Little Spark

9 - Common Grounds

"He may be prettier than most of the girls at our school, but don't be fooled," Apollo warns. "He's more dangerous than he looks... like a great-white shark in flamingo's clothing or something."

Candis rolls her eyes. "Oh my word, it is not that serious."

"You know what the stories say, Cand," Luca says. "Even if it's all made up, you can look at what happened to Blaise Johnson and know there's more to the guy than hair and skin most of the girls at our school would sell their souls for."

"What stories?" I ask. "And who is Blaise Johnson?

"You mean who was Blaise Johnson."

"Guys, stop," Candis says. "Let's not imbue our new comrade with fable-based pretty-boy intimidation." She turns to me. "Mauro is purported to be a direct descendent of the most wicked woman this side of the Mississippi. It's a load of poppycock if you ask me. We're talking about a sixteen-year-old boy who gets a weekly mani/pedi and brow-shaping... Not that there's anything wrong with that, he just seems more focused on aesthetics than murd—"

Luca cuts in. "Blaise was a bully who missed four months of school after being trapped in a broom closet with Mauro for, like, two and a half minutes. Last we heard, his family had left the country."

As I stare at his profile, Mauro suddenly looks at me. Every vestige of hope drains from my mind, and no matter how hard I try, I can't break the eye contact. I can vaguely hear Candis calling my name, and Luca saying "Something's wrong," but their voices are distant. As they fade out completely, blood-curdling screams crescendo inside my head and my entire body goes numb. A wicked smile tugs at the corners of Mauro's mouth, and he winks, sending a stab into my stomach. As he turns away, breaking the gaze, the sights and sounds of the café come flooding back over me.

"Bliss, are you ok?" Candis' voice comes urgent, concerned. My head is spinning, and I slip from the chair.

Apollo catches me. "He got her," I hear him say in a low voice. "We need to get her out of here."

********************

The moment Aunt Lil hears the word 'Mauro', I'm quarantined in my room. Ruby has been detained downstairs with Gigi, and although I can hear my friends' muffled voices through the floor, I've been told I can't see or speak to them again until tomorrow.

At exactly 8:00PM, Gigi brings me dinner. Worry has deepened the lines of her face, but she smiles and kisses my forehead before leaving the room.

Completely exhausted, I lie down and close my eyes. I think about my mom and Neighbor James and my old school and how there were no boys and how that was actually a good thing because no boys meant no sleaze-bags eyeballing me like I'm a filet mignon, and no supernaturally evil boys who are prettier than me sucking my life-force out through my eyeballs.

After a few minutes, I hear a faint whisper outside my room, and my eyes open involuntarily. I quietly rise from my bed and follow the sound out into the hallway. Something tells me to go back into my room, that I shouldn't be listening, but I can't resist the lure of the hushed tones. Maybe they can explain what happened with Mauro.

I tiptoe down the steps to get closer to the voice. Three stairs from the bottom, a loud creak startles me. In the short week and half I've lived here, I've used these stairs a hundred times; there's never been a creak. When I catch a glimpse of myself in a large mirror hanging over the mantel of a fireplace and see a leather, wingback chair in front of the fire, I know I'm no longer in Aunt Lil's house.

I walk through the French doors into the living area I usually see from outside the window on my left. The husband smiles at me from the wedding photo, but there's no one actually in the room.