“What’s going on, Sera?”
"I have no idea what you are talking about." She looked away from me and grabbed her coffee. She hadn't put creamer in it yet, and she still hadn't noticed.
I raised my eyebrows. “You are lying to me.”
She turned to me. “I really don’t know what you are talking about,” she said before taking a sip of her coffee and cringing fromthe taste as she suddenly realized that she had forgotten about the creamer.
I felt my anger rise. “You are lying. You never forget your creamer. Your eye is twitching, your hands were shaking, and you look pale. Sera, you are lying to me. WHAT is going on?!”
She gripped her mug a little tighter; enough that her knuckles were turning white. Not saying a word, she shrugged her shoulders and bit her lip.
I made a sound of disgust and shoved my lunch bag into my bookbag that was also on the counter; forgoing any other lunch items that I might put in it as I zipped it up.
“You do know that I am entitled to know things about me,” I snapped, grabbing my bag off the counter and stomping toward the front door. I usually walked with Sera to school as it had become routine, but not today, as I opened the front door and let it slam behind me.
I started down that long narrow sidewalk in the dark, pre-lit, cold morning in a huff, but by the time I had entered the woods, I was feeling better. The October air was crisp and cooled my burning anger. Even though it was early October, winter would be here soon. The brisk cold and frosty wind made it evident. The smell of the changing leaves and leftover smolders from local fire pits sent my mind at ease. I was started to feel better, taking in big breaths, and releasing them, watching the cold air snatch it and turning them into white puffs.
A mounting gust of icy wind picked up, swirling the air and the leaves in front of me. Then it passed straight through me like a ghost, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I stopped in my tracks.
That recognizable fear tingled my nerves. I knew this feeling in my dreams. I looked around, trying to identify whatever chilled me to the bone that wasn’t caused by just the wind.
There was nothing. Nobody. Nothing but me and the woods. I was utterly alone.
I took another deep breath to calm my nerves. Through that breath of autumn air, I smelled something raunchy. Almost like a dead animal was decaying in the woods. The only reason I knew that stench was because, in some of the apartments that we had lived in, mice would die in the walls. It was a disgusting, rotting smell.
My face twisted in repulsion, and I tightened my suede jacket around my body, hoping to block that eerie feeling and the chill. It kept the wind from biting me but did nothing to relieve the uneasiness.
I started walking again, picking up the pace, suddenly angry with myself for not waiting for Sera. I swore someone was watching my every move, but there was no sound but me, walking on that path.
I stopped again. Slowly, I started to turn around.
From out of nowhere I felt two rough hands push me from behind into a wet and muddy ditch beside the trail. The wind had been knocked out of me.
After catching my breath, I rolled onto my back and braced myself into a sitting position to look up at my attacker. This giant of a man stood on the sidewalk. He was taller and bulkier than a normal man. From dimmed streetlights beyond the woods beaming him from the back, I noticed his clothes were tattered and torn, and he was grinning. At least I think he was grinning.
Two large fangs propped open his lips and from the lights beaming him from the back, they seemed to distort and shadow his face. I could barely see any details of his face, only the white of his long teeth and a pair of scarlet, fire-lit eyes that bore into mine. Even if I found fire a warm comfort, I felt nothing but coldness from his eyes. They made my insides turn to ice. My gut told me something wasn't right with this guy; it also told me to scream for help. But like my dreams, I was paralyzed.
He grabbed the collar of my jacket and lifted me high in the air with one arm. I struggled to get free, but his grip was unbelievably strong. Fighting was useless. A loud roar of cruel, wicked laughter escaped his lips as he watched me squirm. He brought his free hand up to my face. I couldn't help but look at his hand in my petrified fear. His fingernails were so long. He took his pointer fingernail and brought it up to my cheek slowly. Pain inflamed my face as my skin tore from his touch.
“Venatrix” he inhaled and smiled grotesquely. And that rotting stench that I had sensed earlier was actually coming from my attacker. The smell enveloped him so much more, being so close that it was stinging my nostrils. “How ironic.”
My heart leapt into my throat. Terror churned my stomach, and I felt warm tears stream down my face as my possible impending death tortured me. He pulled me close and brought his face to my neck.
“You may belong to my master, but I deserve a little taste for finding you,” he whispered hotly against my neck. Fear paralyzed me still as he continued down to where my neck and shoulder met; his breath sticky and sickly against my skin.
Tears squeezed out of my closed eyes, fiercely stinging the cut on my cheek.
Then he stopped suddenly and released his grip, dropping me back on the ground.
I looked up expecting to see him again, but instead, I found a different hand offering to help me up. No long fingernails, just a regular human-looking hand. I clutched it with all the thanks I could muster, pulling myself off the ground, and a power zinged through my body to my toes. It vibrated like an extra pulse the speed of a hummingbird against my skin. I pulled back as quickly as possible.
Then I stared into the face of my rescuer. One look at this man made me almost forget my sudden brush of death and the odd feeling of his touch. Through the unwilling light, his face had a golden glow, which enhanced his bronze, too smooth to be normal skin, which was pulled taut against rigid bones. His nose was long and pointed, giving him an aristocratic look to his face. He had golden, dark blonde hair, which was layered in waves around his head. But the feature that stood out the most was his eyes. They were the color of amber, and a golden ring was an incandescent light around the iris. They seemed almost familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, and they were glaring at me. After staring in awe at this man for what seemed like forever trying to place him, I remembered my manners.
“Thanks,” I rasped, still reeling from what had just happened.
His lips were thin and a dusty pink against the radiant, alien-like characteristic of his skin. The tension of his face and the thinness of his lips suggested he was angry, but the rest of his features were schooled to appear aloof.
“Did you see what happened to my attacker?”
“He ran off,” he said curtly in a lilting voice.
“The dick ran off? Did you see what happened? What he did?”
“I saw. But you are fine now.” A wave of comfort washed over me with his words.
I squinted at him, noticing his eyes seemed more like liquid gold than before. “Did you just Jedi mind trick me?”
He smirked, bemusement lightening his face from his tension. “No mind trick.”
“But you did do something,” I hinted.
He looked away from my eyes to my cheek. “Oh, jeez, you’re bleeding,” pointing to my cheek.
I put my hand to my face feeling the wet stickiness of my blood. It felt like it was bleeding more than the scratch that I had originally thought it was.
“Yeah,” still dazed, confused and nauseated from fear. When I looked up at the stranger, I noticed he was staring at me; studying my features so intensely that I shirked into my jacket.
“You shouldn’t be walking alone in the dark.” His brows furrowed sternly.
“I guess not.” I looked past him to the path I had just traveled, wondering where Sera was. She should be following me by now. When I turned back to my rescuer, he was gone as though he had never truly been there. A cold shiver shot straight down my spine.
I stood there contemplating my situati
on and what to do. Was this part of the weirdness my dreams were warning me about? Part of the darkness? I could have imagined the kind, magical stranger helping me up; however, the energy that zinged through my body when I touched him was still prickling my skin and the air around me. I know I didn't imagine the monster that cut my cheek open. I could feel the blood dripping down it. That part was very real.
I looked around, partially to make sure that there were no other surprises, and partly to see if I could find Sera coming down the way. As much as I wanted to run to Sera about this, I needed to take care of my face, and I was a little too scared to be out in the dark by myself now.
So, instead of waiting in the middle of the sidewalk for her to eventually show up, I found my bookbag in the ditch next to me and picking it up, I threw it over my right shoulder, and rushed the rest of the way to the school with my left hand covering my cheek.
For once I was grateful of Sera's annoying habit of getting us up extra early in the morning, so she "had time to decompress before school started." Because even entering from the side entrance, closest to the science wing of the school, no one was in sight to see me muddy and bloody. Even the lights on that bottom floor were still half off. And I was able to beeline it to the bathroom across the entrance without anyone seeing me.
When I got into the restroom, I shook my jacket, clothing, and bookbag off in the garbage can before going any further, and ran my right hand through my hair, making sure there were no leaves or other debris in it. I didn’t want anybody looking at how disheveled I was and asking further questions. I knew I was already going to get questions about my face.
Then, dragging my bookbag, I ran to the mirror to see the damage. I was slightly surprised. Moments ago, it had felt like I was bleeding pretty bad. In fact, my left hand was caked with drying blood. The cuts were deep, but I no longer thought that I needed stitches. And it also looked like they had stopped bleeding. But with all the dried blood and dirt around the cut area, it was still a little difficult to tell.
I turned the faucet on and washed my hands thoroughly before getting several paper towels from the dispenser next to the mirror.
This was going to hurt, I cringed at myself in the mirror. I decided to clean the mud off the right side of my face first. Getting a paper towel wet and a little soapy, I washed the unharmed cheek and my forehead. I dried it off with another paper towel and threw all the dirty ones in the garbage can by the door. I was surprised that my aim had made it. I had never been truly skilled in athletics.
Shrugging my shoulders, I glared at my cheek one more time. I wasn't going to use soap the first time around. There was so much crusted blood that plotting wasn't helping. I grimaced once more because I knew that I was going to have to scrub the area. So I took a deep breath, and I grabbed another wet towel, leaving the first on the side of the sink, and I rubbed around the area. Stinging brought tears to my eyes, but I was getting the blood off. When I finally had gotten all the caked blood and dirt off my cheek, I peered at it again in the mirror.
It was, of course, raw and red, and from cleaning it, I was able to see that my attacker had carved a cross into my cheek. The cuts were relatively deep, but they wouldn’t need stitches. And although the area surged up again with blood, it didn't leave the cut area and miraculously started to dry over again quickly.
I begrudgingly took one last look at my face, I knew there would be no way to hide the injury. Running my hands through my hair one last time to make sure I had gotten out what I could, I sighed and grabbed my book bag and jacket, tossing my towels in the trash can on my way out.
It was time to see Sera.
Chapter Fifteen
I didn’t get very far once outside the bathroom. Fortunately, I ran into Meredith before anyone else. I had forgotten in my march to the library to see or wait for Sera that Meredith’s locker was by the English and Science wing of the school, which wasn’t a far distance to the library, where Meredith noticed me right away. She had adapted to mine and Sera's schedule in the morning so that we had time to catch up on the latest news or help each other with homework if we hadn’t finished the night before (math for her, science help for me). Now, it had just sidetracked me on my mission.
“Where’s the fire?” She called to me just as I had passed her.
I looked over at her and saw her face pale. But there seemed to be something different about her as well. I thought that I had probably gotten some dirt in my eye because she was haloed.
"Oh, god, what happened?" She demanded, grabbing my arm to slow me down.
I sighed. I desperately wanted to talk to Sera about it, but I wasn’t going to push my best friend aside.
"I got attacked this morning on the way here." Usually, I would have told Meredith everything, but the situation felt so weird to even me. So, I loosely explained what happened not too long ago, leaving out the details about the long fangs and long fingernails. I told her that someone on the path had scared him off and I ran into the school.
“Was Sera there? Is she okay?” Worry etched in her eyebrows.
“She and I got into a fight this morning, so I left without her.”
“Did you call the police? Have you talked to Sera yet?” Meredith was firing questions at me as she visually inspected my wounds.
“No. I didn’t call the police. And no I haven’t seen Sera yet. I was heading there.”
“You should at least let the school nurse see that and maybe fix you up?”
“And I tell her…? That I tripped and my face fell on a cross.”
“Caden, the school should really know about some creeper attacking kids outside the school.”
I bit my lip. Meredith was right, but the attack felt personal. It felt like he was after only me.
“Meredith, ever hear of something called a ‘Venatrix’?” I asked, still worrying my bottom lip.
She looked taken back, and her eyes were as wide as saucers. "Venatrix?”
I nodded. “That’s what my attacker called me. I don’t think he is attacking random kids. I think he thought I was this Venatrix person and he went after me personally.”
“If you think it was personal, you need to talk to someone.”
I began to notice that the school was starting to fill with students and some were staring at me.
"Does it still look nasty?"
Meredith turned my head so that she was inspecting my cheek. "It's actually not as bad as what I first thought. They look a little thinner than before. Why do you ask?"
“People are looking at me like I am a freak.”
She blinked with new realization as she looked around the hallway. “Why do you worry about what people think?”
I shrugged. “It’s not that care about what people think. It’s rather, I don’t want people to think about me at all. I have made a perfect little existence for myself by being invisible to ninety-five percent of the high school population. And I’m good at it. I don’t want people noticing me now.”
Grinning, “Honey, everybody notices you. You are very different from most people whether you like it or not.”
I shook my head. “People that were different were hung . . . burned at the stake . . . segregated . . . stoned by really sharp rocks. I don’t want to be stoned by really sharp rocks. I just want to finish the rest of high school. Then become a blogger who hides away from other people behind a computer screen."
“Caden, you have always been different. You are just finally seeing it.”
Our conversation faded a little, and I blinked at her. The dirt in my eye still hadn’t gotten out. Meredith still looked haloed, but now she was radiating a warm glow. Her skin looked bronzed under the school lights. I blinked again and rubbed at my eyes.
"Speaking of ‘seeing,' I think I got something in my eye. You are all glowy.”
That same worry arched her eyebrows. “Caden, you really need to talk to Sera.”
“Yeah, I’m going to head there.”
“Good luck hidin
g that from the teachers and other kids,” she said, pointing to my cuts.
“It’s called the back of the class. Works like a charm.” I winked at her.
“Miss Weber, Miss Walker, it’s time to get to class,” Mr. Myles shouted at us from across the hall.
I hadn’t realized the first bell had rung already and it was getting very close to first period. I scowled.
“I guess that’s my cue. Let me know what Sera says.” Meredith gave my arm a squeeze and walked off toward her first period.
I started taking steps toward the library when Mr. Myles shouted after me again.
“Caden, first period is about to start. Where do you think you’re going?”
I turned to glare at him, hoping that he would catch sight of my cut-up face so he could see that this was an emergency.
“I need to see my sister.”
He shook his head. “Your time for talking ended. You spent it all on Miss Weber.”
I began to grind my teeth, ready to tear him a new one. “Mr. Myles, can’t you see my face is scratched up? I need to talk to my sister about it.”
He squinted at me. “A couple of cat scratches are nothing worth the attention. See your sister after class.”
My spine went rigid, and I clenched my fists. “Cat scratches?! These are deep cuts!”
“Save the drama for someone else. Get inside the classroom.”
I gave him the death glare as I crossed the hall toward his classroom. I was totally going to ruin his next date with my sister.
People stared and whispered to each other as I walked past their desks. Soon they chose to ignore my presence altogether, realizing I was not worth the gossip and went back to socializing. I hid in the back corner like I said I would and buried my face in my English book.
Mr. Myles glared at me, making several other students turn to look back in my direction. I shrank down into my seat, wishing I could become invisible by just a mere thought. Then, like someone turned the channel, he broke my gaze and became his usual self who soaked up the attention given by the beautiful, popular girls, which was fine by me. It meant I could sneak some reading instead of listening to his lectures in which he tried to sound intelligent.
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