The Devil's Prey (The Demon Within)

by Jessica Stark

  ‘So today I am going to teach you…’ Mr. Timberwood talked about how to analyze a book, and we had to take notes. Normally I love English, but I was so distracted that I was not paying attention to what I was writing. I looked down at my page and was surprised to see weird symbols instead of words. I closed my notes and saw Mr. Timberwood writing our homework down for the next lesson. ‘Make sure it is done. You can go now.’

  We all got up to leave the class. I quickly put my books away so that I could make a quick escape, but Mr. Timberwood caught me.

  ‘Summer, can you stay behind, please?’

  I groaned inwardly at the thought of staying behind. I waited for everyone to leave, and when the class was empty, my teacher spoke again.

  ‘Summer, I knew you were late today, and that is ok. I have been told you are going through a rough patch, and if you need someone to talk to, you can trust me.’ He smiled at me, but I looked away.

  ‘I am sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.’ I clutched my book to my chest, fighting back the tears, and went to my next class. Biology went fast. I had Amanda in this class, which was good, but I did not sit with her. In fact, I didn’t sit with anyone all day.

  The day flew by in the blink of an eye. People still whispered every time I walked past them. When it was time for lunch, I went into the cafeteria to see everyone at their tables, eating. The nerds, the jocks, the emo kids…you name it, they were all there. I had always sat with the volleyball team, but this time I walked straight past them and sat at a table by myself. I played with my food for a while before two people sat down with me.

  ‘I like this school, but it would be nice if I knew where I was going.’

  I smiled at the voice that was talking to me.

  ‘You know, that is the first time I have seen you smile today.’

  They were both trying to cheer me up, but it was not working. I was just too distracted.

  ‘Summer, you might want to keep Ethan on a short leash. You should see how friendly all the girls are being towards him,’ Amanda told me. I looked up to see Ethan smiling at me, which made me smile back. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.

  ‘What is wrong, Summer? You have been ignoring us all day. Did we do something wrong?’ His voice was soft, like he was afraid I was made out of glass and about to shatter.

  ‘No, it’s me. It is hard. Please tell me you have not heard what they are saying about me. The way they look at me when I walk past- I could crush them all like bugs, and no one would know!’ I stopped, as the last part was not meant to come out, and I looked back down at my food, ashamed I would even think such a thing. Ethan grabbed my hands from across the table and threaded his fingers through mine. My body went into shock straight away. He always made me happy, somehow.

  ‘What else is there?’ he asked, his voice gentle.

  I grabbed my notes from English out my bag and placed them on the table. ‘When we were meant to be writing notes in English, I wrote this.’ I showed them, and they both studied the symbols on the page.

  ‘I have seen this before in a book. It is called Manarick,” Amanda said. “Only the highest of fairies write in Manarick and are able to read it.’

  I looked at them both.

  ‘Well,” Ethan said, “it makes sense…since you are a pure fairy.’

  I cringed at the idea.

  ‘So can you read what it says?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. I don’t have a clue what it says.’ I squinted to see if I could get any idea of what I’d written. Before I could really focus, I heard someone scream. I looked to see that Amanda and Ethan had not heard the scream, and chills ran down my spine. I heard the scream again, and then I saw it. Lucy stood at the other end of the cafeteria. She was smiling, her long blonde curls stained with blood. She held out her hand, and I saw a burn- the same burn that was on my arm. The mark of the devil.

  Chapter 3

  My body froze up. She was laughing and moving closer. I knew I had to leave, but my body would not move. I heard Ethan call my name. I had flashes of memories from the night I died- the laugh, the knife. I felt my face go pale. I felt sick to the core. I looked around, trying to distract myself, but I saw the devil’s face everywhere I looked. I felt like it was only me and the devil. I heard Amanda talk to Ethan, but the only voice I could comprehend was the devil’s voice, and the ice cold feeling that went along with it. I could feel a pair of warm hands on my shoulders as I stood up. I realized I was moving. We left the cafeteria, and I could no longer see the devil’s face.

  ‘Summer, can you hear me?’

  ‘Ethan, she has gone into shock.’

  ‘We need to call Lauren.’

  ‘She cannot come down to school!’

  ‘Well, what do we do?’

  I felt paralyzed, almost the same as when Lucy had escaped my body. It brought back memories of that horrible night, and the pain that had almost killed me.

  ‘Ethan, I can read her mind. She is thinking about what happened that night.’

  ‘Summer, I need you to hear what I am saying, ok? You will be fine. He is not here. None of them are! You are safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you, understand?’ I felt Ethan place his hand on mine, and my heart jolted at his words. I wanted to trust him, but my memories played before my eyes, and they looked so real. I kept looking straight ahead.

  Then I saw him standing in the distance- a tall, dark figure I knew all too well. Ethan turned around to see what I was looking at. I took a few steps back before I fell to the ground, and I started scrambling backwards.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I cried into the empty space.

  ‘Summer, no one is here but us.’ I could hear the worry in Amanda’s voice, but I could also see the devil take a step forward, so I pulled a lambo in my hand.

  ‘Summer, what are you doing? We are at school! Someone could see you!’

  I didn’t care. I threw the lambo, but it went straight through him. I got up and ran away from him, a blue light glowing in my hands.

  ‘Ethan, do you think you could make the school not see Summer?’ I heard Amanda’s breathless exclamation behind me.

  ‘No, but I can make them not see the blue light.’ I knew they were running after me, but as I looked over my shoulder, I could see that the devil was in front of them. How could they not see him?

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I yelled again. I had made my way into the cafeteria, where everyone was still having lunch. They all went silent when I came bursting through the doors. I threw the blue light towards the window, and it smashed into a billion pieces. Kids were screaming. Frantic now, I threw another blue light towards where the devil was standing, right in front of the jocks’ table, but the light just passed straight through him. I ran out of the cafeteria, and I bumped into Amber in the doorway.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ She turned away, and I heard her gasp the moment she saw the cafeteria.

  I felt power running off my fingertips. I looked down to see a blue light in my hand, and I closed it straight away. I tried to reach out to Amanda, but her mind was closed off. I sat down and leaned up against the wall, where I felt like I was going to cry. I put my hands on my head, which throbbed like I had been run over by a car.

  ‘Are you ok?’

  I looked up to see Mr. Timberwood standing over me. ‘Yeah. I am fine. Just a headache.’ I’ve never been a good liar when I’m upset, but I tried to sound as convincing as I could.

  ‘I think your friends are looking for you.’ At that moment, I saw Amanda and Ethan down the hall.

  ‘Like I said before, if you ever need to talk to me, you can.’ There was something about Mr. Timberwood that seemed familiar, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. He put his hands in his pockets and walked into the cafeteria, which sounded like a jungle. I sat where I was, and Amanda and Ethan came running over.

  ‘Summer, what is going on?’ Ethan’s gentle voice soothed my ears, but his eyes said something else.

  ‘I don�
��t know what is going on with me anymore.’ I felt tears well up in my eyes, but I refused to let anyone see. I heard the bell ring for the next class, which I knew I had with Ethan.

  The last lesson of the day seemed to drag. I did not say a word to Ethan during the whole lesson. I just drew all over my page. When the final bell rang, I was glad it was over for one day. I heard people whispering as we left, but I kept my head down and went to my locker.

  At my locker, someone had drawn all over it- saying I was crazy, that I’d tried to kill my mum and myself, and that I should be locked away rather than being allowed on school grounds. I knew who had done it. It wasn’t hard to guess. Amber. I ignored it, collected my books and left. I knew I had to wait for Amanda and Ethan, as they had to do a final check in at the office, so I waited by the car. People walked by me with disgust on their faces.

  ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to take drugs?’ Amber said from behind the car.

  I looked down at my feet, avoiding looking at her face.

  She made her way around the car, stopping beside me. ‘But then again, that wouldn’t surprise me. You followed in your mum’s footsteps. Let’s just hope you don’t kill Ethan like your mum killed your father!’

  That was it. She did not know a thing about what my father gave up, what I’d been through, and she ought to have known better than to insult my mother. I clenched my fist into a ball and punched her right in the nose.

  ‘You don’t know a thing about what I have gone through, or what my father gave up for me!’ I shouted. I could see her nose bleeding.

  ‘You bitch! You broke my nose!’ she yelled back at me.

  Amanda and Ethan appeared then, with the principal right behind them. ‘What is going on here?’ she roared.

  ‘I was just walking by, and she attacked me. She broke my nose! I told everyone that she was crazy!’ Amber was playing the innocent card, and I was going to cop it from both Lauren and my mother.

  ‘You come to my office now,’ the principal ordered. She walked back into the school, and I followed behind her. I walked past Ethan, who looked at me, ashamed.

  ‘Amanda, she started it. She insulted my mother and father.’ I mentally reached out for my friend.

  ‘I know.’ She sighed as I walked past her.

  When I was in the principal’s office, I sat down and waited while she got a glass of water for herself. ‘I am not happy, Summer. First day, and I already have to deal with a suspension.’

  I looked into her eyes. ‘No, please don’t. She started it.’ The principal raised her hand at me, and I stopped.

  ‘I don’t know what has come over you today- the outburst in the cafeteria, and now hitting another student for no reason.’ Her expression was disappointed.

  ‘May I speak? She insulted my mother and my father. She said my mother killed my father, and I was going to do the same to...’I stopped there, because I knew suddenly that I was not going to win. Amber always won. It was just the way things went.

  ‘I will have to put you on a two day suspension. I can get someone to give you your homework, but you are not allowed on school grounds.’ She took a sip of her water and grabbed her phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I questioned.

  ‘I am calling your mother.’

  ‘No, no, no- please don’t do that, please!’ But my mum had already answered the phone. I sat there and listened helplessly as the principal talked to my mother.

  ‘You may now go,’ she told me after hanging up.

  I got up and left the office. When I got to the parking lot, I was surprised to see it was empty. I called my mother, but at first she didn’t pick up the phone. When she finally did answer, she said I had to find my own way home. I also rang Amy, but she did not pick up either. At last I called Lauren. It rang for a while before she picked up.

  ‘Hello, Lauren speaking.’

  ‘Hi, Lauren, it is Summer.’

  I could tell from the pause on the other end of the line that Lauren already knew what had happened, and was disappointed with me. Eventually she spoke. ‘If you want me to pick you up, I am sorry, but you have to learn.’ She hung up.

  I was alone. Everyone had left me. I screamed into the air, and in the distance I saw lightning, which seemed strange. It was still sunny and we had suffered a drought through the holidays. A few moments later, the rain started to come down heavily, along with my tears. With no other choice, I started walking home.

  Chapter 4

  It took me almost an hour before I got back to the house. I was dripping wet, my feet were aching and all I wanted to do was curl up in a hot bath. When I reached the door, though, I did not want to go inside. I went to open the door, but someone did it for me. There stood Lauren and Ethan, looking at me with disappointment.

  ‘Come in out of the rain,’ Lauren told me. I did as I was told because I knew I was in so much trouble. I did not even make it six steps into the house before she was interrogating me. ‘So you wish to explain?’

  ‘What do you want me to explain?’ I did not mean for my response to come off with attitude, but it did.

  ‘Well, what happened at lunch? You busting into the cafeteria, throwing lambos everywhere, and then breaking a girl’s nose?’ There it was- the look of disappointment I had been getting all day.

  ‘I don’t know what happened at the cafeteria.’

  ‘Don’t insult my powers, Summer. I can tell when you are lying.’ Our voices were getting louder, and the lightning outside cracked as it came into contact with the ground. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know what happened.’

  I waited uncomfortably as she stood, looking at me. ‘Ok, fine, so I broke her nose- but she deserved it!’ It did not sound as good as it had in my head, but I really didn’t care at that moment in time.

  ‘So what are you saying? You think you can just run around, hurting people that you don’t like? Summer, you are here to learn how to control your powers, and then you go and abuse that privilege!’

  The storm outside was getting worse, and so was my anger. ‘I did not use my powers. I just punched her. There is a difference- one is physical, the other is magical,’ I said with a sarcastic smile.

  ‘That makes no difference, and you know it.’

  I could see other fairies poking their heads out of their rooms to see what the commotion was. ‘She insulted my mother and father. If you had heard what she said to me, you would calm your freaking undies!’ I saw anger rush across Lauren’s face. Ethan just stood in the background. Disappointment was written all over his face, and I didn’t need any special powers to see it.

  ‘I need you to calm down,” Lauren said. “I don’t think you realize how disappointed I am in you. I was hoping for big things from you, and then I hear about this.’ She shook her head.

  ‘You have no idea what I am going through!” I burst out. “In my head, and everywhere I look, I think I see the devil or Lucy, and I freak out. I feel like I am being suffocated!’ A strong gust blew the front door open, and the wind whipped through my hair. ‘I try to be normal, but all people do is stare and whisper like I am going crazy, which I am starting to believe! I am sick of everybody being disappointed in me!’ I yelled at Lauren. I could hear things crashing as the wind raged through the whole house.

  ‘You broke someone’s nose, and used your powers in front of the whole school!’

  ‘Just stop, will you? My mum is disappointed in me, you are, my principal, and Ethan is, too…and to top it off, everyone thinks I am crazy!’ The rain hammered down on the roof and the wind roared outside.

  ‘You have no right to address me like that! You need to get it through your head that just because you are the last pure fairy doesn’t mean you can treat everyone else with no respect and get away with anything you like!’

  That pushed my button. I screamed at her and clenched my fists at my sides. ‘You think I want this? I was almost killed for being what I am! I hate it! You really think I want to be this? If I could, I’d g
ive up being a pure fairy. I do not want it- I just want to be normal, to have my old life back! I am sick of people always being disappointed in me. I get tortured at school, I am writing in a language I have never seen before, and I just want everyone to stop and try to understand what it feels like to be me! To see what I see and feel the amount of pain I have been through!’

  The rain had now turned into hail, and I could hear it crash on the roof. I took a deep breath and continued, ‘Everyone wants me to be the perfect pure fairy, but I am not! And I am just sick of everything fairy-related. I hate what I am, and if I could go back in time I would make sure I was never born, because I don’t like this life! I hate it with such a passion that you cannot even begin to understand! ’

  I could see the hurt in Ethan’s eyes and the disappointment on Lauren’s face, so I stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door shut behind me. Amanda was not in the room, which was good because I screamed and things went flying in the room. The wind burst my window open, blowing papers everywhere. I ran to my closet and started grabbing all my clothes, stuffing them into my bag. I needed to get away from here. I heard someone walking down the hall, so I grabbed my bag, jumped out the window, and ran.

  The hail was still coming down, and the wind got stronger. I had no idea where I was going, but I needed to be with someone who would at least try to understand. When I arrived at the house, the storm had died down a bit. I knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer.

  ‘I told you to leave me alone! Oh- Summer, it’s you.’ I tried on put on a smile for Amy, and she stood back, motioning me into the house. ‘Come inside, you are soaking wet.’ When I walked into her house, it smelt of lavender.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, I am fine. Could I crash with you for a few days?’