I cut across the small oval toward Devil’s Peak High.
Blades of dewy grass tickle my ankles, the early sun warm and sharp across the back of my bare legs. I focus on that, the balmy morning, a small moment instead of the big one to come.
But, for a Campbell, moments like this were fleeting.
They were already there, the swarm of bees at the entrance, waiting with cameras and microphones and lattes in paper cups.
I hadn’t told anyone that I was returning to school today, aside from Harlen and Nan, who had made a phone call to Principal Garland a week earlier advising her of my return. It made me wonder if they had been waiting for weeks, or if Principal Garland broke all student confidentiality to grasp at the clutches of a story too.
The urge to turn and take myself home is strong.
There was only one way in, and one way out of Devil’s Peak High, and I didn’t know if I was brave enough to step into the buzzing hive today. Curling my hand around my body and slipping it into my back pocket, I guide my phone out, along with my headphones, pressing the corded buds into my ears, hoping that perhaps, they will act as an obvious deterrent.
But when I hit play on my music, I feel my body freeze. It’s as if my shoes grow roots, latching into the ground.
“Off With Her Head” by Icon For Hire comes through my headphones and I want to laugh, then I just want to cry.
I could hear Jade, the ghost of her voice, singing loudly beside me in Chase’s truck, and then I could see Chase in the rearview mirror and the way his already dark eyes turned impossibly darker when he realized I’d been keeping a secret from him.
I try to stop myself. I curl my fists, dig my nails through my palms, tuck my phone away, pull it back out, am a moment from throwing it to the ground, but my fingers make their way to his contact before I can tame them.
The dial tone is loud through my headphones, and it rings three times before hitting the brick wall of his voicemail.
I suck back a sharp breath and press on it again, and this time it rings once before meeting the beep.
My heart hammers inside the walls of my chest, the rhythm vibrating up my throat, and I don’t realize that I’ve completely diverted off track, leaving the school behind as I stagger the desolate street toward the Devil’s Peak MC clubhouse, until the gleaming bars at the entrance are a wall of steel working to keep me out.
My hands are cold, then they turn hot when I wrap them around the metal bars.
“Chase!” I yell into the quiet, my voice breaking on a cry. A tear stains my cheek. I work quickly to bury it into the bones of my shoulder, swiping it away.
When the bars don’t shift and no voices or signs of life follow, I begin to shake the bars uncontrollably, as if I’m a rabid animal.
An anger I’ve never felt brews inside me, taking hold of my limbs, and I rear back, kicking against the steel, throwing my arms, and when it begins to hurt; I do it again…and again…
Face me, motherfucker.
The tenor of my heart booms inside my ribcage.
I pinch my nose, brush my index finger beneath it, sniffing, cleaning myself up.
The drip at the back of my throat is bitter, like crushed aspirin. I straighten, take a swig from the bottle of vodka beside me.
I’m swallowing it down when two large hands squeeze into the top of my shoulders.
“Some girly out front kickin’ steel for ya, boy.”
I look over my shoulder and see Rails, a long-devoted member of the club. The grin on his weathered face pulls toward his ears. His red eyes roll into the back of his head. He is so far off his face he wouldn't know his own dick from his own asshole.
He stumbles on his feet, releases a wet belch before retreating down the hall, announcing, “Taking a leak.”
“Congratu-fucking-lations,” Skinner mumbles beside me, and where Harlen would usually snort, even rebound his own retort, he doesn’t. He doesn’t take his eyes off me now.
Some girly out front kickin’ steel for ya, boy.
Laiken.
I run my tongue across the back of my teeth, and pull another swig from the bottle. I don’t look in Harlen’s direction.
