Night Prowler Part One

by Samantha Steele

But we can always count on her.

  “Almost,” she said.

  Sam was dating this guy named Paxon up until third period. She wrote him a note and dumped him. I always thought he was kind of weird and ugly. But Alex Gaskarth is super hot!

  So she dumped Paxon and that really isn’t relevant to life.

  You know who else is hot? Chuck Bass! He’s from Gossip Girl, in case you didn’t know.

  I am so paranoid about our geometry final. I suck at geometry. Sam’s really good at it. I have that class with her, too.

  Lucky for Caten, she’s a sophomore and already in Algebra II.

  “Are you done yet?” I asked Caten.

  “Stop looking!”

  “Okay, okay I’m not looking! I like your tank top.”

  “Thank you!”

  “Oh Sam, I’m sorry about you and Paxon breaking up,”

  Ashley said suddenly, turning to look at Sam.

  “What? I broke up with him!” Sam said defensively.

  There’s a lot of attack and defense going on today!

  “Oh! That makes more sense,” Ashley said.

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  “Is he telling people he dumped ME?”

  “Oh no, I just heard it from somebody else.”

  “Oh okay, good,” Sam said, looking relieved and sitting back in her chair. “I don’t want THAT going around.”

  I don’t like most of Sam’s guys.

  I like Alex Gaskarth and that one guy with the lip rings.

  He looks like Alex Gaskarth.

  “Aw why’d you break up with him?” Jori asked.

  “Well… he’s just kind of annoying.”

  “I told you,” Nikki said.

  “I know. I should have listened to you,” Sam replied.

  “What did he do?” I asked her.

  “Nothing really. He’s just sort of… odd.” We all laughed.

  “And I don’t really want a boyfriend this summer. I’m going to be really busy with work and visiting my cousins and stuff… and visiting Ethan!”

  “Oh! Who’s Ethan?!” Caten exclaimed, finally handing me my yearbook back. She’d managed to fill an entire page with random doodles and phrases. She draws Asian smiley faces.

  “This REALLY hot friend of my cousin’s! Want to see?!”

  “You have a picture?” Caten laughed. Sam nodded and pulled a folder out of her bag. She then showed us a stack of photos, all containing the same brunette cutie. She said his name was Ethan Grimes and he was her cousin Riley’s friend. He has nice abs, I’ll give her that.

  But he’s not Alex Gaskarth! Or Chuck Bass… I like Chuck, too. Boys are pretty. Yes, that’s right, I say boys are pretty, not sexy.

  I’m hungry.

  “I have to pee so badly!” I complained.

  “Thanks for sharing,” Sam said sarcastically, taking the pictures from me.

  “I’m hungry and I have to pee really bad,” I complained again.

  “Shut up!” Caten snapped. I leaned over to Sam and whispered in her ear,

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  “I think Caten needs a Midol!”

  Then we both started giggling hysterically and Caten glared at us.

  “I do not!”

  Oh my God! I just remembered I have a test in Biology tomorrow and I didn’t study for it! It’s so nasty… we’re dissecting rats! Okay… trachea, esophagus, lungs, atria… atria…

  WAIT! I can’t study! Gossip Girl is on tonight! I love Chuck Bass.

  I think I failed my muscles test.

  Thames Street

  I’ll take you out

  Though I’m hardly worth your time

  In the cold, you look so fierce

  But I’m warming up

  Because the tension’s like a fire

  We’ll hit South Broadway in a matter of minutes And like a bad movie, I’ll drop a line Fall in the grave I’ve been digging myself But there’s room for two

  Six feet under the stars

  All Time Low is my favorite band! I love Alex Gaskarth.

  Wait! Biology test! Ventricle… paramecium… wait no, it’s peri card ium. Liver… wait no, I don’t have to learn that…

  gluteus maximus…

  Hee hee! That’s your butt!

  Lati-tea-me-uh-whatever dorsi… triceps? Bronchitis?

  “TAYLOR!”

  “What?!” Oh that was Sam. She was calling me. I think the bell just rang.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “For someone who can hardly remember how to spell her own name, you sure do think a lot.”

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  “I know.”

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  Mitchell Mantel

  I tried to act normal, but I was shaking on the inside. I kept switching my weight from foot to foot, trying to stay comfortable. My hair felt too greasy even though I’d washed it this morning. My jeans felt too loose. My shoes were too big, my shirt too small, my cologne all wrong for her taste.

  Suddenly I heard her laugh and saw her walking down the hallway talking to two of her friends. Sam was wearing a highlighter-blue denim skirt with black fishnet tights, gray Converse, and a black Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt. I quickly stood up straight and tossed the remainder of my tic-tacs into my mouth.

  She smiled when she saw me.

  “Hey Mitch,” she said with a little wave.

  “Hey Sam!” I choked out. I suddenly realized it was much, much harder to talk to a girl I actually liked. “What are you up to?”

  “Oh nothing, really. Just hanging out with Cami and Anni.”

  “Oh, sounds like fun,” I choked again. I’d thrown so many tic-tacs in my mouth that it was burning now, my eyes turning red and everything.

  “Are you okay, Mitch?” Sam asked, concerned. I nodded, blinking my watery eyes.

  “My breath is a little too fresh,” I managed to say. She gave me a funny look. “Bye,” I said quickly, walking past her.

  “I failed, Austin,” I groaned. “She probably thinks I’m retarded.”

  “Eh, don’t worry about it. No offense, but if Zac can get her number, so can you. I mean, you know Zac. He’s all… weird.

  But I guess she doesn’t know about his weirdness… But it’s pretty obvious you’re wanted by all the girls in our grade and above… and below, for that matter-”

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  “Okay, okay! I get it. I just have to try again.”

  “Well, be careful. I mean, if she does realize how wanted you truly are, she might assume you’re some kind of player and decide you’re not worth it. Zac is the one that needs to be taken care of. Girls like that stuff. They don’t like to admit it, I suppose, but good girls like to have something to take care of. And Zac is totally that.”

  “I need to be taken care of, too!” I said. Sam can play doctor with me any day.

  “No you don’t! Here, let me clarify,” Austin said, looking up from his astronomy homework. “I don’t just mean ‘care for’, I mean… well, Zac needs to like, be fixed. He’s broken. With his sister and mom and his dad and all that, Zac needs someone without issues to fix his issues. Otherwise he’ll end up with some screwed up chick who’ll just make his life worse.”

  “Uh, wow,” I said, shocked. “That was pretty intellectual, Austin.”

  “Yeah, it was! Must be that psychology class I’m taking.”

  “Okay, so Zac needs a Mrs. Fix-It, but what does that have to do with me asking her out?”

  “Well, Zac is the bird with the wounded wing. Sam’s a sweet girl. She’s going to want to help the cripple before playing with the alpha male. Now Macy just dives straight for you because she doesn’t want a real relationship, but Sam wants someone she can actually love.”

  “Are you saying I’m not loveable?” I snapped. “I’m completely loveable! I’m freaking irresistible!”

 
“Dude, no! You’re not even listening to me!” Austin exclaimed, throwing his pencil down onto the table and scooting back his seat to face me. “Now listen. Be Sam for a second, here.

  You’re looking out the window and see two birds-”

  “Enough with the wounded bird analogy!” I groaned, rolling my eyes.

  “Just listen! You see one bird with a broken wing and one who’s completely perfect. So perfect, in fact, that all the other

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  females are twittering around him. Now, which bird are you going to pay more attention to?”

  I glared at him.

  “See?” he said. “She has a kind heart, so Zac is more enticing.”

  “So, what? I need to fuck up my life a little to make her like me?”

  “No, you just need to show her the real you. Or the real Zac, I guess…”

  “What do you mean, the real Zac?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Austin, I’d never tell anybody about that, much less a girl he likes.”

  “I know. But, you know, she might be safer knowing the truth.”

  “I’ll only tell her if she’s in danger.”

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  Samantha Steele

  Lately it seems that Mitchell has been giving me a lot of attention. He says hello every time he sees me, which just happens to be during every passing. He tried to have a conversation with me the other day, but he kept tripping over his words and acting odd. I think he likes me. That’s a good thing.

  Paxon still tries to talk to me, and it freaks me out. The other day I was hanging out with Cami and he tried to hold my hand. It’s like he doesn’t understand we’re not together anymore!

  Sometimes I wish Mitch would ask me out, or be talking to me when Paxon came around, so Paxon could see I don’t really want him anymore. It may be too harsh to say I never did.

  It was late April, time for guys to be asking girls to Prom.

  Since I was an underclassman, I was only permitted to go to Prom if asked by an upperclassman. I was hoping Mitch would ask me, but that blonde girl named Macy always seems to be on him, so I think he’s going with her. I don’t know anything about her; only that she looks like she desperately needs to eat.

  Cami had unwillingly gotten herself into a relationship with Jacob. He kept following her around so she started calling him her official boyfriend. A constant annoyance, Jacob always starts fights with me and bugs the hell out of Cami, but she’s too nice to get rid of him.

  “I don’t know why you allow him to be such a jerk,” I groaned one morning after a particularly gruesome argument.

  Cami and I were finally in World History, far away from Jacob Fastner.

  “I can’t change his nature,” she said, twirling her pencil.

  “You could change your relationship with him,” I said brightly, as if it were a new idea. She glared at me.

  “That boy is just as infatuated with me as you were with Zac,” she stabbed.

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  “Yeah… but I’m not mean to Zac’s friends, and Zac is super hot,” I defended.

  “Are you suggesting that I’m not super hot?” Cami scoffed. I laughed.

  “I meant Zac is the guy, and he’s super hot. Jacob is super not.”

  “Oh he’s not that bad,” Cami said half-heartedly. I gave her a look, and she slumped her shoulders.

  “Okay, so he’s an ugly asshole. What can I do? He might kill himself if I break up with him.”

  “You seriously think he’d kill himself?” I asked. She nodded.

  “He told me he would. He seemed pretty honest,” she said, drawing a picture of a bleeding heart with an arrow through it on her notebook.

  “Well… don’t let that stop you. He’s probably just asking for attention. Real suicidals are few and far between. Anyway, on a happier note, what do you think of Mitchell Mantel?” I asked, biting my lower lip.

  “Oh, you mean Zachary Bell’s best friend? The guy that has been checking you out and stalking you for the last month or so? That guy?” Cami teased. I nodded vigorously. She laughed.

  “Well? What if he asks me to Prom?”

  “There is no doubt about it,” Cami said, “Mitchell Mantel is the most gorgeous guy at South… probably the most gorgeous guy in the whole state, and maybe even spanning the whole country.”

  I stared at her expectantly.

  “Well, if you can’t figure out that means he’s the best prom date there is, I don’t know how to help you!” she snapped.

  “Cami, I know he’s beautiful, but what if he’s a player? I mean, he could have anybody… and he does know a lot of girls.”

  “Yeah, but if he asks you, you should say YES. Just keep your usual head on and don’t let him take advantage of you.

  You’re probably smarter than he is anyway.” Cami was now

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  drawing two stick people in formalwear. She labeled them “Sam”

  and “Plaid.” I laughed.

  “If I do start dating him, I’m totally nick-naming him Plaid. He’ll never know why.”

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  Mitchell Mantel

  Ever since the dream I’d had at Zac’s house, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sam. She crowded my brain during all waking hours, and she made out with me in my dreams. I started skipping keyboarding more and more often, afraid to be around her in case I fell asleep and started calling out her name.

  Austin didn’t know about the dream, but he wouldn’t have understood even if he did. I was afraid to tell Zac in case he killed me or something.

  You see, when Zac was fourteen, his dad went to jail…

  because of Zac.

  I know the whole truth because I was there. Back then, Lilith had just turned nineteen, and starred in some cheap porno.

  Unfortunately, a lot of creepy Alaskan dudes watch cheap porn.

  When Zac and I were little, he used to get really angry and violent a lot. He was kind of a shrimp, so he couldn’t exactly hurt anyone, but his mom took him to a doctor, who diagnosed him with a lot of different things. Mrs. Bell couldn’t afford the meds Zac needed, so she just resulted to “tough love,” which meant when Zac got mad, he got beaten.

  Once, when we were twelve, Lilith brought home a case of beer. She got really drunk and passed out on the kitchen table with five beers left. Zac drank them all.

  When his dad got home, Zac and him had a fight over Zac’s grades. Mr. Bell punched Zac in the face, giving him a really nasty black eye, and then put out his cigarette on Zac’s chest – where it “wouldn’t be seen.” I knew about it because I was upstairs the whole time, and Mr. Bell didn’t know. Zac still has the scar.

  So Zac had a really ugly childhood, and it all led up to the disaster of Lily’s first porno. By the time the video was released, Lily had a job at the strip club already. One night a guy followed Lily home and broke into the Bell house some time after midnight. Lily was asleep on the couch, and Zac was upstairs

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  with me, playing video games. The guy broke in and found Lily on the couch, then proceeded to begin raping her.

  Zac and I heard her screams from his room, and Zac ran into his parent’s empty bedroom to get his father’s gun. I called 911 while Zac ran downstairs. I had just given the operator Zac’s address when I heard a car pull up, and then a gunshot and a lot more screaming, mostly from Lily.

  The operator asked me what was going on, but I dropped the phone. I heard Zac’s dad yelling at him, and then I heard the smacking of Mr. Bell beating his son yet again. Lily was still screaming until I heard a crack and a thud, and she was silenced. I assumed Mr. Bell had knocked her out. Panicking, I hid under Zac’s bed.

  I’d been around when Mr. Bell hit Zac, but I’d never seen or even heard of him hurting Lily. When the cops came, Mr. Bell was arrested, no que
stions asked.

  Zac had shot and killed the man trying to rape Lily. When Mr. Bell got home, he was utterly furious; but he still loved his son, so he gave Lily a black eye, wiped Zac’s fingerprints off the gun and replaced them with his own, and coached the whole family, including me, on lying to the cops. We found out later that the guy was high. They searched his house and found still shots of Lily from the video – his obsession was pretty clear.

  Things were never the same after that. Zac suddenly had a real relationship with his father (well, as real as a relationship with a Bell can be), and his mother began crying and apologizing for beating him almost every time she saw him. Lily kept her job as a stripper, but she quit doing pornos, and their family became as close to normal as it would ever be.

  So that was Zac’s big, scary secret: he killed a man, a crime of passion. Turned out the guy was a convicted rapist on multiple accounts and probably deserved to die, but the whole incident really changed Zac. It made him a serious introvert.

  So that’s why I was so afraid of liking his girl. I loved that guy like he was my brother, and after all he’d been through, I

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  couldn’t bear to hurt him. But… he just left Sam. Why shouldn’t I go after her, as long as he’s truly finished?

  “So how are things in normal high school?” Zac asked me. We were having burgers and chili fries downtown.

  “Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,”

  I said. Zac looked at me curiously, a greasy French fry hanging out of his mouth. “It’s about Sam.”

  “What about her?” Zac asked calmly. He seemed genuinely chill, not the forceful calm he usually had when she was brought up.

  “Are you going to do anything about her? I mean, are you still interested in her? Or are you done with that?”

  Zac leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath.

  “I need to move on. Clearly she did, and I was being stupid. So… yeah… I’m finished.”

  “Uh, wow,” I said, eyes wide. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that, really.”

  “Well, I think it’s time I grew up. I don’t want to turn out like my parents.” Zac looked out the window at the street. He sighed and I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. He said he was over her, but was he, really?

  “I want her,” I said flatly. Zac turned to look at me, slowly. My palms started to sweat and I felt heat rising in my cheeks.