[ CHAPTER 26 : KISS ME : ❝kiss me out of the bearded barley. nightly, beside the green, green grass. swing, swing, swing the spinning step. you'll wear those shoes and i will wear that dress. oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight. lead me out on the moonlit floor. lift your open hand, strike up the band, and make the fireflies dance silver moon's sparkling. so kiss me.❞ ]
★★★★★
LEO FINALLY MANAGES TO shimmy a window open, and in his excitement, tumbles inside without a second warning. Parker and Nico stood there in surprise as he fell face first inside with his legs dangling in the air. Then crash, boom, smack. He toppled over something, or onto something, and crash landed into silence. "Jesus, of course, out of every window open it's the fucking science department." Leo shouts, his body popping up in front of the window, barely a scratch on him. He shoots a grin at Parker, but she can only shake her head as her arms come to rub at her freezing cold arms.
"Come on," Nico tugs at her sleeve as he nods toward the window. Parker glances at it, feeling off about it all. This may be a silent do-gooder town but that's no reason to say 'nothing bad will happen if we leave a window open or two'. What if this is what the Audience wants? What if they want her to do what she thinks she should be doing? What if it's all wrong? What if she ends up getting Leo or Nico hurt? Worse, what if she gets them killed? "Parker?"
Her eyes direct toward Nico again, a look of puzzlement flashing over her features as she studies his face. "I'm alright." Nico doesn't look convinced and ends up sighing as he watches her haul her upper body to balance on the edge of the window ledge. Leo instantly moves to grab at her forearms, using his strength to pull her halfway into the room before placing his hands on her waist and bringing her fully inside the warmth of the classroom.
"Welcome, beautiful." The boy winks at her.
Parker half-heartedly smiles at him, "You're annoying." His hand, from beside her, reaches up and pats the top of her soaked head―not even regretting it when he pulls his hand back to find it wet. Neither of them seem to notice Nico's presence until he slams the window shut, jolting Parker away from Leo with a start.
"We should split up." Nico says, looking at Parker―ignoring Leo.
"Yeah," Leo asks, unimpressed. "In what way?"
Nico side eyes him, and Leo almost falters at the hidden look the boy sends him. Parker tries to get a better look at him, but he changes his facial features the minute he feels her gazing at him. Nonchalantly, he shrugs, "I'll go find Parker and I some clothes to change into. You help her get what she needs," He moves around them, sending the girl a small fleeting smile. Two steps away from the door, hand reaching for the handle, he stops. Over his shoulder, he looks at the both of them. First Parker, no longer smiling, and then at Leo. "There are cameras everywhere, keep your head down and out of view so it doesn't catch you."
Nico exits, head down with his hands in the pockets of his drenched jeans. Parker frowns. She doesn't know why, but her heart feels solemn at him leaving her with Leo. She didn't want him to go. She wanted him to go with her. Somehow, Nico knows how to keep her emotions in check even when she feels like she's overwhelmed and on the brink of insanity. Leo's great too, but she's not sure he can handle her the way Nico can. Nico's been through things, things she understands, but Leo? He's innocent, and wouldn't even grasp the situation if she spelled it out to him.
"Let's go." Leo grabs for her, his arm circling her shoulders bring her into his chest. She keeps her head down and her fingers play with the fringe edge of the sweater as the teenage boy slowly drags them out of the science classroom to the empty white hall. It's so empty that it sends a chill down her spine. School hallways should never be empty, it's haunting. She wouldn't be surprised if a ghost poked its head around the corner to scream 'boo' at her. It's that eerie.
"I hate this." She mutters.
Leo chuckles, "Scared?"
"I feel like Miss DuPont is going to come careening around the corner with her feet hovering off the floor yelling, 'You didn't finish the homework, Henderson, you failed! You'll never get to go to college now!' And she'll look pasty white, so pale that I'll be able to see the veins and organs inside her body but they'll be black like death." Parker shivers at the thought. To think she's had more than one nightmare about her chemistry teacher, ones that give her the heebie jeebies.
The boy snorts, "You have nightmares about DuPont?"
"She's terrifying!"
Leo snickers but he keeps his arm around her protectively, "No worries, I'm right here to keep you safe. Just call me Superman without the stupid costume." Parker shakes her head, glancing to the side just once to see where they are. Past her English classroom, only a little bit more before they're in the library. Good. Then she'll get what she needs and get out of this place.
"You're such a dork." Parker softly comments.
Leo chuckles as his hand moves to rub at the nape of neck, a nervous blush playing on his cheeks. "Dorks are good people, Parker," He says with a another laugh as they turn the corner. Parker stifles her own laugh. Not sure what's funnier: the fact he's blushing or the fact he thinks being a dork is a bad thing. "We may do stupid things we tend to regret, and we may hurt people we don't mean to―but, we have hearts of pure gold. We just hope that makes up for the mistakes we make."
Parker flickers her gaze up to him.
He's frowning.
Her eyes move back to the ground, watching her steps, making sure she doesn't trip. But her mind stays on his words. "You did wrong, Leo," She says calmly, her voice low but powerful and his grip on her arm loosens. Almost like he's going to let go; so she clamps her own hand on his waist, her fingers wrapping around his grey hoodie. "Making up stories and lying isn't smart; but, you were dealing with pain. You found something that hurt you, and you dealt with it in a way you thought would help. It definitely wasn't ideal; but it helped you accept the truth...almost. Now, now, you just have to realize you did do wrong, and that you owe someone who also did wrong, an apology." She let's go of his waist, and the boy lets out an overdramatic sigh as he props open the heavy door to the library.
Parker walks inside, Leo follows.
"Camera free zone, yay." Leo comments, mocking joy.
She ignores him, as her body moves swiftly away from the desks and bookshelves to the library counter. The entry swing door is locked shut but with a shrug she climbs a top the counter―accidentally knocking some files and pens over―and hops down to the inside of the square information center. "Wow, so I'm Superman and you're...Spiderwoman?" Leo offers up as he leans his arms on the counter and uses them to prop his head up. Parker glances at him, finding him wiggling his eyebrows and grinning at her.
She scoffs, and turns her attention the locked door to the file room. The room where the newspaper clippings are. The room where what she thinks she needs will be. "The rooms locked," Parker states as she jiggles the doorknob. She turns away from the door to the counter area she had hopped over seconds ago. Her eyes squint and graze around the many drawers. "The key has to be here somewhere," She looks up at Leo, who's hands dance a top the counter. "Help me look."
Still soaking wet and freezing cold, the scatterbrained girl searches wordlessly through the drawers while Leo keeps focused on rummaging through the files and papers on the counter. Until he's dangling a shining silver key in front of her face, "I feel like I should become a private detective." He says as she snatches the key out of his hand and turns back toward the file room door. Please, Leo, you don't have half the skill I do. With one easy twist, the door unlocks, and she manages to prop it open.
"Alright, give me a minute."
Leo nods at her as he takes a seat on the counter and swings his legs back and forth through the air for fun. Parker enters the small claustrophobic room, the door shutting close behind her.
The room isn't very big, maybe the size of a regular janitor's closet. And instead of stretching out and being a square room, it just goes straight back. Rectangular, and boxy. Shelves line two walls, filled to the brim with manila colored files. On the back wall are two olive green file cabinets each with three large metal drawers, on top of them is a small wired copy machine. And above her, is one standalone hanging light―eerily the yellow bulb blinks above her.
Parker doesn't know where to step as her boots scrape against the mucky looking green and grey carpet. Her eyes gaze along the spines of the files, looking at dates and names. Her brain is still fuzzy, and she feels a little funny, but she knows none of the files are what she needs. Not even the files about Charles Wakefield. Her body only stops when she reaches the file cabinets. Her eyes cast toward the right cabinet, the one that's a little more beat up and rugged compared to the left. Specifically, she looks at the top drawer with the dates '1920-1940' plastered on the placard just below the grey tinted handle. Her hand reaches for it, fingers wrapping around the cold metal; twisting it downward, the drawer pulls out.
Files, not as many as she thought, line the inside. Papers stick out of some, they all look so old but half of the papers are laminated and kept in good health as not to wreck the papers. Some of the stuff dates back to the exact year Arcadia High first started, back when it was an all girl's boarding school named 'Penvellyn Academy' named after Arcadia's founder Barnaby Owen Penvellyn. But she doesn't care about that, she's looking for anything odd. Something that doesn't fit with the swanky 1920s and 30s. Something that screams out of the norm. Something that could've been the founding of the game.
And she finds it.
A thick folder with only the dates 1920-1924 and two names crossed out leaving behind only the word 'correspondence'. Parker lifts it out of the back of the cabinet, and sets it a top the rest, flipping the folder open revealing hundreds of pieces of rotted paper with small notes on them but all of it is foreign to Parker. None of the words make sense together, the only thing that makes sense are the two names scribbled on either note, Edna Martinez, and Douglas Turner. Further scouring through notes which Parker gets a strong sense of love letter from, more names appear: a Barbara, Mary, Helen, and Dorothy. The only name that seems to be a constant is Douglas Turner.
Parker frowns as she shoves the excessive note clippings to grab at a small stack of yellow tinted pages. All of them seem to be right ups about all the different girls, the connection with Douglas still sticking with it all.
DEMERIT FORM
STUDENT: Edna Martinez
DATE: 20 October 1920
NUMBER OF DEMERITS: 2
REASON FOR DEMERITS: Caught Miss Martinez talking in class with her friends Mary Townsend and Helen Pérez. I've told them countless times to keep their talking to a minimum, but the three didn't refrain. As punishment, I've awarded the girl's each two demerits and detention after class.
TEACHER: Mister Douglas Turner
Parker frowns even more as she pushes past more demerit forms―all involving Douglas Turner, and different girls―till she reaches the end of the file where one last paper sits. A dismissal form for Douglas Turner.
REASON FOR DISMISSAL: Mister Douglas Turner is hereby dismissed from his civic duties at Penvellyn Academy and will be immediately reported to the police for his horrifying acts spanning from September of 1920 to the present: 09 June 1924. Without dilly dallying into details, Mister Turner was caught paying students to do sexually, terrifying, and ridiculous acts in order to please himself. He would then pay the girls in alcohol. He asked one girl to walk naked through the school's halls, another to stab herself in the leg, and the last to commit a sexual act before marriage. We've also gone back and noticed a trend of holding back two to three girls after class for 'detention' where we believe these promises of alcohol in return for damaging acts started. Mister Turner has always been sketchy, I fear he was the ones who caused the dormitory fire and may have even―dare I say it―pushed Helen Pérez to her untimely death last year.
"Pérez," The girl mutters as she shuts the file close and places it a top the file cabinet. "Again, Pérez." Her mind reels with the new information: was this the foundation of the game? It sounds like the Dare Game, but before it was the Dare Game. When it was something creepy and filled with pedophilac actions. And it can't just be a coincidence that the teacher had the same last name as Heather, and one girl has the same last name as her own mother's family, Parker sucks in a breath as her head shakes back and forth.
Hopefully the school won't miss the fact she's taking this file, because she'll need to analyze it back at her house. All the notes need to be examined, and all the people have to be tracked back. Who's Mary and Edna? Who's Douglas Turner? As of now, she's not quite sure what she's found. The only thing she knows, is that it's definitely connected to her situation. It's too coincidental not to be.
"Hey," Parker jolts, nearly dropping the bulky file, as she swings around to look at the door. Nico stands there, his head peeking inside. Her eyes look over his top half, he's wearing a grey sweater and has a green scarf wrapped around his neck. "You want to change?" He brings his hand forward, revealing a red sweater, and a beanie. Parker nods as she juggles her file into one arm and grabbing the clothes with her other.
"Thank you."
Nico doesn't say anything back, just nods, and slips out of the room. Parker doesn't move until the door shuts fully with a bang, and the first thing she does is let out a breath of air. Terrifyingly cold and nervous, she peels herself out of the mustard sweater and slim tank top underneath. The freezing cold air nipping at her damp skin before she's being enveloped by the scratchy warmth of the red sweater. And despite her hair still being soaking wet, she shoves the black beanie on her head, the warmth spreading to her red tinted ears.
"Did you get what you needed?" Leo asks as Parker exits the file room (looking it right after). Her eyes wander toward him and after a second or two, she nods and lifts the thick file toward both boys―one's still plopped on the counter, the other is leaning against it with his arms crossed. "Good, let's get going then." The boy jumps off the counter and strides toward the large wooden doors leading out of the library, doesn't even wait to see what Parker and Nico are doing as he exits with his hoodie tucked further over his head.
Nico swiftly and effortlessly jumps over the counter, looking back at Parker with a raised brow in question. Asking her if she's coming with, and she can only nod―her dripping brown hair shifting over her shoulder to wet the top of her sweater. Slowly and carefully, she does the same as he did, and pulls herself over the counter; coming to stand beside him with the bulky file underneath her arm.
The two don't say anything, and keep quiet as they walk beside one another with their heads down and their hands in their pant pockets. Travelling back to the window in the science classroom, the one they originally used to get into the school with. Leo's already far gone, probably finding his car parked at the far end of the lot, where he had left it when he joined Nico and her.
"Am I driving you home?" Nico asks, helping her down from the windowsill. The girl huffs out a hearty breath as he helps her land on her feet―the raining beginning to hit her again.
Parker looks at him, squinting through the rain as he keeps a hand hovered over her head―blocking some of the droplets that dares to pour onto her beanie. She runs her fingers through her hair and lightly frowns. Go home? Right now, she suspects her home will be empty. There's no way her mom would leave the hospital, not even if Rose is dead. The woman would still be there, clinging onto every last piece of furniture until she no longer had strength. And Parker's dead would be right there, next to her, holding her hand through it all. The Henderson home would be empty, only Frank...poor Frank. He must be lonely. Just like Parker. So lonely.
"Will you stay with me," She asks, her eyes begging him. "Once we get to my house, will you stay with me?" Nico keeps silent, his face emotionless, but ever so slowly he nods, and Parker's thankful as the two jog to his car. Leo nowhere to be found.
★★★★★
NICO PARKS HIS CAR on the side of the road, just in case Parker's parents come home during the night and find it weird that some sketchy dark Impala is sitting in their driveway. He even seems a little cautious to even walk into her home, and jumps at the bark that elicits from Frank's tired body. Parker tells him the dog is harmless, but Nico's weary look is enough for the girl to tell Frank he'll be sleeping on the couch this cold night. The dog doesn't seem to care anyways, as he settles in the living room while Parker and Nico walk up the stairs to her bedroom.
"Why is there a mattress on the floor?" He asks, as the door shuts behind them. Parker eyes wander towards it, the bed she's been sleeping on for the past few months. It almost brings tears to her eyes while thinking about it. Stop it.
The girl shrugs, "Rose always took the bed."
"Hey," Nico moves forward, his hand gripping at her shoulder blade in comfort. Parker glances at him, perplexed. She isn't crying, she wasn't crying. She barely even made a move. How does he know how she feels? From the way his eyes roll over her body in concern, to the airy way he takes her into his arms, and holds her close. Warm, safe, bittersweet. His arms are around her back, and he squeezes her gently then firmly and her hands are suddenly gripping onto the sides of his sweater and her head leans against his shoulder. Exhausted. Emotionally and physically. "I'm right here." He whispers, and he grips her a little tighter. So calm, and safe, and comfortable that it makes Parker want to cry even more. Yet still, the tears don't come.
"I can't seem to cry anymore." She whispers, her fingers gripping his sweater a little tighter.
Nico shifts them around so that his arms move to circle her shoulders, holding her firmly but comforting against his chest, and her arms stay caught in his shirt. "It's okay," He says soothingly, his minty breath fanning against her cheek. The words make Parker melt into him. She doesn't know why; maybe because he knows how she feels; been in a similar position as her. If Nico says it okay, then it'll be okay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. He moved past his sister's death―someone he loved―then she can move past her grandmother's death―someone she loved too late. "It'll be okay."
And she feels a little lighter.
Despite the fact she feels as though the weight of the world lies on her weak shoulders, Nico's words and his experience, lightens it ever so softly. Not too much, because she can still feel it, but it almost seems like it's been pushed a little further off from where she stands and it's not directly in front of her face. Screaming at her. Taunting her. Instead it's ways away, watching her, and waiting till she doesn't have Nico's comforting words to make her calm. Waiting until she's alone with her own mind, and it tricks her to hurt herself. To panic. To scream. To vomit. But right now, it's different.
He pulls back, his face hovering right above hers, his lips only a small inch away. And suddenly Parker is super away of Nico's presence all around her. A foreign, and unwelcome shiver shakes down her spine. Suddenly, she feels like a woman; delicate, and soft next to Nico who's a hard surface with rough skin. She doesn't quite understand what's happening as her eyes move to stare at Nico's perfectly shaped lips. They look soft, like rose petals, and are tinted a light pink like a blushing bride. His bottom sticks out farther than his upper and his chin looks rough with unshaven scruff. There was something alluring about him, as he looks down at her as if he would swallow her whole; as if he were devouring her with a simple gaze.
His gaze was still on her as his lips descended toward her, and her stomach does a flip in anticipation. His scent had consumed her; he's all she sees, a blinding boy she once thought was evil. This would be her first kiss, not the one she was forced to commit; and the thought doesn't depress her like she thought it might. Nico isn't bad; maybe she doesn't like him, not fully, but she feels something. What that something is? She doesn't know.
And as the thought leaves her mind; his lips softly plant themselves on hers, and the world slowly stops turning. She gasps softly making Nico shutter and bring his hand up to cup her cheek. Parker doesn't know what she's doing, but it feels like second nature to tilt her head slightly to the left; making her face fit completely with his. It seems like everything is heightened; her heart pounds against his chest as it climbs up her throat, and the butterflies in her stomach had surely turned to wasps as they fly in a frenzy around her stomach. His scent, which she can only imagine sunlight could smell like, invades her surroundings; wrapping her in a warm glow.
Her arms loop around his neck, her feet slipping onto her toes as he leans down closer. She felt like velvet and satin all at once despite the fact his hands are rough against her soft skin, and when his fingers caress against the bare skin on her neck, it takes her to new heights. And then his lips are enveloping hers fully, calmly, and then his lips are no longer touching her. Nothing but his hand on her waist and his forehead against his.
"You should...sleep." He says, pulling away.
Parker nods, "Yeah, I should." And suddenly all the warmth is gone and she's cold once again.