away the memory of death from me. I got dressed and dried my hair before I walked back into the room.
“Are you feeling better?” Hale asked when I sat next to him on the bed. “Are you scared?”
“No. I’m angry. I want to know why someone decided to do that.”
He scratched the side of his head. “Well, I have a guess.”
“What?”
He broke eye contact. “Me. I think that someone was trying to get to me through you. The whole school thinks that we’re more than we are. And it’s clear that we’re close. So I think that they wanted to try and irk me by using you.”
“No way. This isn’t typical teenage asshole behavior. This wasn’t a prank. Someone found a baby coyote and cut it’s throat, snuck it into school, and broke into my locker. This is more than what we can see. I don’t think it has anything to do with you.”
“Who would want to do that to you? They don’t have the reasons that they do with me.”
I crossed my arms and rested my back against the back of the bed. “I’ve never been well liked by people. They see me and they know something’s off. Kenna hated me long before she saw…what she saw. It was just ammo for her. And the girl knows how to use what she’s given.”
“She certainly does. The second that file touched her hands, it was over for me.”
I put my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about that. If you didn’t have to defend me, then she wouldn’t have targeted you. You’d have some kind of shot at normalcy.”
He made a noise that almost sounded like a laugh. “I’ll never have normalcy. And even if I could go back and undo what I said to her, I wouldn’t. She hurt you. I should have done worse than I did.”
“Your loyalty to me is always surprising. I don’t know what I did to get it from you.”
“Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”
“In fact, I don’t know why I got your attention in the first place. That’s a story I’d like to know more about.”
He sighed. “Fine then. But you might think less of me.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll admit, that first sight, what got me to sit beside you, it was purely physical attraction. I had nothing else to go on. I saw you sitting there, a black dress and long black hair. Pure darkness in the body of an angel. And I wanted you. Then I sat down.” He smiled. “I saw those ridiculous rainbow socks on you and I knew in an instant what you were. How you saw yourself. I saw a girl bathed in the darkness but wanting to claw her way into the light. I saw me. And still, I wanted you.”
My heart started beating faster and I didn’t notice until it started hurting. But he went on. “You didn’t want a thing to do with me. I tried and tried but you wouldn’t have it. You just wanted to be left alone, and that interested me. Such a stunning young girl with the potential to seek and destroy. Take anything she wanted because if she just batted her eyes, any man would crumble. Potential to raze the world if you so wished it. And you didn’t take anything from anyone. Not a compliment from me. Advice from your friend. You wanted nothing at all. I just couldn’t figure out why. I wanted to know you.”
His eyes got distant as he spoke. Like he was in the memories he was telling me. “I kept trying and you kept pushing me away. It was so frustrating. Wanting to know everything about you and you not even giving me a hint. I almost gave up on you. But I promised Mollie that I would make a friend. And all I wanted was you. I needed you. So I soldiered on anyway. Then Ethan went missing and you…everything was different that day. I couldn’t see the darkness in you anymore. I finally figured it out. You didn’t take anything because you weren’t capable of it. Even with it laid out before you, you wouldn’t do something at the cost of another. Not unless you were provoked, as I soon learned,” he looked proud of me. “And I also saw your character. I knew that you wanted to fight the darkness that you thought you were made of. You’d help someone that you hated because underneath it all, you are a creature of light. Despite how you may see yourself. I’ve seen what you really are. And I want you. I—” he stopped himself. “I really want you.”
The words swirled around in my head as they played over and over. Everything he’s thought about me since we’d met. It made everything else in my head fuzzy and I couldn’t even remember how the conversation started. All I could think about was him.
“I never hated you,” I said quietly as my hand grasped the side of his sweater. “I was just scared of letting myself care about someone.”
His tone matched mine. “Are you still?”
“A little.”
“Well I’d like to try and help you with that.” The second the words were out of his mouth, I was under him and he was staring down at me.
“W-what are you doing?” I asked, terrified.
“I’m going to try something and hope you don’t hit me for it.”
I almost smiled through the fear and butterflies. “Something?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
I waited and he did nothing. “Well…why aren’t you doing it?”
He smiled and I thought for a second that he looked nervous. But that wasn’t possible. I knew what he was about to do. Something he was far from unfamiliar with.
I didn’t realize until that second just how much I wanted him to do it. And how far gone I was. I wasn’t sure if I could ever go back to the way I was.
“Well, in a few moments that will be it. We’ll be taking a new step in our relationship and that will get us to the point of no return. This is the end of the times before I kissed you. And maybe I’m a little nervous and I’m trying to buy myself some time. I know quite often that the anticipation is better than the actual kiss, so maybe I’m drawing this out on purpose because I don’t want to disappoint you. I know I’m your first and I want to make sure—”
“Too much talking,” I said as I was pulling his face down to mine. When our lips met, mine yielded to his as they parted. I didn’t know what I was doing but he more than made up for that. And the deep, rumbley sound that came from his throat gave me the impression that he didn’t notice my lack of skill.
He separated himself from me and his eyes were unfocused. He was lightly panting when he asked, “Good?”
I smiled. “Yeah. It was good.”
“Good,” he went back to kissing me more eager than before. He moved my legs apart so he could move closer as he started unbuttoning my shirt. He moved his head down and his lips touched almost every inch of my skin from my neck to the third button he undid.
On his way back up he bumped his hips against mine and I found out just how thin my shorts were. He smiled when I moaned against his mouth.
My hands moved down his sides as I went to pull his sweater off of him. But I got distracted along the way. Then my hands went to his stomach and started traveling up his sweater and along his skin. While my hands moved up, I felt something off. Rough, jagged lines with smooth skin in between. I felt them everywhere I touched.
I started pulling the sweater up and Hale froze on top of me. He ripped my hands off of him and immediately stood from the bed. His eyes were almost frightened as they darted around in panic.
“Hale,” I sat up. “What’s wrong?”
He backed away and hit the wall. He righted himself and looked at me with pure pain. He opened his mouth to speak but instead, chose to run.
By the time I got to the front door, his truck was already halfway down the road.
Chapter Fifteen: Words That Burn
Hale never came back. Not that night. Not the next morning for school. He didn’t answer when I called. He didn’t want to talk to me. And I didn’t know what to do.
That first night, I stayed in my room. I pretended to be asleep when Mom and Hadley got home because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was mortified and confused beyond belief.
Jenna called my mom and told her about what happened. It took twenty minutes the next morning for me to talk her out of calling the school and getting the principal fired for letting something like that happen.
“I just don’t understand why someone would do that,” she said before I left for school.
“Me neither,” I shrugged, not caring anymore. It was horrible but I couldn’t gather the will to care at the moment.
“Children are evil,” she covered her eyes with her hands. “And coming from me, that’s saying a lot.”
“Yeah,” Hadley laughed. “It is.” Her eyes went to the clock on the oven and she looked back at me. “Hale better get here soon or you’re gonna be late.”
I held back a sob and kept my voice steady. “He’s not bringing me today.”
“Why?” she asked immediately.
I answered honestly. “I don’t know. But I need to leave now.” I didn’t say goodbye before I popped down to Hell.
It had been a while since I’d smelled the familiar dry air of Hell. It was empty, as it was most of the time when I came. Even the homeless man wasn’t there. So I didn’t stay. I just popped back up at the school and rushed inside before I was late.
He wasn’t in school at all that day. Each class we had together I was hoping he’d show up. But he never did.
I was all alone again. And it was awful.
All day I heard the chatter around me as the students recounted the tale of the coyote to each other. The details changed and were exaggerated but I didn’t bother correcting anyone. A lot of them blamed Hale. A few said they saw him walking with a bloody bag into the school. But he was in class with me when it was happening. None of them cared about that fact.
