Seventh (The Hafling Chronicles Book 1)

by Abigail McGovern

  “Woah, Mer.” I hold my arms out palms up. “He only likes me as much as he has to, his employer being my grandmother and all.”

  Mer bounces up and down in her seat. “Ooooohhhh!!!! That makes it even better! Forbidden loooooove!”

  “Mer, why would he have listened to what I said?”

  “Well he didn’t yell back at you.”

  “I did jump on the bus before he could say anything.” I point out.

  She beams at me. “Yeah, but I bet now he’ll call you Olivia instead of Liv, since you yelled at him.”

  “Whatever you say Mer.” I say with a shake of my head, pulling out my notebook to study for my history test for the rest of the bus ride.

  When we get to the school, and climb off the bus, Mer nudges me, and nods her head. “Look. He’s following us!”

  I roll my eyes, not even bothering to look. “Mer, he’s just getting off the bus.”

  “Hey.” I jump, in shock. Lukas stands right behind me. “You were right. I’m sorry Olivia.”

  “Um.” I say, flustered. “It’s ok.” He nods, and turns and walks away.

  “Aaaahhh!” I groan as someone leaps into me, and gives me a huge hug.

  “I knew it! I just knew it!” Mer cheers.

  I stare at her for a second, then shake my head, knowing I won’t be able to convince her otherwise. “Come on Mer, let’s go to class.”

  Chapter Five

  “Are you ready?” Mer asks me in a hushed voice.

  We sit on the wall that surrounds the student courtyard our trays balanced on our laps. Mer and her family are very voodoo-y, and superstitious. Mer believes that this town is filled with old ghosts, and ancient tales, and that some people can see them, if the ghostly world is opened to them. As crazy as it is I believe her. We tried three times so far, and last time I saw a……...something. A wisp of something.

  “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  Mer scoots closer to me, and places her hands on my temples. She closes her eyes, and I close mine. I hear her take a deep breath, and mumble quietly under her breath. When she stops mumbling, I take a deep breath, and open my eyes.

  “Huuh!” I gasp in shock. All around me, ghostly, out of focus figures walk around. I stand up way too fast, and my view of the ghostly world vanishes. “OhmygoshMer!” I say without taking a breath. “I saw it! I saw them!”

  Mer looks at me, shocked. “Ghosts? You really saw them?”

  I nod. “Omg, yes! It was-”

  “What’s this about ghosts?” A cold voice asks, cutting me off. I look up, and find myself staring into pitiless black eyes, empty as a void.

  “Dillon.” Mer says coldly. “What do you want?” Mer is nice to everybody, but ever since my weird encounter with Dillon last week, she’s been suspicious of him, and doesn’t bother to hide it.

  “Oh relax Esmeralda.” Dillon says airily. “ I just want to know about your ghosts.” He has a dangerous look about him as he speaks, and I don’t want to know what happens when you push him.

  I stand up, and grab our two lunch trays. “I have no idea what you’re talking about Dillon. Come on Mer, we’re going inside.” We make it about two steps before Dillon reached out and grabbed my arm. He spins me around roughly, and our food flies off our trays.

  “Oh, Olivia.” Dillon says. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

  “What’s your problem!?” I spit, viscously.

  “My problem?” He yanks me roughly toward him and shakes me. “How can you see the ghosts? Who are you?”

  “Don’t touch her Dillon!” Dillon looks up and I follow his gaze. Lukas stands in front of us, muscles tense.

  “Ooohh, Lukas, who is this girl to you?” He pulls me closer to him, and whips out a knife, holding it against my throat. I take a deep breath, and stand up straighter, trying my best not to look as terrified as I feel, but my heart is pounding out of my chest and my breathing is too fast, too shallow.

  What. The heck. Is happening? Is the thought the keeps whirling rapidly around in my head. No normal guy whips a knife out in the middle of a school. And for that matter no normal guy defends a girl they barely know to a knife wielding maniac, employers granddaughter or not. I look back up at him.

  “Let. Her. Go.” Lukas grinds out. Dillons laughs, and faster than my eyes can follow, Lukas tackles Dillon, slamming into his side, knocking the knife aside. I jump up and stagger backwards, out of the way of the wrestling pair of boys. Mer is nowhere in sight, probably swallowed by the writhing crowd.

  A small blonde girl, a freshman maybe, screams as Dillon picks Lukas up like a rag doll, and tosses him toward her. Faster than I thought possible, I leap forwards, and knock the girl aside. I hear a grunt as Lukas collides with the wall and look over worriedly, but I don’t stop to see if he’s okay.

  I pull the freshman girl to her feet. “Are you ok?” When she nods, I grab her shoulders and push her in the direction of the doors. “Get as many people back into the cafeteria as you can, and warn a teacher.”

  “A teacher has been warned.” Says a voice from behind me. I spin around. My drama teacher, Mr. Depp (No relation) stands behind me. He winces as a kid slams into him in their haste to escape the fight, but draws himself up and addresses me. “Olivia, what’s going on? What happened?”

  Something tells me to withhold the information about Mer and the ghosts, or about Dillon attacking me, but I do say. “Dillon attacked…...a student with a knife, no I have idea how he got it into the school, and Lukas jumped in to help, and this...sort of happened.” Mr. Depp nods, but looks uncomfortable.

  “To be perfectly honest Olivia, I have no idea how to handle a situation like this, unless it’s in a play. What do you think?”

  “I think-”

  “Get out of my way, sophomore!” Dillon growls. I look up, then gasp as Adam Childs, a sophomore who rides my bus, falls backwards, into me.

  “Adam! What are you doing?” Adam is shaking with pain, and favoring one foot as he stands up, but he puffs his chest out, and answers me anyways.

  “Somebody has to help Lukas take this jerk down a peg.” He tries to limp back into the crowd, but I grab his arm and pull him back.

  “Amber.” I say to Amber, a freshman girl who’s in drama with me. “Take him and any other injured kids to the-” I look up at Dillon, who is grinning at me. Of course a psychopath like him would want to know where injured kids were being kept. I lean in close to Amber, and whisper in her ear. “To the gym.”

  She nods and pulls Adam with her to the gym. I turn back to Mr. Depp. “Get other teachers and call parents. Explain what’s going on, and tell them if their kids are injured. If you know, that is.” He nods, not even caring that he’s a teacher, and I’m junior and I’m giving him orders.

  I turn and run, shoving my way through the crowd towards the tall wall that separates the courtyard from the soccer fields. Two cheerleaders, who just back hand-springed out of the crowd, see me and,guessing what I'm doing, crouch down, knitting their hands to make a basket. I’ve never done a basket toss before, even when I used to do cheer I was never small enough to be a flyer. I jump onto their hands and they push me into the air. (Cheerleaders- clearly- have mind reading abilities.)

  I land on the wall, windmilling my arms to keep my balance, and survey the crowd. People, even the stuck up jocks who are supposedly Dillon’s friends, try to help Lukas fight Dillon. Dillon shoves them out of the way and laughs.

  “You really think any of you are a match for me?” He shouts. “I am-aack!” Lukas appears in front of him, and punches him square in the mouth. He spits a glob of blood, and a few broken teeth out onto the cobbled ground, then glares at Lukas in murderous rage.

  Lukas smirks. “Well, aack maybe you shouldn’t talk so much during a fight.” He taunts, then he punches Dillon in the side of the head. Dillon's head snaps to the side with so much force that his neck cracks loudly, and everybody in the courtyard winces, but then a collective cheer goes up.

  Two rela
tively strong looking boys grab Dillon’s arms, and another jumps on his back. Someone else attempts to punch him the same way Lukas did. I don’t know why everyone suddenly hates Dillon so much, and wants Lukas to be the hero, but they do, and now, it looks, for a second, like we might be strong enough to keep Dillon down. But just for a second. Then, Dillon literally roars, and shakes off the boy clinging to his back. He grabs the two boys holding his arms, and slams their heads together. They gasp and crumble to the ground, unconscious. Then he bats the last boy aside, and reaches forward and punches Lukas in the nose.

  There is an audible snap, and Lukas staggers backwards, his hand pressed to his nose, blood streaming through his fingers. Dillon laughs and jumps into the air, kicking Lukas hard in the stomach with both feet. Lukas doubles over gasping and I wince, hearing a rib snap. The whole audience is frozen, wanting to help Lukas, but not able to do anything.

  We stand, unable to help, as Dillon jumps up and snap kicks Lukas in the side of the head, then, while he’s down, flings him off to the right. He straightens and spins in a circle, his arms open wide, as if to embrace someone.

  “Come on!” He roars. “Anyone else want a piece of this!?” Someone charges him, and he catches them by the wrist, spins in a circle, then releases them. The poor boy flies off into the crowd. Dillon tosses his head back and laughs.

  “Psychopath!” A girl chokes out, rage filling her voice.

  Dillon freezes. “Who said that? Where are you? I dare you to say that to my face!” He can’t see her, but from my position, I can. A short girl with a proud stance, a short auburn ponytail, and fierce brown eyes. I don’t recognize her, but I’d say she’s either a junior or a senior.

  “I did!” She calls. “I can see your face perfectly fine from here, psycho!”

  “Lori!” Someone near her calls out.

  Dillon’s muscle tense. “Lori? Who’s Lori!?” He swings his head back and forth like a crazed bull.

  Lori laughs. “It doesn’t matter does it, you big idiot? I’m just the distraction!” Dillon’s eyes widen with realization, and he spins around, just as a boy with dark hair collides with him. Adam.

  “Adam!” I shout, but it’s too late, they’re already fighting.

  They grapple for a moment, then Dillon’s gaze drops towards the ground, and my heart clenches with fear as I see what it is he’s looking at. The knife Dillon was using earlier. From the worried murmurs, the rest of the crowd must see it too. Dillon inches his foot under it, and people shout with rage and try to move closer, but Dillon wraps his arm around Adam’s neck, and laughs, causing everyone to freeze. A burning anger rages through my veins, and I fling myself from the wall.

  My foot hits the ground at an angle, and I slide towards the jungle of legs and feet keeping me from reaching my destination. I’ll never make it through. I have to make it through. I close my eyes, willing myself to make it through somehow. When I open my eyes I’m hitting the legs of the first people blocking my way. I go through. All the way through. I see bone, and muscle, and blood, and sinew, which, frankly, is not a very pretty sight.

  All the sudden I come out in the middle of the circle of people, and my fingers close around the hilt of the knife. I launch myself to my feet and hurl the knife over Dillon’s head to a sophomore girl with olive skin, big hazel eyes, and long black hair escaping a messy braid. Dillon turns, amused, as the knife hurtles end over end towards her. As soon as the hilt end turns toward her she yanks it expertly out of the air and presses the tip of it against Dillon throat.

  “Let my brother go.” Says Fiona Childs in an icy calm voice.

  “I suggest you do what she says, considering you’re surrounded, and not just by teenagers.” Says a voice I know incredibly well. A voice I’ve known forever, all sixteen years of my life. From the moment I was born in fact.

  “Mom?”

  My mother looks up relieved. “Liv!” Behind her are police officers, and other terrified looking parents. I see Mrs. Childs staring in shock at her granddaughter holding a knife to a boy's throat, while her injured grandson is practically being choked to death by that same boy.

  Dillon looks at the police officers and parents, and drops Adam. Fiona catches him, and helps him steady himself, then, when her grandmother looks away, slides the knife into her combat boot. Then Dillon turns to me, his eyes still burning with a murderous rage.

  “You ready to tell me about those ghosts now Liv?”

  I step back. “Dillon-” He leaps forward and grabs my arm, pulling me through the crowd of shocked kids and parents, and into the school. People reach out and try to catch my arms, but Dillon’s too strong, and I get pulled straight through.

  “Liv!” I hear my mom shout behind me, only horror in her voice now.

  He drags me roughly, slamming me into walls, and into other students who were in class when the fight happened. We jerk to a halt outside the library, only a few feet away from the gym. Dillon turns to me urgently. “We only have a few moments Olivia, so why don’t you cooperate? You saw the ghosts, so who are you? How exactly did you get through that crowd to reach the knife?”

  I frown at him. This whole fight is about ghosts, and I don’t even know if they were real. I very well could have been imagining them. Dillon gives me a rough shake, and I glare at him. I am not going to let him hurt more people over a few ghosts, imaginary or not. “I’m sorry Dillon, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And to some degree, I don’t.

  He growls-yes growls-with rage, and takes a threatening step towards me, but I’m not afraid. His arm flashes out, adrenaline surges through me, and time seems to slow down. I have two options. Get hit, or jump through the glass doors into the library. I decide to sacrifice the glass. His fist is centimeters away from my face when I jump.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, and wait for the glass to shatter around me as I fall through, like a scene from a movie, but when I hit the carpeted ground, I look up and gasp. The doors are still utterly intact, yet here I am inside the library. I can’t possibly have gone through the door, or all those legs for that matter, could I have? It’s not even remotely possible. There has to be another explanation.

  On the other side of the door, Dillon shouts with rage, and leaps at the door, because, apparently it’s faster for him to go through the glass then to open the door, but he never hits it, because a shape flies at him and knocks him aside. Lukas kicks Dillon in the stomach while he’s down, then spins to face me.

  He opens his mouth to speak, but I cry “Lukas, watch out!” Dillon staggers to his feet, and throws himself into Lukas.

  As they fall towards the glass, Lukas twists in mid-air, and shouts “Liv, run!”

  I struggle to my feet, and dive behind a bookshelf, as the glass shatters with a loud craaaaash!!!! Shards of glass rain down around me as I peek over the bookshelf.

  Dillon tosses Lukas into the circulation desk, and I hear a librarian-because it probably wasn’t Lukas- scream piercingly. Lukas shouts at me over the screaming, but the only thing I hear is “Out!” Luckily I can put together the pieces. I fling myself backwards, and squeeze my eyes shut, feeling lots of hard painful things falling around me.

  “Liv?” Lukas yells.

  I kick aside encyclopedias and broken chair pieces, and lean forward, out from under the table I must have fallen into. “Yeah, I’m good.” I try to sound nonchalant but my adrenaline kick is wearing off, and I’m terrified.

  “Not for lo-ong!” Dillon calls in a singsong voice, jumping out of the wreckage of the reference section.

  Frantically I grab the closest encyclopedia I can find, The Encyclopedia of Trees, and heft it up. “Good thing it’s big!” I raise my arm, and smack Dillon in the head.

  “Ow!” He falls, and I scramble backwards out from under the table. He grabs my ankle and I scream and push on the two remaining intact table legs. The table collapses on Dillon and I jump to my feet.

  “Lukas, come on!” I pull him toward the back door of the library as the
floor begins to shake, and the books tumble off their shelves. “Ah!” A ball of fire flies past my left arm and into the section of computers. “What’s going on, again!?”

  “Liv go!” Ignoring my question, Lukas shoves me toward the back door, and I fall into a fiction shelf as the ground shifts.

  My favorite series falls, all twelve books hitting me in the head. I poke my head out past the fifth and ninth books. Dillon stands in the middle of the library, fire streaming from his hands. He advances toward Lukas, shooting fireballs at random.

  One hits the shelf in front of me and thick black smoke billows around me, filling my lungs. I struggle to breathe, and push books surrounding my legs aside, but I’m trapped. There are other books around me, but it’s my favorite series that holds me captive. My head falls to the side, and I choke and sputter, tears streaming down my face. I never thought this is how it would end….

  The last thing I see before the world goes dark is a woman, who looks very much like my mother, run towards me, and raise her hands. Books float up around her, and darkness engulfs my vision.

  Chapter Six

  I awaken to the steady beep, beep, beep of a heart monitor, the beeps increasing in speed as I wake up and my heart rate increases. “Do you hear that?” A woman's voice asks. “The faster beeps mean-”

  “I know, I know!” Interrupts an excited girls voice. “It means she’s awake!”

  I cry out in pain as someone tackles me. I open my eyes and moan. “Ow! Get off me!”

  Mer laughs, and flops back into an armchair that is right next to my bed. “It’s just a hug!” She scoots her chair closer, puts her elbows on the bed, then rests her chin on her hands. The nurse frowns disapprovingly at her, and I can see why.

  She is covered in filth from head to toe: her clothes are torn, her face and arms are scratched, and she is covered with soot. Her frizzy reddish brown hair escaped her tight bun in places. Tendrils of hair snake their way down her neck, to brush her shoulders, and smaller strands have escaped and fallen around her face.