Splinter Skill

by A C Bell

  “Mr. Mason.” Gregor crossed his arms, speaking like an officer who had caught a repeat offender about to vandalize something; not surprised but slightly amused at the prospect of busting said offender again. Slade bristled, lips pursed. He closed his eyes and took a calming breath before turning around to face Gregor.

  “What does His Majesty require today?” Slade asked. Someone across the room snorted quietly. Gregor’s mouth pinched and his fingers gripped his arms tighter.

  “Take your seat.” His words were clipped now.

  Slade slipped behind the pair at the table in front of me and swaggered back to his table. Just as Gregor was about to turn to the board, I heard two distinctive thumps on the table behind me. Gregor’s face reddened. I didn’t dare turn around to see what Slade had done.

  “Either remove your feet from that table or leave this room.”

  Slade’s feet scraped off the table to a new chorus of chuckles from our classmates. It appeared Gregor was using my trick of holding his breath to calm himself. He turned to the board and pulled down the projector screen. Kat pushed a folded piece of paper to me.

  I don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t have to tell me, but I’m here for you, okay?

  I smiled gratefully.

  ✽✽✽

  I couldn’t delay any longer. If I was going to confront Justin after class, I would need to make sure he would be there. I pulled my replacement phone from my pocket to text him. Remember that guy, Raiden? I think he’s Nikki’s stalker. Meet me after Chemistry to talk to him?

  After a few minutes, his reply came. Sure thing. 11:30, right? What about Nikki?

  I winced. I’d have to keep it vague. Yeah. Meet in room 115. She’s not here. Said she had to sort something out with the school.

  I was chewing anxiously on the plastic ferrule of my mechanical pencil waiting for Nikki to show up to class when Raiden sat across from me. Punching someone in the nose doesn’t just hurt their nose. Purple bruises had spread halfway around his intense, determined eyes. Even though I knew he was innocent, Nikki didn’t know I knew. I needed her to think I still suspected him. I gave him my best glare.

  “You can’t sit here.” I spoke quietly so we wouldn’t draw attention.

  He leaned forward over the table to whisper. “Adeline, please, I–”

  “You need to leave before Nikki gets here. So, find another table or leave altogether. I don’t care which.”

  Raiden sat back in his chair with his jaw clenched, not taking his eyes from mine. Stubbornness met stubbornness and, for a few moments, I didn’t think he would move. Then he grabbed the thick strap of his messenger bag and stalked furiously from the room. I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my forehead in my palm as guilt swatted my stomach around. How would I explain all of this to him when it was over?

  I didn’t have long to contemplate. Nikki lowered herself into the chair next to me. By the way she was moving, she was still in pain. Dark ringlets underscored her eyes, which were streaked with blood vessels. Had she actually slept at all yesterday? Or was it something else? I’d read that people suffering from depression can be excessively tired. Could she have depression? I felt a fresh wave of tears trying to pry their way free but I held my breath again. I needed to be strong. At least for her sake.

  I was relieved when she didn’t mention Raiden. She had likely passed him in the hall. McElroy gave an animated lecture, but I couldn’t tell you what about. My foot seemed to be twitching impatiently all on its own. I stared at the clock for the next hour, waiting for Peter to make his move. Twenty minutes before the end of class, McElroy’s desk phone rang disruptively.

  He lifted the phone to his ear. “Yes?” After a brief pause, he continued. “Can you ask Mrs. Walker if this can wait? There are just a few minutes left.” He listened again, then looked as if he might roll his eyes. Instead, he lifted his gaze to my peers, scanning the room until he spotted Nikki. “Ms. Ware.” He gestured for her to come forward and she walked awkwardly up to his desk. I felt myself visibly tense up, praying for him to let her go. When she turned back down the aisle to our table, her gaze met mine.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered as she bent to collect her things. She must have mistaken the apprehension on my face for fear. “There’s just some sort of problem with my scholarship that I need to sort out. I’ll see you at lunch.” Peter must have made a convincing Financial Aid office assistant.

  “Okay.” I smiled. The last few minutes crawled on at an agonizing pace. I watched the second-hand twitch around the face of the clock. Finally, 11:30 came. I packed my things slowly, lingering to let everyone leave the room before me. Jason Marley stood by McElroy’s desk, asking about our homework assignment. I was about to worry he wouldn’t leave in time for Justin to get here when I felt my pocket buzz. I pulled the phone out.

  Class is running a few minutes over. Meet up here instead? Room 314.

  The change in venue made me nervous. How did he expect me to get Raiden up there? Likely, he didn’t. I gathered my book bag and speed dialed Peter on my way out the door. He didn’t answer. I ignored the unsettled feeling roiling in my insides and left a message with the update.

  I filed into an elevator in front of an unnaturally tall guy with a mess of red hair who was holding the hand of a petite brunette with nose freckles. The elevator hummed to life and I closed my eyes, resting my head on the wall all the way up. Had he requested the change to feel like he had the upper hand? Most likely.

  The third floor was vacant and smelled strongly of some kind of cleaner. A “wet floor” sign down the hall told me a janitor had in fact been by recently. I started scanning the numbers next to the classroom doors when a buzz at my hip startled me.

  “Peter, where are you?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m waiting my turn. A girl is here complaining that they haven’t gotten her car back. Apparently, it was stolen a few nights ago. I think it was the car that drove us off the road.”

  No surprise there. Justin had to have stolen it somewhere. “Okay. Do you know how long you’ll be?” I asked. 308, 307. Wrong way. I backtracked and rounded a corner. 310, 311, 312.

  “I’m not sure. This girl really knows how to talk and they’re in the middle of a shift change so he’s the only guy here.”

  I took a deep breath and leaned against the wall outside room 314. “A few minutes won’t hurt. I have to wait for his class to get out, anyway.”

  “Are you up there already?” A warning note darkened his tone. “I still don’t like the idea of you being alone with him. I can call Justin to help.”

  “No,” I said, too vehemently. Peter fell quiet.

  After a minute he growled, “Wait for me.”

  “No, Peter, someone needs to bring the police,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. Peter exhaled loudly.

  “Fine.”

  “I should go.” I hung up before he could argue. The class had to be released any minute now. Waiting was killing me. Why was it taking so long? Just then, I realized how quiet the hallway was. Even standing right outside the door, I couldn’t hear a teacher giving a lecture or the chatter of students. That didn’t seem right. I straightened and peaked through the little window on the door.

  The classroom was empty. One turn of the handle and the door swung open. A teacher would have locked the door, right? The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Even if this was a trap, I needed to make certain Justin stayed put until Peter arrived with the police. For safe measure, I pulled the pocket knife from my shoe and concealed it in my sleeve.

  I noticed the note taped to one of the windows first, but no way was I walking right up to it without checking my surroundings. I crouched to look under all the tables and peeked into the closet next to the door. No one was under the teacher’s desk, nor in the second closet tucked between two bookshelves behind it. Only when I was certain I was alone did I move closer to read the note. If he’d gone to find Nikki or something, I needed to know.

  J
ustin’s griffonage was scrawled in one line in the center of the paper. I guess I hadn’t given him time to print something up neatly for me as he had before. The message didn’t make sense, though. “Uoy Dniheb. Yrt Ecin.” What was that supposed to mean? The message wasn’t gibberish, I realized. It was backwards; Nice try. Behind you.

  The fire alarm started wailing and my blood ran cold. I spun for the door and found Justin entering the room in the smiling Halloween mask. My pulse quickened. So, he hadn’t been hiding in the room after all, but had waited for me to enter and lower my guard. Smart.

  Justin stood in an aggressive stance between the tables, blocking my way out. More than anything, I wanted him to tell me it wasn’t true. Even now I prayed that I’d added wrong and it really was Raiden underneath. Then Raiden would get arrested and Justin and Nikki could go on being happy.

  “You’re still hiding behind that thing?” I shouted over the alarm. A leather-gloved hand reached up and yanked the rubber from his face and tossed it to the floor. Justin’s brown eyes were full to the brim with anger, his lips twisted in an outraged scowl. What was usually a pleasant face to look at was now terrifying and dark. Just then, I noticed something in his hand; a thin brown rod that looked like a support from one of the school’s tables. It seemed talking is not what he had in mind.

  I braced myself and waited for him to come to me. When he realized I wasn’t going to move, he lunged. He swung the bar in a tall ark, not hard to duck under if you’re fast enough. Once in the clear zone, I turned and kicked my foot into his side. He slammed into the counter along the windows with an “Umph!” I’d rounded the first table, making a break for the door when fingers wrapped around my leg. I swerved to break my fall with my side but overestimated the distance of the next table. The side of my head struck it and everything went dark.

  ✽✽✽

  The alarm was still screaming when I came to. Something kept my hands together behind my back and I was sliding across the cold floor. I felt a bit disoriented, like I’d just gotten off one of those rides at an amusement park where you’re spinning around in a shell on uneven terrain. I pulled myself together enough to try to wrench my ankles from Justin’s grip. He was hauling me into the bigger closet at the back of the room and my head smacked into the doorframe as he pulled me inside. Dazed once more, I only managed to collect enough sense to pull my head out of the way so the heavy wooden door wouldn’t brain me.

  “Justin, don’t do this!” I shouted furiously through the door as I heard the locking mechanism slide into place. He didn’t answer and soon the shadows of his feet disappeared from the door. The first step to my escape was getting my hands to my front so I flattened them on the floor and dazedly fumbled my rump through the of loop my arms until they were behind my knees. He’d tied my wrists together with his belt, which wouldn’t be impossible to get off. I pulled as hard as I could in an attempt to stretch it a little and, though it was painful, I managed to squeeze a hand through and discard it.

  Though I knew Justin had locked the door, I had to test it just in case it was a cheap lock. No luck. I racked my brain for a solution but the only thing I could think of was to ram the door until the lock broke the frame. But it was mahogany or something, so it would take a while. What if Justin found Nikki before I could reach them? My fury was dampened by fear at the smell of something burning.

  Tendrils of smoke snaked in above the door. For a fearful moment, I thought the closet was on fire. Then I realized that was stupid. If it was, it wouldn’t be so dark. My breathing quickened. I clamped my hands to my face and forced myself to calm down. I would need to stay down so I wouldn’t breath in too much smoke.

  Without the knife, which I’d dropped when I’d blacked out, I wouldn’t be able to try and jimmy the door open, so I lay on my back. The linoleum floor cooled my now sweating back. The wooden shelf behind me provided a nice support beam to hold onto and I delivered a forceful kick with both feet as close as I could to the handle. It didn’t give. Why had the architect who designed the school insisted on using something so solid? I kicked it a few more times until I heard a satisfying crack.

  “Adeline?”

  “Raiden?” I only vaguely recognized his voice through the door and the alarm. I pounded on the door. “In here!”

  “Stand back,” he said, his voice much closer now. The closet didn’t allow much room for ‘standing back’, but I slid to the corner. Something heavy slammed into the door and wood splintered. After another swing, I saw the pointy nose of a fire axe biting through the heavy wood, bringing more light with it. I covered my eyes so no splinters would find their way into my retinas. Raiden hacked away until he had carved a sizeable hole in the door.

  “Come on.” He dropped the axe and extended a hand to me and helped me squirm through, holding fast to my arms so I wouldn’t fall and skewer myself on the jagged wood of the door. The classroom wasn’t aflame in its entirety. The fire was restricted to the bookshelf on my right, though it was spreading across the plaster ceiling. Apparently, Justin hadn’t had the stones to finish me himself, so he’d left me to the fire. Coward. Raiden retrieved the axe and sprinted at my heels to the hall. Once there, Raiden returned the axe to the case that housed the fire extinguisher and fire axe. The extinguisher was gone. Justin had apparently been adamant that I not make it out of that closet.

  “Are you okay?” Raiden asked. I nodded and veered around him for the stairwell. Sirens squealed in the distance, growing closer. Raiden and I pounded down the stairs but standing suddenly didn’t work so well for me. The world swayed nauseatingly and so, apparently, did I. “Woah!” Raiden caught hold of my arms and helped me sit. Wincing, I clasped a hand to the side of my head. Now that we were out of the fire, I could feel a painful heat pulsing above my ear. My fingers were red when I pulled them back. Raiden brushed my hair aside to get a look. He then yanked off his tie and pressed it to my head. It felt refreshingly cool on the fire that was spreading through my scalp, but the pressure hurt. It even started to tingle a little. “It could be worse. What’s your name?”

  “You know my name,” I said irritably.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Adeline Parker.”

  “What day of the week is it?”

  “Monday.” I refrained from adding a ‘duh’.

  “What’s today’s date?”

  “It’s August...” I paused 29th? 30th? “Um, thirtieth.”

  He lifted my eyelids one at a time and I resisted the urge to pull away. “Your pupils are dilated.” Another question brimmed to the surface of Raiden’s eyes, but this one he was reluctant to ask, maybe wondering if he should wait until my brain wasn’t bruised.

  His curiosity won. “What's going on? How did Peter know you’d be in trouble?”

  “He called you?”

  Raiden nodded. “He wanted me to make sure you were okay. Good thing he did. What’s going on?”

  “The threats. I saw you with Nikki—I thought…” I stopped, my frantic brain jumbling thoughts together. I took a deep breath and started over. “I’ve been getting threats, warning me not to get involved in what's been happening to Nikki. I thought it was you.”

  Raiden’s green eyes widened. “I didn't do any of that, you have to believe me,” he pleaded. “I know you don't want to hear this, but Justin—”

  “I know!” I barked.

  “You do?” His brows furrowed together, wrinkling his forehead.

  I nodded. “Who do you think locked me in that closet?” My stomach felt as if it were scrunched into a tight ball of anger. My hands began to tremble so I clenched them into fists, my nails biting into my palms. “How long have you known he’s been hitting her? And why didn't you say anything?”

  Raiden chewed on the inside of his lip, as if deciding how much to say. “I noticed she had bruised ribs in chemistry a few weeks ago when she bumped into a table. I didn’t know for certain and she brushed it off, but I kept an eye on her after that. Then I saw a bruise on
her arm the other day and called the cops.”

  “So, it was you.” I clenched my teeth. I knew he’d been right to call them but doing so had nearly gotten Peter and me killed.

  “She must have defended him, so there was nothing they could do.”

  Tears blurred my vision and my throat tightened. She’d defended him. “Why didn’t you come to me with this?”

  “By the time I knew for sure you were getting suspicious of me. Would you have believed me if I had told you?” I could tell from his tone that he already knew the answer and he was right. If he’d told me, I would have assumed he was just throwing blame at someone else. “Adeline, you had no reason to think he was hurting her.”

  I pulled the tie from my head and stood to pace the step. “Didn’t I? There had to be signs. She’s been my best friend since we were kids. I should have seen something! How could he do this? To her? To me? He tried to kill me!” A wave of emotion struck me and tears blurred my vision. Justin, a boy I’d been friends with for three years, had tried to murder me so the world wouldn’t find out how cruel he’d been to Nikki.

  Raiden’s features softened and he held my shoulders. “What matters is that you know now. You can tell the police what he did to you. He won’t hurt either of you again,” he said. A fire truck and an ambulance screamed onto the block outside, drawing Raiden’s attention. “You should be checked out,” he said.

  A gaggle of students had gathered across the block at the front of the building. By the number of cell phones in the air to film the event, you would think Emma Watson was visiting. Raiden called to a paramedic and explained that I might have a concussion. She patiently instructed for me to sit on the back of the ambulance and began asking me questions similar to the ones Raiden had asked as she inspected my wound. She kept her face passive every time I hesitated on an answer.

  “You do have a concussion, but it seems minor. Based on your injury, however, it could worsen over the next few hours.” She handed me an ice pack and picked up an equipment bag. “Will you be alright for a few minutes?”