Authors: P R Mason
This must be some dying hallucination the brain generates
, I thought as I passed into the shimmering ring. The teacher hadn’t covered this in Biology I. Maybe death tripping was in next semester’s material. The stuff I wouldn’t be learning.
Hitting the water felt like a giant wet mouth sucking me in before swallowing me down.
* * * * *
“Does she yet live?” A gentle female voice asked.
“Yes…A curse on Jupiter’s eyes.” This voice was male and harsh in its reply.
“If the consuls are informed of her presence, we will all be condemned,” the female voice said. “Your position in the Senate will not be of protection, Gaius.”
No longer numb, my arm and side burned as if I’d been used as an ashtray by a stadium full of people. My eyelids weighed heavy and their seams were crusty with a substance that felt like a cross between sand and glass shards. I wanted to gasp and pant with pain but these strange people with their odd accented words stopped me.
“Let us return her to her people with all possible swiftness before shame is brought to the house of Calixo,” the female said.
“Return her? But would that not further violate the edicts of the Senate?” asked a male voice with a slightly higher timbre than that of the other male.
“Yes, but the gods have left us little choice, my son,” said the deeper male voice.
“And upon whom will you bestow that glorious task?” the son asked with heavy sarcasm. “Surely not my exalted brother.”
The father’s voice spoke as if between gritted teeth. “If a father orders, your duty is to but obey. And absent complaint."
“But—” the son began.
“Try not my patience with such tone," said the father. "You test the bounds of paterfamilias too often for my taste.”
Managing to pry my lids open slightly, I saw the young man kneeling over at my side but his attention was focused beyond me, probably to his father. He had short black hair with the slightest of waves and that perfect olive complexion I’d always envied due to my pale, untannable skin. Dark, almost navy blue, eyes glared from beneath perfectly arched black brows converging in a furious vee. A grimace twisted the full lips of his angular face. The young man wore a red tunic in a style I didn’t recognize. Square cut and trimmed with gold at the neck, the garment fell loosely and then draped to the side at his waist. Even though he scowled mightily at his father, my friend Petra would have called him “so fine he’s divine”.
The thought of Petra and the normalcy she represented made me want to cry. As if I wasn’t already on the verge of tears from the pain humming over my skin and through my body.
“Why do we not just execute her,” the divine one said. He turned his head to look at me and I snapped my eyes shut. If they knew I was awake they might decide to execute me right now.
“No,” said the woman. “The Gods have not revealed what consequences might beset this world if her death was upon us.”
“I do not see the situation could yet worsen,” said the young man. “The boy’s death is already here.”
The boy?
”Adam,” I screamed, struggling to sit up.
“Sedate her again,” I heard the female voice shout. “With quickness,” she ordered as I struggled.
My eyes darted around me but I was blind to anything but the angry navy blue eyes of the young man holding me down.
I felt a pinch in my arm.
My lids drifted shut but I fought to stay conscious aided by the continuing burning of the gun shot wounds. That pain was nothing compared to the soul-destroying agony attached to my thoughts of Adam.
These strangers had better hope I did die
, I thought. Because if they’d killed Adam I wouldn’t stop until I killed them.
September 25th
The family Volvo inched forward in the line of cars. The only storm cloud in the vivid blue sky hung over the school building, a rectangular gray-brick structure that resembled a prison.
Twisting the chain around my neck, my fingers slid down to the metal disc at the end and traced its surface. From the driver’s seat Mom glanced my way. My hand fell to my lap on top of my thirty-pound boulder of a backpack.
A kid who seemed sort of familiar walked past my passenger window. My eyes met his through the glass. A derisive curl appeared in his lip. Great. Recovering from my injuries had taken some time so my entry into the sophomore class had been delayed by two weeks. Getting a late start on the school year would have been difficult enough without everyone seeing my mommy drop me off.
Another beautiful day at Double Dick High.
“Kathleen Elizabeth Taylor!” Mom darted a glare at me. Her lips compressed into a Barbie pink line.
Oops. I’d said that out loud.
“What?“ I asked pretending to be unaffected by her disapproval. "Everyone calls it Double Dick even the teachers.”
“I doubt that.”
“All right. Richard Johnson Academy.”
“That’s better.” Mom pulled the car to a stop. She reached into her purse and pulled out an item. “Here,” she said thrusting out an iPhone wrapped in a cherry red rubber jacket.
“What’s this?” All of a sudden she was getting all gifty?
“I know it’s got to be difficult starting school a couple of weeks late this year. I thought this would help.” A slight tremor shook Mom’s smile and she barely held back tears. “I want you to be able to text your friends.”
Translation: “I want you to be a normal teen again.”
Normal teen? What "normal" teen had a father sitting in jail awaiting trial? Normal teenhood didn't exactly result from having a father try to kill you.
Before "the bridge", maybe I’d been a normal teen. Mom had always said I should have been born on the Fourth of July because I was like a firecracker, always going off. I'd had a habit of darting in one direction or another, with this activity or that project. Even my hair, a garish red, exploded out of my head in a riot of curls if I didn’t studiously flatten it with the strongest flat iron money could buy.
When my parent's fights had started sounding like the worst of Dr. Phil, I’d begun, not only to iron out my hair, but also to iron out my personality. I'd made myself the best teen anyone could hope for. But it was too late. The “d” word—divorce—happened anyway.
Now I let my hair explode again. What did I have to lose?
Mom was still talking, saying things I didn’t hear. She finished with, “Just don’t text in class, honey.”
“Okay,” I said taking the phone out of her hand. I pushed it into the pocket of the backpack. Not texting would be an easy promise to keep since none of the losers I used to call friends had kept in touch ... except Petra. But I wouldn’t text even her. Better to keep a distance.
“Thanks Mom. I wondered how I was going to text naked photos of myself to all the boys.”
“Kizzy!” Mom’s eyebrows rose almost to her scalp line.
“What? Sexting is all the rage,” I said in a monotone. “Gotta fit in somehow.”
“Omigod.” Mom chuckled. “Give it back.”
Mom pulled to a stop behind another car at the outer perimeter of the school grounds, close enough to make an escape. Pulling the handle on the car door, it swung open and I hopped out onto the sidewalk.
The passenger side window lowered with an electronic whir. “If all else fails, you’re not alone," Mom said. "Remember, Juliette is here too.”
“Yeah,” I said with false brightness. My stepsister, Juliette, the Stepford sibling. We didn’t exactly run in the same circles at this point.
“Just stay away from Petra," Mom said. "That girl is always getting you into trouble.”
It was probably the other way around, but Mom didn’t need to know that. Did I see a spot of reverse psychology in my mother’s eyes? Nevertheless, it worked. A few minutes ago I had zero interest in hanging with Petra. Now the idea didn’t seem like total dung.
Turning, I walked away and Mom shouted, “I’ll pick you up after school.”
Wonderful. Just call me social pariah.
Now for the harder part. I had to walk into the building. Appropriately clad in the Johnson Academy uniform, consisting of green and blue plaid skirt paired with white blouse, I sported inappropriate streaks of purple through my wildly short red curls. The streaks weren’t regulation but would probably pass.
I tied a blue sweater around my waist and hoisted the backpack over an arm before squaring shoulders to move forward.
I’m a badass. Don’t mess with me. I’m a bad ass. Don’t mess with me.
Walking with the chant repeating in my head, I hoped the interior monologue would give me the proper air as I made my way to the building through a throng of unrecognizable faces.
The names of the minors involved in "the bridge" incident had been kept out of our local paper and the national news as well. So I clutched at the tiny, glimmering possibility that the entire school didn’t know what happened to me. Didn’t know about how I’d gotten my brother killed.
Just outside the entrance, a group of gigglers congregated. With their freshly pressed shirts and shiny shoes, they were probably freshmen. Finally, someone recognizable appeared: Franky Abbot.
He hadn’t grown since I’d seen him last. Still wraithlike, Franky looked a lot like me with his spiky red hair, light blue eyes and pale skin. At least I wasn’t spotted all over with freckles like he was. Franky beamed like a neon sign proclaiming, “I’m a geek. Please beat me up.” Of course, at this moment someone was taking up the offer.
Quinn O’Neil was one of the bullies at this fine academy. Quinn the jarhead. Usually you didn’t see him without Billy Broadrick, but this morning Billy was nowhere in sight. Instead a pack of newbies surrounded Quinn. Hmmm. Maybe he was branching out on his own this year to become the Capo of his own mafia family of bullying punks.
Quinn and his henchmen stood blocking Franky as they laughed. The bullies had a high old time while Franky’s face contorted with obvious misery. One of the newbies gave Franky a shove and the kid flew back into a wall of other newbies. This brought another chorus of roaring laughter. Why did these dopes always think their behavior was so amusing?
Closing in on the tableau, I just wanted to avoid them and the unwanted attention. With the bullies’ focus centered on their prey, my skirting the edges of the group to enter the building would be easy. Head down. Get past them, I told myself. But a small figure with chestnut hair and ordinary brown eyes filled my memory. Unlike Franky, Adam had had only a few freckles spattered across the bridge of his upturned nose.
Passing the group, I estimated only three more strides to the building entrance.
My hand reached for the door's handle.
Adam had been so much smaller than Franky
, I thought. Adam, with his baby-toothed grin and silly chuckle that sounded more like a sheep bleating…and Adam lying crumpled on the banks of the river. That last memory was a lie, however. Adam’s body had never been found. The river swept him away, they'd said.
“Hey.” Almost involuntarily, I turned instead of walking through the open door. “Quinn, are you still stalking Franky?” My words seemed to come from some distant universe, far from myself.
The herd of bullies turned as one in my direction and gaped in disbelief. The only one out of all of us who seemed pleased was Franky. He gawked at me with a toothy grin.