“Please,” Jimmy pleaded. His breath was now wheezing in and out of his lungs.
Jimmy looked up into the sky again. Near the edges, down by the horizon, the blue darkened. It was nearly the color of sapphires.
Sapphire.
Jimmy closed his eyes and thought of her face. In an instant, he could see her face, get lost in her eyes, smell her skin and hair. He could see her smile.
I’m right there, she said inside his mind. I’m right there with you. You can do this. You’re braver than you know.
Jimmy felt something in his heart. If he had been forced at gunpoint to tell what it was, he would be hard-pressed to describe the feeling. It was as if something, some force, had entered his body and sank into his soul. He felt stronger. He felt a kind of warmth and tingling spread throughout his body from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair. Suddenly, Jimmy no longer felt like whining and pleading. He stopped himself from being dragged and forced his feet on the ground so he could walk.
“Fine,” Jimmy said, “let’s do this.”
Jimmy sensed a moment’s hesitation in Stan. Suddenly, the hand on the back of his neck was lighter. Stan was expecting Jimmy to beg, plead, kick, and scream, and this sudden change was off-putting.
Jimmy felt a smile creep across his face. It was as if he were just a passenger inside his own body. He could see everything with such clarity. He looked up and saw Clinton’s face. Dale stood to Clinton’s right.
“Hi, Clinton,” Jimmy said, casually, calmly, in a voice that did not sound like his own. “How’s the hand? Does it hurt?”
Clinton’s sneer faltered. He was put off by Jimmy’s demeanor, as well.
“Yeah,” Clinton said, “it hurts, you little punk.”
Stan gave Jimmy a push and Jimmy stepped into the shadows behind the bleachers. Although Jimmy was long and lanky, not much shorter than the three jocks, they still seemed to tower over him. Stan took a spot to Clinton’s left, slightly farther away from Clinton than Dale was. Jimmy guessed that this was to stop him from running. Little did they know that he had no plans to go anywhere.
“So this is what’s going to happen,” Stan said, trying to regain control of the situation. “Clinton gets the first hit. And he keeps hitting until he gets tired. Then we each take a turn. Then whatever’s left can go to the hospital.”
Stan’s mouth split into a hideous sneer that could have been called a smile only in the most disturbed mind.
“Or the morgue,” Stan finished.
Jimmy nodded, but said nothing. He looked straight at Clinton.
“I don’t use this hand much,” Clinton said, raising his left hand, “but I think you’ll still feel this.”
Jimmy saw it all - everything he had to do. He knew how to move, how they would move, and what he had to do to counteract it. It was as if he could see invisible strings attached to each of them. He knew which ones they would pull to try and hurt him, and he could see which ones he had to pull, twist and cut to make sure they failed.
Clinton let out something like a growl and swung with his left fist. He put everything into the punch. Jimmy didn’t move. With crystal clarity, he watched the fist, could see the hair on the knuckles. There was a small freckle near the second knuckle of Clinton’s middle finger. On the pinkie finger, there was a small cut, perhaps a paper cut.
When the fist was inches from Jimmy’s face, he moved to the right. It was just a tilt of his head, and then he pushed off with his left foot. He could feel Clinton’s fist brushing against his skin, but he felt no pain. Clinton’s momentum carried him forward and he spun around, his eyes going wide, his mouth suddenly open like a fish’s. Clinton lost his footing in the grass, which was still slightly wet from the morning dew. Dale’s eyes gaped as the full bulk of Clinton’s body crashed into his. Both of them went down in a heap.
Jimmy turned and faced Stan. It felt as if Stan and the rest of the world were moving in slow motion. Stan’s face showed just a hint of fear. This was not how he had planned it, Jimmy could tell. They had expected to beat Jimmy to death, and Jimmy, with one move, had taken out two of them.
Stan recovered and balled up both fists. He bit his lower lip, and his upper lip peeled back from his teeth.
Jimmy knew that his own punch would not do a damn thing. He had no muscle and no weight behind it. He had never punched anyone in his life and he’d probably end up breaking his fingers. So he did the only thing he could think of. He rocked backwards and then rocketed his head forward.
Stan was in mid-punch, already leaning forward. There was an instant when Stan’s eyes went wide as he realized Jimmy’s head was coming straight for his face. The arch of Jimmy’s forehead met the bridge of Stan’s nose. There was a crunch that could be heard across the parking lot. Blood exploded from Stan’s nose, and he fell as though Jimmy had cut the tendons in his legs.
Jimmy whirled. He knew that he was running on adrenaline now. The pain was deadened by the chemicals released by his brain, but he didn’t have much time before the full impact of that blow made his head explode in pain.
Dale had gotten to his feet. Clinton was struggling to get up using just one hand. Dale’s eyes narrowed, but he looked frightened. He was out of his element.
Dale swung with his right hand. Again, it was a powerful blow. Jimmy moved to his right, but the blow caught him on the shoulder. It didn’t hurt much, but the force of it sent him spinning. As he spun, he stuck out his right foot. Dale was still off balance as Jimmy spun and connected with the jock’s knee. Jimmy’s shoe met Dale’s knee slightly below the kneecap. Dale’s leg bent backwards and he let out a scream, his right leg flying out from under him. Jimmy danced to his left and Dale fell into a heap on the ground, clutching his leg.
Clinton looked as if he were going to cry. He kept saying Stan’s name over and over, and when Dale went down, he added Dale’s name to his litany. Then he looked at Jimmy in terror. It was as if Jimmy could read Clinton’s thoughts. How did things go so wrong? some part of Clinton’s brain was saying to him. By this point, Jimmy should have been on the ground bleeding and crying. Clinton, Dale, and Stan should have been standing over him, breathless, their knuckles sore, but laughing.
Clinton panicked. He swung his hand, but realized it was the hand Jimmy had stabbed the other night an instant before Jimmy let Clinton hit him on the top of the head. The blow hurt his already-throbbing skull, but the top of the head is one of the thickest areas of bone on the body. The thick bandages on Clinton’s hand also cushioned the blow to Jimmy’s head a bit. The jock let out a bellow and then began doing a strange kind of dance, clutching his hand to his chest.
There were tears in Clinton’s eyes.
“Anything else?” Jimmy said, looking at Stan, Dale, and Clinton.
Clinton let out a whimper and ran, his hand still clutched to his chest. Dale was lost in pain, grabbing his knee and rolling back and forth, his teeth gritted together at the sky. Stan appeared to be unconscious.
Jimmy turned and saw that there was a crowd of kids from the high school standing at the doors. All of them had wide eyes, open mouths, and shocked expressions. Jimmy spotted George near the front, and he walked steadily toward his friend. The world still seemed so bright, so clear.
“Jesus,” George said as Jimmy approached. “How the hell did you do that?”
Jimmy stopped in front of George and smiled.
Then he fainted dead away into George’s arms.
The first thing Jimmy noticed was noise. There were a lot of people around him and they were all talking. There was someone shouting. Jimmy tried to open his eyes, but the harsh light over his head made him immediately groan, close his eyes, and raise his hand to his forehead to give himself relief from its brightness. He was surprised to find that there was a bandage around his head.
“Relax,” said a soft female voice from Jimmy’s left. He recognized it; it was Rachel Dirkson, the school nurse. He was in the small infirmary on the first floor of the school. He
was glad to see it was Rachel because, over the years, he had befriended her in a similar way he had befriended Jesse at the town library. Rachel often allowed Jimmy to do things that she knew she shouldn’t allow him to do, like take aspirin without a note from his mother. For Rachel, one of the few qualified nurses anywhere near Knorr, it was almost like she was daring the school to fire her. What would they do without her? Jimmy hadn’t gone very far, as he was still less than fifty yards from the classroom where he had algebra. He felt like he had tried to jog about six hundred miles, though. “You probably have concussion.”
Jimmy moaned again and opened his eyes. The light speared through his retinas again, but he forced his eyelids to stay open. Above him was the white ceiling of the infirmary. Rachel was standing there next to him, dressed in her always-presentable white uniform. Jimmy was on one of the three second-hand emergency room-style beds that the school had picked up years ago. The school had a surprisingly well-stocked infirmary, although it was far from a hospital.
“Who’s shouting?” Jimmy said, his voice remarkably hoarse and just barely above a whisper.
Rachel smiled and leaned in close. “Mr. Little, mostly. You’ve wiped out most of the starting line up of the football team and the baseball team, you know.”
She squeezed his left arm and Jimmy saw a faint smile cross his face. How many students had she treated who had been beaten or injured in some way by Stan and his cronies? Jimmy could not fathom the number.
“Good work,” Rachel whispered. “We had to call an ambulance for all three of them. You broke Stan’s nose, by the way, and possibly fractured a cheekbone. Clinton’s hand bled all over the place again, and we found him holding it and moaning near the exit gate out of the parking lot. And Dale may have some serious knee problems for a while, but I don’t think it’s anything permanent. Still, Dale’s father insisted that his beloved son be taken to the hospital for an MRI. Sounds like a lot of money spent for nothing to me, but what do I know?”
Jimmy moaned again. What did this mean? Did he just delay his destruction by a few days? Had he scared them off or had the war just been escalated? Would the rest of the football team come after him? Hell, were he and his mother about to be sued or had the cops been called and he was about to get arrested for assault? At the same time he was moaning, he appreciated that Rachel felt confident enough in Jimmy to speak to him like an adult and reveal things she would never reveal to any other student.
“Am I in trouble?” Jimmy asked.
Rachel frowned. “Well, that depends on your definition of ‘trouble.’ The entire town knows what jerks Stan, Dale, and Clinton are. Even their own parents refused to call the cops and file a formal complaint. The whole school is full of people who have been tormented by those three. The principal says that you’ll probably have to spend some time in detention, since we have a policy that says we do not tolerate violence against students. Also, I had to call your mom. She’s on her way. I don’t think she’ll be too happy.”
Once again, Jimmy groaned. It was the only thing he could think of to do. He was a dead man. He’d never be allowed out of his room until he was forty, at a bare minimum.
“What about me?” Jimmy asked. “How bad am I?”
Rachel sighed. “Well, you did a number on your head. I think you should spend the next few days at home. I would suggest that maybe you visit the hospital, but that’s up to you. That part of the head is pretty tough, but that blow might have given you concussion. It’s all up to you, though. Still, as I said, I recommend you rest at home for a bit before coming back here.”
Jimmy nodded very carefully, trying hard to develop a way to nod without actually moving his head.
“Is he awake?” came a voice from the front of the room.
Jimmy had done a lot of groaning in the past five minutes, he realized, but he could think of nothing else to do but groan again. It was Devlin Little, Stan’s father. The man was an even bigger jerk than his son, and that took some doing. According to Devlin, his son never did anything wrong, he was the perfect student and athlete, and all Stan was guilty of was some innocent teenage pranks. The rest of the world was just too sensitive.
“Mr. Little,” Rachel said, moving forward to intercept. “You need to stay out there. No one is allowed back here but authorized people and patients.”
“Listen, you little punk,” Mr. Little said with venom, pointing his finger at Jimmy. “You had just better watch yourself, got it? If you’ve jeopardized my son’s chances at a scholarship, you’re a dead man.”
“MISTER LITTLE!” Rachel shouted; it was so loud that it hurt Jimmy’s ears. “You just threatened a student in my presence and within earshot of the principal. That’s illegal. You can either calm down and get out of here, perhaps head to the hospital and check on your son, or you can stand there and keep yelling. Eventually, I’ll mace you with the can I keep in my purse and then call the police. Then you can spend the night in jail. Do you understand me?”
Mr. Little stood there, chewing on his lower lip and flashing rage from his eyes. His face was bright red and his breathing was intense. He was like a bellows to Jimmy’s ears. His eyes twitched from Rachel to Jimmy and then back again. He finally lowered his finger.
“Fine,” he said quietly, but still with enough menace to raise the hair on Jimmy’s arms. “Fine, I’ll leave. But if you think this is over, kid, you had better have another think.”
“That’s the second threat,” Rachel said.
“Yeah,” Mr. Little replied. “Fine.”
He stood there for another moment, still chewing on his lower lip as if it were a dog’s chew toy. Then he turned and walked away. Mr. Little brushed past the principal and some other teachers that had gathered in the hall outside the infirmary and disappeared out into the hallway.
Rachel let out a sigh. Jimmy saw, for the first time, that she was shaking. She turned and smiled at Jimmy.
“You just rest,” she said, “he won’t be bothering you anymore. Your mother will be here soon.”
“You’d better keep that mace handy,” Jimmy said. “She’s likely to be much worse than that guy.”
Rachel laughed and patted Jimmy’s arm before walking away.
Jimmy laid his head back and moaned. He had never felt more miserable than he did at that moment, and that included the time last year when he had gotten food poisoning and spent the better part of a week vomiting. He would have willingly gone through that again, though, to not have to face his mother.
Jimmy could barely remember the events beneath the bleachers. He remembered thinking about Sapphire, and then the feeling that something had entered his body and his mind. He remembered how intense and vivid things had become. The rest all seemed like a movie, like it had happened to someone else. He felt as if he had stepped out of his body and someone else was controlling things. Had he really head-butted Stan Little and broken his nose? Had he really sent the three biggest bullies to the hospital?
It was too much to comprehend. He closed his eyes and thought about Sapphire. It was as if he could reach out his mind and touch her. He could sense her mind, her eyes, her form in his mind.
What have you gotten me into? his imaginary self said.
We have so much yet to do, was the reply he heard in his mind. It was as if she were standing right there. He could sense her reaching out to him.
What are you? he asked.
You’ll know soon enough, she replied.
In his mind, he was standing in a dark room. All around him was absolute blackness, and it seemed almost alive. Shapes and voices moved and undulated and spoke in the darkness. There was a solitary cone of light, and within that were Jimmy and Sapphire. She was wearing a white dress instead of the blue one, and she was almost glowing. She was smiling, but there was a sadness behind her eyes.
I’ll tell you, she said. I’ll tell you at some point, Jimmy. But you have to keep searching first.
Why? Jimmy asked, reaching out and finding her hands wi
th his own. She felt so real beneath his fingertips.
I can’t tell you, Jimmy. I don’t even know all of the reasons myself. I just know that somehow we are attached. Through our minds, our souls—I don’t really know. I just know that when I reach out, I find you. Somehow, you and I connect in ways I have never connected with anyone before.
I don’t understand any of this, Jimmy said.
I don’t, either, Sapphire said. It’s going to get dangerous, Jimmy.
It already is, he replied.
Sapphire shook her head. Nothing like it’s going to be.
“Where is he?” a voice said from outside the infirmary. The dream—or whatever it had been—vanished like a puff of smoke, and Jimmy opened his eyes. The light stabbed into the back of his eyes again. His head throbbed. He knew that voice. “Where is my son?”
Jimmy’s mother rushed into the room. There was a look of absolute fear and terror in her eyes that Jimmy had not seen before. Ever since Jimmy’s father died, his mother had been a pillar of strength. Now, Jimmy saw that much of her world hung on his well being. He felt a twisting in his gut in addition to the throbbing in his head.
“I’m fine, Mom,” Jimmy said.
“He’s right,” Rachel said. “I am going to recommend that Jimmy spend the next three days at home. That’s probably overkill, but he did hit his head pretty hard. I’d even suggest taking him to an ER to get him checked out. I’m surprised that he doesn’t show signs of concussion, but you have to be careful with head injuries.”
Jimmy’s mom came over to stand beside the bed. The worry in her eyes now that he could see her face was tinged with anger. Jimmy knew that this meant he was in for a lecture despite the fact that she was relieved he was OK.
“How did this happen?” his mother asked. “It all has to do with that girl, doesn’t it? I can tell that she’s somehow involved in this. I told you she was trouble, Jimmy.”
Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance Page 10