There once lived a girl.
She believed life was beautiful.
Then this girl experienced the ugly side of life.
Now she only has eyes for the ugly.
Rylan hates that her life equates to a loss of innocence. She understands that you can't be happy all the time, but she's tired of brief happy moments spattered amongst the bad.
Sometimes good things fall apart so something better can fall together....
The phrase keeps repeating over and over again inside Rylan's head. She wants desperately to believe it and she can't stop it replaying over and over in her mind. Methodically she clenches and unclenches her right fist, trying to convince herself this is reality. Each time she clenches her fingers tightly into her palm, her nails dig deep and leave marks.
Rylan continues her stroll down the hallway towards her locker.
Sometimes good things fall apart so something better can fall together....
"Stop." She hisses under her breath, hoping the sound of her voice will prevent the phrase from repeating.
It doesn't.
Sometimes good things fall apart so something better can fall together....
The words only increase her bad mood. Rylan yanks open her locker door angrily. Everything good continues to fall apart. She had really believed the principal would help her. Rylan stuffs two textbooks in her locker and glances at the return letter lying in her locker. It took him nearly a week to respond. She found it in her locker this morning and she had been so hopeful. The words are scribbled and messy, but legible.
Dear Miss Winchester,
I am sorry to hear all you have had to endure and I offer my sympathy to you and the other students. Unfortunately there isn't much I can do for you or your fellow students. Evidence on cases like this takes time to put together. But I promise you that I only have the interests of my students at heart. Thank you for notifying me of this issue and I will contact you if I have any further questions.
Sincerely Principal Kennedy
Rylan shakes her head and frowns. She crumples the paper in her fist and throws it even further into the depths of her locker. Principal Kennedy might as well have said, "It's too difficult. I'm not even going to try."
"Rylan?" A voice calls from behind her.
"Yes, good things are falling apart, but when are they going to get better?!" Rylan snaps as she turns to confront the speaker.
She covers her mouth with her hand when she realizes what has come out of her mouth.
"Uh..." Cas breathes and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "I was just going to ask if you need a ride."
"Sorry. I'm a little...." Rylan searches for the correct term. "...annoyed lately."
"Is this about the letter?" Cas wonders.
Rylan sighs heavily. "Yes. It just bothers me so much that he won't do a thing to help!"
"So he's a little misguided. Who at this school isn't?" Cas disputes.
"That's the point! No one here cares that Mr. Quinn is dangerous. He makes everyone around him miserable; me most of all! I'm too young to have to deal with something like this by myself. Why am I the only one who seems to care?!" Rylan snaps.
"Woah. Calm down. I was only trying to play devil's advocate." Cas holds his arms up defensively. "And you are not the only one who cares." He assures her.
Rylan takes a deep breath to calm herself and rubs her hand across her face. Cas catches a glimpse of the extent of her exhaustion.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Why don't you forget about this stuff for a while? You were doing so well until you read Principal Kennedy's letter. It's Christmas Break for goodness' sake. Hang out with your dad and Dani... and me." Cas wiggles his eyebrows when he mentions himself.
Rylan laughs. Cas enjoys the sound. He has been much more open with her since the incident with Tuck. He felt she really needed someone by her side so he hung around a lot more. Rylan appreciated it. Dani told her that Cas was acting much more like his real self. The fact makes Rylan a bit sad since she rather enjoyed the mystery surrounding Cas, but she is also glad she has someone she can talk to..
"I hope you don't mean all at once." Rylan jokes.
Cas snickers.
"So how about that ride?"
"I'd love a ride." Rylan smiles, but then bites her lip as she remembers something.
"Oh, wait. I have to drop off my term paper in the History room and talk to Mrs. Wright." Rylan grimaces.
"Well, I can wait if you want." Cas offers.
Rylan glances down the hallway. A few other students gather books from their lockers and some are grouped together talking and waiting for their parents. The snow had become thick over the past weeks. No one ventured outside unless it was to enter a getaway vehicle.
"Nah. I'll walk."
"In two feet of snow?" Cas asks incredulously.
"I don't live that far." Rylan points out. "Plus people walk everywhere in New Jersey. It's a lot like New York."
Cas stares at Rylan as if to say, 'You're being stupid.'
"Really, it's fine. I don't know how long this will take anyway."
"I can wait." Cas insists.
Rylan rolls her eyes. "You are so stubborn."
"I can't help what I am." Cas smarts.
Finally Rylan agrees. "Ugh! Fine. Wait for me if you like."
"I'll meet you at the car." He turns and exits the building.
Rylan watches him leave and follows the snowflakes with her eyes as they continue to fall behind the closed doors. Suddenly she is grateful that Cas and his dad are waiting to give her a ride. She doesn't really want to walk home through a couple feet of snow.
Rylan closes her locker and heads down the hall to the History room. The door is propped wide open and yellow light wafts out into the dim hallway.
"Mrs. Wright?"
Rylan enters the room, but Mrs. Wright isn't there. She quirks an eyebrow.
"I thought you said you'd wait for me after school." Rylan mutters dejectedly.
So much for her questions. Rylan sifts through her backpack for her essay and drops it onto the desk. Then she walks back into the hall. The sound of a door closing echoes through the corridor. A couple lights flick off at the far end of the hall. Rylan heads towards her locker and the exit.
She slows and stops. All the students who had been lining the halls are now gone.
"Hello?" Her voice echoes lightly through the hall.
Another door closes in the distance and Rylan flinches.
Strange, Rylan thinks. She peers at her watch. I guess everyone clears out early before break.
She pushes the uneasy feeling aside and continues down the hall. The lights flicker off.
Rylan stops again and looks around. The power went out? Rylan wonders. The uneasy feeling begins to creep in again, so Rylan forces her feet to move. She practically runs the last few feet to the door and rams herself into it, desperate to leave.
The door doesn't budge from its closed position. Rylan tries to push the door again, but it still doesn't produce what she wants.
"No." Rylan murmurs.
Did the custodians already lock all the doors? Surely they would make one last walkthrough of the building before doing so? I mean, I guess they'd want to get home as soon as they can, but clearing the school is part of their job! Rylan slams her fist against the door and grunts.
"Hello?" She turns and calls down the hall. "I'm still in here."
There is no answer. Rylan sighs and walks through the darkness to the next closest exit. The results are the same.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" She shouts and kicks the door.
"Careful. You might hurt yourself kicking the door like that."
Rylan's eyes widen and she spins to face her companion.
"It's been a while, Miss Winchester." Mr. Quinn scowls with contempt from a short distance away.
The darkness clings to his figure and shrouds him in a creepy manner. If he didn't already scare her, this would definitely have changed that. Rylan backs against the door.
"You're still here?"
"Apparently so are you." He replies indifferently.
Rylan swallows. "Are the custodians still here? Or do you have a key by chance?" She trails off.
Rylan grows uncomfortable in the silence that follows. Mr. Quinn continues to stare at her, thoughtfully.
"I like the idea of second chances," He finally says. "Letting someone prove to you they can be the person you thought they were before they let you down. If there's one thing I should know by now, it's that no matter how many chances you give a person, they'll always find a way to screw it up."
Rylan glances around the hall slowly, trying to find a path of escape inconspicuously.
"I don't take your meaning." She replies.
Mr. Quinn purses his lips and clasps his hands together. "I thought you were smarter than this. That was my mistake. One I won't make again."
Rylan eyes him carefully and says, "I don't know what you're talking about. Now, do you have a key or not? I have people waiting for me."
Mr. Quinn grimaces wryly. "Of course you do." As if he doesn't seem to care, he continues, "Students like you think you have to fix things and I get it; you want to be a hero."
"I don't want to be a hero. I just want to be left alone." She protests.
He laughs and it's like a scoff. "What do you think I was doing? I was prepared to let this all go and move on, but you just had to push it. You must like this little round and around we're doing." Mr. Quinn wets his lips. "You think you know me, but you really don't."
Rylan stares at him silently and helplessly.
He pauses and takes a few steps forward as he continues, "You did exactly what I told you not to do. You told someone."
"Cas won't say anything, I swear."
Mr. Quinn tsks his tongue. "I'm not interested in whatever you told your stupid little friends. Rylan flinches as Mr. Quinn shouts the word, "stupid." "Besides, that's not who I'm talking about."
"I didn't tell anyone else."
"I detect bullshit. Try again."
"I swear, I didn't tell anyone else." Rylan states as steadily as she can manage.
Mr. Quinn smiles and shakes his head. "Don't lie to me, Rylan."
"I'm not—"
"Don't!" Mr. Quinn shouts and slams his hands on the door on either side of Rylan's head. His face contorts with rage.
Rylan closes her eyes and winces back against the doors, terrified he will hit her. When nothing else happens and all Rylan can feel is Mr. Quinn's hot breath on her face, she slowly opens her eyes.
"I wasn't born yesterday, Rylan."
He holds up an envelope in her face. It's her envelope; the one she left in Principal Kennedy's office. She recognizes her dainty penmanship.
"Where did you get that?"
"Kennedy's office. It was lucky I came in and discovered it before his secretary got back. It'd be a shame if the principal had gotten around to reading it."
"It was anonymous. Do you just go around opening letters that don't belong to you?" Rylan demands.
"I'm an english teacher, Ms. Winchester. I've seen your handwriting before."
Rylan tries to remain calm. The principal hadn't even read her letter.
"So the return letter... that was you?"
Mr. Quinn smirks. Rylan's heart beats faster each second.
"I thought it was a nice touch. If Kennedy didn't respond, you likely would have confronted him in person. I couldn't have that. I like my job, Rylan. You're not going to take this from me."
"It doesn't matter if you like your job. You suck at it!"
Rylan sucks in a breath sharply and shies away from Mr. Quinn as he leans in closer. His face is barely an inch from her ear.
"Do you know how long I've worked here, Rylan?" He whispers. "Eight. Years."
"Eight years of educating students who don't give two fucks about learning anything! But, oh, why would anyone want to get an education and after that, a job? No, they'd all rather throw their lives away in gang wars and drugs and alcohol. At first I tried to help. You think you can fix things, but the school system has been the way it is for decades. One voice doesn't change anything." Mr. Quinn grasps Rylan's chin and forces her to look at him. "So I may suck at my job, but it's not out of choice."
"You're blaming the way you are on the school system and the students? You chose how you reacted to them. That was a choice."
"You're not listening. You can't fix what people want to keep broken."
Rylan desperately wishes Cas will come searching for her. By now, he has to know something is wrong.
"I'm not giving up."
She tries to remove her chin from Mr. Quinn's grasp, but his fingers only tighten and send pain shooting up her skull.
"You think I'm just going to let you tell someone else?" He demands through tight lips.
"You can't stop me."
Rylan cries out as Mr. Quinn's grip tightens again.
"If you hurt me again, I'll tell everyone." She warns.
Mr. Quinn sighs. He reaches into her jacket pocket, takes out her cellphone, and puts it into his own pocket.
"Then I guess I'll have to make sure you can't tell anyone."
The murderous look in his eyes proves he isn't joking. Rylan thrusts her right knee up with as much force as she can manage. Mr. Quinn groans and instantly lets go of Rylan as he crumples to his knees. Rylan doesn't take any chances and knees him in the face. Mr. Quinn howls in pain and clutches his nose.
She dodges around his flailing arm, but he catches her backpack. Rylan has to slide out of it and leave it behind. She runs down the hallway. There has to be another exit. Maybe a fire exit. That wouldn't be locked.
Rylan's breaths are short and raspy as panic seizes her chest.
"Help!" She screams.
She finds another exit, but it's locked the same as the last two. Rylan cries in frustration and panic. Mr. Quinn will kill her when he finds her. She leans against the wall for support and takes deep breaths, trying to stop her panic attack.
"I don't want to die." She whispers.
When her breathing becomes slightly more controlled, Rylan heads down the hall in search of a fire exit. Flashes of her dream when she'd been trapped in the school with Blake flood her mind. Rylan's heartbeat speeds up as the memories send shivers down her spine. She listens as the echo of Mr. Quinn's black suede shoes on the floor gets louder.
"You stupid fucking bitch! You broke my nose!" Mr. Quinn shouts furiously.
Rylan twists each doorknob she comes to, now searching for somewhere to hide from her murderous teacher. Her breathing hitches as the sound of footsteps becomes too loud to determine how close he really is. She twists the last knob in the hall. None of the doors are unlocked.
Rylan freezes, realizing that the footsteps have stopped and the hall is quiet. Terrified, she stands silently and peers into the darkness. Rylan watches the end of the hallway, waiting. Mr. Quinn's figure rounds the corner.
Rylan slips around her own corner swiftly. Did he see her? The hall is still silent. Rylan looks around desperately for some help. She almost dies of relief when her eyes catch on the familiar sign above a door across the hall: Women's.
She tiptoes over to the door and pulls it open, disappearing inside. Rylan has to pull the door closed because it normally closes slowly. The lights are off and thank goodness they aren't automatic. She has most of the bathrooms memorized, but still finds herself feeling blindly along the walls in the dark. Rylan hides in one of the stalls.
She desperately wants to lock it, but the hinges are squeaky and it would be a dead giveaway if Mr. Quinn looked inside. Rylan sits on the back of the toilet and places her feet on the toilet seat. The door to the bathroom opens and the lights flick on. She almost falls off the toilet and holds her breath.
"Rylan? You in here?" Mr. Quinn asks.
Rylan grips the sides of the lid tightly, turning her knuckles white. She hears water flow in one of the sinks. Mr. Quinn washes the blood from his face and hands completely before drying them with some paper towels.
The echo of his movements is worse in the small confined space of the bathroom. Rylan knows she is completely trapped. She glances at the stall door. If he walks by, Mr. Quinn will definitely see her. Rylan attempts to breath quietly and calmly. Her stall is the second from the farthest end of the five stalls. Only three stalls separate her from Mr. Quinn.
"When I find you..." Mr. Quinn lets his sentence drop off.
Rylan's hand whips up to cover her mouth as the door on the first stall slam open loudly. Was he going to check each one or was that simply a display of frustration? Rylan's heart flutters and she squeezes her eyes shut fearfully. She hopes he will go away.
"And I will find you." He adds and slams open the second door.
"You'll wish I hadn't."
There's a pause before Mr. Quinn slams open the third door with much more force than the first two. He isn't getting any calmer.
Rylan can't come up with an escape plan. There is no way out of the stall fast enough or sneaky enough to not be seen by Mr. Quinn. There is no escape. Rylan watches the door of her stall anxiously. He smirks murderously when he sees a figure through the open space between the door and the wall of the stall. Instead of slamming this door open, he pushes it slowly inward, causing the metal clasps to squeak unpleasantly.
Rylan gapes with wide eyed horror at the triumphant, yet hellish face before her. His nose is slightly off kilter and his eyes glint murderously. Mr. Quinn's words paralyze every muscle in Rylan's body.
"No more warnings."