by Jamie Gray
“Oh, nonsense. Please, come in. I’m not just going to leave you outside.”
“I’m-It’s fine-”
“Kadence, come check this out!” Adrian hollered from the kitchen. “Lexis dad is building a tower with his grilled cheese slices.”
Kadence pressed her lips together, taking a deep breath. She looked all around as she cautiously stepped inside. She whipped her head back as Lexi’s mom shut the door behind her.
“I can take that bag from you dear, you look like you’ve stuffed a whole library in there,” Lexi’s mom chuckled, extending her hand in offering to take Kadences heavy looking bag from her.
“No,” Kadence promptly responded, spinning away from her hand. “I can handle it.”
Lexi's mom nodded and as she and Kadence walked into the kitchen. Lexi watched as Kadence took notice of her dad's grilled cheese tower, just as it collapsed back onto his plate, splattering some of the ketchup from his plate onto the table. As Kadence walked up next to where Lexi was sitting, she repulsed at her plate, gawking at the sight of the mountain of ketchup she had covering her food. “You know that a quarter of a ketchup is made of sugar, and can increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood sugar.”
Lexi met Kadences stare and stuffed a fork-full of ketchup coated eggs in her mouth, smiling up at her with red stained teeth.
Kadence grimaced.
“Hey Kadence, do you want to split a grilled cheese?” Adrian asked brightly, pressing on some uncooked bread and cheese on the grill.
“Why are you cooking more food right now?” Kadence snapped. “We need to leave, or we’ll be late.”
“You know, for the road,” Adrian shrugged with the spatula still in his hand.
“We’re going to school, it’s a seven minute drive.”
“Then we have enough time to make my grilled cheese sandwich-which I’m no longer sharing, by the way,” he contended, waving the spatula at her before going back to his grilling.
“I swear, if you make us late again-”
“Relax, I promise, we will get there in time.”
∞∞∞
Once Adrian had finished making his sandwich, Lexi and Brooke waved goodbye to their parents and the four of them walked across the street, taking their seats in his bright orange car. Lexi and Brooke sat in the back, leaving the stained seat in the middle untouched, while Adrian sat in the drivers side, and Kadence sat vexedly in the passenger seat beside him.
“I sure hope you know some kind of shortcut that can get us to school in 3 minutes, because that's all the time you have to still fulfill your promise,” Kadence scowled, pointing down at his golden watch. She rolled her eyes as he took a bite of the steaming grilled cheese in his hand.
“Oh, I’ll fulfill my promise,” Adrian replied smugly, chewing as he spoke. “And I’ll enjoy my sandwich while I do it.” He kept eye contact with Kadence as he turned on the car and revved the engine.
Lexi and Brooke started to chuckle, knowing exactly what he had in mind.
“Adrian,” Kadence warned.
Adrian perked his eyebrows like a puppy who didn’t understand.
“Adrian,” she warned again.
Both girls couldn’t help but snicker a little louder from the back seat, seeing his dramatically dumbfounded reaction to her yelling at him.
Kadence shook her head as her face turned bright red. “I swear to god, Adrian if you-”
Before she could finish, Adrian moved the gearshift into drive and slammed his foot on the gas, sending them flying out of the driveway and down the road.
Kadence started to shout at Adrian to stop, holding onto anything she could get a good grip on.
“Whoohoo!” the rest of them cheered, laughing like they were on a rollercoaster.
Kadence shouted at him to put both his hands on the wheel, as he held his sandwich in one hand, while the other he used to drive.
“Adrian, stop! You’re going to crash into something,” Kadence yelled as he sped down street after street.
“Oh, no I won’t. I’m a great driver,” he assured, smiling blissfully. He was clearly avoiding busy roads, taking a different route to school than they usually went.
“It’s okay, Kadence. We’re going to be fine,” Lexi tried to reassure her.
The entire car jerked as Adrian turned down another road.
“And that was the kerb,” Kadence cringed.
“Hope it didn’t damage the car.”
“I do,” Kadence huffed.
Adrian shrugged it off. “It’s fine.”
He rounded another corner at full speed, luckily there weren’t any other cars on the street he was driving down. “See, it’s just like a roller coaster.” His expression lit up with excitement as he slowed down to go up a large hill.
“This is nothing like a roller coaster,” Brooke laughed, holding her seatbelt.
Adrian grimaced, shaking his head. “What do you mean? We all got seatbelts, we’re going up the ramp-”
“Except you’re the one driving,” Kadence interrupted, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Oh, well that just means you’re in for a special treat.” With that, he pressed down on the breaks as they sped down the other side of the hill. By now they were all laughing. Lexi and Brooke both had their hands in the air with their windows open, pretending they were on a real roller coaster. Kadence kept a tight grip on the car, but had loosened up enough from Adrians joke to begin laughing. The car was flying down the street, as Adrian started swerving back and forth while he made dramatic screaming sounds, causing everyone to laugh a little harder. “How’s everyone doing back there?” he asked in a nasally voice, bringing his half eaten sandwich to his mouth like a microphone.
“We’re doing great,” Brooke cheered.
“Go FASTER!” Lexi shouted.
Kadence shook her head, still chuckling as she tried to catch her breath. “No, no. Adrian-”
He tapped his foot on the petal, glaring at Kadence as the car went fast, then slow, fast, then slow.
Kadence sighed. “Now, this is just going to ruin the car,” she smiled, her back hitting the seat every time he tapped the petal. “And you’re going to make us late if you keep this up.”
“Well, if you insist,” he shrugged, firmly pressing down on the petal as they sped down another rural road.
“Adrian!”
He slowed the car as he turned onto the main street that led to the school, driving into the parking lot, and backing into a spot.
“Well that’s one way to get to school on time,” Kadence sighed, sounding exhausted as messy strands of her hair fell over her face.
“That was awesome!” Brooke beamed, pumping her fist.
Lexi laughed. “Do that everytime, and I might just come to school everyday.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Kadence warned, pointing her finger up at him as she fixed her hair. She opened her door, and strapped her bag to her back before speed walking inside, Adrian following not far off her heels.
As Brooke opened the car door, she stepped onto the concrete with wobbly legs. Lexi rushed around the car, taking her sister's hands to help her stabilize her back on sturdy ground. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
As the two looked at each other, Lexi’s eye was caught by something behind her. A silhouetted black figure stood beside one of the parked cars at the far end of the parking lot. She squinted, trying to make out who it was, but she couldn’t make out anything beyond a shadowy figure. Still, she could feel their gaze fixed on her. “What the hell?” she asked under her breath. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until Brooke replied.
“What?” She tried to follow her gaze as she turned to look behind her, but Lexi quickly grabbed hold of her shoulders and whipped her back around before she could see anything.
“Nothing,” she exclaimed sharply. She cleared her throat. “We should head inside,” she coughed, briskly pulling Brooke through the main
doors. Before stepping inside herself, she glanced back to where she’d seen the figure, but there was nothing there. What she saw had disappeared, as if whoever it was had never been there to begin with. She swallowed hard, closing the door behind them.
Chapter 4
Steven Grant High School. Ug... I can't believe I'm back here, Lexi thought to herself, sighing with resentment for that place. She’d never liked going to school. It was just another thing that kept her away from her explorations, that being one of the reasons she hardly showed up anymore. She would come with Brooke in the morning, but she would typically wander off before first period started.
As she and Brooke approached the school's entrance, Lexi's mind became paranoid, jumping at every person who made eye contact with her in the halls. She feared to make any sudden movements towards anyone, and so, she stuffed her sweaty fists into the thin pockets of her cream coloured skirt. She couldn't help but feel like she was being watched, like there was always a pair of eyes glued to her back, watching her every move, hearing her every thought. Daymian? No, it couldn’t have been him, she told herself, trying not to jump to any conclusions about the person she saw outside. Surely she was just paranoid. All she needed to do was get through this agonizing day. Maybe Kadence and Adrain could help get her mind off it all? She couldn't find Kadence or Adrian in the halls, and Brooke had split off from her to get to her homeroom before the first bell rang. She had no idea what their first-period class was since she'd never really bothered to come to school, nevermind ask where her friends' classes were. She had no choice. She'd need to go to her first-period class without getting any distracting boost from any of them.
As she weaved her way through the sea of moving teenagers, she was shoved and pushed from side to side as everyone appeared to be incredibly impatient getting to class. As a taller guy sped past her, she was whirled around. She was about to shout at him, but she froze as a figure with a black hood passed into her view. They were incredibly tall, and towered over every other student in the hallway. Though she could only see the back of their black hood, her body shuddered at the thought of it being Daymian. All the figure did was stand there, it’s back turned to her. No one spoke to the hooded person, only passed by as though it was nothing more than a dark ghost. A part of her wanted to investigate. Pull the hood off and either confirm or deny her suspicions, but another part of her warned against it. In truth, she didn’t really want to know, because if she pulled it off and it wasn’t him, she would look like a complete idiot. Though, on the other hand, if she pulled the hood off and it was him, what did she plan to do? Ask him if he really is the guy who kidnapped her and talked a bunch of crazy to her in an alleyway, the night before? Ask if he actually did move through the shadows like she saw, or if he saw light explode out of her? The uncertainty made goosebumps run all up her body. It was a bad idea. She knew it. It would only end in disaster, no matter what the outcome.
Her train of thought was interrupted as the loud ring of the school bell blared through the halls, jerking Lexi to spin herself around, and speedily walk in the other direction.
After a few mindless turns down hallway after hallway, Lexi finally checked her schedule and continued to wander the halls until she spotted the room number on her sheet. It read B202. The class was full by the time she arrived, but she spotted an empty chair in the dead center of the back row of desks. She made a B-line for the vacant seat, making sure to avoid direct eye contact with any of the other students even after she slid into the chair. She kept her gaze down at her feet, figuring that was the safest game plan at this point.
The room smelled of pencil shavings and fresh weed, and the floor was made of chipped white tiles that had grey skid marks from shoes and desk legs. The desks were single-spaced in four horizontal rows of about five, meaning she didn't have to sit shoulder to shoulder with anyone around a long cheap table. Now, she only had to sit at a tiny desk with her back hunched against a brown plastic chair. It was the better of two evils she supposed.
Lexi jumped in her seat as a hand slammed down on her desk, the bang echoing off the walls of the room as if it were empty. She whipped her head up with an absent heartbeat, but her entire body sank back down as her gaze fell upon Anastasia. The sight of this girl made her blood boil and her face twitch wildly. Her skin was flawlessly tanned and clear of any blemishes. Her figure was sculpted with perfectly constructed curves and big natural breasts. Her hair was a golden colour that shimmered perfectly in the warm sun rays flowing into the classroom through the single wall of windows to her left. Her hair was medium length, reaching well past her shoulders but above her elbows. It looked as though it had been precisely curled and drowned in product that morning for a collection of tedious hours that would drive anyone to shave their entire head. Although, it was clear that her hair wasn't the only thing that received special attention that morning as her face was loaded with buckets worth of foundation, blush, concealer, eyeliner, mascara, and whatever else most girls like her enjoyed coating their faces in every day. She looked no better than a circus clown. Everything about her made Lexi want to gag. She couldn't understand why so many people sought her approval or wanted to be her friend. Anastasia had been bullying her and her friends ever since ninth grade, and now she had to share a class with her. She wanted to rip her own face off so that she wouldn't have to feel the burn of her eyes, the damage to her ears, or the clogging of her nose every time she came into conflict with Anastasia. She let out a long audible exhale.
She looked down at her with a cocked eyebrow, her expression conveying the same disappointment Lexi felt rush through her body. It was like they were toxic to each other, like each thought the other had the plague, and they were trying to throw them into the fire before the disease could spread to anyone else. "You're in my seat," Anastasia said with a razor-sharp glare that could cut through steel if the circumstance ever presented itself.
Lexi huffed with a smirk, and she leaned back comfortably in her chair. She had no intention of moving.
Anastasia's face turned pink. "Get out of my chair, you entitled little freak," she whispered, leaning down a little closer to her face as to avoid the teacher from overhearing.
Lexi burst up from her chair, pushing it back against the back wall as she stood. "Me? Entitled? I'm not the one who spends fifty bucks on a shirt that doesn't even have enough fabric to reach your belly button."
"You know what, you're right. You are beneath me. I mean, just look at the kinds of people you hang around," Anastasia replied, shifting to stand up straight as she crossed her arms and sat in her hip with her chin held high above her. She wasn't much taller than Lexi, only exceeding her by a couple inches at most, but it felt like a full foot at times, and she wouldn’t be surprised if Anastasia liked to think of it that way.
Lexi's face burned bright red as she could've sworn steam had begun to blow from her ears.
A devilish smirk tugged at Anastasia's lips as she shrugged and looked to the side dramatically. "It's sad, really. I mean do you even know what Kadence-"
Lexi threw her hand up and into Anastasia's hair, gripping it tight as she slammed her head down onto the desk between them. As she released her grip, Anastasia stumbled back with a bulging red mark on her forehead, and Lexi stared at her with a red steaming face and white fisted hands held at her sides. "Don't you ever-"
"Ms. Danvers!" the teacher roared from behind her desk at the front center of the class. Mrs. Robinson wore a brown flannel with a pair of black jeans, she was a regular height for an adult woman, and her skin was a partially tanned white as if she had tried to get a nice tan in her backyard but got frustrated and quit halfway through the process. She was middle-aged, probably in her mid to late forties. She'd most likely retire in the near future. Her face had spots of flabby skin, her teeth were yellow and rotten, and she'd spit every time she spoke. It certainly wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of sights. "You don't show up for half of the semester, and when you finally do, you assault on
e of my students," she yelled with her deep smoky voice as she spat all over her long desk that faced the class like a judge in a courtroom, and Lexi was the defendant.
Lexi was too angry to speak a word as her eyes remained stapled to Anastasia, who glared back at her with a disgusted expression, as if she was some monstrous animal that needed to be tamed. If the teacher hadn't been there, she certainly would've beaten her face in, for speaking so illy of her friends.
“I will not have you disrupting my classroom like this,” Mrs. Robinson insisted, her nostrils flaring as she pointed to the door. “To the Principal's office now!”
Lexi didn’t have to be told twice. She was eager to be as far away from Mrs. Robinson, and especially Anastasia, as she possibly could get. She exhaled, not realizing she had been holding her breath that entire time, as she gripped the strap of her backpack and stormed towards Anastasia, the two keeping eye contact until Lexi passed by her, and out the door without another word said.
“And I will give them a call, to let them know your coming, so I suggest you go straight there,” her teacher called after her.
Lexi didn’t look back, she would rather eat her own sweaty socks than give any of them the satisfaction. She had no intention of going to the Principal's office, she couldn’t even remember where it was. She tried to clear her mind, looking out the wall of windows. The sky was a bright blue, vacant of any clouds blocking it's brilliantly coloured canvas. A line of thinly grown green trees and tiny yellow weeds decorated the rim of the rock pathway along the side of the school wall, but something caught her eye, causing her to freeze in place. Underneath the shadow of one of the trees. It was like a silhouette of a person standing beneath it. Just like the silhouette she saw at the warehouse, and out in the parking lot, but this time it looked much more like a physical person rather than a shadow. She felt her stomach turn and twist as her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe as she pictured that person lifting their head to look up at her. Her entire body wildly jerked as a thunderous slam sounded from behind her, causing her skin to crawl up her neck and vibrate her bones. With a loud gasp, she spun around, terror widening her expression.