Bitter Blood (BBi)

Chapter 8: Nothing But Normal

Chapter Eight
Nothing But Normal

Thump.

"Hey, hey!" Lara lifts her head off the cafeteria table. "Silence is mandatory."

Avery smiles and sits down in her seat. She reaches into the book bag she's just dropped on the table and pulls out an apple.

"Not feeling too good, huh?"

Lara glares at her and drops her head back on the table. Avery grins and looks at me.

"How about you?"

I had actually been feeling alright compared to everyone else. I had woken up with a blurry mind and the beginning of a pounding headache but two aspirins and a hot shower cleared them both up.

Stacey, on the other hand, had wandered into class at second period, heavy bags beneath her eyes and hair sticking out at all angles. She had obviously stayed the night at Noah's.

"I'm okay." I reply and look down at my food. I'm still tossing up in my head whether the whole eye thing with that Merida girl and Avery actually happened. It was freaky, to say the least.

Plus, thoughts of the body in my backyard barely hidden in the treeline of the forest are woven in amongst it all as well.

Lara suddenly lets out a long groan.

"Why'd you come to school if you felt so bad?" I ask her.

She looks up from the table, clearly annoyed. Everytime someone meets my eye, panic grips me. I keep expecting their lips to form the words, "I know what you did."

"Because Mum refused to let me. She said I had to come to school and get the stuff I had left in my locker." she throws her hands in the air. "Because apparently it would be absolutely disastrous if I left it here over the break."

Then she adds, "And I couldn't really tell her I had a hangover because as far as she knows, I was at Stacey's house studying for an upcoming history test."

Stacey smiles. "It's a normal part of growing up. You tried it and you paid the price. Surely she could accept that?"

Lara shoots her a look. "Obviously you don't know my mother."

I grin widely and watch as Noah comes to sit down beside Stacey. He smiles at her and puts an arm around her waist.

"So you guys got home alright?" I ask and Noah nods in answer.

"We went back to Noah's a couple hours before dawn. We gave that drunk a lift back, too." Stacey inclines her head towards Lara then winks at me. "Though she was pretty insistent on going home with Danny-boy."

Lara groans into the table. "Don't remind me."

I laugh and look around the cafeteria, which is partly empty. A few seats are taken up by the usual groups that sit there, idly eating their lunches and chatting about what their doing during the holidays. It takes me a single glace around the room to notice that there's something off, and it's not just the missing kids.

I frown. The seats are in the same spots, the windows in tact. But somethings niggling at me, demanding I find out what's different.

"What's wrong?" asks Avery as she follows my gaze across the room.

I shake my head, as if to rid myself of the feeling, and turn back to her. "Nothing."

Ten minutes later, when the bell rings and I make my way to my art class, I get the strange sensation again. It seems to creep up my neck as I walk, unnerving me to the point where I'm forced to look behind me.