CHAPTER 2
I remembered being carried in the arms of someone running.
The jarring motion made my neck whip and my hair fly and blurred my already blurred vision and my head hurt. My face was hurting. I wasn't sure. My nose was sore, my ribs hurt. I was hanging on the person holding me, and I was really small. The memory was muted, but I remember yelling, and funny pops. Someone yelled and the person holding me turned. I was far off the ground. My hair continued to fly.
The voice, feminine, low and very pretty but also so incredibly familiar yelled some kind of command, I couldn't remember what, and I turned my small head to look. I saw a beautiful woman running toward us; she looked kind of scared. She caught up to the man, took me and held me up. She smelled so comforting. Her shoulders were shaking and all I remember thinking is that a woman as pretty as she should never be sad. So I hugged her neck and pressed my face to her collarbone. I was wondering where someone was, I desperately wanted-
Darkness, and then I woke again. My ears hurt and I remember this sound in the air and I was uncomfortable and there was wind. A cabin with open sliding doors to the left and right and in front of me there were two big chairs, and men in helmets with earpieces sat there. The pretty woman was kneeled in front of me and her hair was dark and her eyes were dark and wet, but she was talking to me. "I'm sorry, Baby-" she kept crying the words and the man was holding her shoulders and his were convulsing. He was crying. Why were they crying? Why was she saying sorry? I'm all ways safe when I'm with-
"We... safe." She sobbed words I missed and pulled me to her chest und hugged me. I was starting to see, and I wanted to know; "Where's-" she cut me off.
"Here." she said and set me back down and took something out of her collar. Immediately my little eyes were fascinated because she never took it off, but now she put it on me. "Are you sure? If they-" the man started.
"They wont." she cut him off. "Not with me here." she was crying and desperate. She came close and murmured that everything would be okay, but my voice was shrill when I demanded- "Where's-"
Darkness. My eyes were slatted closed and I was being carried again. "Take care, watch her." The man from earlier said quietly. I saw a red blur and brown spots and heard a deep, deep rumble and I turned my head and I saw something under me. Brown eyes, set in a small face.
Darkness.
***
I didn't wake in any dramatic fashion. There was no horrified gasp, I didn't shoot out of bed like a bulet, I wasn't sweating, crying or screaming.
I simply opened my eyes.
And was then filled with rage. "Tom!" I roared and jumped out of bed so fast I sumbled on my shag carpeting. The deamon spawn laughter reached my ears as my freshman idiot brother and his friend turned to race out of my bedroom. "I'll kill you, Moron!" I yelled and stumbled after them, down the hallway before staggering and falling down the stairs. My hair, I was sure, was in a massive flyaway tumbleweed and my little tank top and too long plaid pajama bottoms were askew, the material at my feet tripping me up. Well, that and I was half blind without my glasses. I latched onto Tom, long black fingernalis digging into his arms and pulling him into a headlock before rubbing the flat of my knuckles across the top of his head. He began to wine and shriek and stumble, but I held on, very aware that in a year he'd be taller than me, and this trick would no longer work. The idiot had strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes, his face marred by the plethora of red dots and spots that accompanied puberty. His skin was deeply tanned, however, and he was all skin and gangly bone. "What now, dumbass?" I snapped while he wined like a wounded dog. "What are you gonna do now?"
"Reena Dallas Smith! Put your brother down immediately!" the voice was ice cold instead of its usual warmth so I knew I was in trouble. "Ungh, mom!" I groaned and released, dumping Tom unceremoniously, ass first to the floor. His friend, a kid with a stutter, began to laugh uproariously. "Mom, he's bringing in his dorky little friends to stare at me when I sleep again, its creepy as Hell!" I wined.
My mother's eyes, crystal blue, cut to mine like glass shards. "Watch your language! Your brother's just a boy, Reena."
I scowled. Mom had black hair that reached her butt, pulled back into a simple, perpetual plait. She wore a lot of paisly and tye dye and drank herbal teas. I liked to think I shared some of her healthy way of living, but I wasn't as hippy-extreme as she was.
"To the kitchen, the three of you. Breakfast is waiting." she tossed her braid over her shoulder and with all the grace of a queen in a flower skirt, flitted through the kitchen door. I grumbled as I followed, shoving Tom to the floor again for good measure, to which he indigantly cried a "Hey!"
My father sat at the kitchen table, reading the business section. Ironically, my tea loving, landscape painting, PETA supporting mother had married a Navy suited Financial Advicer to large corporations. Dad's hair was light brown and receding, his eyes the same color and his potbelly flirting dangerously with button poppage on his crisp white shirt.
"Good morning, you little devils, morning Marie." he ruffled Tom's hair one handed, high fived his friend and kissed me on the cheek good morning.
"Ben." My mother greeted back. They shared a kiss that had Tom miming gagging. I hit him on the back of the head with the flat of my hand as I reached for the cerial and a bowl. He gave me a death stare and a lopsided pout in return. Tom was late on the scale of growth spurts, standing at a flat five nothing and an appitite for sugar that defied all logic.
"Tom, Reena." the warmth in my mother's tone had returned, and I looked over into her smiling blue eyes. My mother herself was a short woman that stood only an inch taller than Tom.
"I think you should drive to school together today."
I, of course, wouldn't mind. My car was a little green hatchback with good brakes and an awesome stereo. The problem came with Tom, who refused to ride with me on account of he had a bycyle, claimed I drove like a maniac, and got car sick so easy he had to continually carry motion sickness pills.
"No!" he squeaked, voice knack jumping between the boyish tone he had and the deeper tone it would become. His cheeks flashed blood red before he cleared his throat and tried again. "No, we're gonna ride to school. I don't wanna drive with Reena, ma." he sneered my name like it was acid coated and I smiled in juvenile satisfaction as I began to crunch away on Oatees.
"Told you, mom." I muttered, mouth full. "Its his own descision. I don't care."
She sent me an exasperated look, but I was aready out of the kitchen, cerial bowl in hand to go get dressed and put on my glasses. Everything was so damn blurry.
***
"What the holy f-" the word disappeared in a gust as I landed back in the drivers seat of my car, on my ass. Ingrids hands landed on my shoulders from where she'd pushed me back into the car and she glared deeply into my eyes. "Could you wait till I'm fully out of my car before you pounce on m-" I started, to have her cut me off. "That would defy the purpose." she cut me off, her words sounding more like something I'd say than her own. I pushed my hand through my hair, half pulling it out of its lazy ass low ponytail before I even realized it was up. "Purpose being?" I huffed in question. "That when you're out of the car youre taller than me." she pouted.
"Okay, so why not just talk to me when I pulled up through the wind-" she cut me off with an exasperated eye roll and tone- "Because you had to open the door, and pushing you back down added to the effect I'm going for." I paused for a moment. I sighed when I realized the answer needed prodding. "Effect being?" my exasperation mimicked hers. Her lips parted and her head tilted to the side, and for half a second she sent me a "God, you're stupid" look. Then, she suddenly began pulling and ripping at my sholders, shaking my uperbody so hard I got whiplash and emphasisng the movement with a loud, frustrated grunts of "Urrrrrgggg-rrrrgggg-rrrgg!" punctuated by the hard pulls, before yelling at me to; "Wake UP!"
"Ingrid-... what are-... Sonovabitch!" I hissed and jerked back from her grip. I landed half in the passenger seat and the handbrake dug into my right kidney.
"What in the hell are you doing?" I roared, hair splayed across my eyes. She pulled herself out of my car and straightened her hair, ran a finger across her eyebrows, fixed her leopard print tote and gave me a smile, which slowly turned to a grin, then became self conscious giggles and rolled into maniacle laughter.
I got out of the car, closed the door and locked up, pulling my hair up and tying it back again. "What was that?" I asked with a scowl. The nutso laughter continued before she groaned it out and muttered; "I have no idea."
"Youre a friggin' wackjob, are you aware?" I snapped. She smiled, started up that self-conscious giggle again and gave me a hug around the waist. I wanted to kill her, but she reminded me of a feral kitten. Claws sharp and actions illogical, but sweetly defenseless and adorable as Hell In A One-sie when aseep.
"Did you do your bio homework?" I asked with a sigh when I realized that staying mad at her was simply not going to happen.
She faltered for a moment and looked up at me. "I take biology?" I laughed again and we made our way toward the school building.
Im not sure how or why, but somewhere in our high school career paths, we ended up sitting at the smart+nice+popular table. Every school has them. That group of kids considered popular and liked by the school, but maintained As, A+s, and the occasional B. I think part of my claim to fame was that I'd known a couple of them since I was little. The other that my grades qualified, but only just. I sported half Bs and half As. Apparently one out of the three teirs qualified me a seat. And -if I were more than honest- I believed Ingrid only joined us because I, her charity case, resided there.
"But I've totally always wanted a red prom dress, ya'know?" Ingrid was saying. She was chowing down on some or other type of pasta out of Tupperware with a plastic fork. I dug my chompers into the crisp green skin of an apple. "Uh-huh." I grunted, only half heartedly paying attention. Five others sat around us, three guys, two girls. Both of the double X chromosomes were physics geniuses and one was up for Valedictorian. One of the boys was a legend with regards to programming and mathematics, the other the king of drama and class president. The final a sweet -if naïve- boy with a penchant for Acounting and business, and an overlong blond comb over.
"And you?" I blinked and stared back at Ingrid. "And I, what?" her scowl curdled my brain. "Where you even- don't answer that. What do you want to wear to prom?" she questioned, apparently repeating herself. "Clothing, hopefully." my flat reply, accentuated by another apple crunch, was unsatisfactory. "You know, you think you're funny, but youre really not." her tone was as flat as mine had been. She flicked her dark hair back and shifted on the hard plastic chair. "Andrew's driving me to this dress place tomorrow. You should come." while the gesture was sweet, I didn't feel the draw of indebting myself even more to Ingrid and much less her boyfriend. I was getting tired of her community service of me at school alone. After hours was more than I could handle. Besides, everyone knew my Friday nights were filled and fraught with the insane debauchery of a book and tea at home alone. My freshman idiot brother had a better social life than I. "Thanx, Ingrid." I said and for the first time in a while I offered a genuine smile behind my glasses. "But I have something to do on Friday night." litle did I know that my words would come true.
***