A crack of lightning snapped like a whip, followed by deep roils of thunder. Rain, sharp as needles, stung my face. The mud beneath my cold, bare feet sucked me in, deeper and deeper. I was frozen, both literally and figuratively. The trees surrounding me bowed like supplicants under the power of the wind.
"Take my hand," someone commanded. A boy whose voice I did not know, but I longed to obey. His outline was a blur in the downpour. I reached toward him, fighting the wind. Gritting my teeth with the effort.
But to no avail.
Deeper I sunk into the sticky mud.
"Please!" the boy begged.
I tried to reply, but my voice jammed in my throat.
The mud rose to my chest. My neck. My chin.
I had to escape on my own. No one could save me.
There are two types of people in the world, the ones who love everything about gyms—the sweat-tinged air, the overbright overhead fluorescents, the wood floors painted with lines telling you where to stand, where to throw, physically defining your boundaries. (I'm not fond of those if you hadn't guessed). And the people who would rather drink a million smoothies than be inside one.
I was of the latter variety. It's genetic, I think. You either get the gym gene or the brainy gene. The few people who have both are freaks of nature and often become egotistical class presidents, football team captains, and future politicians, which if you think about it explains a lot about the world.
I'd never been fond of any activity that ended with the word "ball."
Ms. Piltz switched on the lights, which came up with a pop and buzz. Our school colors were black and purple, like bruises, to go with the whole vampire vibe, so the gym had black and purple everything—bleachers, school pennants, bins of rubber balls, banners made by the school booster club hanging all around the room with encouraging sentiments like: "B Positive!" "We've got all the spirits!" and "Bite me!" (No idea how the last one got past the faculty.) In the center of the floor was a circle with a cartoon drawing of old Vinnie Vampire inside, grinning as if he'd just enjoyed a good meal.
"Okay, ladies, if you could each grab a mat, belt, and block from the bin, we can get started."
It seemed weird to have the whole cavernous freezing gym for our little emergency yoga session, but no one asked me.
As I dug through the bin of yoga equipment, a chill of warning crept up my neck. The gym seemed to whisper to me: "Go away. Go away." It differed from the feeling I had in the attic. The attic had hungered for me; the gym was more like being sprayed with insect repellant.
In a snap, Ms. Piltz had a mat, belt, block, and an ancient boom box, (probably from the eighties), all set up in front of a mirror at the far end, behind one of the basketball hoops.
I'd been trying to ignore Tyra this whole time because even her breathing made me want to strangle her with my purple yoga strap. Honestly, it would look so good around her neck! But looking into the mirror, I caught her reflection. Not only did I see the "other Tyra face" flash for a second, but her princess dress was also one hundred percent dry. Not a trace of dirty bucket water. But that was impossible.
"Why is your mouth hanging open like a hungry toad?" Tyra scoffed.
"Your dress," I blurted.
"What about it?"
"It's dry."
"Why wouldn't it be? I don't bathe at school. That's not a thing, right?"
She doesn't know that people don't bathe at school? Girl must've been royally home-schooled. "You're gaslighting me."
"Am not."
"Ladies, please sit on your mats cross-legged, hands on your knees facing up, and breathe."
"But ..." I tried to explain how the laws of physics somehow didn't apply to Tyra, and Ms. Piltz, of all people, should have a healthy respect for science. But she silenced me with a "librarian finger to the mouth" shushing gesture.
"Breathe," she said.
I breathed.
Fire.
I hated being hushed.
Ms. Piltz flipped a switch on the boom box, and the room filled with birdsong and crashing ocean waves and babbling creeks rushing over stones. It all made me want to scream. And pee.
"Ommmm," chanted Ms. Piltz, then nodded at us. "You, too."
"Ommmm," Tyra and I chanted along, me horribly out of tune; Tyra, like an angel singing from on high.
After about twelve hours of chanting, Ms. Piltz stood. "Now, let's begin with a Sun Salutation. Remember to be mindful of your breaths and keep silencing those thoughts."
As if! No way could I do that. Never. But especially not now with the whole bloody ransom note, catnapping thing going on. I had to think! The Candygram burned in my back pocket, a constant reminder of what lay ahead.
We followed along with one pose after another. Tyra, as graceful and coordinated as an Olympic figure skater, me as clumsy as a camel in ice skates navigating a frozen pond. I used the time to strategize about the catnapping and not focus on breathing because let's face it. Breathing didn't need thought. It was automatic. Like, well, breathing.
Here's what I knew as fact:
1. Someone had catnapped Cal.
2. The catnapper had access to the Candygram box at some point before AP Comp Sci.
3. The catnapper had a cruel sense of humor delivering a ransom note in a Candygram of all things. I preferred kidnappers who delivered their ransom notes in traceable emails or in envelopes with a return address.
4. The catnapper was clearly insane, because, ick. Using blood as the ink was psycho.
5. The catnapper knew how much I loved Cal (even if he was a thieving, mischievous, flea-ridden demon. He was my thieving, mischievous, flea-ridden demon, and I wouldn't allow anyone to hurt him).
6. The catnapper had focused their plan on me, even though Cal was a neighborhood cat. Perhaps, they didn't want Cal at all. Maybe the actual target was me. Getting me alone in a desolate pet cemetery. But why? What did I have that a conniving miscreant would want?
"Breathe," Ms. Piltz said. "Rowen, are you breathing?"
"Honestly, I'm trying not to. It smells like boy socks, boy sweat, and the bitter tang of defeat." (Coffin Ridge High had the worst win record in Calaveras County.)
"If you think about it the right way, Rowen, it can be a wonderful smell," Ms. Piltz said. "In this very room, many people have competed, perspired, and persevered, all for school pride. It's all about how you frame things. Now, let's alternate between Downward Dog and Cat Pose."
Tyra, the kiss-ass, was already in Downward Dog. She smirked at me, even though she was supposed to be focused on the breathing and not thinking. I was pretty sure smirking wasn't part of the yoga philosophy. I checked the mirror to see if Ms. Piltz had seen it, but she was looking at her phone.
During yoga!
Horrors!
Still, I took advantage of the distraction and stuck my tongue out at Tyra. I knew it was immature, but this girl brought out my inner monster.
Ms. Piltz set her phone back onto the mat, and I quickly moved into Downward Dog, my calf muscles screaming in pain. This made it hard to concentrate, but I had a list to finish, so I had to work through the pain. Some of us are just heroes!
Ms. Piltz dropped to the mat on her hands and knees and arched her back. "Hiss like a cat here. Hissssss."
I hissed.
Hissing is something I could get behind, unlike the chanting and the stupid breathing.
Back to my list...
7. Why would a crazy catnapper want me, an almost sixteen-year-old high school student with no money, power, or a basement full of hostages available for exchange? Could it be for hacking? Because of hacking? Was this person a foreign government agent who needed my skills to destroy the U.S. military complex?
I smiled at the thought. Perhaps this was my destiny.
But any decent foreign government with financial backing would just pick me up in a shiny black SUV and take me to their lair. They wouldn't bother with the catnapping part. Also, how would a foreign agent have access to the Candygram box?
Sadly, this forced me to eliminate the foreign government option from the running.
"Time for Corpse Pose," Ms. Piltz announced.
Wow, yoga went fast when you focused on crime-solving instead of muscle pain. Wonder if I could package this idea into a money-making scheme?
Tyra tossed her foam block, which promptly landed on my head. "Hey," I cried. "Watch it."
"I'm sure it was an accident, Rowen," Ms. Piltz said. How are grownups this gullible? I threw my foam block at Tyra.
"Ms. Piltz, did you see that? Rowen threw her block at me."
"Accidental," I lied, giving her back her signature smirk.
The opening guitar strains of Van Halen's Hot for Teacher blared through the gym, swallowing the birdsong that was still coming from the boom box. (I only know about Van Halen because my dads consider knowledge of eighties glam metal rock to be part of a well-rounded education.) Ms. Piltz looked down at her phone like it was a dead body, then turned red as a bloody murder scene. She scooped up the phone and sprinted toward the door. "Get into Corpse Pose. I'll be right back," she called over her shoulder in a totally non-calming tone.
Don't leave me in here with her! I want to say, but not wanting to give Tyra the satisfaction, I laid down on my mat, clenching my fists, eyes open. Ready. Because if there was one thing I'd learned about Tyra in the short time I knew her, she would use the opportunity to be a jerk.
"That Miles, he's a good kisser," Tyra began. See? My heart cramped. Twisted. "Oh, but you wouldn't know, would you? I mean, since you never kissed him."
"Good for you," I spat. "Also, we're supposed to be corpses right now. I don't know any talking corpses."
"I do," she said merrily. "But seems like I struck a chord, didn't I?" I could hear the evil smile in her tone.
That thing inside me I always tried to ignore grew hot and itchy. It wanted out. But if there was anything I didn't want right now, it was that. I gripped the edges of the mat and locked the darkness down.
"He knows you liked him. We talked about it. We talk about everything."
Maybe I should focus on my breathing, which at the moment was short, shallow, and erratic.
"Did you know my Candygram was originally going to be for you? But once Miles met me, he got them to rip it up and replace it with mine."
Despite all my efforts to stay in control, I wanted to scream, but I didn't have enough oxygen to make that happen. My head spun. The room spun. I sat, totally giving up on Corpse Pose, and braced myself for an all-new pose—Tyra's Gonna be the Corpse Pose. I needed to get out of there. I stood. Wobbled. Every muscle in my body ached. I raced for the exit.
"You didn't put your equipment away," Tyra taunted me.
I spun to face her.
Mistake.
My head swirled.
The walls seemed to fold in on me.
The floors shook; overhead, the lights sputtered on and off; the banners flailed around as if caught in hurricane-force winds.
Tyra's eyes shone like it was Christmas morning, and she was opening the biggest box ever. Her happiness filled me with cold dread.
What was going on?
If there was one thing I was pretty sure of, Tyra with her two faces, dry dress, angelic voice, and power over men, wasn't normal. And she wanted this to happen.
Beneath my feet, the gym floor undulated, the individual planks rising and falling like piano keys. I surfed the wave, arms outstretched, trying to stay upright. The basketball goal closest to me bent over in the middle and fell straight at Tyra. She rolled out of the way.
I glimpsed myself in the mirror, and I swear, my skin was glowing.
A ghostly wind whipped up. Everything not bolted down—banners, mats, straps, rubber balls, Ms. Piltz's boom box, and Tyra—swirled up into a cyclone. Spinning, spinning, spinning. I didn't even have a second to relish Tyra's demise because I didn't want to end up ... uh ... similarly demised.
Although the storm hadn't yet devoured me into the maelstrom, I fought it with every molecule of my being. My hair whipped around my head. Inside, I felt empty. Weightless. Like whatever had been holding me together my whole life had been carelessly carved away, leaving me with a jagged void.
Darkness crept over my consciousness.
I crumpled to the floor as everything went black.
Thank you so much for reading this chapter! I am thrilled you're here and hope you're having a good time. As always, your votes, comments, and follows are appreciated and cherished.
What do you think will happen next? Will Rowen get sucked into the storm and die and end the book? (Hahaha!)
Is Tyra alive? Is she supernatural? What is her deal?
Who called Ms. Piltz during emergency yoga? And why would she take the call?
Are you happy the gym finally got destroyed? Anyone else out there like me—the last to be chosen for any team and not friends with any activity ending with the word "ball?"
Stay tuned for next week's installment!
This chapter is dedicated to the sweetest, kindest author around—CayleighKennedy. She is incredibly supportive of her fellow Wattpad authors, and a HUGE talent. Definitely read her stories. She is funny, wise, and top-notch in her writing craft. Even better, I get to meet her in human person in about a month at Wattcon in L.A. While there, I plan to question her mercilessly about her writing secrets. I may ask nicely, though. We'll see!
Mwahaha!