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  “Yeah?” Gina asked, smoothing her hair down.

  Breanna looked her up and down and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Why’d you do your hair like that today? I told you I hated it when you do that.”

  It always irritated me beyond belief that Gina wouldn’t stand up to this girl. If it was anyone else, she’d probably pounce on them already. “Um, I think it looks fine.”

  “Well, I think it needs serious work,” Breanna declared, examining her fingernails before turning her gaze to me. “I think that womanizer label fits, hmm Jason?”

  I exhaled forcibly through my nose and turned to Gina, deciding to ignore Breanna. “I’ve got to go, see you later.”

  She nodded uncertainly and turned to Breanna once more. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and dangled them around my finger. Normally, I’d go for a ride to clear my head if I was in need of some reevaluation, but now, pointlessly driving around didn’t seem very appealing. There was only one place I really wanted to go.

  The parking lot was still quite full as I pulled out of it. It was a reminder that it was still early in the afternoon. The final bell had just sounded. There was light traffic as I drove into the business center of the town and I weaved in and out of the cars. I just wanted to get to one place and get there quickly.

  The grey building loomed over me as I parked in the spacious parking lot. The upper floors had huge glass windows and I was positive my mother was seated in one of those top offices, clacking away at her computer. The law firm wasn’t necessarily my favorite place to hang out—I actually hated it. The notable prestige was covered up by the lies lawyers often told. I didn’t necessarily trust my mother because of that. Lawyers were trained liars after all.

  The receptionist smiled at me as I entered the brightly lit lobby. I made my way to the chrome looking elevator. It took a while for the doors to open and, by then, I was tapping my feet impatiently. After a moment of mind-numbing silence and awkward eye-contact with others eager to reach their destination, I was on the floor where my mother’s office sat.

  A few of her associates greeted me but I kept my face impassive. The door to her office was slightly ajar and I pushed it open further. Like this morning, she choked on the tea she was drinking; her reactions nowadays seemed a little too comical.

  After putting a hand to her throat, she raised her eyes to meet mine. “You’re visiting me at work? You never visit me at work.”

  “I’m not here to visit you,” I responded curtly, taking a seat in front of her large mahogany desk. “I want you to tell me the truth.”

  I searched her face for any indication she was going to lie to me, she remained stock-still. “Listen, I have a lot of work to do, I’ll talk to you later.”

  I stared down at the carpet in frustration. Something was going on, I could tell. My mother was a good liar; she couldn’t have been a good lawyer if she wasn’t, but I just couldn’t figure it out—I was totally blank. I didn’t know what she was hiding, or why it was so important that I extracted myself from the situation. I was about to retort on why I had to know when she abruptly stood and flipped through some files in her hands. I didn’t miss the small tremor of her hands. It seemed as if this was way more serious than I initially thought. Her five-inch stilettos sunk into the carpet as she exited the room quite briskly.

  I sat still for a few moments, staring at her desk. I could feel some unspoken peril lulling around here and it made me cringe in unease. But I knew that if it made my mother nervous, I probably should’ve been too. I sighed and stood, running my hand through my hair. I jumped a little at seeing a lady with fiery red hair staring at me.

  “Um, hey?” I called, a little uncomfortable. How long had she been standing there?

  The lady looked past me to the interior of the office and her eyes snapped back to mine, something about her was keeping me on edge. “You’re Jason,” she stated, it wasn’t a question. “Seems to me you’re a little confused.”

  I looked at her a little bewildered. “Uh, what?”

  “I overheard you talking to your mother.”

  Overheard wasn’t the word to be used when we weren’t even speaking that loudly. Eavesdropping would’ve been perfect for the sentence.

  “…and I was thinking I could fill you in on some of her cases.”

  I scratched the back of my neck uncomfortably. “Uh,” as much as I wanted to say no, a level of intrigue plagued my mind. “What do you know?”

  She smiled widely, and I wondered briefly if she’d suddenly grow fangs and stick them into my neck. She motioned me out of the office and into the now deserted hallway. My legs felt stiff as they moved out of the room. She looked up at me once more and smiled, pulling me in the direction of the dimly lit portion of the hallway. What had I gotten myself into?

  The room she led me into overlooked the parking lot; I glanced out and spotted my car among the other ones, minimized in appearance. I turned back towards the room and saw that she got comfortable on a large conference table. The table spanned for quite a length and she chose to sit near to me.

  Her feet were on top of a chair and she tapped her nails on her knees. The small action made me even more uneasy than I already was; she patted a spot beside her on the table.

  I stood a good distance away. “No thanks,” I muttered, uncertainly.

  She pouted a little. “Fine, do you want some coffee then?”

  My eyes drifted to the coffee machine in the corner, the coffee looked about three weeks old, having the appearance of thick goop instead of warm liquid. It was almost as if the room was hardly used and more so forgotten by the cleaning crew. My mind suddenly drifted off to what she possibly brought me here for and I grimaced at the thought.

  “No, I just want to hear what you have to say.”

  She sighed and looked away from me. Maybe she thought my interest in what she had to say was more than what it actually was. I noticed she was about in her early-twenties which probably meant she was a paralegal or intern by my quick calculations.

  “Okay, I’m not going to bite,” she announced, getting down from the table and smoothing her skirt down.

  I wasn’t even sure my mother was connected to Avery through her cases, but something kept nagging me at the back of my mind to find out more. I sat beside her on a cushioned chair and matched her stare with a serious gaze.

  “I just started my internship here and I found some of the cases really interesting. There’s a large filing room where there are a ton of files on past cases and all the necessary details.”

  “How are you sure you know what I’m looking for?” I asked suspiciously. “You do know if my mother finds out about this it wouldn’t be pretty, right?”

  She looked flustered. “It’s just because…I—um—wanted to help.”

  My brows furrowed on their own accord. “You wanted to help without knowing what you were helping me to do?”

  “Um,” was all she could get out before I stood.

  I decided that this route wasn’t necessarily the most feasible to get what I wanted. I wasn’t going to risk her getting fired just to try to impress me, possibly with hopes of impressing my mother which was farfetched enough on its own. I ignored her trying to call me back. As much as I didn’t trust my mother as of late, I didn’t want someone to mar her name to me and since she refused to tell me anything. It didn’t make any sense going from this angle.

  I decided to let it go, for now.

  By the time I got home, night was already drawing near. When I left the office, I decided to take the more picturesque route home, chopping off some of the lit hours of the day. I hopped out of the truck and shut the door behind me. So far, I’d gotten nowhere, and it was irritating me. It was weird that it had been two days since I met Avery and it seemed as if my life had already been catapulted into turmoil. The fact that she had been absolutely reluctant to have any dealings with me didn’t change the fact that I wanted to protect her for some reason.

  I half expected to
see Avery shivering beside the garage door as I walked by it and I was a bit disappointed that she wasn’t there. I just wanted to do something—anything to feel as if I was helping her.

  “Why so glum, chum?”

  I swiftly turned around and exhaled the apprehensive breath I was holding. “Hey,” I called unenthusiastically.

  Jade strolled over to me and smiled slightly. I was surprised that she was being this cordial to me. Although we spoke, it was mostly her taking digs at me. I guess she resented the fact that I was a bit well-known at school. She even made me promise not to speak to her there; she made quite an effort in not making me even see her. And because I was on the opposite end of the grapevine, I didn’t hear much about her.

  But I was definitely worried—when I did hear things about her it wasn’t good. And what proper older brother lets their little sister get hurt? From what I could see, Jade was being self-destructive. I was surprised that I hadn’t seen cuts on her wrists or any other physical evidence of self-harm. The small bits of rumors I heard about Jade were near repulsive, but I couldn’t stop them anyway.

  “Can you do me a favor?” she asked, blinking up at me. So that was what this was all about.

  I sighed and ran a hand over my face. “What?”

  She looked behind her to the darkness then back to me. “Can Derek stay and watch a movie? The ‘rents won’t be home for a while.”

  I tried to make out anything in the darkness behind her, but my eyes met nothing. “You know how they feel about having people over when they’re not home.” Knowing my parents, they’d probably have a mental break-down.

  “Please,” she begged, jutting her bottom lip out. I tried to counteract the puppy-dog look she was giving me with a stone-cold grimace, but I couldn’t.

  “Fine,” I replied in a huff, turning to the house.

  I flickered the lights on and turned to see who this ‘Derek’ was. I couldn’t say I was surprised at the towering stereotypical bad boy standing beside her. I sized him up immediately; he looked like someone who had a lot of words but not a lot of action to back it up. I could easily take him—if needs be, that is.

  “Jason Forbes,” he said grinning at me and reaching out his hand to shake. “Nice job on that swim-meet last week man.”

  I grunted in reply before heading to the foyer and switching on the light there. On a small table, a small note was folded neatly and placed atop it. My forehead creased together as I tried to figure out where the note came from. My parents got professional white-washed envelopes, not a small piece of paper. The curiosity overcame me, and I picked up the note. I faintly remembered curiosity something—something cat.

  ‘Thanks for everything’

  -A

  I smiled at the elegant script that I remembered staring at in Chemistry class. So far it seemed that Chemistry was my only class with her. Today, I’d actually sat on the edge of my seat in World History class and the same for Literature. But she showed up in neither. I felt as if I was thrown head first into a whirlwind of teenaged emotions.

  I was extracted from my reverie by some muffled voices in the living room. I hurried there just in time to see Derek towering over Jade with a threatening glare. I actually thought Jade would’ve stood her ground but instead, she was cowering away from him.

  “What are you doing?” I inquired, making sure some poisonous venom was injected into my words.

  Derek looked around at me and I saw him tense a bit. “She was talking back to me,” he said simply, turning back to Jade as if he was going to slap her in the face.

  The dude couldn’t be serious. He was just about sixteen and he wanted to act all big and macho. “We’re living in the 21st century, girls do that.”

  He gave me a flat look as if to say, ‘not to me’. In an instant, he grabbed Jade’s forearm and spun it around forcibly. I could see the pain playing across her features. “You will not do that again,” he said slowly, deliberately as if talking to a toddler.

  It seemed like a thin sheen on red was drizzled before my eyes. Who had the nerve to come into my home and try to harm my family? Apparently, Derek did. I tugged his arm away from Jade and he stared at me in wide-eyed surprise. I shoved him away from her with so much force and anger that he fell back a little on the coffee table. He scrambled up to his feet and away from me. I’m sure my fists would’ve connected with his face if he hadn’t held his hands up in defense. All the motivation to physically hurt him had drastically diminished.

  “Get out!” I said so angrily, I felt myself shake.

  Derek scrambled over the place for a bit before remembering where the door was. I ran a hand over my face once more as the door slammed shut behind him.

  Jade stood rooted to the spot she was and rubbed her arms in slow constant motions. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “If you didn’t feel the need to take arrogant idiots into the house I wouldn’t have to,” I said, the anger still rolling off my words.

  For a moment there was a tense silence surrounding us. I felt a bit sorry for shouting at her. It really wasn’t her fault and blaming her was a little low—even for me.

  “I’m sorry Jade,” I said finally. I didn’t want her to resent me any more than she already did.

  Instead of seeming happier that I apologized, she still seemed annoyed and averted her gaze. There was no winning with her, was there?

  I sighed and headed to the kitchen. How did a socially awkward person become popular anyway?

  Chapter

  IV

  “You’re going to die.”

  My head shot up from where it was lolling at the back of my chair and I looked around to see where the person planning to massacre me lurked. It turned out though, that the only mass murderer in here was on my laptop screen. My favorite TV series was playing, and the earphones still blasted at full speed. I unplugged them from my ears and rubbed my eyes.

  It turned out that I’d fallen asleep watching one of my favorite series. I couldn’t help but think about how messed up my thoughts were. Maybe some unfathomable past experience had cursed me into being all too humble—if that was even possible. It may come as a surprise to people that I wasn’t as narcissistic as many persons thought I was. The thing was though; I couldn’t readily recall up any past ‘traumatic’ event that made me crazy.

  I stifled a yawn and looked over to the small clock on a side table and noticed it was just about time to leave for swimming. Sometimes it was such a hassle—I stuck around on the team this long just because of the rare peace of mind it left me. And perhaps I was on the team because it was expected, sometimes I felt like a puppet being controlled by the grand puppeteer of expectations.

  My mind was still muddled as I got up and hurried to the bathroom. Apparently sleeping all night on a poorly cushioned chair put out your back because all I felt were all the kinks running wildly across my muscles. The house was still refreshingly silent as I hurried down the stairs with my swim bag hung over my shoulder, I actually wasn’t as late as I had perceived but I couldn’t get over that nervous edge that I had. I even headed straight to my van without checking my surroundings as I usually would have.

  The road was illuminated by the street lights. It was still relatively dark, and no evidence of life was yet to be seen. Due to my unnecessary calculations of everything my eyes met the and lack of attention placed on the speed I was driving, I arrived at school quite quickly.

  As soon as I shut off the ignition a chill of unease surrounded me, I couldn’t shake the feeling of not being alone despite the parking lot being deserted for the most part. I shook my head furiously to unclog it of the nonsense that the TV show had filled it with. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder a few times while walking in the hallways. My movements felt especially loud and jerky. I breathed a sigh of relief upon arriving at the closed door of the swimming pool.

  The calm didn’t last very long, my heartbeat increased upon seeing the lights on through the thin lines by the door. I
didn’t know why I was being such a wimp, I’d been to school alone a lot of times even when it was pouring cats and dogs. And if you know a good cliché horror movie, you’d know a good kill couldn’t happen without buckets of rain. My hand closed around the handle and I tugged the heavy door toward me.

  At first, I didn’t see anything, but then I heard sounds. Not sounds of someone dying or something equally as grotesque, but of someone in the water. I urged my converse sneakers to hit the ground lightly, but every footfall sounded loud in my own ears.

  I watched in amazement at the poolside as a figure did a series of twists and turns along the length of the pool. To top it off too, this person had speed. They’d be a good recruit for the team. I stood for a few moments completely dazzled until the person broke through the surface of the water. They floated atop the surface of the water for a few moments, their face turned away from me. It was then that I realized something.

  “How’d you get in here?” I called to them.

  The person lost all concentration and fell through the water towards the bottom of the pool. I was beginning to panic for a moment until the person—who I belatedly noticed was female – resurfaced and pulled off the goggles. My heart stopped for a moment as icy orange-brown eyes met mine.

  Avery didn’t speak as she swiftly swam towards my side of the pool. I watched as she climbed out of the pool and pulled off the swim cap that encompassed her dark hair. She measured me with her eyes while she squeezed water from her hair. The large droplets ran across the plane of her hands.

  I swallowed audibly. “How’d you get in here?”

  Avery stared at me for a few minutes more before responding. “You’re going to die,” she said softly, mirroring the protagonist in the series I was watching this morning.

  My mouth fell open a slight bit at her seriousness, she wasn’t even smiling. I didn’t believe that she was a homicidal maniac per se, but I couldn’t figure anything out about this girl so I didn’t know what to think. Before I could get defensive, she started laughing uproariously.