I felt my mom’s aura come to a halt behind me and tremble in silent fury.
“What the…?” She whispered hotly. “Is that my good cookware?”
I cringed and turned to face her. “I made a booby trap, in case that thing from the Coutts ranch came sniffing about.”
She took a breath and her aura finally halted. My small attempt to ensure my own safety had softened her rage. But not entirely.
She pursed her lips. “Not with my stainless steel cookware!” She tugged at the rope, causing the pans to hit the ground with a crash. She gathered them up and marched towards the main backdoor, slamming it behind her.
I stomped into my room and locked my bedroom door behind me. Crawling onto the bed, I pressed my face into my pillow and groaned.
Despite the fact that Mom was furious with me and probably thought I was some kind of sexual deviant, all I could think about was Sunder. His handsome face. His strong body and playful chuckle. The way he’d looked at me with total adoration. Why? What had he been about to say?
Bianca, you’re a…?
What am I? The question that had plagued me ever since my last day of Camp White Fern.
What am I? What am I? What am I?
The question chanted in my mind until I fell asleep, dreaming of him.
Chapter Ten
“NO!” I screamed. “No! No! No! Not again!” I flew out of bed. How could it be 7:56 am?
I swallowed. My tongue felt large and furry in my mouth. “Mom!” I called through the house. “Mom?” No answer. Just the low hum of an empty house. Had she left without waking me? Then it dawned on me: She’d done this on purpose! She’d let me sleep in as punishment. I fumed inwardly. Was she trying to get me into even more trouble? I’d show her. I would not be late.
The angels must have been smiling down upon me because for once the line of traffic was minimal. I cast a quick look into the tree-filled space where Sunder had been yesterday: Empty. A pang of disappointment filled my belly.
I parked Terence and ran across the quad towards F block. Other students still casually meandered across, which meant first bell hadn’t yet rung.
“Yes!” I fist-pumped the air and slowed to a walk. I’d made it. I had a strong urge to text my mom and let her know that her plan had failed. But, as if in karmic response, the bell sounded. I sighed and padded to a jog.
As I reached F block, an influx of sentience surrounded me. I held my breath and sped down the color-filled corridor toward room 26, veering left to dodge a group of girls coming towards me. I misjudged, shoulder barging one of them as I passed.
“Sorry!” I puffed.
Sheena’s face contorted into a sneer as she recognized me. My heart leaped into my throat. The murky aura surrounding her rippled with excitement. My small misstep would not go unnoticed.
“Watch where you’re going, Casper!” Sheena spat. Her gang of followers had stopped, converging around me. Natalia, Julia and Elise. All girls I’d known since childhood and all enemies by Sheena’s association.
“Ah, sorry,” I mumbled. “I was in a hurry. Hope you’re okay.”
Sheena laughed, her horsey mouth releasing a throaty guffaw. I could smell the tang of cigarette smoke on her breath. “I’m fine, freak. It’s you that’s not okay.”
Sheena’s aura was sickening. Standing this close to her was enough to bring on a serious bout of nausea. I winced as I tried to block its sickly advances. “Oh, no I’m fine,” I smiled. “No harm, no foul,” I said, holding up my hands.
Sheena smirked, sending a glance to the others. “We’ll see about that!” She pushed me hard against the wall. My back slammed into it with a thud.
Julia and Elise laughed.
Natalia looked on, twirling her long dark braid in her fingers.
Sheena pressed a firm hand on my chest as she breathed into my face. “Did you like my Insta, freak?”
I didn’t answer. The wall was cold against my back. My skin turned to goose flesh beneath my t-shirt.
She chuckled again. “You are such a freak,” she hissed. “I really don’t know why you’re still here.”
Other students had stopped to watch the scene. Some were holding up their phones. Others watched, keen for a pinch of drama in their day. They didn’t seem to care that it was at my expense. That I hadn’t asked for any of this.
“Um…well,” I mumbled. “This is the only school around for miles. If I left, I’d have to drive an hour to go to Ashland High, or maybe Eagle Point or Medford?” The words tumbled out of my mouth. “There’s St. Mary’s too, but I’m not religious, well not really, I haven’t been to church in—”
“I don’t mean change schools!” she boomed, making my ears ring. “I mean…” Her voice grew louder for the crowd. “Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?”
There was an intake of breath from the gathering of schmucks.
Sheena took this as encouragement and went on, her aura rollicking in waves of maroon, ebbing and flowing towards eruption. “I mean look at you!” she spat. “And you’re so weird! You’re pathetic! You’re so lame you made your dad leave! Just do it and get it over with!”
Her words dug into my gut. Yes, my dad had left. I still had no idea why. So, of course, all I could think was it had something to do with me being me. But kill myself? Had I considered it? No. Never. Had I ever felt depressed? Alone? Overwhelmed? Sure. But not in all my years of ridicule had I considered harming myself. Everyone else had already done enough of that. Besides, I could never, ever, do that to my mom.
“When people are cruel to you,” my mom always told me, “remember, it says more about them than it does about you.” In Sheena’s case, this was true. She was cruel.
I stared at her pallid face as she continued to hurl insults at me. “You’re such an ugly freak. Everyone hates you...”
Her eyes were dark and dull; full of hate. Her aura, once peach in color, was damaged and marred with dark wisps. I pressed against it, my white glow leaning against her hue of pain. A hard shell had formed around her aura, like scar tissue. It resisted me but I pressed further, my light slowly penetrating its hard exterior.
Images appeared in her aura. A small girl hiding, with an even smaller girl at her side. The fists of a drunk father. Fear heavy in her chest.
“Leave her alone!” she called from beneath the bed.
“Quiet, Sheena!” her mother replied between sobs.
She was too small to fight back. She had to sit there and listen to it all. Then help to tend the wounds.
A tear rolled down my cheek.
Sheena’s eyes followed it. For a moment she faltered, her aura softening. But then her face twisted and with it, her aura flexed again. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Awww, the White Walker’s crying!” She laughed, turning to the audience. Sheena leaned in closer. “What’s wrong, snow pubes? Is it all too much for you?”
“Sheena,” I whispered softly. “It’s not your fault. What he did, what your dad did to you and your mom. It wasn’t your fault.”
She sucked in a gulp of air as shock and confusion spread across her face. “Who told you?” she hissed.
I said nothing. I looked at her, pity hot in my eyes.
“WHO TOLD YOU!” She pressed hard against my chest, her free hand forming a fist. “Fucking freak!”
My head smacked into the wall behind me as her first made contact with my face. The taste of blood filled my mouth. My ears rang as pain burned in my cheek.
“Fight back, Daenerys!” someone called from the crowd.
“Yeah! Where are your dragons now?”
I clenched my teeth, digging my nails into my hands. For years I had tolerated this. All my life I had been picked on and pushed around. Countless Sheenas had called me names and bullied me. I’d had enough.
Sheena’s eyes were wide. Staring at me. Waitin
g. Waiting for me to fight back. She wanted me to get mad. She wanted to see that she’d finally got to me. That she’d finally broken me. In some small way, I wanted it, too. I desperately wanted to punch her hard in the face and rip out her hair. But I couldn’t let her win.
The anger rose up from my gut and into my throat, prickling my eyes. A resonating hum filled my ears. I pushed my aura towards Sheena’s, slicing my way through its tough, sinewy exterior. With all my might, I pushed. A flood of pain washed over me: all the pain she’d ever experienced, all the pain she’d been hiding from, and all the pain she’d inflicted on others. My vision flashed a vibrant silver as my white light illuminated the misery in Sheena’s aura, reflecting it all back at her in one instant.
Sheena released a cutting croon, throwing me from her aura. Her hands flew to her ears and she fell to the ground, wailing.
A whistle tore through the corridor and a teacher’s voice boomed above the din. “What is going on here?” Coach Wiley shouted, making her way through the crowd.
Sheena knelt on the linoleum floor, tucked into a ball, sobbing. Julia and Elise crouched down beside her.
Natalia stared at me, wide-eyed, her fingers still grasping her braid.
Coach Wiley panned her face across the scene: Me against the wall, welt blooming on my cheek. Sheena crumpled on the floor dissolving into a puddle of snot and tears.
“Get her out! Get her out!” Sheena wailed.
Coach Wiley sent me a smirk, her aura rippling with satisfaction. “You okay, Bianca?”
I nodded.
“Looks like you took one to the cheek?”
I nodded again.
“You wanna put ice on that?”
I shook my head. “No.” My voice came out as a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again. “No. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Where are you meant to be now?”
I was puzzled for a moment. Then she pulled out her notepad. “Oh, um math class, with Mr. Devlin.”
“Right.” She jotted something on a piece of notepaper and handed it to me. “This should sort you out.”
“Thanks.” I took it from her.
She leaned in a little closer. “And just quietly, good to see you finally sticking up for yourself. ’Bout damn time.”
She was right. It was. But I had no idea how I’d done it.
“Right! Off to class everyone!” Coach Wiley yelled through the hall, blowing her whistle again.
Chapter Eleven
By lunchtime, the fight was on YouTube.
I made my way to the cafeteria amidst a sea of whispers and swirling auras. Curiosity hung in the air like smoke. As I walked through the corridors, people stood, staring at their phones. Light flickered across their faces. Sheena’s voice blurted out from the tinny speakers; the same scene in different states of play.
“Play it again!” squealed a freckle-faced freshman.
“We’ve seen it like ten times now,” her friend replied.
“I know, I just want to see if she maybe kicked her or something.”
“She didn’t touch her. Sheena just had a mental breakdown.”
“Yeah, I heard they had to call her mom to come and take her to the ER.”
They didn’t even notice me as I passed by. At least I wasn’t being stared at for a change.
I reached the cafeteria and stood on the threshold, scanning the room for Fae. She’d texted me during math. Not surprisingly, she’d heard all about the fight seconds after it had happened. News travels fast in high school. Especially when it’s news about two girls fighting like drunks in a bar brawl.
I couldn’t see Fae’s long red hair in the melee of color and noise, nor could I sense her warm gold aura. I slid my phone from my back pocket.
Hey, where r u? I’m at cafeteria, I thumbed into my phone. It was really to give me something to do without attracting unwanted attention. I hit send and the message whooshed off into the cloud.
I scanned the room again. A sea of faces stared right back at me.
“Hey, it’s Daenerys!” a male voice called from somewhere in the room. The crowd erupted in cheers and applause. I braced myself as a few people broke from the crowd and migrated toward me. I swallowed.
A large guy in a hockey jersey reached me first. “Hey, Daenerys.”
“Um, my name is Bianca,” I mumbled.
“Oh, really? I always thought it was Daenerys.”
“Nope, that’s just what people call me.” When they’re being jerks, I wanted to add.
“Her name is Bianca!” he called to his friends behind him.
“No way!” one of them replied.
A tall, thin girl pushed past Hockey Jersey and craned her neck to speak to me. “Do you know you’ve had like, a hundred thousand views on YouTube since this morning?”
“What?”
“Yep! Your fight has been viewed so much that it’s trending on twitter. Even Ellen retweeted it!” She smiled down at me. She had a large gap between her two front teeth. “You’re like, famous. See.” She turned her phone towards me, revealing an enlarged tweet that read: Check it out, albino girl brings her bully to tears!
“I’m not albino.”
“You’re not?” She looked puzzled.
A chubby senior girl, who I recognized from school plays, lunged toward me. “So what did you do to her?”
I swallowed. “Do?”
“To Sheena. By the looks of the video you didn’t touch her. So what did you say to make her cry?”
“I, um, nothing. I don’t remember.”
The chubby girl squinted at me. “Are you sure? You must have said something.”
“She doesn’t remember!” interrupted Tall Girl. “Which is totally normal.
When you’re in a stressful situation, it’s common for your mind to block those memories out.” She turned to me. “So, Bianca, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Amy.” She thrust out a hand, and I shook it. It felt cold and bony.
“So, I run a blog. It’s focused on modern feminism and a little fashion and beauty for fun. I would love to interview you for it!”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you are such an inspiration, growing up albino and fighting back against the bullies.”
“I’m not—”
“Hey, Beatrice!” Hockey Jersey was back.
“Bianca.”
“Oh, yeah,” he chuckled. “Hey, my friend over there wants me to ask you something.”
His friend sat at the table laughing. “Ask her!” he called.
“Excuse me, Damian,” Amy stared at him. “We were having a conversation.”
“You were?” he stared at her dumbly.
“We were about to schedule an interview.” A diary appeared in her hands. “When’s good for you?”
“Um,” I muttered. I’d never agreed to an interview. I didn’t want to be interviewed. I just wanted to be left the heck alone.
The chubby girl laughed. “Amy’s fishing for clickbait!” she said, with an eye roll.
“What?” Amy snapped. “I am not! My articles have depth and substance, Janet! They are not fluffy clickbait garbage!”
“Right. Would you even be talking to Bianca right now if she wasn’t trending on twitter?”
“Would you?” Amy spat back.
I felt Fae’s warm glow behind me before I saw her.
“Ask her!” Damian’s friend called again.
“Shut up, Steve, I am!”
Janet was still talking. “That’s beside the point, Amy. You’re using her to boost your page views.”
“So Bianca, Steve wants to know…” Damian laughed and motioned to my crotch. “Does the carpet match the drapes?”
Damian doubled over with laughter, as did Steve and the rest of t
he idiots at his table. Even Amy, my so-called new best friend, laughed with them.
Janet laughed too, a hand over her mouth.
Tears stung my eyes. I’d had enough ridicule for one day. I’d used up my defenses; even stupid insults were penetrating my paper-thin armor.
“Hey Damian?” Fae called, now standing next to me.
“Oh hey, Fae. Haha, that rhymes.” He looked at her sheepishly, his laughter finally subsiding.
“You remember when we used to play together as kids?”
“Oh yeah, I do!” he winked.
“Me too. I remember when you stayed over once.”
“You do? Well, maybe we could try that again sometime?” he smirked.
“Um, I don’t think so,” she raised her voice. “You needed a night light and you wet the bed.”
Laughter erupted again, but this time it was directed at Damian.
“Whatever! We were like, three!”
“Damian, we were in fifth grade. You were eleven!”
The whole cafeteria erupted, this time laughing at Damian.
“Whatever!” he called over the din, but it was no use. Even his buddies were in hysterics. “I drank like six Dr. Peppers that night, you guys!”
“Come on, we’re leaving.” Fae placed a hand on my back and steered me out the door.
Chapter Twelve
When Fae meant we were leaving, she didn’t just mean the cafeteria. She frog-marched me all the way to the car park and led me to Terence. When I realized what we were doing I stopped dead.
“Wait. Where are we going?”
“My house.”
“We can’t just leave, Fae!” I said louder than intended. “I’m like, Eldritch’s least favorite person as it is. I’m surprised he hasn’t hunted me down now that the fight’s on YouTube!” I took a long breath. “And my Mom? Well geez! I haven’t even told you about last night yet!”
Fae shook her head. “Eldritch should be the one who gets into trouble! Sheena’s been picking on you for years and he’s done nothing about it. And don’t worry about Veronica, I’ve already texted her.”
Bianca De Lumière : High Suspense Urban Fantasy Romance (The Re'em Prophecy Book 1) Page 6