Vengeance Bound

by Justina Ireland

  She’s unfazed by my outburst. “You always have a choice. That is one of the beautiful things about your kind, the number of options you have.” She looks wistful, as though she’s remembering a time when she could make her own decisions.

  “Uh-huh.” I glance around for an exit. I’m not interested in sticking around and listening to her ambiguous threats and prophecies. I pick a spot on the horizon, a place where the mountains bump against one another, and walk toward it. Eventually I’ll be able to break the hold she has over the dream, and then I can get some rest.

  “If I could tell you how to rid yourself of Them, I would. But I am forbidden. Just know this: He will change everything for Them, and They will do whatever They can to keep you away from him. I am warning you now. It is going to come down to him or Them. And They will not be happy with the answer.”

  I turn around to ask her who she’s talking about, but Alekto has already left the dreamscape. I sigh in resignation as the dream begins to dissolve. When I blink again, I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  I am completely clueless about what the dream meant, but at least now I can get some sleep.

  I roll over, trying to get comfortable. My eyes close, and I don’t give the golden goddess’s cryptic warning another thought.

  IMAGINARY ME

  After the first fifteen minutes of school, I’m certain I’ve made a mistake. Maybe West County wasn’t the best choice. It’s hard to remember that I need this, the sense of normalcy that school brings. It always seems like a good idea, but right now I’m wondering why I even bother.

  I gaze out the window of the guidance counselor’s office at the pickup trucks and beat-up family cars pulling into West County High’s parking lot. Boys dressed like designer lumberjacks and girls wearing high-end knockoffs bounce out of the vehicles and make their way through the snow and into the building. It all looks so normal. It’s different from my last school down in Virginia. There designer labels and expensive foreign cars were the order of the day. But beneath all of that money and wealth was the same darkness I’ve found everywhere I’ve been.

  Nine schools in the past two years. That has to be some kind of record. And being the new kid still makes me as nervous as a cat on a boat.

  So why am I scared? I haven’t even gone to a single class, and already my palms are slick with sweat, anxiety twisting my belly into knots. I’ve done this so many times, it should be easy. But it’s not. If I didn’t need this so much, this one little connection to the real world, I would leave and never come back. But it’s this small shred of normalcy that keeps me from completely becoming a monster.

  “Miss Graff, are you listening?”

  I blink and turn my attention back to Mr. Hanes and his never-ending welcome speech. He’s the school counselor and vice principal, and despite the name, he’d never be a candidate to model underwear. He’s a small, blustering mole of a man with a beer paunch and no hair. Judging by the awards proudly displayed on the walls—#1 ADMINISTRATOR, VICE PRINCIPAL OF THE YEAR, STUDENTS’ APPRECIATION—at some point in his career he actually convinced himself that he helps kids. Maybe it lets him justify the minuscule pay that doesn’t even allow for a new wardrobe. His paisley tie and brown suit are several decades out of fashion. I don’t say this, though. Instead I tilt my head slightly to the side and give him a megawatt smile, a testament to what modern dentistry can do.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hanes. I have to confess that I was staring out the window. Y’know, we just don’t get snow like that in the South.”

  The soft cadence of my voice has the desired effect. Some Northerners just can’t get enough of a Southern accent. People up here tend to think their cousins to the South are slow, and slow equals dumb. When people think you’re dumb, they underestimate you, and being underestimated is the greatest tool a hunter can have. The Furies taught me that. It’s why I adopted the drawl. You can never make things too easy for yourself.

  Mr. Hanes looks out the window, and his irritation is forgotten as he studies the snow-covered landscape outside. “Yes, I suppose it must be something to get used to, as if transferring in your senior year weren’t hard enough. Snow and college applications. You’ve got a full plate,” he says with a chuckle.

  I lean back in the chair and cross my ankles, folding my hands and resting them on my knees. I try to think of what Dr. Goodhart, my old shrink, would do. He was a master of manipulation, and I owe a lot to my time spent with him. “Now, Mr. Hanes, you were speaking of integrating well into my new environment?”

  I say it sincerely. Mr. Hanes clears his throat, and I can see I’ve caught him off guard. No normal, well-adjusted teenager talks like that, at least not without a heavy dose of sarcasm. I mentally swear at myself. You’re supposed to be fitting in. Instead I’ve wrested control of the moment and deflected his irritation. Mr. Hanes narrows his eyes as he senses my coup, and I widen my eyes to appear more innocent. The expression would look ridiculous on most people, but I know from practice that it looks authentic on me. I think it’s the eyes. They seem bluer every time I look in the mirror.

  That’s because you’re evolving, a husky voice whispers seductively in my mind. A warm breeze caresses my cheek, and my head fills with the soft rustle of wings shifting. Tisiphone. She’s always there to soothe, even though she’s the crazier of the two. I stiffen but try to remain calm.

  Mr. Hanes still studies me, and I sit a little straighter in my chair, thrusting my shoulders back. Out of habit I toss my hair over my shoulder. It’s a move They taught me. Like with most men, it distracts Mr. Hanes. He adjusts his tie and licks his lips. Discomfort stirs low in my belly, and I wish I hadn’t worn such a tight sweater. Unfortunately, my near strangulation left a mess of bruises on my throat, so I’m in for a week of turtlenecks or awkward questions. I opted for the turtlenecks. The sweater was the only thing clean.

  The Furies stir in the back of my mind at his casual regard, a settling of feathers and a slither of scales.

  Lustful creature, the serpent hisses.

  A girlish giggle echoes in my head. Let’s see if he’ll squeal like a pig.

  I blink, mentally pushing Them into the back of my mind. My constant companions, champions of justice and bloodshed, are also very distracting. At my urging They go meekly to the back of my mind, squatting on the edge of my consciousness like fat toads on a log. I smile again, allowing no hint of my inner turmoil to show on my face. Instead there’s a slight upturn of my lips. It’s meant to put Mr. Hanes at ease, but it has the opposite effect. My eyes must have given away Their thoughts. It happens sometimes, a shifting in the depths of my pupils that sets off the fight or flight response, like the gleam in the eyes of a predator. I thought I was doing a better job of restraining Them.

  You only think you’re controlling us. Megaera’s sibilant whisper is followed by mocking laughter. I fight the urge to rest my head in my hands. I’m not strong enough to do this again. Dr. Goodhart was right. I’m a danger to myself and others. I’ll never fit into normal society.

  Mr. Hanes watches me silently before he wipes at his suddenly sweaty brow. “I, uh—that is . . . Do you have any questions for me before we go get your class schedule?”

  I shake off my melancholy and force a yearbook-worthy grin to my face. “Nope.” Maybe I’m smiling too much. How much does the average person smile? Everything hinges on convincing people that I’m ordinary. Too many missteps and people will question my sanity. Again.

  I stand up and follow Mr. Hanes out into the school’s main office. From Mr. Hanes’s welcome speech I’ve learned that there are precisely 411 students at West County High. The office reflects the school’s small size. There is only one harried-looking secretary. Mr. Hanes holds two positions, and the principal, Ms. Halyard, is here only part-time. Her door is closed today, indicating that Monday is one of the days she’s at the nearby middle school.

  Mr. Hanes hands me a printout detailing my class schedule. The school’s layout is pretty straightf
orward. All of the classrooms are in the single L-shaped building.

  Mr. Hanes clears his throat again. “Here’s your schedule. Teachers have all the materials you need, so they’ll hand those out when you report. Your locker combination is there at the bottom, as well as your locker number.”

  Mr. Hanes trails off and just watches me, like his brain is trying to process an image it doesn’t understand. I watch him, wondering if he has ever acted on his impulses, if there’s any sort of justification to kill him on the spot. Then I remember why I’m here. I need to blend in. Another attempt at normalcy, at stopping the slow slide into becoming just like Them.

  Good luck with that.

  I open my mouth to thank him, but he’s still staring at me like I might jump up and bite him. They shift in the back of my mind, and I gnaw my lower lip. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for. Making Mr. Hanes nervous? Imagining what it would be like to choke him to death with his necktie? His face registers surprise at my comment, but he nods in acknowledgment anyway. I slip out of the office before Mr. Hanes’s mind can figure out what his gut already knows—that there is something very wrong with me.

  SET ADRIFT

  After four soul-crushing classes that make me question the sanity of high school—the history teacher spends twenty minutes ranting about immigration, and the English teacher sobs her way through a reading of a Shakespeare sonnet—I discover that West County High School is one of those archaic institutions where students are forced to eat on campus. I am informed of this when I try to leave at lunchtime. A fat man in a puffy jacket and orange safety vest waves me back from my car in the parking lot.

  “You got a pass?” It takes me a second to realize it’s not a statement but a question.

  “Uh, no. Am I s’posed to have one?” I smile and relax against my car. The metal of the Toyota is cold, even through my coat. The man does not frighten me. He’s the school equivalent of a mall cop.

  He sniffs. “You can’t leave campus without a pass. Now you get back inside before I report you to Mr. Hanes.” He pulls up on his belt to emphasize the statement.

  I have the urge to break the man’s nose. It’d be so easy. A simple thrust upward with the heel of my hand, to shove the little piece of cartilage so far into his nasal cavity that it utterly destroys his brain. It’s what the Furies urge me to do in soft whispers.

  Just a quick jab. Who’d notice?

  We could be in the car and gone before anyone hears his screams.

  Just a little taste, hmm? His pain would be so delicious.

  He has to be guilty of something.

  My hand reaches out, and I stop it with a start. Already They are taking charge, turning me into little more than a puppet. Their need to destroy life is an ever-present sensation, violence that simmers just below the thin veneer of control I wear.

  Normally I’m okay with that. It’s not always easy to know where I end and They begin. Sometimes I think I even enjoy the justice They hand down. But I came to West County with a mission: to be normal, live my life the way I want to, and stop the roller coaster of destruction They’ve put me on. I have to find balance. The past couple years of handing down justice have burned me out, moving from town to town, dodging close calls. Too many schools, too many new faces. I’m just so tired. I need a place to call home, even if it is the backwater of West County.

  I pull my hand back and cradle it against my chest while I take a few deep breaths. The cold air braces me and removes the fog that settled over my mind when the Furies urged me toward violence. I flash the confused security guard a smile. “Well, I do apologize. My mistake.” I flip my hair over my shoulder and go back the way I came.

  I’m not about to screw up everything on the first day.

  I’ve fought hard to retain this part of my life, the average girl. When the Furies began to urge me to justice after my parents died, I dismissed it immediately. True, They’d once saved my life, but that was before I knew Their price.

  When They’d first invaded my mind, Their whispers had driven me to the brink of insanity and had made my parents think I needed professional help. After my parents had sent me to Brighter Day, a facility for “troubled teens,” I’d been determined to get rid of Them, or at least ignore Them. I didn’t need the drama.

  Then my parents were killed on their way to see me one weekend. If it hadn’t been for the Furies, I wouldn’t have been in the hospital. I blamed Them for my parents’ deaths, and swore I wouldn’t give in to Their demands for justice. No matter what.

  After Brighter Day I moved in with my grandma down South. Savannah was warm and predictable and safe. I had a normal life to occupy me, and my grandmother was thrilled to have me around. For the first time in years I felt like I could forget the past and be happy. I ignored the Furies’ whispers and focused on meaningless pastimes like dancing, something I’d been into before life had gone so very wrong. When the cravings got too strong, I would run until I fell down from exhaustion, or eat more chocolate than the fat kid from Willy Wonka. Life was as normal for me as it was ever going to get, and everyone just chalked up my oddities to being a teenager.

  But slowly even the chocolate and physical exhaustion weren’t enough. I started to have the dreams again, to yearn for the screaming. The killing.

  The righteousness.

  I pushed the thoughts aside. Those were Their feelings, not mine. I knew despite Their constant whispers that They were wrong, that killing, no matter how justified, was morally repugnant. I tried to focus on what was important. Family. School. Church. Wearing the right clothes and the right hairstyles. Even though I secretly knew it was all so useless, that none of it really mattered. Family could disappear in the skid of tires on wet asphalt. School was pointless. I was always a little ahead, and I already knew all of the answers.

  But I was good at being good. Why would I want to ruin that?

  And then I saw him in the grocery store. At first I thought it was my imagination. After all, most people are just naturally drawn to cute kids. He wasn’t a monster, no matter how Tisiphone howled about his dark deeds. It was just my own overactive imagination that linked this stranger to my nightmares. Too little sleep. Too much time digging through the past with my new psychologist.

  But even without Their constant dialogue, something about the man seemed so familiar.

  I followed him, picking up items for my grandma out of order so I could track his meandering progress through the store. In the produce section he picked up a shiny red apple and handed it to a little girl crying in a shopping cart, a wide friendly smile on his face. He wasn’t my personal demon, but I knew the look of a predator when I saw it. And I knew I had to do something about it.

  Four months later my grandmother was dead and I was in Saint Dymphna’s, fighting for my life.

  I push the memories aside and walk back into the main building. Once inside I head straight to my locker to hang up my coat. When I pull open the metal door, a newspaper clipping, yellowed with age, flutters to the floor. It’s one of Their abilities, leaving me messages like this. I have no idea how They do it. I’ve learned over the years that They don’t wholly exist in this world, and that Their presence here is intertwined with mine. But I’m not sure if They place the clippings using some rip in the space-time continuum or if They have free run of this world while I sleep. I’ve never asked.

  I don’t really want to know.

  I pick up the slip of paper and read the headline: MAN CONVICTED OF FOUR RAPE-MURDERS RELEASED FOR “GOOD BEHAVIOR.”

  The article goes on to relate how Hank Meacham, a local mechanic, had originally been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for the murders of several young women. The state paroled him after only ten years, since he had been a model prisoner.

  I clench the article in my hand, crumpling the newsprint. The date on the story is from five years ago. The news clipping isn’t random. It’s Their way of signaling our next target. They weren’t happy ab
out quickly dispatching Alders last night, and now They’re ready to hunt again.

  I could ignore Them like Alekto wants me to, not go out tonight to get rid of the man in the article. Really, I’d like to never hand down another justice, to just live my life like an average girl. But that’s the fool’s errand, as my grandmother used to say. I tried it once, and the outcome was a hundred times worse than anything before or since. My grandmother might even still be alive if I hadn’t lost control so severely.

  A little control is better than none at all.

  I jam the clipping into my pocket before hanging my coat in the locker. After closing the metal door, I slowly walk to the cafeteria, dreading the half hour I will be forced to spend in the company of West County High’s student body.

  In the few weeks since I left Virginia, I’ve forgotten how grueling school can be. The constant attention, the judging and weighing. It’s like being under a microscope. They, however, love it.

  In my mind They keep up a constant dialogue as I maneuver down the hallway. They can read the sins of any man, and one of Their favorite pastimes is to tell me every little thing a person has done. High school is full of sinners.

  Oh, that one cheated on the girl who gave herself to him.

  That one’s a liar. Liar! And he had lustful thoughts about his teacher. We should punish him.

  What about that one? He doesn’t pray in church; instead he stares at the breasts of pious women.

  Scandalous!

  I ignore Them, looking down so I don’t have to make eye contact with the boys I pass. There are a few that They don’t comment on. Obviously not every guy is bad, but They can make something as small as stealing a cookie sound like a capital offense. For the most part I try to ignore Their whisperings.

  They never confess the wrongs of women. Early on I asked Them about this, but Their only answer was to start howling about Alekto’s betrayal and the man who stole her away. The sound was loud enough to give me a crippling headache. I never asked Them again.