No Working Title (2)

Chapter 4

It was hard to look away from the windows.  As the day wore on, most of my teachers had told me to stop daydreaming and pay attention.  But, trust me, watching the outside was way more important than some pointless facts about chemical formulas.
         With every flicker of movement, I expected a police car to glide into view, kicking up puddles with a spray, invisible silhouettes hidden by the tinted glass.  And, naturally, they would be watching for me.
         This morning I had woken up to find a black sedan parked across the street.  It definitely wasn’t a neighbor’s car – and there was only one logical explanation of what else it could be.  I had to admit, it was more discreet than that cop car from the previous night.  But it didn’t fool me.  I called Guy right away, told him to park a block around the corner, and later snuck out the back door, the drenched grass of the yard soaking my jeans.  With an ungraceful attempt at ninja-silence, I jumped the neighbor’s fence, crossed the yard, climbed another fence, and so on, just to catch my ride.  I had a feeling this routine wasn’t going to work for me.
         And I had thought about it all morning – the only way I was really going to figure out what this was all about – and hopefully end the “sneaking” around – was to straight up ask the stalkers.  Even though it was driving me crazy wondering what was happening, I wanted to avoid that confrontation at all costs.  The image of the guy from the theater (the officer, I corrected myself) was still as haunting as ever.  I brushed my hair out of my eyes and looked at the dark gray view outside the window again, the slow on-and-off rain showers and the sheer absence of the sun keeping the roadside gutters full and the ocean-like puddles evident.
         No RPD vehicles yet.  No mysterious people watching me – as far as I knew.  It was with a gigantic effort that I turned away and tried for once to focus on geography.  After all, I didn’t want to completely fail this semester.  I valued my life too much to submit to death by murder at the hands of my dad.  In fact, it was probably already in jeopardy depending on how I had done on the math test after lunch yesterday – an almost definite failure.  I sighed, too tired and too confused to deal with this.
         And how could I be thinking about grades?  Something was going on, something more important that school.  But I had no idea what it was.  I tuned out the class again and thought about that “assignment” Lila had heard in the cop car.  Maybe I was an assignment.
         Right.  Assignments.  I wrote down the homework just as the bell rang, and my stomach grumbled painfully.  I had left the house so quickly this morning that I forgot all about breakfast, and now my system was complaining and empty.
         I rendezvoused with Guy and Lila in the C hall.  We retrieved our lunches and floated down to the cafeteria, the crowd pushing us slowly along like we were all stuck in a lazy river, everybody bobbing helplessly inside inner tubes.
         The cafeteria was probably the biggest room at Fredrick, with a wide stretch of ceiling two stories above our heads, the upper walkways visible on the second floor.  As always, it was packed with vicious, hungry high school kids.  Survival of the fittest.  Luckily, we avoided the lunch line and weaved towards the dark corner in the back.  Our table was empty.  Another usual.  Lila felt too crowded and blinded in the fluorescent-lit mobs near the center, so we stayed in our corner, and nobody tended to bother us.  And suddenly I was glad we weren’t out in the middle – the weird, scary feeling of exposure was coming on.  I flinched.  Was that somebody across the room in a dark suit?  Was there a shadow lurking on the upper walkway?  But I was imagining.  I thought I must be getting as paranoid as Lila.
         We all sat down and dumped our food onto the table.  I traded Guy a turkey sandwich for a bowl of microwave soup and Lila crackers for an orange.  She was grimacing – too many smells wafting around.  I never had been able to imagine what it would feel like to pick up every scent in the whole room, all of them separate and distinct.  But I guess I didn’t have to deal with it.  I poured some water in the soup bowl, splashing on the table, and held it out on my palms, steam already beginning to rise.  Guy took out a thermos of coffee, and I couldn’t help but laugh nervously.
         In the corner of my eye, I say somebody walking toward us; I quickly put the bowl down with another splash.  I guess it would be a little confusing to see me casually holding steaming hot soup with bare hands.  We looked up.
         Marilyn glided down the isle, beaming her white smile when she saw Guy.  Her eyes flicked in my direction with disdain, and my hand lunged out and seized the orange.  For a moment I imagined throwing it as hard as I could at her pretty little face, but I settled for digging my thumb into the rind.  Not her again.  I looked down and started tearing away at the orange.  Over the dull roar, I heard her say “hi” brightly as she appeared at Guy’s elbow.
         He said hi back, surprised, and introduced Lila, gesturing across the table.  Marilyn was twisting a strand of hair around her finger and clearing her throat, nodding ever so slightly.  I ripped off a piece of rind and tossed it down; I ground my teeth until I was sure tooth powder was rubbing off.
         “So, anyway,” she said, smiling down at Guy, “I just wanted to say that I really liked your presentation earlier.”  I watched her hand drift down and touch his shoulder for a second, and, attacking my orange more fiercely than before, I wanted to roll my eyes and cough loudly.  Guy cleared his throat now and thanked her, leaning back coolly, face softening.  I almost dropped the fruit as Marilyn’s voice popped into my head.
         "So harsh, Jena…look at yourself."
         I glanced down at the orange peels all over the table.  This time I did roll my eyes and retorted,
         "Just leave him alone and get out of here already."
         "Oh, no, I don’t think that’s going to happen quite yet."
         She walked around to Guy’s other side, dragging a finger over his shoulder, and pulled a chair out, gray eyes flashing.
         “Hope you don’t mind if I sit," she said out loud.
         Guy shook his head slowly.  “Not at all.”  I saw a smile play on the corners of his mouth.  Marilyn sat down.  All of a sudden, it got one person too crowded over here.  Lila and I exchanged glances as she leaned close and initiated a flattering round of small talk with Guy.  Neither of us had ever remotely appreciated her company.  For me, she had been the girl that was always one step higher on the ladder – you know – I got a 89 on a test (personal best) and she surely showed off a 93, something of that nature; for Lila, she was the girl that would never stop being the smartass – there was always something for Marilyn to mouth off about.  Whether it was about Lila’s phobias, my failures, or some snide remark about all other categories of our mediocrity, she never tired of that tiny satisfaction she got from being a jerk.
         The unwelcome visitor looked at us for a moment.  I could tell she was dying to blurt some witty joke about Lila’s paranoia.  Suddenly Lila’s eyes went wide and she stopped chewing.  I eyed her carefully, and then turned my attention on Marilyn.  She stared, looking pleased with herself, across the table at my friend.  A second later, Lila resumed eating, albeit slowly.  I felt a hot flash of anger pulse through my veins as it dawned on me what was obviously occurring.  Marilyn wouldn’t ever say anything rude in front of Guy – and by now, I knew she didn’t need to actually verbalize what she wanted to say.  Lila clenched her jaw tight and glared across the table.  And I lost it.
         "You know, I thought venomously, if you think beating up on her is going to make you feel good –"
         "Shut up, Jena."  Her voice was cold inside my head.  "I’m busy talking to Lila here."
         I shot her a disgusted look.  Guy didn’t seem to notice – he was deep into telling Marilyn about his science project.  She smirked back at me and started playing with his watch, nodding periodically.
         "Why do you take so much pleasure in this?"  I thought at her, incredulous and frustrated.
         She looked like she was thinking it over.  "Because – you always liked to get me in trouble, Jena.  You always thought you were better than me that way."
         I glared.  But I couldn’t help thinking about when we were kids, when her threats went too far, when I got fed up with listening to her spit insults at Lila.  I did what any second-grader would do – run, tears streaming down my face, to the teacher, my dad, anybody.  But, come on, that was the second grade.  Things were different now; I was different now.  How could Marilyn still be clinging to that?
         "That’s not true.  I –" But then suddenly the words died in my head.  Alarmed, I froze, trying to remember what was happening.  I am at school.  It’s Tuesday.  I am eating lunch.  Marilyn.  Right.  Then after a moment, after regaining my composure, I realized somehow that she was in control here, and it was no use arguing.
         "So what the hell is with this mind reading thing?"  I wondered suspiciously, thinking of the stalker cops and the plausible connection to us freaks of nature.  And it was also kind of bothering me anyway.  I mean, if I couldn’t even think without somebody listening in, then I had real problems now.
         "I don’t know.  You tell me.  Obviously you’re not so normal either."
         I rolled my eyes again.  "I don’t know what this is all about.  I don’t know why we have these weird…superpowers.  And I really don’t get why the cops are stalking me."
         "Superpowers?"  She snorted.  "I don’t think heating up soup should be a superpower, Jena."
         I felt my face flush, heat pulsing in my forehead.  I tried to send a fiery stare across the table – I could do a lot more than make food hot.  Apparently my rage didn’t get through.  She went on, raising an eyebrow,
         "I mean, I’m the only one here that can do anything useful.  Come on; you’re a human microwave, Lila’s a basket case, and Guy – let’s face it – he’s completely worthless."
         My mouth slid open as I let out a slow, heavy breath, trying to release the anger slowly.  Legs shaking, I had to struggle not to lunge across with flying fists, my fury like a rabid animal.  Anything to wipe that sly smile off her pretty face.
         "So this is just a big joke?" I managed, looking at Guy shoving sandwich into his mouth, oblivious.
         Marilyn stood up suddenly, smiling crookedly.  "Maybe you’re smarter than I give you credit for, Rawles."
         “I really have to go now – but I’ll see you later, Guy,” she said sweetly, and then she turned and strolled away with a swish of her blonde curtain – just like that.  I concealed a fierce scowl, abandoned the orange, and picked up my spoon.  Lila was staring at me.  Frowning, I glanced over and gave her a we’ll-talk-later kind of look.  She sighed and hunched back into the plastic chair.  Guy wasn’t even paying attention, having just now turned back around from watching Marilyn flounce away, his eyes cloudy.  Yeah, and he was probably drooling, too.
         I had an urge to reach across the table and smack him hard.  But I didn’t.  It was Marilyn – she was the issue.  Not Guy.  I smothered the impulse, wilting, because it was useless anyway.  Any willpower I possessed to give chase and kick her ass had faded away, too.  Now I tried to focus on the soup.  She was gone.
         Scoop.  Drink.  I ate in silence for the rest of the period, my mind spinning with confusing queries about what she was getting at.  I mean, the mind-reading, sweet-talking Guy…I glanced up at him again, and he was staring at his half-eaten sandwich with a crooked smile on his pale, skinny face.  And then I was mad at Marilyn again, blood steaming.  So progressed my train of thought – in circles.
         The cafeteria was starting to empty with only five minutes left to the next class.  Lila jumped up, alarmed, and said goodbye feverishly over her backpacked shoulder as she rushed away through the receding crowd.  As she left, there was an awkward pause while I searched quickly for something to say.  Wrong.  Guy was still zoning out.  Just awkward for me.  I saw Marilyn walking out to the halls, everybody giving her a wide berth. He snapped out of it, eyes clearing and smile melting a bit, when I started talking. 
         “Well…you want to get going?”  My voice just barely trembling, I hoped he wouldn’t notice.  I put the orange peels and the empty plastic soup bowl into the paper bag and hurled it into a trash can, watching him carefully.
         Guy nodded his head slowly, blinking.  “We’d better.  So you can get your math test back.”  His blue eyes narrowed suspiciously.  And suddenly he was typical Guy again.  I smiled dryly.  “True.”  I punched his arm, and he grinned, rubbing it.





Chapter 5

My face fell all over again as I held the packet of papers up to my face.  A large purple “D” was slashed at the top, none too discreetly.  I could imagine very clearly Mr. Hobbes attacking my test, savage, maniacal glee written all over his grizzled face.  Hence the haphazard Xs all over the place, especially on the last half or so – every empty space I had left was marked up with unnecessary violence.  And little unhappy faces.  No, not really…but I’m sure it would have suited him to add them in the margins.
         “Damn,” I said, shaking my head yet again as we walked.  The sky, gray as slate, had decided so far not to dump on us today.  The nor’easter was fading, having dragged on all last week and up until now, Tuesday.  Guy shifted his bag higher on his shoulder, offering, to my surprise, a sympathetic wince.  Perhaps he’d already forgotten about his typical shame-on-you stares for when I flunked an exam, still absorbed in Marilyn’s visit in fifth period lunch.  I craved to rip my test in half just thinking about her.
         Lila was walking slowly, carefully avoiding cracks in the sidewalk as we stepped off the curb, crossing the drive in front of the school.  It was nearly empty of cars; many of the remaining were parked.  We had waited, as usual, for the crowds to pass at the end of the day, loitering at our table in the back of the library for fifteen minutes after the last bell.  This solved many problems, I decided – Lila’s list of things that could and would go wrong in a wild, rapidly shifting mob of high-school kids (which was vast and ever-growing;) my desire to avoid Todd (who had not yet discovered our after-school hiding place, strangely;) the strong pressure to avoid Marilyn (my mind wasn’t up for being read like a book at the moment;) and to keep her and Guy as far away from each other as possible (most important.)
         Despite my horror at the incomprehensible test grade I had just received, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit relieved.  I mean, come on – it was practically deserted out here, it had stopped raining, and I hadn’t seen a black sedan, cop car, or mysterious man peering through my Geography classroom window all day long.
         Maybe my guard was down.  Maybe the fear that had passed through me this morning had faded as the day wore on.  Maybe being watched didn’t seem very real yet.  But I wasn’t glancing left and right, waiting nervously for some vehicle with sirens or tinted windows to speed into view.  And I certainly didn’t care to consider what might happen after that – so it wasn’t worth the trouble to wonder.  Everything was normal.
         I lapsed into a reserved silence and continued to examine my test as we neared the crosswalk, cars drifting by with hisses of sprayed puddles along the side of the road.  Guy stopped me, touching my shoulder, before I walked out into traffic.  I felt a shiver run down the length of my spine, flashing him a grateful, aloof sort of smile, as his hand left me.  Immediately, I reached for Lila’s hand and squeezed it tight as we walked quickly across the street; she focused, eyes wide, on the cars approaching from the distance. 
         I wondered: What is she worried about?  Getting run over?  Or the cops?  But she looked away as we reached the opposite curb.  Thunder growled in the distance.  I groaned.
         “Enough rain already,” Lila mumbled, hugging her umbrella.  Guy shivered under his black parka.  “The feeling is mutual.”
         We collapsed in the Taurus, the Tuesday drag catching up.  In fact, I thought, Tuesday was probably the worst day of the week.  On Monday, you’re still in a state of half-slumber, and it all goes by in a fast, hazy blur.  And then on Wednesday, you’re halfway done with the week; the end is in sight.  But Tuesday is that low point, when you wake up and know: I have three more whole days of school to endure.  Absolutely fantastic.  Then again, it was now the end of my least favorite day, and tomorrow was the beginning of the down-slope.
         Guy, running his hands through his hair and closing his eyes, groaned softly.  He leaned his head back and was silent.  Lila’s eyes fogged over, and I lapsed into some kind of meditative state.  We relaxed.
         And it wasn’t hard.  The overcast sky was a sleepy color, lulling me into a silent stupor.  So much that had been bothering me this morning had gradually faded into the back of my mind.  I wasn’t even sure that I remembered the man at the movies, or the cop car following us.  It probably wasn’t even following us, anyway – the police around here were always looking for somebody to slap with a speeding ticket or some kind of parking violation.  We were obviously likely candidates – forced to go any slower than ten over the limit, Guy’s eyes would narrow with disdain; he would park on a busy sidewalk if it meant finding a space.  It wasn’t all that unusual that those cops had stuck behind us – maybe it they thought it would make their night interesting.
         I tilted my head.  The cool pressure of the window on my forehead was nice, soothing.  I barely noticed when Guy started the engine, peeling out of the parking lot onto the street.  Though I did open my eyes as the thunder cleared its rasping throat again.
         We drove.  The view outside was a gray blur as we sped through town.  Nobody walked the sidewalks, probably afraid that the rain would start again.  And as if on cue, tiny flecks of water began to appear on the windows, and then they tricked down.  We groaned simultaneously.  I watched them slide, quivering, over the glass.
         The smear of neutral tones that streaked past started to turn green as we got farther from downtown and the trees became more prevalent in the landscape.
         There weren’t any cars on the back street that we turned onto next.  The drizzle outside was becoming more of a shower, muddying the underbrush on the edge of the street.  We approached a three way stop, but Guy didn’t ease up on the gas, because there was nobody out here anymore.  I focused on the view ahead -
         A flash of white appeared in the corner of my vision.  On the intersecting street that we were nearly on top of.  It was coming way too fast.
         “Guy!” I shouted, too late, my eyes leaping wide open. 
         He slammed on the brakes.  “Shit–”
         It felt like we’d been hit with a train.  The windows shattered instantly.  In a single moment, I was thrown like a rag doll into Guy’s shoulder and the airbag exploded.  It smacked every inch of my face at once.  And then we were rolling.  The light from outside was spiraling.  Left side.  Roof.  Right side.  Bits of glass flew everywhere.  Wheels.  Left side.  Roof.
         Then it was over.  My ears were ringing so loudly, my head threatened to implode.  I didn’t even know what way was up – just that I was contorted, and my face hurt like hell.  Somehow, through the cloud of noise in my head, I heard the screech of tires against pavement, and the white shape of a van disappeared.
         I waited.  I can’t move.  I.  Can’t.  Move.  Everything was quiet.
         I panicked.
         I calmed down.
         I waited.
         My face hurts.  My face hurts like hell.  I don’t know how long I sat, laid – whatever I was – unmoving.  It was probably minutes.  It felt like hours.
         Movement.  I felt movement beside me.  Or was it under me?  Above me?  I didn’t know.
         I closed my eyes.
         I waited.
         The ringing was fading.  In its place were murmurs.  There was some rhythm to them, I thought.  But I didn’t know what they were saying.  They were just talking.  Murmurs.
         I listened.  The murmurs were getting louder.  I listened harder.
         Jena.  Jena.  Jena, that was it.  That was what the murmurs were saying.
         Jena.
         Me.  They were talking to me. 
         I opened my eyes.
         A face was next to mine, and the face was talking.  It came into focus.
         “Guy,” I mumbled, staring back at him.
         “Jena!”  His eyes grew wide.  “Come on, get out.  Please, can you get out?”  His face was steady at first glance, but there was desperation lurking behind it.
         I thought I could.  Slowly, carefully, I realized I could move my legs.  So I started to wriggle out, twisting strangely around.
         And then somehow I was lying in the mud.
         “My face hurts.”  And it did.  It was warm, too.  The heat mingled with the chill of the raindrops striking me.
         There was something nagging the back of my mind.
         Guy shook his head, talking fast.  “Your nose is bleeding.  The airbag.”  He reached out and put his hand behind my shoulder.  It was shaking.
         When he helped me sit up, I was met with a dizzying head rush.  But I was up.  I was okay.  Guy sat on his heels.  Now I got a good look at him.  I could see the bruises already rising along the side of his face, almost black.  His hair was stuck to the edge of his forehead with blood.  But he looked to be in one piece.  The something in the back of my mind was insistent.           
         I tried to catch my breath, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.  In.  Out.  I reached up and laced my fingers together on top of my head.  Guy was watching me carefully.  The soft patter of raindrops on the street was slowing my heart rate down to a near-normal level.  But something was really bugging me –
         Suddenly I remembered.
         “Lila!”  I screamed it, turning, lunging for the car.  The realization felt like a thousand watts of electricity had just coursed through my veins.  The door handle took awhile to find in the crumpled mess that used to be the car.  My hand slid around it, and I wrenched.  It ground open, the bent metal squealing.  I crawled inside.
         “Lila, Lila,” I whispered frantically.  She was wedged in the corner, eyes closed, body folded by the caved-in skeleton of the Taurus.
         I scrambled toward her, ignoring the shards of glass that bit at my arms.  Soon I was reaching for her elbow, dragging her out the door.  And then she was lying on the dirt like I had been, but she wasn’t making any move to get up.  One side of her face was coated grotesquely with red.  Guy grabbed for her wrist, immediately looking for a pulse.  His voice was steadier than I believed possible, but something was stewing in his eyes.
         “It’s all over the place,” he mumbled.  But it was there.  I let out a breath I had been holding for too long.  A single word came to my lips.
         “Hospital.”
         As if it had been waiting for me to say that one thing, an ambulance roared around the corner, sirens wailing.  Its wheels ground to a stop among the debris, and paramedics spilled out the doors and the back.
         I said again, “Hospital.”