"Essie? You in trouble?" The voice asked.
"Want to go to a party tonight?" I said. Turning to the mirror I caught my reflection. A sparkle of mischief danced in my eyes, my lips curving into a Chesershire smile.
The other line was quiet for a moment, but when the voice answered there was a pleased tone about it. "Thought you'd never ask," Abigail commented. "I'll be there in five."
F O U R
Across the small town of Belfast, Maine sat the only development of 'luxury' homes. House upon house of perfectly decorated brick, stone, and wood gave the place an eerie Stepford-wives feel. Leo's parents were two of the town's most known socialites. One a high-profile TV face and the other a former NFL player, they claimed the only way they could continue to live in Belfast was to build a gated home in a complex surrounded by others like themselves. Word had it his parents paid for the whole complex, houses and all, just for the township to approve it. The women I sat behind at church put it a little more blunt: they bribed the town with enough money to make Bill Gates blush.
By the time Abigail and I got there the party was in full swing. Kids sat half-past-drunk on the lawn, empty party cups strewn everywhere. Strobe lights flashed from the windows of the massive mansion, music blaring loud enough to spill out across the lawn to the street. A quick peek inside showed kids altering between body shots off the cheerleaders or chugging contests. All they needed was a back room with some alcohol IV bags ready to go and no one would be left sober.
We stepped inside the house, crossing over a couple in the midst of a sloppy make-out session. Beside me Abigail looked almost fearful. "You sure you want to be here? Cops could show up any minute," she half-screamed over the music.
I shook my head. "Cops don't crash a Skripper party, no way, no how." A puddle at the end of the flickering hall looked like water, or maybe vomit. "Come on, maybe there's more in the back."
We took turns watching our step between the broken objects, sloppy drunks, and weird pyramids of party cups throughout the house. Three different living rooms, two accidental walk-ins to bedrooms, and one broken lamp later, we were safely behind the kitchen doors. Oddly enough the kitchen looked like the only untouched room in the whole house. The music had dimmed to a low background noise.
Abigail ran her fingers along the white marble countertops as she walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Popping the top off she asked, "Was that really Ashley Jacobs doing-"
I shuddered and sank into one of the wicker bar stools at the island counter. "Yes, yes it was."
We busted out laughing. She paused between sips of water to admire the bottle in her hands. "Good to know her gag reflex is still functioning, very well too I may add." Her laugh turned into a snicker. "Wait until Brady-boy finds out."
I blinked and stared. "You mean that wasn't her boyfriend?"
She let out a cackle and shook her head. "Most definitely not! Brad has a," she paused. The outside sliding door had opened, Leo slipping inside. His green eyes widened in surprise as he took in the sight of the Abigail, only to stop and stare at me.
"Ah, the host finally shows!" Abby raised her water bottle. "Cheers. You managed to get every student in Belfast High sloshed."
He chuckled, sparing her a shake of the head. But his eyes came back to rest on me. "Not my doing. Some other guys from the team brought the booze. Ryan and his buddies bled their parents' cabinets dry." He passed Abby and took a can of soda from the fridge. "The remaining of us that are sober are at the bonfire out back. You two going to join?"
Abigail and I exchanged glances. I had already came and proved my point to Jayson that I wasn't nuts and going to split in half on the turn of a dime. And so far the hallucinations had been keeping to themselves which was twice as nice. No harm in a little fun.
"I came this far, might as well go all the way," I grinned and winked at the two of them, hopped off the stool and gave Leo a stare. "Lead the way."
He nodded and opened the door but not before I caught the twitch of a smile on his lips. We followed him out into the inky night, small lanterns hanging on iron rods illuminating an endless backdrop of meticulously manicured backyards. Cobblestone paths spiraled and twisted every which way, leading to anything from a personal sauna to an emergency bomb shelter compound, Leo told us. I believed it.
Just over the hill a yellow-glow bled over the horizon line. Leo led us closer until we reached the peak of the hill. Just below the slope a giant bonfire, chunks of wood as the size of ancient tree trunks piled into the shape of a frame for an Indian tee-pee stood ablaze. Streaks of red, orange, yellow and blue wrapped around the wood like a vice, encasing it in its eternally burning grasp.
Leo continued down the slope without us, reaching his girlfriend and giving her a small kiss on the cheek. Her eyes turned to me and narrowed to slits almost instantly.
"What is your beef exactly with Ursula?" Abigail asked. We joined the others in front of the fire, most preferring to avert their eyes than greet us.
I shrugged. "I'm the social discrepancy intruding her perfect little world." When Abigail stared back at me, I rolled my eyes. "I'm the bug in her bedroom hanging above her head. Duh."
As if she had sonic hearing, Ursula cleared her throat. "So surprised to see you here, Hanley. I thought the picture of a dead cat on the front door would have left you screaming."
Snickers rebounded around the bonfire. My cheeks flushed and I looked to Leo, who pointedly looked away. He looked just as embarrassed as me.
Over the thrumming roar of the flames, I sharpened my tongue. "Funny, Ursula. Get that off the box your tacky fashion-sense came from? Or did your over-paid hairstylist tell you to say that?" I gave a nonchalant shrug and stage whispered. "I'd consider hiring a new one. She makes you look 30 with that crop cut."
Ursula pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes even further. "Why did you run, Hanley? Afraid the teacher was going to use you for dissection next?"
"I'll give you a dissection," Abigail muttered, stepping forward. I grasped one of her wrists and shook my head. It just wasn't worth it. One look around the bonfire told me that everyone else was with Ursula on this. My thoughts from before were true, I didn't belong here. I was invading their space, their lives.
All I wanted was for the kids to quit thinking I was a freak. To include me in their circles, maybe not a friend, but not an outcast. Heat spread through my skin, building in my fingertips and cheeks. Just once, I wanted to fit in somewhere, wherever it would be.
I pulled my hands back and shouted. My fingertips were tender and red, almost blistering. I must have had my hands too close to the fire. I looked around, waiting to hear the bursts of laughter for being the only one to scald myself on the fire, but it seemed no one had even noticed.
"Hey, Essallie, did you need my notes for Biology?" someone called out from across the fire. A couple people stepped aside as one of the girls, Emily Sanders I remembered, came over with a shy smile on her face.
"Uhhh, you sure?" I looked at Abigail, who shrugged but gave me the same raised eyebrow look. Emily was one of Ursula's 'clones', as we called them privately. They matched in almost everything, from clothing choices to taste in boys. I took a quick glance over towards Ursula just in time to watch her face turn to a violent hissing mask of rage.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Gabby and I both did it. You know, one does the first half while the other does make-up, then we switch," she giggled, her smile growing more with each word she spoke. "And," her voice dropped low, "if you need anyone to talk to about, you know, all that weird stuff that happened in New York, I know a few of the student councilors."
Weird stuff. Good to know the rumors were still flying around like hawks for the kill. "Weird stuff?"
"Yeah," someone else piped up. I recognized him from Math, Dalton was his name. He seemed to hesitate for a second. "But it's all just rumor, right? You didn't really get bit by a vampire and take off out the window with wings from your back, right?"
A redhe
ad who I didn't know made a noise. "I heard you were bathed in dead animal blood. That's why you ran from the Bio classroom, or so Jessica said."
The blonde alongside the redhead, Jessica I presumed, shook her head. "No you idiot, I said she ran because the dissection reflected what was going to happen to her once the ritual began." Her chest swelled up as she tried to look important. "A god can only wait so long for a sacrifice."
I listened to all of it, watching as each one spelled out a different rumor. One had me as a hybrid human, another as an alien, some even thought I was probed by aliens. Any mythical creature, both the known and unknown, were called into the air. It was all I could do not to laugh myself to death. Abigail on the other hand, was in hysterics.
"What about angels?" one voice called out. A couple heads turned as I strained to see who it was that had asked. Across the bonfire, dressed like everyone else, stood a familiar face. Too familiar. I already knew without having to stand beside him that his skin was a dark olive color, perfectly unblemished. His eyes could be whatever color his heart desired, but grey and black were the only two I'd ever imagined in my hallucinations.
I had gone too far.
"Excuse me, who are y-" Ursula started to snip.
"I asked the girl. Essallie, is it?" The demon gave me the best harmless smile his vicious features could manage. A wolf in sheep's clothing.
All eyes turned from the demon to me. He wasn't just a hallucination this time, I realized. Everyone else could see him, too. In one decision I had inadvertently placed every person in my contact directly into his hands. Hands with claws like steel, ready to rip flesh off like tissue paper off a gift on Christmas morning.
My mouth was dry as I spoke. "Yes, Essallie. Who are you, again?"
"Who I am is not important."
I shook my head. If he was willing to interrupt my life to slaughter those around me, I'd stall him as long as I could in my only gutsy move. "Oh no, boy, it is. Tell me your name and then we'll begin the game."
Abigail beside me whispered 'Game?' into my ear, but I ignored her. My eyes were locked onto the demon, waiting for the slightest hint of movement. He let out a small, infuriated sigh and ran his fingers through the short black hair on his head, but his smile never faltered. If anything, it only grew larger across his cheeks. "I love games. What game will we be playing, Essallie?" He purred, letting his s's roll.
"War," I said, picking the first game that came to mind. "For the last time, you are who?"
His eyes smoldered, seeming to burn hotter than the fire between us. "Kayden."
All around us I felt each pair of eyes bouncing back and forth, a never-ending tennis match of words and hidden exchanges. "Alright, Kayden. The answer is no, no one has suggested angels. Pretty sure that's the opposite of sacrifices and buckets of blood. Especially when the guy who tried to kill me used a demonology book, not the Bible."
"Actually," Jessica snuck back into the conversation, "there's tons of sacrifice and blood in the Bible. It's just not actively capitalized on."
The demon, Kayden, cut her off. "Save the Bible Study chat for Sunday School, little girl."
"Excuse me," Ursula growled, the shiver of fear from Jessica fueling my own inner fire. "We don't tolerate playground bullies around here. Or party crashers for that matter. Leo's buddies will escort you out."
Two of the football players from our school stepped close to him. Kayden looked from one to the other, a sly smile creeping on his lips. As one of the players grasped Kayden's upper arm, Kayden ducked underneath and between the guy's legs, using his other hand to pull him down face first into the mud.
In another move, he stood in front of Ursula, pitch black eyes piercing into hers. "Essallie," he called, never looking to me. "I'd let your little friend here in on the secret you learned the first time we met."
A could still grasp onto the beads of courage inside my chest, but barely. My skin started to turn cold, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. Somewhere inside I knew the answer to my question, but I asked regardless. "What secret?"
When he turned to face me for all of one second, it took all of me not to scream. His face had transformed into a mask of horror, scales lining his previously unblemished skin like craters. Little horns of pure onyx encircled his face as extra nostrils covered his nose. But I was solely focused on the needle-thin razor teeth, yellowed from time, and the set of pure black eyes that encompassed nearly half of his face, the insides bubbling crimson vats.
Only one eye blinked, specks of blood flicking off his short eyelashes. "That I pick my teeth with weaklings like all of you."
As fast as the mask had shown itself, he returned to perfectly normal. No one else seemed as terrified as I was, so I knew he only let me see the gruesome face. Slowly he stepped back, his eyes trailing over every person huddles around the bonfire. The flames had suddenly began to die, glimmers of the wintry frost of Maine coating the corners of each log.
He was threatening to kill every one of them, just like he had Chase.
All because I had associated with them. Because he couldn't touch me for reasons unknown.
Rage began to build inside my chest. How dare he try to take away the only remaining pieces of a normal life I had left? And for what, so he could eat me? Adrenaline pumped through my veins, and it was all I could do to not see red. The burn of untamed energy spread through my body once again, building in my fingertips like pressure points ready to burst. No more mercy, no more running. I was done.
"Go ahead and try," I hissed and stepped closer to him. Behind me I felt the flames from the bonfire burst skyward with a gust, blowing concentrated heat over my shoulders.
Kayden's smirk slipped, an emotionless mask falling in place. He opened his mouth to speak when a scream sounded behind me.
I turned. Jessica was laid out on the ground, eyes rolled up in the back of her head. Her body quivered and shook involuntary, limbs splaying out every which way. Abigail, Ursula, Leo, and the others immediately moved to her, holding her down and keeping her head in place. "Someone call an ambulance!"
Ursula had her phone cradled against her cheek, giving the operator Leo's address. First responders would be on their way in minutes, along with the local Belfast police chief, Jessica's father.
I turned back around. Kayden was gone. But where he stood the grass was missing, only scorched ground remained.
F I V E
The next morning seemed darker, drearier, almost as if someone had pulled the curtains over the sunlight and left everything obscured in the hollow of an abyss. It seemed to seep into everyone, myself included.
I stood outside Abigail's locker just before lunch. She continued to rifle through the same pack of papers crammed into the corners of her locker, grumbling under her breath with each shove of stuff. I couldn't help but feel Kayden had something to do with the gloomy attitude lingering over the school.
No. I was not about to go there. Excusing a poor weather day on a supernatural creature, if they even really existed, was not something I was going to start doing. There was always a real reason for the way things happened, like physics and psychology. Kayden was probably just some figment of my imagination everyone else was engaging with last night out of pity. Or maybe last night never happened at all.
"So how bad was the third degree when you got home?" I asked Abigail to try and keep my mind off the creeping thought of Kayden. And the idea that I was completely bat-shit insane.
"What?" Abigail stuck her head out of her locker, cussing in a low breath. She waived a hand dismissively at my face. "Oh, please. Like my Mom cares if I come home. She's too busy trying to bed some other man to 'give me a father.' What about you? I'm sure Jayson didn't go easy."
Didn't go easy barely touched his reaction. After having the wonderful pleasure of him being one of the first responders to show, things weren't really smooth between us, but more like a cluster of grunts and the words 'grounded' mixed in with all kinds of other lovely phrases.
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br /> "Let's just say if I go missing in the next few weeks make sure Jayson is investigated and the backyard dug up," I said. Inside her locker, Abigail snorted.
"He's just protecting you. You know how it is in the movies. The older brother's always afraid his cute little sis is going to choke on the marshmallow or drown in her closet of clothes," she cracked in between giggles.
I smacked the back of her head and she swore. "Seriously? He's more afraid I'm going to choke on air. I think he even glued my window pane shut the other night just in case." Not that I wasn't guilty of tripping into things, but at least I could say I had never fallen out of a window open or closed.
Swearing again, Abigail slammed her locker shut, kicking it for good measure. "Come on, we're going to be late for lunch. And while we're on the subject, think of a good excuse as to why I can't find my Bio paper so Whitley doesn't fail me."
"Tell him you had to work the corner last night to get over your Daddy issues," I suggested to Abigail's glare. "Sorry, I got nothing. Last night's still running around in my head."
"Circles or sprints?" She grinned but shook her head as we walked into the Cafeteria and took our usual seats. Like always, we were the last two, and no one was in the mood to offer any form of communication with me around. Abigail yanked out a bagged lunch of tuna on wheat, a blueberry muffin, and a mug of still-warm cocoa. "Anyone hear any news on Jessica?"
I sat back with a notebook on my lap, listening as Thomas spoke first. "She's still in Portland running CT scans and looking for why she had the seizure."
The girl on his side I met last night, Emily, chimed in. "Think it had anything to do with that Kayden kid?"
I stopped in mid-Algebra equation and looked up, my palms suddenly sweating. "What about Kayden?"
"Why don't you tell us, Essallie?" Thomas challenged, narrowing his eyes. "You were the only one there who knew him."
"There's no need for the hostility, Thomas," Abigail chided.
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