She was wondering what it would feel like if he wrapped his muscular arms around her, comforting her, keeping her safe, the softness of his hair as she ran her fingers through it. What if he loved her instead of Krystal and they ran away together? Ridiculous daydreams of herself and Jarred, escaping together and battling men in black suits, distracted her from the panic trying to envelop her all day.
“Hey.”
She jumped and turned around. Krystal, Jarred’s ‘perfect’ bleach blonde girlfriend, raised a penciled eyebrow at her.
“Yeah, hello, like, pass-the-papers.” She rolled blue eyes under fake eyelashes.
Shawna had been lost in her own head for the first half of algebra class. Krystal snatched the papers, then passed them back.
I’m gonna lose it. Shawna stared blankly at the assignment. Found her…desperate…sign…those things…regret it. She closed and opened her eyes.
Krystal made an annoying high-pitched, “no, way,” to another girl.
Don’t…smack her. Shawna exhaled, gripped her paper, and crumpled it. Krystal was prattling on and laughing like a yapping Chihuahua with one of her friends. Shawna inhaled deeply, then forcefully exhaled again. Their teacher, Mr. Emery, continued to mumble equations into the chalkboard as if twenty-eight students were just figments of his imagination.
“You, like, got a problem, or something?” Krystal said to the back of Shawna’s head. “I heard you like my boyfriend.” She smacked and chewed on her gum like a cow with cud. “You and your weird dog that follows you around, Tarda or whatever, better go back to the kennel before we call animal-control.”
Her cattle-minded friends giggled obediently. She continued to smack her gum loudly, flaunting her authority, and Mr. Emery ignored it.
“You listenin’ to me…”—she seemed to struggle for a moment for a creatively demeaning word—“ogre-face?”
Shawna grit her teeth. Krystal had chosen the wrong day to heckle her. She turned around with a glare, put her hands on Krystal’s desk, and—
Krystal, the chair, and the desk slammed into the wall. Everyone around them leapt away like a herd of frantic deer. Shelby caught her foot on her own desk leg and face-planted it into the rug as the class scrambled towards the walls. Krystal was slumped and shaking her head as papers fluttered to the floor. The entire class, including Mr. Emery, was dead silent. Shawna just stared at what she’d done. Had she done that? How could she have thrown Krystal into the wall like that?
You didn’t do that, her mind tried to reason. Krystal…Krystal what? Threw herself like a pro-wrestler into the wall? She looked at her hands. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and even harder to think. It was gone now, but on her arms she could have sworn she’d seen…something very strange. Someone was repeating a word, her name.
“Shawna?” Mr. Emery said.
She continued to stare at her arms and hands. Krystal, who was gingerly touching the back of her head, looked like she was trying to adhere to the wallpaper. Shawna felt everyone’s eyes on her. The whole class, every face, was terrified, except for Josh. His usual, bleary, squinty-eyed grin hung on his face.
“Awesoooome,” he said, like he was watching an action film.
Mr. Emery cleared his throat. “Shawna, I think we need to step outside.”
She nodded blankly and stood up. Krystal flinched, and despite everything, Shawna gave herself a little satisfied pat on the back for scaring the plastic out of the bleach blonde California-Barbie. She slowly walked towards the door Mr. Emery was holding open. His eyes were glued to her, watching her every move.
Expecting me to run, or maybe turn into a green, muscular, ogre-face.
“Psycho,” someone muttered as she walked past.
Running suddenly seemed like a very good idea. Her mind began racing while every step forward felt painfully slow.
“We’ll take her out to that place.”
Her breaths were quick and shallow.
“They’ll come for her.”
She was stepping past Mr. Emery.
“Tonight.”
He was extending his hand to clamp around her arm. She ran. He yelled and she heard pounding footsteps in pursuit, but they faded quickly. She bolted out the main doors, down the road, and didn’t stop running until a stitch in her side forced her to. Clutching her side and gasping, she slowed and caught her breath as dappled sunlight danced across her face. She quickly walked through the woods, just allowing her feet to carry her. Eventually, their paint-chipped, rusty, old house came into view and she stopped. No one was home. She was standing so still that a little lizard crawled onto her shoe. It scurried away when she looked down, then disappeared under a rock.
“You and me both, buddy.”
She felt like screaming, crying, raging uncontrollably, but she blinked it back. Don’t be weak. Think!
She knew what she had to do. The only other option was to wait and see if John and Mary would do as they promised, and she had no desire to be there if they did. The old porch protested her pounding footfalls when she ran up to the front door. Locked. She threw a glare at the door like it was purposefully trying to thwart her. She ran around back. The large elm tree had aided her in many escapes, but this time it felt like she was climbing into prison. She swung from a branch, caught the windowsill with her shoe, and crawled through her upper story window.
The house was silent except for her feet on the creaking floorboards. The whole house creaked and groaned so much it seemed miraculous that the structure hadn’t toppled over by now. She took a few steps, then slumped down on her bed. She’d make her plans in a few minutes. For now, she just needed to sit. Rainbows from her CD-mobile danced around her room as she stared at her hands. Had anyone else noticed? They had all seen her throw Krystal into the wall, but had they seen the blue sparks of electricity running down her arms? Had she actually seen that? Her hands were starting to tremble and she clenched them into fists.
Something glinted on her dresser. For one moment she forgot about the strange incident at school while she stared at the glinting object. The bed springs creaked as she got up to examine it. The edges of her vision swam with darkness, creating a spot-light on the gleaming statue. She blinked rapidly and the light-headedness retreated. It was only the length of her hand, but the statue was incredibly heavy as she picked it up. She had never seen it before and, most of all, it was something she had disliked since she was teased about her keychain in fourth grade.
“A unicorn…what the?”