I had been back in class for about twenty minutes when I was paged over the school's crackling intercom.
"Ryan Jacobs, report to the principal's office immediately."
The snickers and whispers that erupted in the room at this point suddenly struck me as bearing an eerie resemblance to a pack of hyenas in the dark.
"Ryan? You may go," the teacher instructed.
I sighed, then winced at the pain in my stomach as I stood. I headed to the office. Not much else I could do at this point. As I walked into the main office, Mrs. Bradley looked up from her desk. She didn't smile this time, just shook her head softly and pointed at the office door. I went where she directed me.
My father was there again. Or maybe still, I didn't know if he'd actually ever left. It had only been a few hours, though it sure felt like a lot longer than that. Maybe he and Principal Avery had been 'discussing' me ever since. I moved to the chair beside my father and eased myself into it.
"Mr. Jacobs," Principal Avery sighed. "In a single afternoon, you have disrespected your principal and father, ditched class, vandalized the library resulting in thousands of dollars of damage to our computers and shelving, and assaulted one of your fellow students. This behavior is completely unacceptable."
"I did not vandalize the library! Someone pushed the shelves..." I protested, but my father interrupted.
"Ryan, don't," he said softly. "There were witnesses."
"What?" I asked incredulously.
"Your father has talked me out of having you expelled, but you will be suspended for the remainder of the week," Principal Avery said coldly. "I am going to tell you this as clearly as possible, Mr. Jacobs. Next Monday, if you do not feel you are capable of conducting yourself in an acceptable manner, you are not welcome back here."
I looked at him in shock. He actually believed all of this was my fault. I looked to my father for support, and found none. He stared at me, eyes showing again how broken he was.
I looked back to Principal Avery. His expression was cool and collected, but his eyes burned hotly. As angry as he apparently was with me despite his controlled tone, I had to wonder if I would soon be treated the same way Chance was, with everyone hating me and just shutting me out. After a moment I realized I didn't care. If Chance talked to me, I didn't need anyone else to.
"Go and get your things, Ryan. We're going home," he said. I stood slowly, painfully, and left the office.
I looked at Mrs. Bradley as I passed, but she carefully focused on the paperwork in front of her. You too, I thought? Great. Turned on and abandoned by the only people I had left.
My father believed I was a violent delinquent, the principal thought I should be expelled, the usually friendly secretary wouldn't even look at me, and my best friend in the world had abandoned me to be beaten up by the school bully. He hadn't even gone for help. To top it off, some crazy religious fanatic was apparently now trying to kill me. It was amazing just how much life could actually suck. As if my mother dying wasn't enough for one guy to have to cope with.
I stormed through the halls, lost in my dark thoughts. Grabbing my things from my locker, I didn't even bother with my textbook from the class I'd been called out of. It didn't really matter at this point. I made it almost out of the school when a voice stopped me.
"Ryan..." the voice said. I didn't turn. I knew it was Chance. "Ryan, I'm really sorry. Those guys terrify me. I mean, Noah is the one who..."
"Save it Chance," I snapped, not turning. "I can't be friends with someone I can't trust."
"I told you, I can't help," he protested, sounding hurt and defeated.
"You could have gone for help," I said, as I finally turned around. The halls were empty, the lights flickering absently. "Don't you ever go to class?"
"Only when I have to," he said with a small, half-hearted smile. I shook my head.
"Go to class, Chance. At least you still can."
"What do you mean?" His confused expression was almost as painful as his wounded one.
"I got suspended. I can't come back until Monday."
"Ryan, you have to come back!" he protested, a panicked look coming into his eyes.
"I can't. That's what suspension means," I told him bitterly. "Go to class, Chance. You'll be fine. I'm the one Noah's trying to kill, not you. You'll be fine." I realized I was trying to reassure myself as much as him. I shoved the feeling back down and turned away, heading for the doors.
"Ryan," Chance said behind me. I stopped again, but resolutely refused to face him. "Be careful, okay?"
I didn't respond, I just walked away.
My father had the car out front and waiting. I climbed in and buckled my seat belt, not saying anything. He was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke.
"What happened to you, Ryan?" he asked. I didn't respond. "You were always so bright, so happy, so quick to laugh and make jokes. You were always so friendly. Ever since your mom got sick, all of that has disappeared. It was bad enough back in Phoenix, but since we got here you've..." he looked over at me. "I'm worried, Ryan. There's something really not right with you lately."
"Not right with me?" I snapped. "There's something completely jacked up about this entire town! Haven't you seen it?"
"This town isn't the problem, Ryan," he argued. "Everyone can see it but you. You've gone from being a great, happy student with lots of friends to being this brooding, sullen kid who's not doing well in class, is damaging school property, attacking other students, and has only one friend who is..."
"You leave Chance out of this!" I said as threateningly as I could. "And that library incident was not my fault!"
"Oh, so just the attacking students part is?" he asked sharply.
"That psycho and his four brain-dead partners were about to beat up on a girl!" I yelled. "You're damned right I attacked him! All because she likes other girls? What the Hell is wrong with everyone?" My father looked at me, a little surprised, then his face went steely again.
"I can't trust you, Ryan. You said you didn't vandalize the library, but there were witnesses! Five different students came in to report it!"
"Let me guess, the same five who claimed I attacked them?" I retorted. He didn't respond. I knew I was right. "Awfully convenient Noah's backpack and Bible were on the table right behind the shelves that just about crushed us."
"Ryan, this is getting out of hand. You need to get yourself under control. I've made an appointment with a counselor at the hospital for you this weekend."
"Awesome, now you think I'm crazy."
"You're not crazy Ryan," he argued. "You're just upset. Maybe about your mother, maybe about something else," he glanced sidelong at me, "but whatever it is, you need to talk to someone about it. Someone trained to handle this kind of thing."
"Yeah, kid's having a hard time. Instead of listening to him, let's send him to the nuthouse. It's easier for everyone that way," I said bitterly. My sarcasm was not appreciated.
"Ryan it isn't a nuthouse, and I'm not sending you there. We're just going to go in on Saturday and talk to someone about what's bothering you."
"What's bothering me is that nobody, not even the people who are supposed to care, seem to give a damn," I said. "It probably wouldn't concern you at all to know that I think someone is trying to hurt me, and that with me gone all week, nobody is going to be around to look out for Chance in case whoever it is decides go after him."
I realized that the thought of nobody being there to back up Chance if something happened really bothered me, despite my resentment at him not having come to my own aid. He was terrified of Noah, after all. He really was convinced that the guy was a psychotic murderer.
Considering what happened in the library, and in the halls after, that thought didn't seem at all out of place anymore. I couldn't blame him too much for not wanting to charge in against a killer and his four minions. I would have, though, for Chance. My dad looked over at me, and then back to the road.
"Doctor Sadler told me paranoia might be one of the symptoms," he said almost to himself.
"Symptoms? Are you kidding me? You really do think I'm crazy!" I shouted at him.
"Can you blame me after everything that's been going on?" he snapped back.
"Everything that's been going on? Like the library and the fight? I told you Dad, that Noah kid is a serious problem! I'm not doing anything but trying to protect myself and Chance!"
"I'm not concerned about Chance, Ryan!" my father yelled back. "I'm concerned about you! You haven't been right since your mother died! I thought moving out here would help, but it was like lighting the fuse! You've completely lost control of yourself, and I can't think what to do to help! We're going Saturday to see Doctor Sadler, and I don't want to hear another word about any of this!" I glared at him, furious at his lack of faith and belief in me.
"Shouldn't be a problem," I muttered, "you haven't heard anything that I've said in years anyway." He looked at me, and I could tell I'd hurt him. He looked away and didn't say another word.
We got home, and I went to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. I hooked up my mp3 player to my speakers, and turned up the hardest rock I had in my collection loud enough that I probably wouldn't have heard my dad even if he were shouting right outside my door. Just the way I preferred it at that moment.
I spent my afternoon and evening locked in my room, lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling as I listened to my music. Thoughts came and went, most without real form or direction. I was trying hard not to think too much. I ate dinner at the table with my father, neither of us saying a word. I went to bed and slept dreamlessly, to my great relief.
As the next day passed, I couldn't stop thinking about Chance. Yeah, he'd left me high and dry when I'd stepped in to help that girl, but the more I thought about it, the look on his face told it all. He wasn't just afraid of being hurt by Noah. He really thought Noah was a killer and was terrified by the idea of making him mad.
I couldn't really blame him for freezing up like that, especially after the guy had just tried to crush us with the bookshelves. That was a lot of stress for a guy to deal with. Add to that his mother's visit to the school, and that it was his unhappy birthday...
That thought hit me hard as I realized I'd totally shut him out after the Noah incident. Chance was probably crushed, losing his only friend on his birthday. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt for reacting like that.
It really was stupid of me to jump in and help that girl against five guys, all bigger than I was. Although being honest with myself I knew full well I'd do it again if given the chance for a retake. Whatever Chance said, I'd given the girl the opportunity to get away. I was glad she'd taken it.
After his talk with his mother, getting almost crushed to death by the shelves, during which I now realized he'd saved my life, watching his best friend get pounded on and unable to do anything about it, then rejected by that same friend all on his birthday... I had to figure out a way to make it up to him.
I spent the next two days trying to figure out something I could do for him. While reading that evening, I finally came up with something. I'd have to get my dad to let me go to a store in town when we went for my appointment Saturday, but I could manage it I thought. I just had to cooperate well enough on Saturday for him to want to do me a favor.
Thursday afternoon, I was dozing lightly in the crispness of the afternoon out on our small porch when I had a nightmare. Not the nightmare, I hadn't had that one since Chance's voice had appeared in it. This one was different.
I was in the library at school. The fallen shelving had been replaced, and brackets installed to bolt it to the floor. To prevent another "accident", I assumed. All the shelving units had been bolted down.
Everything was slightly hazy, though still carried a realness unusual in my normal dreams. The computers had been removed from the back table, but new ones had not yet been put in their place. The table was empty, showing damage where the heavy bookcase had connected with it. Had the table been any less solid itself, the table might have collapsed as well. As I slowly turned, I heard voices.
"Hell awaits you, girl. Your sins will be purged in the fires of eternal damnation. Let your judgment come." I couldn't make out the voice, it too was hazy. In the dim, misty vision, I couldn't see the source of the voice, either. Moving slowly, like through a thick soup, I walked, curving around shelves and peering down rows of books.
"I never hurt anyone," another voice responded. This one was a young girl. It sounded familiar.
"Your sins are unforgivable! God's justice will be your reward."
I rounded the last set of shelves and spotted the maintenance closet in the back of the library. Inside the small closet stood a girl on a tall stool. Her hands were behind her back, and a long electrical cord was wrapped around her neck, the other end tied to a pipe on the ceiling. She was crying softly.
In front of her stood a man. No, I realized, not a man. As the figure turned, I recognized the devil. My devil. The one wearing Noah's face like a Halloween mask. The mask-face saw me, and slowly grinned, revealing long, jagged teeth behind the bloody lips.
Still looking at me, the devil reached out behind itself and grabbed the stool. I silently shouted out my protest, and the devil laughed, the horrible sound resonating in my bones.
With a mocking abruptness and a tilt of its gruesome head, it yanked the stool out from under the girl. She dropped fast, hitting the end of her cord with a jerk, feet kicking well out of reach of the floor.
I screamed, and jerked awake as my whole body convulsed, trying to move forward to help the girl. The reality of the dream was so thick in my thoughts that I had my cell phone out and in my hand, dialing 9-1-1 before I knew what I was doing.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" came the calm woman's voice on the other end. I tried to speak, but I had trouble getting my words out.
"Closet..." I coughed, almost feeling as though the cord were around my own neck. "Turnbridge Middle, library. Closet. Help her!"
"I'm sorry sir, do you mean Turnbridge Middle School?" the dispatcher asked. I hung up the phone in horror as full wakefulness reached me. I'd just made a 9-1-1 call based on a dream. I had to be completely out of my mind. Maybe my father was right.
I wondered if they had the technology to trace my cell number. I was really hoping that Turnbridge was back-country enough that they didn't even have caller id, let alone phone tracing abilities.
After the first hour passed, I relaxed. If they were going to come after me for prank calling 9-1-1, they would have done so by now, I reasoned. A few hours later, my dad came home. He saw me sitting still on the porch lost in thought and slowed as he approached from the car.
"Hi Ryan," he said.
"Hey," I replied.
"I had a surprise visit today at work," he said, sitting down in the chair beside me.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. About an hour ago, a bunch of people came racing into the ER. I was doing an inventory check in the department, so watched the whole group of them come in," he said. I looked over at him, unsure where this was going.
"Intense," I said.
"They had a little girl with them, Ryan. A girl from your school," he said, watching me closely. I felt my heart leap up into my throat. "Poor girl had been hung by an extension cord in a closet at your school."
"Is she okay?" I whispered, my heart in my throat. I wasn't sure if I should be afraid or relieved.
"Sort of," he answered. "She was resuscitated, but her windpipe is badly damaged, and she won't wake up. Doctors are afraid she might have brain damage from oxygen deprivation. She might not wake up. But she's alive, so the doctor is hopeful."
"Thank God," I said. "I'm glad she's alive."
"Well that's the interesting thing, Ryan. Along with the paramedics came a couple of police officers. They were looking for me." I realized in horror that the cell phone I used wasn't in my name. It was in my dad's.
"What did they want?" I asked, trying to feign a casual attitude. I failed miserably, my hands shaking and my voice cracking.
"To know how I knew she was in trouble there," he said. "They were very interested in knowing how I knew that at that precise moment, a little girl at my son's middle school was committing suicide in the maintenance closet of the school library." I looked at my hands, and willed them to stop shaking. The dream was real. How could that be? How had I seen it? What the hell was going on?
"What did you tell them?" I asked.
"I told them that my son had made the call, and he was a student there. I told them that I assumed you had known the girl, and maybe knew she was planning something."
"I did know her, sort of," I said. "I just met her on Monday. She was the girl those boys were trying to beat on." He looked at me for a long time. I couldn't read his expression.
"Do you think she was picked on enough to want to kill herself?" he asked me.
"She didn't try to kill herself, Dad," I snapped. "Somebody tied her hands behind her back, put her on a stool, and hung her up there, then pulled the stool out from under her."
"How could you possibly know that, Ryan?" he demanded, sounding exasperated. He also sounded confused, and a little bit scared. I decided to try something different. I decided to open up to him a little. Just a little.
"I..." I took a deep breath. I couldn't look at him while I said this. "I dreamt about it. I could see the whole thing. He pulled the stool, and she fell. I woke up, and called 9-1-1."
"You saved that girl's life, Ryan," he said softly. "She would have been there maybe for hours before someone found her. If you hadn't called when you did, she wouldn't have made it. But Ryan, people don't dream about other people's murders."
"I think I do," I whispered back.
"Have you had any others like that?" he asked.
My recurring nightmare flashed in my mind, but I shook my head. No reason to freak him out even more by telling him I've dreamt my own murder. I've dreamt about my own murder, I realized, and apparently my dreams of death were real. My hands began to shake again.
"Does..." he hesitated. "Does Chance tell you about these things?"
"No," I answered. "I don't think he has dreams like that, either. I doubt he'd believe me if I told him. He's a little obsessed about a murder that happened in that school two years ago, but nothing recent. That one looked like a suicide too, but Chance doesn't think it was. With everything going on, I'm starting to think he might be right."
It occurred to me that my dream of burning in that oven might not actually be me. Maybe I was dreaming about Dominic Hale's death. Except the voice telling me it couldn't help called me by name.
My father looked away, repeatedly flexing and relaxing his jaw like he does when he's really upset about something. He didn't speak for several minutes.
"Who was it that tried to kill the girl in your dream?" he asked. I was hoping he wouldn't ask that, though I knew he would.
"In my dream, it looked like a devil," I told him. He took a long, slow breath, and was quiet for another minute.
"Ryan, I think we need to tell Doctor Sadler about this," he finally said. I sighed. He still thought I was crazy.
"Okay, Dad." He looked back at me.
"Okay?"
"I said okay," I replied tiredly. He nodded, patted me on the leg, and stood to go inside. "Hey Dad?" He stopped.
"Yeah Spo... Ryan?" Nice save, Dad. I appreciated that he tried though.
"Can we stop at a store when we go into town on Saturday?"
"Sure, what for?"
"I just need a couple of supplies for a project," I said. At his expression, I quickly clarified. "I want to make a present for someone." He considered, then nodded.
"Yeah, I don't see why not."
"Thanks," I said as he went inside.
I sighed again. Well, I'd tried. Nobody could say I hadn't tried. He was polite about it, but my father obviously thought I was crazy. He wasn't going to be any real help. I was more convinced than ever that Chance was in trouble.
Dominic had been gay, and murdered in such a way as to look like suicide. This girl, whatever her name was, was also gay and someone had tried to do the same to her. Chance was gay, and someone had tried to crush him with a bookshelf, which would probably have looked like an accident had it succeeded. I desperately wished I had some way to get in touch with Chance.
I got up, and went inside. Nothing I could do until Monday, but that didn't stop me from worrying.