Heart

Five

Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me back; since I wasn’t strong enough to resist, I knew it was Alan.

“Kara, stop right there. She got the message,” he whispered in my ear.

I barely heard him over the furious beating of my heart, but I still didn’t want to listen. I wanted her dead; I wanted her to suffer right now. I jerked against Alan’s vise-like hold even though I knew it was no use. He wouldn’t let me go until I had better control over myself. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon if Gabriella didn’t stop smiling at me like the concept of her death was so amusing. To me it was, but she should be trembling in fear!

I was going to kill her.

Alan pulled me away and started hauling me back down the hallway, towards the front doors. People weren’t laughing anymore; they only stared as I stumbled along after Al, my arm beginning to pulse with pain under his grip. He half tossed me out on my butt, causing me to totter on the steps for a moment before I gripped the railing and steadied myself.

“Catch your breath,” he growled, eyes glowering at me.

I hadn’t realized I was panting like a mad dog until he’d pointed it out, so I did try to slow my breathing. It didn’t work too well.

Alan shoved something under my nose. “Here, have a granola bar.”

I smacked it away. “I don’t want food Alan, I want her dead!”

“Shh,” he snapped, taking a giant step towards me so that his chest brushed against my arm. His voice was a harsh whisper in my ear, “Stop saying that. People are going to think you’re for real. You want to get arrested?”

“I am for real, Al!”

“No you’re not,” he barked, “God, you are extremely prone to overreacting. It was just an immature prank, that’s all. Get over it, Kara.”

I whirled to face him. “That’s easy for you to say! You’re not the one who’s had to deal with that creature for five years! I’m sick of her, I’m sick of everything. I want it to end!”

His eyes were blazing, but strangely, his voice got even lower, “I’ve dealt with her the same five years you have, Kara. I’ve watched her hurt you over and over again and I was always your shoulder. You think I like to see you repeatedly get hurt like this? It’s personal for me too, but I have the smarts not to threaten to kill her in front of dozens of witnesses!”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. All of it was true; Al had been there for me hundreds of times. He did understand how I was feeling, and he truly cared. That concept struck me the hardest, I think, and I suddenly couldn’t speak. I just stood there, trying to catch my breath, and stared at my feet.

Alan stepped back, and shoved the granola bar in my face again. “This is your breakfast. It was my turn this morning, remember?”

I accepted it silently, but didn’t open it. I really wasn’t in the mood for food yet.

Al released a long sigh, and I glanced up at him. He was looking out over the schoolyard, at the students behind me. He had his hand cupping the back of his neck as he observed, probably wondering about how many classmates had heard our little conversation. My guess was none, since he had kept his voice a whisper.

I opened my mouth to say something, but then the bell rang, telling us to get a move on. When Al looked at me, I shook my head. “I can’t go to school today. Not now.”

His eyes let me know he disapproved. “Where do you plan on going then?”

I shrugged, then busied myself opening the granola bar. I concentrated hard on not ripping the paper in unnecessary places.

I think he groaned, but it sounded more like a grunt when I heard the jingling of keys. My gaze flew up from the bar and to his hands, seeing that he had pulled out his truck keys. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“Listen, you can only go to the park if you keep my truck far away from other cars; same deal for a restaurant. If you decide you want to go to that one place in the woods downtown, you are walking most of the way, because I do not want you to take my truck anywhere near downtown. You got that?”

I nodded and reached for the keys, but he wouldn’t let them go just yet.

“I’m trusting you with my baby, Kara. Guard her with your life.”

I rolled my eyes and grinned, yanking the keys from his grasp. "Yeah, sure. Don't worry, Al." I couldn’t believe he was allowing me to skip, especially with his truck in my care. He had just made my day a bit better, so I rewarded him with a heart-felt hug and scurried on down the steps to the parking lot.

The man nonchalantly approached a trashcan nudged in a corner. He glanced down into its contents and saw several yellow fliers crumpled up on top of the heap. He’d seen the students flaunting them around in that one girl’s face, and he had become curious. When the bell rang for the students to go to class, he had casually sauntered up to take a peek.

He picked one out and smoothed it flat against his thigh until only a few bumps marred the picture. He inspected the flier with a cynical eye; after a thorough evaluation, he concluded that the nude body was much too tall for it to belong to the high school girl he’d seen earlier. The body also had a distinct hourglass figure, and although the jean jacket the girl had been wearing today could have hidden her curves, he just didn’t think she fit the claim.

But nonetheless, the black-haired “witch” had done a fine job of photocopying the head onto the body. He knew she was in fact guilty of this prank, for when he had followed her home yesterday, he’d overheard her talking about it with those two friends of hers. (The stealth microphone he’d implanted underneath her dash worked admiringly well.)

He crumpled the flyer into its original shape and dropped it back into the trashcan. The more he studied this young lady, the more she appealed to his flesh. She had control. A soul full of control. Why, she held not only her own social life securely in her grasp, but another’s as well. Though a high school social status was petty at best, it was promising. Perhaps he had finally found someone who could understand his way of thinking.

A sly smile played at the corners of his mouth. The time was almost right, and the moment almost near.