Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(50)

I stood alone on the far side of the gym, away from my former squad, away from Liam, away from everyone. Blood roared. My head throbbed. Fingers tingled. Then, all of a sudden, black spots started to crop up on the edges of my vision until I wasn’t sure if I could stand up straight.

Then they were gone. I could see, and a force beyond my understanding or control seemed to drive my legs to action. I left the gymnasium behind without another word. The hallways lay dormant. I walked quickly through them until I found the spot I was looking for—the janitor’s closet. I opened the door. A cloud of dust swirled in the air around me. I swatted it away and closed myself inside.

Using my cell phone as a flashlight, I searched the shelves. Lysol. Paper towels. Sponges. Windex. Ammonia. I ran my finger across the labels. My eyes continued to scan the remainder of the shelves’ contents while my finger stayed put. Bleach. Another promising contender. And lastly, rat poison.

I wavered between the bleach and the poison. Turning both over to read the labels, I studied the horrors of their digestion. Stomach pains, vomiting, skin rash, burning sensation, blurred vision. Then, I replaced the carton of bleach on the shelf and stowed the small can of d-CON rat poison in my jacket pocket.

When I looked down, I was surprised to see that my hands weren’t shaking. I poked my head out of the janitor’s closet and made sure no one was watching.

I waited outside the gymnasium until I heard the telltale signs of the game beginning. There were cheers from the crowd as the teams were announced. The Oilerettes did an opening number without me and without Ava and Ashley. At the concession stand, I purchased a bottle of water then excused myself to the restroom.

I kept expecting the anger to subside, but as I took out the container of d-CON, it remained there, bubbling just below the surface. I shook a few sprinkles of the rat poison into the bottom of the bottle—just enough to make him sick, not kill him, I reasoned. Then, I swished it around to mix.

When I was finished, I entered the gymnasium again at last, taking stock of where the team sat in a row on the benches. I hovered on the sidelines, waiting for my conscience to set in, but my conscience, it seemed, had taken a vacation day. Or maybe it was just as fed up as I was with “boys being boys.” Especially when it involved my little sister, Honor, who still slept with her childhood blanket and watched kitten videos on YouTube.

My eyes narrowed into slits as I homed in on the back of Teddy Marks’s head. He was hunched over on the bench with a towel around his neck.

I had to cut close to the dancing Oilerettes to get to the bench. I walked down the slender aisle between the first row of fans on the bleachers and the bench. When I got close, I leaned in to speak softly into Teddy’s ear. “Mess with my sister again, and I will claw your eyes out.”

His chin jerked in my direction. He swatted me away. In one swift motion, I replaced the water bottle that had been sitting next to him on the bench with my own.

“Hey!” he barked.

“Relax.” I backed away. “It’s not a big deal.”

*

I FOUND HONOR an hour later sitting on our back porch, picking blades of grass. Her hair was plaited down her back. Snot slithered down the tip of her nose. I closed the back door gently behind me. We weren’t more than a couple stones’ throws from a boy whom I’d apparently murdered in cold blood.

But Honor could never know that. I still couldn’t believe it myself.

“You’re going to yell at me,” she said, without looking up.

I stood behind her, wishing I could wrap her in my arms and hold her there. I could have sworn I’d deleted the photographs when I’d caught her in my bedroom, but I should have thought to check the sent messages. Maybe then I could have gotten to Teddy before it was too late.

“I’m not,” I said. “I promise.”

I walked around to her other side. My shoes pressed into the space of lawn from which she was picking idly. Her cheeks were streaked with old and new tears; the skin around her eyes was raw and thin as an onion peel. I felt so much older than the two and a half years between us.

“You’ll see, it’s all going to be fine,” I said. “I’m going to help you.”

She sniffled, then looked up at me through watery hazel eyes. “How?” she asked with a hint of defiance. “You’re nobody now.”





EIGHTEEN

Marcy

“You came back for her?” Wren stopped sweeping the broom back and forth across the black-and-white floors of the tattoo parlor. Her healthy bosom heaped over the top of her sweetheart neckline, rippling underneath the storied mural inked onto her skin.

I let the door close behind me. My insides thrummed like I’d been trapped for days and was just now plotting my escape from cabin fever. “Came back for who?”

Wren’s burgundy lips were in stark contrast to the whites of her teeth. “Her. Keres.” She nodded at the illustrations pinned to the wall next to me. “Isn’t that the one you had your eye on last time?”

My focus was immediately drawn to the lithe faerie with her tattered wings, curved blade, and trail of dripping blood. “How did she get her name?” I asked.

Wren resumed sweeping. “Keres was the name for the daughters of Nyx. Legend has it, they were female death spirits and sisters of the Fates. That one’s my favorite. The black Ker, which meant Violent Death.”