HAUNTED
four

4

She remembered how many times she had tried to run away when she was younger but the police always brought her back and her aunt and uncle would pretend that all was well. She was titled troublesome. She gave up and let the insults come. And let it all destroy her, eat her away slowly. Killing her every day, bleeding her dry. She was nothing more than a stain of what she was before… innocent.

She ran to the only place that told her she belonged. The library, where the scary books said nothing but told her everything she needed to hear. Get to school and find out more about how the bombing happened. She just realised that the cops did not know what she knew.

She ran for the station instead and just her rotten luck, the one cop she hated the most was on duty. The cop her younger self asked for help from but never cared to listen to naive whims.

“What now Alex,” he said before she said anything.

“Sam bombed the school. You know the pinkish, chubby kid the general’s son,” she walked to the counter.

“Yeah sure,” he went back to playing candy crush on his phone. She should have known it was a waste of time.

“It was him. He is up to something more. He can’t just do that and just disappear.”

“Why won’t you just disappear,” then the lights went out. Dark, except for his phone screen glaring into his face. “Backup generators should be up any second now.” Then the lights came back, hurting her already adjusted eyes for a moment blinding her.

“Sam actually came by earlier, he looked quite rattled, he left with his father,” the hippie in a police costume spoke too distracted with his game to care. The wind picked up its pace outside and it began to drizzle again.

The front door opened as some cops were walking in with a familiar teenager in cuffs, “I didn’t break in,” Jacob said and the librarian Ms Lady followed, odd how librarians always seem to carry the age of their books on them. She looked older than she was, it kind of freaked Alex out at times.

“I don’t know you, how did you get the keys,” she said with an odd old grumble to her voice.

“Lex,” he said when he saw her, “Are…” he stopped and mumbled something else. “What are you doing here?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he is responsible for what happened this afternoon,” Ms Lady said to one of the police officers.

“I gave him the keys,” Alex said loud enough for the police to hear her, “he was supposed to be writing the story for the school paper about what happened today. Did you really have to arrest him?”

“All suspicious people on the school premises are to be apprehended,” one of the cops said, “just following orders.”

“Let him go he didn’t do anything wrong. Its Sam,” she stressed.

The cop at the front desk sighed.

“Yeah sure,” the other cops both chuckled as if they were laughing at an inside joke.

“It can’t hurt to check it out. In fact, Jacob and I are both witnesses,” one of the cops had just removed the cuffs from Jacob’s wrists and he wrung them with his hands.

Ms Lady was still insisting on something, “I saw him…”

The cop who was closest to her tried to calm her down as he walked her out, “let me take you home. It’s been a long day.”

“let me get your statement on the bombing,” the other cop, who had once worked with her father and kind of looked out of her at times said as he gestured Jacob and walked towards his office.

The door opened as the office door shut and out of the rain stumbled a massive horror, with a glance horror struck in her eyes. “Here you are. You had me worried sick,” she walked in with her fake ‘perfectly good person’ act, “why would you just run away like that?”

“You know why? I’m not going back with you!” Alex blurted to her aunt Maxie, shaking with fury.

“Watch your attitude young lady,” the only reason Maxie had been holding on to her for so long was because of the grand maintenance fee that she received every month from Alex’s inheritance. With her freakish strength, she grabbed Alex’s wrist and dragged her towards the door. “You are grounded until … forever,” for a moment she sounded slightly concerned.

“Let me go,” she tugged, as blood to her hand went dry. The grip round her wrist so tight, the pain barrowed right to her bone. Through the rain the cold did not get to her as much as the agony in her wrist. Maxie slammed her on the car she had bought with Lex’s dead parent’s money. She hit the car with a thud, leaving her breathless and out of balance.

“You really must be stupid,” she hissed glancing down at her on the tarred car park. So far from the entrance of the off-duty police station that no one could hear even if she screamed. “Coming to the police station, really?” Lex got up to her knees trying to stand… a hard stump, a huge morsel of flesh hit her in the ribs, whacking the air right out of her, rattling her brain for a moment she saw her parents bloodied bodies again, then she was back to this reality. Her tears about to betray her, she grasped for air and coughed.

She pulled her up, “wasting my time looking for you everywhere, coming here. You must think you are so important,” the rain washed away some of the spit that landed on her face as Maxie spoke. She slapped her across her face, splitting her lip, “look at me when I talk to you.” Shoved her against the car and she hit the steal for the second time. Hurt, feeling too small to fight back. Too weak to physically contend with this massive chunk of flesh that was an utter waste of oxygen on earth. Just wishing that this time Maxie would kill her. That it would end tonight. She was wondering where her uncle was, if he was just around the corner waiting to inflict his own version of hurt.

He came out of nowhere, literary, smashing her like a train, she toppled over and landed in a puddle. She looked at him and glanced away. Maxie on the ground on her slow way up.

He took her arm, they vanished and reappeared a short distance away, in the back ally of the store right across from the station. “We have to keep moving, she or they could catch up,” Moving away from the rain to the slightly roofed back wall, “are you okay,” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Her mind too troubled to hear him. Her tears finally ran in silence hidden by the rain, “Lex,” he stopped walking and turned to her. The rain dropped to a drizzle. He noticed the blood on the edge of her lip, he wiped it away tenderly with is thumb then retracted his hand awkwardly when he became aware of his actions. She wrung her arms around him, in silence. And he clutched her in his arms totally enveloping her in a genuine feeling of safety. His grip tightened as his arms slid round her back. For the first time in a long time she was warm. She tucked her face into his sweater under his jaw.

He could feel her light sob settle. He was never good with words so he said nothing. He thought of how his mom, Lilly, calmed him when he was a child brushing his hair with her hand and kissing the crown of his head, but despite the urge to do so in this instance he didn’t.

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