Dedicated to zinc369 for too many things they would fill up an entire book but mostly for standing me up yesterday because otherwise, I would not have written this chapter.
Listen to Are We All We Are by Pink and check out Thea Landry (Willa Holland) in the sidebar.
Chapter 1
There are secrets that are trivial – your crush on the boy from across the street, how you broke your mother's favorite vase and blamed it on the dog or how you cheated on a test in school – and then there are secrets that will lead to unimaginable tragedy if someone else were to find out what they were.
Those are the kind of secrets that people will do anything to hide.
Some will kill.
Some will lie.
Others will sneak out of the house at four in the morning.
I belonged to group number three.
The key turned in the lock with a rusty click and I nervously looked around to check if anyone had heard.
There was only an empty city street, flickering street lamps and locked doors. Everything was as quiet and still as one could expect if you were in the shopping district hours before shop owners even had their morning coffee.
I pocketed my key, quietly pushed open the door to my father's shop – Landry's Party Supplies – and shut the door behind me as silently as I'd opened it.
Once I was inside, I didn't bother turning on the lights. I didn't need them. I'd practically been raised here as a child and, as a teenager, this was where I worked part-time. I knew where everything inside the shop was, from the shelves that held party hats, streamers and birthday candles to the pricier items inside the glass cases that lined the walls.
For instance, I knew that on the second shelf of the fourth glass case along the left wall was what I came here for.
Miller's Paint On Tattoo in Midnight Blue.
I walked up to the glass case, gingerly slid the case open, picked up a bottle and, for the first time since I woke up this morning, allowed myself to relax.
My relief was short-lived.
The sound of my ringing phone almost made me throw the bottle of tattoo paint out of shock. I took my phone out of my pocket, shoved the tiny bottle inside and answered the call.
“Thea?” My dad's panicked voice filled the entire store even though he wasn't on speaker. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I'm at the shop.”
“At the –?” Dad sputtered. “First you wake us up by running the shower at an ungodly hour, then you nearly give us a heart attack when we can't find you anywhere in the house.”
I made a mental note not to shower before sneaking out of the house in the future.
“We had to call – and wake up – the Porters just to ask Maren if she knew where you were headed,” Dad continued. In the background, I could hear Maya – my step mother – telling him to calm down. “What could you possibly be doing at the shop at five in the morning?”
“I forgot my history book here when I was doing the inventory last night,” I lied.
“Your history book?” Dad clearly had not calmed down, despite Maya's efforts. “How did you even get there? The car's still in the drive way and the city buses aren't even running yet.”
I already knew how he would react to my answer. “I walked.”
“You walked? Do you know how dangerous that is –”
“It's just five blocks, Dad.”
He let out a string of wordless profanities.
There was some shuffling on his end of the phone and, a second later, I was talking to Maya. “Please excuse your father, Thea. He's just worried about you.”
“I really am sorry for worrying him – and you.”
“As long as you're alright, it's fine –”
“It sure as hell is not fine!” Dad yelled in the background.
“Again, please excuse your father.” Maya sighed. “Do you want us to come get you?”
I hesitated. “Well, I want you to come get me?”
“We can let your father calm down in the mean time,” Maya chuckled. “Just wait inside the shop and I'll be there in a bit.”
Ten minutes later, Maya pulled up in front of the shop in our twenty year old station wagon. I waved at her from behind the shop window before locking up. “So, how angry is Dad?” I asked her once I was in the car.
“He's angrier at himself because he didn't call you before he woke up the Porters.” Maya's eyes twinkled with amusement. “Secretly, though, I think he's happy about this whole mix up because he finally gets to ground you. He doesn't have to keep being so anxious about never having done that.” I shook my head at her words.
In a sense, Maya was right about some things and horrible wrong about others. Being able to finally ground me would not alleviate his anxiety in the slightest bit but that was just Maya for you. She was, by her very nature, carefree and outgoing, providing the perfect off-set to my Dad's more serious tendencies and encouraging me to live a little louder every once in a while. Life would have been hard both on Dad and I if Maya wasn't around. She made Dad and I into a family, despite the fact that he and I were the ones related by blood.
Dad was pacing nervously in the kitchen when we got in the house. The moment he saw me, he pulled me into a massive bear hug and I could feel the relief coursing through him like electricity. “Don't you ever do that again, understand?” he said sternly before giving me another hug.
“I won't, Dad,” I promised when, after two more hugs, he let me go.
“I mean it, Thea.” He stared me down. “No book is worth you going out of the house that early.” He frowned. “Where is your book, by the way?”
I pulled out a brown paper bag from inside my jacket. While I was waiting for Maya at the shop, I had the good sense to stuff an old inventory book in it to corroborate my alibi. “I've got a test today.” My second lie in thirty minutes.
Dad, thankfully, didn't ask to see the book. He simply sighed and ran a hand through his thinning blonde hair. “I'm sorry if I'm being a worry-crazy father again but you've seen the papers, Thea.”
Ah, the papers. I was wondering when that would come up.
Dad was the type to love a lot but worry even a lot more. And, slowly over the last four years, the papers were starting to fill up with things that a father – worry-crazy or other wise – would be frightened of. Break-ins, muggings and people getting beaten up or killed were starting to become regular things on the news, may it be in the papers or the morning and evening news shows.
“I don't want to be reading about you, one day,” Dad insisted. “Do you understand?”
I looked down in shame. “I won't sneak out of the house again, I promise.”
“Good – but you just lost your car privileges for a week.”
Even Maya was quick to protest at this. “Robert –”
“Even to go to school?” I sputtered, drowning her out.
Most days, Dad and Maya walked the five blocks to and from work at the shop. The high school was on the other side of town and ever since I got my license, I mostly used the car.
“Maya can give you a ride later since I have to open the shop early today,” Dad grumbled. “You can't expect to give me the fright of my life and then just go unpunished, Thea.”
I fought the urge to argue with him and grit my teeth. “Fine.”
I stormed out of the kitchen with the intention of slamming my bedroom door dramatically. Maya, however, caught up with me before I could go through with the theatrics. “I know you're mad but you have to see this from your father's point of view,” she reminded me.
“I know,” I muttered dejectedly. “I really am sorry.”
“I know you are,” Maya smiled and pulled me close to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Now go and study for your test so I can drive you to school and we can get hot chocolate and powdered donuts on the way.”
I still called Karina Landry my mom – I felt I had to since she died giving birth to me – but Maya was my mother, in every sense of the word. Maya was the only maternal figure I'd known and, without her, Dad and I would have lived lives that were less exciting and filled with less love.
Maya and I even looked alike – same short brown hair, light green eyes and wispy build – so much so that people mistook me as her daughter instead of Dad with his thinning blonde hair, dark brown eyes and a heavier build.
“Alright.” I cheered up at the thought of donuts and checked my phone for the time. “Are you okay with leaving at seven-fifteen?”
Maya's smile widened and her eyes crinkled at the corners. “I can't wait.”
I didn't spend the next hour studying behind a locked door, as Dad and Maya may have assumed.
Instead, I spent it with the bottle of Miller's Paint On Tattoo in Midnight Blue and a stiff brush pen, touching up the fake tattoo on my arm.
A person's first tattoo normally came when they turned thirteen. Puberty was when you began to form your sense of self – your identity – and your first tattoo cemented this.
After that, the tattoos just kept coming whenever something significant happened in your life or whenever you figured out who you wanted to be. Your tattoos helped you – and the world – know who you were and that was just how things had always been.
Ask anyone and they would say tattoos were the rule without exception.
Everyone had them and I learned early on that I had to have one too or else I would simultaneously be an object of pity and disgust.
At the very least, I could pretend I had one.
I started to work at Dad's shop when I turned fourteen and I was logging in a new set of deliveries when I found out we had a good amount of tattoo paint in stock. Dad kept it handy for children's parties where kids would paint flowers and rocket ships on their arms, legs and faces. For a good few weeks, those kids could pretend they were all grown and inked up.
Turns out, paint on tattoos look a lot like the real things – as long as you took the time to touch them up every week or so, of course.
Today was the day I was supposed to touch up my 'tattoo' – it was fairly simple: my name written in script, surrounded by swirls, on my left arm – when I realized I'd run out of paint on tattoo ink. The thought of having to go through one school day with a faded tattoo on my arm scared me more than Dad grounding me or being one of the news stories parents warned their children about.
When it came to tattoos, societal pressure trumps logic or personal safety.
Until the day Isla Eddison's first tattoo appeared, I always thought I was just a late bloomer.
Isla Eddison was a girl in my class who, like me, didn't get her first tattoo until well into puberty. Unlike me, though, she made the mistake of letting other people know she was inkless and, as a result, the kids at school mocked and shunned her for it. Word was, her own parents were torn between blaming themselves for raising a misfit – a child who was inkless – and Isla for being one.
But when Isla saw the golden compass slowly float onto her hand, she screamed in joy about finally getting her ink and everyone, even Mrs. Day whose geography lecture was cut short, congratulated her. Within hours, word of how Isla Eddison was no longer a freak spread throughout the school and she was finally greeted warmly – with open arms – into the general social scene. She was even featured on the evening news – as one of those pieces that was meant to warm everyone's hearts and ignite hope – as the oldest person to ever get her first tattoo.
At the time, Isla Eddison was fifteen.
Isla and I are now eighteen and while she has become the reigning queen of Stradmore High School, I remain inkless.
For the second time today, my ringing phone pulled me away from my thoughts.
I blinked and looked around me, only noticing that the sun had now risen and was filtering into my room through the tiny window and the worn lace curtains. I wondered when it had gotten light out.
Touching up the tattoo didn't take much time but waiting for it to dry always did. If you wanted the tattoo to look as realistic and last as long as possible, you had to stay completely still while it dried which explained why I woke up at the crack of dawn to touch it up.
My phone rang again.
I looked at the Caller ID and smiled. “What's up, Mar?”
“You can't just what's up me after your Dad woke mine up who woke me up because you – little miss quiet you – snuck out of the house,” Maren Porter huffed without even giving me a greeting. “That is just unacceptable, Thea Landry.”
Maren Porter was my best friend of nineteen years. The added year was there because our mothers met and became best friends in Lamaze class.
She and I shared a lot of things: we were both late bloomers (Maren getting her tattoo was the reason why, a week later, I painted mine on), both worked part-time at our parents' party supplies stories (the Porters owned the baby clothing shop next to Dad's), were boringly good at school and quiet around other people.
Without question, though, Maren was louder and more expressive than I was.
“You owe me an explanation.” Maren paused. “And a sundae for all the trouble you've caused.”
“Maya and I are getting donuts before school?” I offered.
She purred happily. “I'll take a Bavarian please.”
“One Bavarian it is,” I chuckled. “Hey, Mar?”
“Ye-e-es?”
“If anyone asks, we have a history test today, okay?”
“Uh, sure?”
I sighed in relief. “Thanks, Mar. You're a lifesaver.”
“Only because you can't swim,” she pointed out, laughing. She hesitated for a second before she realized she was the kind of person who didn't hesitate. “Why do you want me to lie, though?”
“It's a long story and,” I paused to look at the alarm clock next to my bed. It read seven o' clock. “Can I just tell you at school?”
I could imagine Maren shrugging on the other end of the line.
I knew her enough to say that she wouldn't really care if I told her or not.
“Just don't forget my donut and I'll say whatever you want,” she announced with some finality.
I smiled at myself for being right. “One Bavarian, I know. See you at school.”
“I'll be waiting,” Maren sang and hung up.
I gathered my school things and jogged downstairs to the kitchen. Maya was trying to flip pancakes and Dad was chuckling at her efforts from behind his cup of coffee. Both of them smiled at me when I walked in.
“Pancake?” Maya cheerfully offered offered me a stack of pancakes.
I took the plate and smiled wryly at her as I took my seat at the table. “These didn't happen to flip and land on the floor, did they?”
Maya grinned impishly. “You will never know.”
Dad shook his head at us then turned to me. “I hope your sneaking out's going to be worth it.”
“I'll ace the test,” I lied around a mouthful of pancake.
“No talking about school or work at the table,” Maya reminded us of her little rule as she sat down. “You know, Thea, before your Dad called you, he was worried you'd snuck out to meet a guy.” Her eyebrows wiggled playfully at me.
“That is definitely not why I snuck out.” This, at least, was not a lie. “Guys at school know me as the girl who takes great notes,” I pointed out. “And they already had all my notes photocopied this week.”
“It starts with the notes,” Maya mused. “And then, as they read your impossibly neat handwriting, they'll come to the realization that you are, after all, the love of their life. Then they'll be throwing pebbles at your window, you'll be kissing under the moonlight and he will be begging for your hand in marriage –”
Dad and I both nearly choked at what she was saying.
The difference being that I was laughing at how preposterous that was.
Dad was just reacting to the word marriage and looked at Maya with a pained grin when he recovered. “Let's all agree to not talk about marrying off my daughter just yet.”
Still laughing, I raised my hand. “I second the motion.”
“I've already met the man of my dreams and lived my fairytale,” she pouted adorably at Dad, eyes twinkling with happiness. “I think Thea should too.”
“I appreciate the thought, Maya, but I'm going to be late for school,” I reminded her as I finished the last of the food on my plate. “The man of my dreams can wait.”
She sighed and stood up. When she had the car keys in her hand, she turned to wave and blow Dad a kiss. “Well, I love you , man of my dreams.”
“I love you too, Maya,” he chuckled back at her.
“You like teasing him, don't you?” I asked Maya as we made our way through the side yard.
“He acts like he doesn't but he enjoys me throwing curve balls at him,” she replied proudly, unlocking the car. “Keeps him on the edge because, otherwise, he'd live a very colorless life.”
“His world would be colorless if you weren't in it, Maya,” I chuckled as we got in the car. “In fact, the whole would would be colorless without you in it.”
“That it would, my dear, that it would,” she replied proudly as she waved once more at Dad who'd come out to see us go.
The drive to school, along with the stop over at Dino's Donuts, was both eventful and eventless.
It was eventful because Maya riled me with stories of the things she did when she and Dad first met. She constantly threw him off his game and that somehow led him to popping the question four months into their relationship.
And it was eventless because this was how it always was with Maya. She could fill a room – or a car, as it would be – with conversation and you would never get tired of hearing her voice. Her light green eyes would widen and narrow with the high and low points of her stories and you couldn't help but be magnetically drawn to the images her words were painting.
The school parking lot was full when we got there so I told Maya she could just drop me off by the school doors and I could just quickly rush out.
I spotted Maren just as Maya stopped the car and waved at my best friend. She waved back and mouthed 'donut?'. I smiled and held up the donut bag before turning back to say good bye to Maya. “Thanks for the ride. I'll see you later.”
I tried to pull on the release to get the car door to open but, as you can expect from a very old station wagon, the door stayed firmly closed.
Maya laughed, unclipped her seat belt and reached across me to help pull the release. With both of us working on it, the car door finally clicked open. She smiled at me and gave me a kiss on the cheek for good measure. “I'll see you later at the shop as well, Thea.”
For a tiny fraction of a second, the world was fine.
And then the stuff of nightmares became my reality.
Without warning, something slammed into the station wagon – later on, someone would tell me it was a city bus – and I watched, my own light green eyes widened in horror, as the momentum of it all sent Maya reeling out of the car.
Sensation after sensation consumed me.
The burn of the seat belt digging into my neck.
The strain of muscle and bone as my neck stretched out, helpless to the laws of physics.
The pain of my weight landing on the right half of my body as it crashed into the passenger side door.
The warmth of blood trickling down the side of my head after the impact.
The sight of the front window of the car fragmenting but not shattering as the metal frame around it bent.
The smell of burning rubber.
The screech of metal grinding against metal.
The sound of people screaming to call 911.
The unmistakable panic of Maren yelling my name louder than all of the other noises combined.
I felt all and none of it at the same time as I stared at Maya lying on the pavement, bloodied and broken and watched as the color of her eyes dulled down to a light-less green.
Soooo how was it? It was kinda predictable, I know but it was a rollercoaster, wasn't it? Regardless, I hope you loved it as much as I did writing it.
Also, I've cast the dangerously smart dude that I mentioned in the first chapter and he is *drumroll* Alex Pettyfer. I still need an actor for the dangerously dangerous dude and an actress for Maren (you totally have freedom with regards to what she looks like).
Story Recommendation: "Chiaroscuro" by larissajay
Story Description: The humans on Earth have always lived in fear of the floating island of Angelica. Nobody ever leaves or enters, and rumours speculate that the island is inhabited by Angels. Lumina, a young thief, has no desire to know, and instead idolises her sister, Reia. But when Reia is attacked before Lumina's eyes, she is forced to seek whether her sister is still alive by following her to the island. Instead of finding Reia, Lumina discovers her own past is not as it seemed; she had lived on the island for many years in peace, until the tyrannous king destroyed her home. In order to save her daughter, Lumina's mother cast a spell to turn her daughter human. A spell that, after eighteen years, is finally wearing off. All Lumina wants to do is find her sister. Instead, she becomes entangled in a rebellion that hopes for her to overthrow the king. Fabian, Lumina's old friend, has been waiting eighteen years for her to return, setting the stage for her to become Queen. But in order to do that, Lumina must face against the King's daughter for the throne. And the King's daughter is Reia...
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- Chompy