Edge of Darkness Box Set

by Margaret McHeyzer

  Mr. C.

  My body goes clammy while the arctic hand of suspicion blankets me “Crap,” I mumble. Sharp thunderbolts of fear rip through my body.

  “What is it?” Sam asks as she turns her head to gaze in the direction I’m looking.

  I’m paralyzed with fear. Why is he here? “Nothing,” I respond as confidently as I can. But I know my tone suggests there’s something very wrong.

  “Hey look, it’s Mr. Collins. Let’s go say hi to him,” Sam innocently says.

  “NO!” I shout so loud a hush falls over everyone in the yogurt store as they all turn to look in our direction. Sam’s own features are questioning, as if I’ve freaked out for no reason. “I mean no, we’d better not. This is his time. He wouldn’t want us to disturb him.” Phew, good save.

  “Yeah, I ‘spose.” Casually she goes back to her yogurt as if I hadn’t just had a minor freakout. “Anyway, about Taylor. What do you think, should I go out with him when he asks me?”

  With Mr. C in my thoughts, I didn’t really understand the question Sam asked me. “Huh?”

  “Are you even listening to me? I said, should I go out with Taylor when he asks me, and would you help me with my outfit for the movies? I mean, I don’t want to come across . . . you know . . .” She leans in so no one can hear us and looks around before she whispers, “Easy.” Sam scrunches her nose in response to her own word.

  “If that’s what he wants you for then I’m sorry, Sammy. There’s no chance in hell I’ll let you go.” I’m not going to let her go through what I’m going through.

  “He’s not like that, but I also don’t want to give him the wrong impression either. I mean, I’m into him, but I’m not into him enough to do that with him.”

  “Sam, you’re fourteen, you shouldn’t even be thinking about sex. Just promise me something.”

  “What?” She scoops the last of her yogurt out and pops it into her mouth.

  “Don’t give it to the first guy who wants it. There’ll be lots more to come along, and besides, you don’t want to be known as that girl, either.”

  “I have no intention of having sex until I’m at least sixteen. So you don’t have to worry about me, Dakota.”

  Lord. “Sixteen? You can wait longer; there’s no rush.”

  “How long are you going to wait?”

  Cringing, my pulse quickens and I know sweat is beginning to form on the back of my neck. I say the only thing I can, without telling her about what’s happened. “Until the right guy comes along.”

  “So, Levi?” Staring at her across the booth, I simply lift my shoulders. “Are you saying you’re not going to have sex with Levi?”

  My blood boils as every possible emotion floods me. “I don’t think so,” I finally manage to say. “I don’t think we’re right together.”

  “What? Now I know something’s happened. Did he try to force you on Saturday? Because I swear to God, Dakota, if he did . . .” A cherry color floods her face.

  “No. God, no. He didn’t force me.” I close my eyes while shaking my head. “No, he didn’t try to force me,” I say again with a sigh. It takes me a few seconds to gather my strength and open my eyes. “I’m just saying, it’s not something you should do because you’re a certain age, or because it’s the thing everyone’s doing. Have sex when you are ready, not when everyone else says it’s time.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Hey, babe. I didn’t know you were coming to the mall,” Levi says as he slides into the booth beside me, while Reece sits next to Sam.

  “Hey.” Reece greets us together. “How are you, Sam?” Once I smile at Reece to acknowledge him, he turns to face my sister and talk to her.

  “Yeah, we’re just having yogurt then going home,” I reply to Levi.

  Levi lifts his hand to cup the back of my head, and moves his face down to kiss me. But I pull away and don’t let him get the kiss in. “What’s wrong?” he asks as he sits back in the seat and stares at me bitterly.

  “Nothing.” I look over to Sam, and although she’s talking to Reece, she’s still looking across to Levi and me. “Not here,” I whisper as I tell him with just shifting my eyes how my little sister is watching.

  Levi stands and straightens his shoulders. “Tomorrow, we gotta talk,” he says. “You staying?” he asks Reece. “Bye, Sam.” Levi takes off without waiting for Reece.

  Reece stands, but before he leaves to go with Levi, he comes around my side of the table, and sits beside me. “You okay?” he asks. His dark brown eyes hold nothing but concern for me.

  “I’m fine.” I turn to smile at Sam, and avoid Reece’s powerful gaze. If I look at him right now, I know he’ll see straight through me, and he’ll start asking questions.

  “You sure?” He stands and slings his school bag over his shoulder.

  “Yep.” I nervously tuck some fallen hair behind my ear. “I’m good.” I quickly look up, smile then look back to Sam.

  “See you at school tomorrow. See ya,’ Sam.” Reece leaves and I suddenly realize a knot has been sitting in my gut. A nervousness, in a calming way, not a bad way.

  “He’s into you.” Sam flicks her stare in the direction of Levi and Reece.

  “He’s my boyfriend, but I think after that ‘we need to talk,’ he probably won’t be for long.”

  “Not Levi. I’m talking about Reece.”

  “What?”

  “Reece. He’s into you.”

  My brows pull together in question. “Whatever.” Shaking my head and rolling my eyes, I stand and grab my bag. “Come on. Call Mom and tell her to meet us out the front near the cab stand.”

  “He’s into you,” she says in a high, sing-song voice. “I’m telling ya,’ Reece Hendricks is into you.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” We start walking out of the yogurt store and toward where Sam and I will meet Mom.

  Sam grabs her phone, and gives Mom a quick call, telling her where we’ll be. When she ends the call, she taps me on the shoulder as we near our meeting spot. “Why doesn’t it matter?”

  “Huh?” I try and play dumb hoping she’ll drop the subject, but Sam is so stubborn and she’ll keep going until she finally gets an answer.

  “Reece.” She encourages me with her happy smile.

  “What about him?”

  “Hello, girls. What are you doing here?” My heart skips a beat when I turn and come face to face with Mr. Collins.

  “We were having frozen yogurt, Mr. C,” Sam sweetly responds.

  Instinctively I step into her, pushing her to behind me so his eyes are on me and not her. “Mom will be here in a minute to pick us up,” I retort while trying to shield Sam.

  “I’ll walk with you,” he says and steps around me to stand beside Sam.

  Fuck . . . My mind is turning rapidly as I try and think of something, anything, to get him away from us. And away from Sam. “Actually, Sam and I need to go into Target to grab a few things before she gets here,” I say and tug on Sam’s bag to go toward Target and away from Mr. Collins.

  “We do?” Sam naïvely asks.

  “Yeah we do. Thanks for the offer, Mr. Collins, but we’ll be okay.”

  “I’d feel more comfortable if I waited with you,” he says while trying to get us to leave the mall.

  “No, we’re okay. See you tomorrow at school. C’mon, Sam.” I start walking so fast that Sam is almost jogging to keep up with me.

  “What happened? We don’t have to go to Target.”

  “Just keep walking, and don’t look behind you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Shhh.” We get into Target, and I lead us to where the check-out counters are. There are people milling about here, and if he comes in, I’ll have a clear line of sight. The other advantage is the number of people around will make it difficult for him to try anything, whereas the cab stand is more isolated and anything can happen there. I can’t take any chances with Sam.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asks clearly confused and frightened. />
  “Mr. C freaks me out. Haven’t you noticed he’s always around and staring. I’ve got a really bad feeling about him, Sam.” My hand flies to my stomach and I can feel the panic etched deeply inside me. “Please, just trust me.”

  “Of course I trust you, but if there’s really something wrong, you need to tell Mom and Dad.”

  “No! Jesus, Sam, what do I say, ‘Hey Mom and Dad, a teacher at school freaks me out, but I have nothing to go on except he seems creepy’? Yeah, good one.”

  “Then you have to tell Mr. Preston, the principal.”

  “You’re not listening, I can’t tell anyone. There’s nothing but a feeling in my gut that screams at me that Mr. C isn’t who he says he is. Something’s really off about him.”

  I have Sam on edge now, because she keeps looking from me to the entrance of Target as though measuring the distance. I shouldn’t scare her like this, but she needs to be vigilant because I don’t want for her to be hurt like I was. “Okay, Dakota. We won’t tell anyone, but if anything happens, you have to promise me you’ll tell Mom and Dad.”

  “’Kay. I promise.” We’re interrupted by Sam’s ringing phone, and it’s Mom to say she’s waiting for us. “Listen to me; we make our way out to the car, and don’t stop no matter if we see Mr. Collins or not.”

  “Alright, alright.”

  We head straight out of Target and speed walk to where Mom’s waiting for us. When we get in the car, Mom starts talking to us about school. Sam replies to everything Mom’s asking. She’s an absolute star, talking to Mom normally as if I haven’t completely spooked the crap out of her.

  Mom pulls out of the parking area and I keep an eye on everyone around us. I half expect to see Mr. Collins somewhere, staring at us.

  Instead I lock eyes with Levi as he’s leaning against an outside wall talking to Reece and a few others from school. He holds my gaze as we drive past him, and keeps holding my stare until we’re out of sight.

  Chapter 7

  “Hey, Sophie,” I say when I go to the library at lunch to return a book I’ve borrowed. “You’re in here today?” She’s sitting at a table, quietly eating a sandwich while flicking through a book.

  “Hi, Dakota,” she whispers and then looks around her.

  I pull out the chair opposite her, and slide in. She looks at me and squints her eyes. “What?” I ask.

  “Truthfully, I thought you wouldn’t bother with me again. I thought yesterday was ‘let’s pretend to like the girl with no friends’ day, and by today you’d have gotten over it.”

  Man that hurts. Like an arrow piercing my heart, and it also shatters my own perception of how I used to be. “Was I really that bad?”

  Sophie lifts her shoulders and looks away. It’s enough to tell me that’s exactly how I was. “Anyway, what are you doing here?” She takes another bite of her lunch and waits for me to answer.

  “Had to check a book in, and I saw you. Thought I’d come over.” I offer her a smile, and pray she sees it’s genuine.

  “Cool.” She looks back down at her book.

  I have a feeling she thinks I’m being fake, that I don’t care about her. “Whatcha’ reading?”

  Sophie raises her eyes without lifting her head. A smirk pulls on the corner of her mouth and her left eyebrow arches with derision. It takes her a few moments before she holds the book up for me to see the cover.

  “To Kill a Mockingbird? Harper Lee? I read somewhere that until recently everyone thought this was her only book. It wasn’t until recently they discovered she’d written a sequel called Go Set a Watchman.”

  Sophie looks at me in wonder, her eyebrows high on her forehead with her mouth partly open. “How do you know that?”

  “I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird a few years ago. And I liked it. I haven’t read Go Set a Watchman, though. Life gets in the way, you know.”

  “Who knew?” Sophie says. I tilt my head to the side, silently questioning her remark. “Who knew you’re kinda cool?”

  I can’t help but laugh aloud. “Apparently I’m cool.”

  “Yeah, who knew? Up until this conversation I thought you were one of those girls who drank diet soda and ate two peas so as not to put weight on. Now, I think you’re okay.”

  “Ate two peas? Really?”

  “You know what I mean. One of them.”

  “No, who is ‘them’?”

  “The girls who don’t see anyone except whoever is in their clique. Have the latest of everything, and don’t talk to anyone unless they’re one of the popular kids.”

  “Is that how you see us? Or worse, how you see me?”

  Sophie lifts her right shoulder. “It’s hard not to when I walk past, say hello, and I barely get acknowledged and never spoken to.”

  Slumping in my seat I can’t help but look away, embarrassed. “Sorry, we’re like that. I never realized. If I knew I would’ve . . .”

  “Well you know now, so let’s move on. Anyway, shouldn’t you be at cheerleading practice?”

  “I didn’t feel like going. I told the girls I wasn’t feeling well. There’s only a couple of weeks of school left so it doesn’t make that much of a difference.” If it does, they’ll probably give me a warning before telling me they no longer want me on the cheerleader squad. But in all honesty, I don’t think I care anymore.

  “Whoa, we got a rebel on our hands.”

  “Something like that.” I half-heartedly smirk.

  “Hey, what are you doing here? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why aren’t you down in the cafeteria?” Levi says as he leans against the table Sophie and I are sitting at. He looks over to Sophie, scans her dismissively then looks back to me.

  “Levi, this is Sophie, Sophie this is Levi.”

  “I know who she is,” he says flatly, quite rudely.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Sophie adds with a fake smile.

  “Whatever. C’mon, babe, let’s go ‘cause I wanna talk to you.”

  Taking a deep breath, I stand and push my chair in under the desk. “I’ll catch you later, Sophie.”

  “Yeah, I’ll see you around,” she says while giving Levi a look I can only describe as a ‘stink eye.’

  When Levi and I leave the library he turns to me and asks, “What’s her problem? And why the hell are you hanging out with her and not at our table? Don’t you know Slutty Sophie has a reputation? You don’t want people to associate you with her.”

  “What?” I look up at him as we walk down the stairs toward the cafeteria. “That’s a horrible name, why would you call her that?”

  “That’s the name the guys call her because she got so drunk at a party one night, she was letting guys do whatever they wanted to her.”

  “What?” I question as we keep walking. “That’s not the girl I know.”

  “And you know her real good, do you?” He snarls at me over his shoulder, his face morphing into disgust. “What the hell’s happened to my girlfriend? What happened to you, Dakota?”

  “What?” My fingers begin to tingle as I become hyperaware of my reaction to Levi and his statement. I can’t let him know about Saturday night. “I’m still me,” I say with a shaky tone. You can do better, Dakota.

  “Look.” He stops walking and takes a step closer to me. We’re in the isolated hallway leading up to the cafeteria. Dehydration hits my mouth instantly and I try to keep swallowing through the dryness. Levi leans into me, and I take a step back. He keeps coming toward me, and I keep moving back. My back hits the exposed wall, and my thin t-shirt does nothing to shield me from the cold bricks. My body shivers as Levi cages me against the wall by bringing both his arms up to lean against the wall on either side of my head.

  I start to breathe heavily and my heart is hammering, desperate to rip through my chest wall. Oh God, what is happening? “What are you doing?” I manage to whimper. Even to me, I sound pathetic; as if I’m frantically trying to hold onto the sane part of me.

  Levi gets within an inch of my face. His breath
touches the tip of my nose, his wild eyes looking straight through me. Please don’t let him see. Closing my eyes, I move my head to the side. “I knew it,” he says, still really close to me. “I fucking knew it.” His tone changes as he almost spits the words out. “You were never going to have sex with me, were you, Dakota?”

  My eyes spring open and I turn to look at him. “That’s not true. Honestly, I was going to, but I got so nervous and I couldn’t because it didn’t feel right.” Levi is shaking his head, while his face and angry eyes scream at me without using any words. He pushes off the wall and starts pacing in front of me. “I’m sorry, Levi. I’m not ready.” And now I’m not sure I ever will be.

  “So that’s it? I just have to wait? We’ve been going out for months, seven of them to be exact, and you’re still ‘not ready’? I’ve never once pressured you, I’ve never once given you an ultimatum, have I?” he spits toward me.

  “No, you haven’t,” I whisper and look down at my feet. Regret washes all the way through me. “Maybe, if you can give me more time . . .” I offer, although I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. Not after what’s happened.

  “More time?” He stops pacing and turns to look at me. Of course, my head is still lowered, but I can see his Nikes in front of me. “You want more time? Everyone else is having sex with girls who’ve been going out with them for far less time than you and I have. What makes you so special that I have to wait?”

  Anger slowly rises through me, and I can’t help but notice how he’s now trying to pressure me. “You know what, Levi?” I lift my head, pull my shoulders back and take a step off the wall. “I’m not ready and I’m not sure when I will be. If you want to wait, wait. But if you don’t, then find someone else, because I’m not having sex with you until I’m ready.”

  Levi’s shoulders sag slightly, as he takes a step back from me. “Maybe I will,” he says in a way that is intended to make me quiver. “How do you like that, Dakota?” he spits toward me.

  “Fine, then. Go. Enjoy yourself,” I say sarcastically. “Have fun, and remember to wrap it up or it’ll fall off.” I step away from him and go toward the cafeteria.