Blood of the Devil

Chapter 22 - Eyes on the Road

Letha slammed her way through the front doors of the school, stamping into the deserted playground. All the students had hurried away to homeroom, leaving the wind to toss a plastic bag across her path like in an old western movie. Digging her nails into her palms, Letha pinned it beneath her foot. The air puffed out with a hiss, letting the bag deflate, and the air in Letha’s lungs followed suit. How easy it was to get the wind knocked out of you.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway behind her, and Letha dragged air back into her lungs, stepping to the side. Mickey broke out of the hallway, glancing around, and tripped as he saw her. He foot was caught in the plastic bag, and he struggled to free it as he spoke.

“Your dad,” he puffed, “is really a piece of work.”

He stopped shuffling about, lifting a leg to tear the rubbish away.

Letha sneered at him. “You think?”

As if she hadn’t spoken, Mickey continued, making his way to the bin. “I understand why you are the way you are, what you’ve had to deal with. It explains a lot.”

The plastic bag disappeared form Letha’s sight and she ground her teeth: everything was so easily discarded. Mickey followed her gaze, raising a brow.

“Was that yours?” he asked softly, cocking his head to one side. “It was just on the ground, so I thought…”

She interrupted with a snort. “So you just thought you’d send it to landfill where it will get caught by another wind and kill a turtle or something?”

“No,” Mickey snapped indignantly, “I thought I’d recycle it so it could be used as a pencil for a guy who saves a turtle or something.”

Letha snorted, biting her lip to keep from screaming at him. She fisted her hands on her hips, glaring fiercely, and slowly said, “Wouldn’t it be more effective to put it in the recycling bin then?”

Mickey went pink. “Oops.”                            

“I know it’s hard sometimes though,” she continued, striding to the bins. Holding oen hand above each, she gestured as she spoke. “This green lid, well, sometimes even I mistake it for yellow. A difficult task, but good news; prep kids are now able to accomplish this. If only we had learnt at their age.”

Licking his lips, Mickey smirked at her. “I’m colour blind.”

She squinted. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

With a shrug, Letha chuckled quietly, jamming her hands in her pockets. “As if you needed another way to be weird.”

He pursed his lips. “Wow Letha, cut back on the pity. You’re really embarrassing both of us.”

Casting him a disparaging look, she turned away. Striding across the courtyard, Letha paused by the gate, wrapping a hand around the metal. Her palms were beginning to ache and as the wind clutched at her clothes she raised her hands to face her. The skin was red and taut, peeling where her fingers joined, and as Mickey stepped up beside her, she sighed.

Slowly, Mickey reached across to her hand, taking it gently in his own. Frowning at the blisters, he gently ran his thumb across her palm. Letha shivered again, reefing her hands away to rub her arms.

“Who would you be,” he asked slowly, letting his hands fall by his sides, “if not for your father?”

“What?” Letha snapped.

“Your father, your life…” Mickey shrugged, “If not for them, who would you have become?”

Her head jerked to the right, and she scowled, crossing her arms. “We’ll never know.”