by Bella King
I put another thin plank up against the window and checked that it was long enough to stretch from frame to frame. It fit, but barely. I carefully placed a nail on the very end, hoping the wood would split when I hit it, and brought down the heavy weight of the hammer on it, piercing the wood and the window frame in one swift hit. It moved through the both of them as though they were butter, leaving the wood in one piece.
I picked up another nail, placing it on the opposite end of the piece and driving it through. This one cracked the wood but didn’t split it. A few more planks and it should be sturdy enough to prevent more intruders, but it was better to be safe than sorry. I snatched a few rusted mouse traps from a box in the shed and placed them along the floor to break some toes if anyone decided they were stupid enough to break in again.
I didn’t always have to do stuff like this to stay alive. The entire reason I was at Blackstone Academy in the first place was that our family used to have money. We used to have a decent house as well until my father put a hole through his head, ending his own life at the ripe age of forty-five. That certainly put a spin on things.
I didn’t want to think about that anymore, but the thoughts floated around in my head when I was idle. Putting nails through boards wasn’t stimulating enough to distract me from my own mind. I needed something better.
I allowed my brain to drift back to Scarlet. Yes, she was the one I could blame for all of this. Truthfully, I felt like I could destroy her whole family, and that would never be good enough, but I had to do something, or I would lose my mind. Somebody needed to pay.
My mother was poor, working 80 hour weeks to put food on the table, and my grades were slipping because I was working on the weekends so that I didn’t feel like a useless piece of garbage around the house. I blew off steam by fantasizing about the different ways I could ruin Scarlet and her family.
At this point, I hadn’t quite figured out what I was going to do. I knew that in order to cause disorder in someone’s life, you needed to know enough about them to know where their weaknesses lay. I didn’t have any contact with Scarlet, so getting that information was proving to be difficult. I was currently working on getting other people to give me the information, but everyone I spoke to about it wanted money to do my dirty work. That was something I didn’t have.
I examined the window, dusting the dirt and grit from the old wood off my hands as I stepped back to admire my work. Everything looked alright and was stronger than last time. I positioned the traps carefully, so that I wouldn’t hurt myself when I came back in the winter to open the shed again, and left to go back to the trailer house that we lived in. It wasn’t much, but it was home.
I trudged through the yard as the sun cast deep shadows through the dead grass. It had been such a hot summer that the grass was a pale yellow and crunched like straw underneath my feet as I walked back to the trailer. The summer was now slowly starting to fade, and I couldn’t have been happier about it. I hated the itchiness of the grass when it got into my socks, tacking jabs at the skin around my ankles.
I jumped up the concrete steps to the screen door. We always kept the screen door closed to keep mosquitos and other flying insects out, but the main door staying open because it got too hot in the trailer if we left it closed. Unfortunately, none of the windows had screens, so we couldn’t open them instead.
“Mom, I’m finished,” I called out, pulling my shirt over my head and tossing it onto the chair beside the door. I pulled another one from the seat of the chair, where my mother had folded them neatly for me to take to my room.
My mother called out something from the kitchen, but I couldn’t hear what she said. I smoothed out the crease in the middle of my fresh shirt and walked into the kitchen, the smell of boiling water and pasta in the air. I already knew what we were having before she said it.
“What did you say?” I asked her as I stepped in.
“Macaroni and cheese,” she replied.
That’s what I thought. We had it three nights a week, but it was better than rice and beans. I would have even enjoyed it if I didn’t eat it so often, but my mother didn’t have time or money for variety. I understood that well enough.
“How was school?” She asked as I sat down at the wobbly kitchen table.
I traced a finger over the crescent stains from my morning coffee as I spoke. “The same old stuff. Maddie keeps bothering me,” I said.
“Oh?” She said, turning around with a cheap ceramic bowl full of artificially yellow macaroni and cheese. “She probably just misses you.”
I chuckled, sticking a fork into the steamy food the minute she placed it down in front of me. “She needs to get over it. Besides, she’s probably going to a different college than me anyway. Her parents are loaded.”
My mother raised an eyebrow. “Loaded? Maybe you shouldn’t have broken up with her.”
“Dammit mom, I’m not going over this again,” I said, beating my fist lightly down on the table.
She frowned. “Watch your tongue,” she said shaking a finger at me.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m an adult. What’s the issue?”
She shook her head. “Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you can talk like that to me. You still have to be respectful.”
I shrugged, scooping macaroni into my mouth before it was cooled off enough and scalding the roof of my mouth. I held it in my teeth and breathed in sharply, moving air over it until I could continue chewing. I swallowed it and looked up at my mother, who stood with her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry, I’m just annoyed about her. She’s not really leaving me alone.”
“Well, you two were together for a while, right?”
“Four months and a week,” I stated.
“That can be a long time for someone your age,” she said, but even she knew that was a stretch.
Maddie was just a weird and obsessive soul, not unlike me. I just obsessed over different things, like Scarlet and my father’s suicide.
I slurped down more of the watery noodles and cheese as my mother turned around and started cleaning the single pot that she had cooked this in. I would have offered to do the dishes for her, but I still had to study before bed, and I didn’t want to use up too much time. I felt a little guilty, but not enough to volunteer.
“I’m going to do my homework,” I said, picking up the bowl and trying to carry it out of the kitchen with me.
“Finish that in here,” my mother said, beckoning for me to come back in. “The roaches are going to eat you while you sleep if you take that into your bedroom,” she joked, but there was little humor in her voice.
I knew she was right, but I didn’t like hearing it. I gulped down the rest of my food as quickly as I could, standing just outside the doorway, then handed the empty bowl to her for washing. She gave me a look and took it, turning back around to the sink.
I dashed off to my room, closing and locking the thin wooden door and jumping onto my bed when I got there. I placed my hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling and fully intending to do my homework before going to bed. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. I fell asleep with the light still on, waking up in the middle of the night to turn it off and finish sleeping. I guess I should have asked Maddie for help because now it was going to be overdue.
Chapter 4
Scarlet
My bed was so wide that I could fit twelve people in it and never run into them during the night. It was comfortable, but sometimes I felt lost in it when I slept, like there should be someone in it with me. I knew it was unhealthy to constantly dream of guys, but I was starting to get a little crazy at my age, because I had never actually had a boyfriend before. I had never even kissed a guy, as crazy as that sounded.
I got up out of bed, stretching dramatically in the rays of the morning sun that seemed to maneuver around my curtains and spill into the room. White curtains didn’t do much for shade, but they did make it easier to wake up in the morning as the room got brighter.
I was grateful for the large estate that we owned because I always slept naked and I could never get my curtains to close all the way. They were more for show than anything, and I liked to stretch in the sun. It felt good against my bare skin, but I would prefer that the neighbors didn’t see me in the nude. That’s why I was happy that the nearest neighbor was several acres away and behind a tall brick barrier.
I turned away from the window, sauntering over to my private bathroom to take a shower. Even though I got sweaty at self-defense practice and would have to take another shower before school, I still liked to freshen up before I went.
It helped me wake up, along with an ice-cold energy drink from the basement fridge. I chose that over the fancy artesian coffee that my mother bought. I didn’t see how one coffee grind was significantly better than another. They all tasted like bitter dirt to me, especially the more expensive ones. It seemed that my young adult taste buds weren’t quite mature enough to enjoy a rich woman’s drink. Maybe one day I would, but like always, today I would opt for something cold and sweet instead.
I rinsed my tired body off quickly in the shower. I didn’t wash my hair, because I would want to do that after my practice. It was more important that I shock my skin back to life with some hot and cold water than to get clean. I showered before bed as well, so I didn’t need to do that.
Some may call my routine similar to that of a psychotic person, never deviating from perfection least I get lost in the messiness of the normal world. I was pretty sure that I had some type of disorder, but I was never diagnosed for it. I didn’t care to be either. My perfect timing and precision only stood to benefit me. It wasn’t a problem that needed to be fixed.
I had everything I did down to the minute. I didn’t have to look at the clock to know when to get out of the shower. My subconscious knew it better than my conscious mind did, but I still counted the seconds in my head as I rinsed myself off, as though my shower were a dance to a silent rhythm.
Once I was out of the water and onto the spongy towel mat, I dried all the water off my pale skin with a fluffy white oversized towel, then got dressed in light blue workout clothes that matched my eyes. I had always been told that my blue eyes were striking against my pale skin and dark hair, which I agreed with. They were a very icy shade of blue, which succeeded in looking cruel if I glared at someone in the right way.
I pulled my hair out of the loose bun that held it out of the water when I was in the shower, and quickly braided it up into two identical braids that hung down over both my shoulders. My hair had gotten so long in the past year, but I didn’t have any plans on cutting it. I wanted to see how long it could go.
Once I looked presentable, I walked down the stair quietly, trying not to cause a commotion. My parents would both be asleep, exhausted from a long night with the guests. My mother would be too deep into slumber from her medication to hear me, but my father might wake up and be annoyed, so I walked softly on the polished oak floors down the hall to the back of the house where the stairs to the basement were.
I could be louder down there, but I didn’t want to be. The basement creeped me out, even though it was like every other room in the house. The only real difference was that nobody went down there regularly except for me, and it was noticeably colder than the rest of the house. I, for one, found that to be a bit too spooky for my liking.
As soon as I snatched a cold can from the fridge, I rushed upstairs, my feet traveling embarrassingly fast as though I were running from an actual monster in there. I hadn’t outgrown my fear of the dark, and at 19, I assumed I never would. It was just something I would have to live with.
That was part of the reason I had chosen self-defense as my new hobby. I had always felt small and helpless, and it didn’t help that I was an attractive woman in a world full of dangerous men. I felt uncomfortable doing out late at night, even with friends. I very rarely stayed out after dark, and I was the rare early bird in the family.
I think that part of the reason why I felt so small was because of the way my father’s business ruled over my life, as though nothing I did or said had any value to him. Nothing I did mattered, and I ultimately had no purpose until I left the house and made it on my own. Even then, I was scared that my life would ultimately have no meaning. It was a silly thing to worry about, because life is what you make of it, but that didn’t stop me from worrying.
All I could do was my best, which was my intention. I wasn’t lazy, I was smart, and I always planned far ahead for everything, maybe even too much so, but I always thought it was better to be safe than sorry. The one thing that I struggled with was relationships, because I seemed to intimidate people with my lifestyle. That had left me single despite being a perfectly desirable woman.
You can’t win them all, I suppose, but one day I hoped to win this one. I felt it was important if I was to have a nice life. I didn’t want to be lonely. No, that terrified me more than the deepest of darkness. For me, that was the worst way you could end up – all alone.
I shrugged off the thought as I let the house, finally able to breathe normally and move my body in a way that could make as much noise as I needed to be comfortable. I wasn’t a loud person but trying to be quiet wasn’t my natural state and I didn’t enjoy it.
I unlocked my car, slipped into the cool leather interior, and placed my drink down in the adjustable cup holder. My phone automatically connected with my car when I turned it on, pumping out bright tunes through the large speakers that surrounded me. It was time to get loud.
I squealed out of the driveway, leaving black marks on the pale pavement. My parents hated it when I did that, but I found it too enjoyable to quit. I turned up the sound system until I was certain everyone within a mile radius could hear it, rolled my windows down, and peeled out of the front gate onto the main road.
My braids flopped in the warm morning air as I raced down the thin black road toward the main city. That was the gathering place for everyone in the area – rich, poor, and everywhere in between. Our town had a surprisingly diverse demographic for how many rich people also lived there. I supposed a town couldn’t thrive on the rich alone. They didn’t work regular jobs.
I took a turn down a beaten street as a shortcut, racing through a poor neighborhood with my engine roaring. I may have been scared of the dark, but I sure as hell wasn’t scared of speed. I was a local nuisance in my shiny black muscle car, but the police never pulled me over. They didn’t like to mess with the rich kids because they would undoubtedly have to deal with their parents. It was one of the perks that I actively enjoyed.
Dirt flew in the air behind me as I crossed over into the trailer park neighborhood, a place where only the poorest in the city lived. I watched the little trailers breeze by to my left as I quickly made way to the other side of the dirt road where it connected back to the regular road. There would be a bump on the connect, so I had to slow the car down a little or my shock absorbers would have hell to pay.
I wasn’t there quite yet, so I kept my foot on the gas, making the pine trees to my right look like nothing more than a green blur.
Suddenly, the glint of metal in front of me told me I was about to be in trouble. An old beater car pulled out of the trailer park in front of me, too close for me to slow down all the way in time. I slammed a foot on the break, my car sliding through the dirt toward it at a relentless speed. I gripped the wheel with white knuckles as I slid into the side of the car, crumpling metal against metal in an orchestra of destruction.
Chapter 5
Dylan
I knew who it was, but I still couldn’t believe it was her.
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br /> It was just my luck that the woman whose family had succeeded in destroying my life was the one attempting to destroy it again. Was she trying to kill someone out here, racing around in her expensive car like she owned the streets? This wasn’t even her neighborhood. Scarlet Verity Porter had totaled my car and could have killed me in the process.
I hopped out of the steaming wreckage, looking more at the damage to her car than to mine. This was clearly her fault, but who would the insurance people find at fault, the innocent rich girl or the trailer park trash? I didn’t like those odds.
Scarlet stepped out of her car, an energy drink in her hand like she hadn’t just been in an accident. She took a sip, squinting at the damage, then looked up at me. “Well, fuck,” she said. “I hope you’re okay.”
I shook my head. She was beautiful, but there wasn’t much going on in that rich head of hers. “You totaled my car,” I exclaimed, waving a hand at the wreck.
“Both of ours,” she said casually, not a hint of sorrow in her words. “I guess we better trade insurance information, right?”
There they were. The words that I never wanted to hear. I sighed, looking back at the wreckage as I spoke. “I don’t have any, actually.”
She frowned, walking closer toward me. “Aren’t you supposed to?” She took another sip of her drink.
I shrugged. “Maybe, if I could afford it.”
“What do we do now then?” She asked, cocking her head to the side curiously.
Just then, an idea settled into my head. Scarlet clearly didn’t know the first thing about the law. It might be advantageous for me to lie and make her pay for all this instead of admitting that I was the one in trouble for not having insurance. Maybe we could circumvent the whole catastrophe altogether!
I cleared my throat. “You’re just going to have to pay for it,” I stated, watching her reaction.
She recoiled, just as I hoped she wouldn’t. “Well, my father said that I was supposed to go through the insurance for this kind of thing.”
