Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

I pulled my notebook and pen out of my backpack and tried to formulate my thoughts. We were supposed to find two pieces of art that “appealed” to us and then write down why. It was an official assignment, which meant I had to do my best if I wanted to stay on the rails of my valedictorian train track. One that was increasingly steep and treacherous these days.

I took a sharp breath and narrowed my eyes on the textured colors .

The first words that came to mind were blood spatter , grim reaper , and—

“Seriously, do I have to force feed you normal?” Alana appeared beside me, looping her arm through mine and dragging me away from my morbid tendencies. “Come over and see the painting of La Jolla Cove that I did. It has blue skies and sunshine.”

“Does it have chubby little baby seals in it, too?” I put my pen behind my ear and followed.

“No, seals are too loud and ugly and smelly. But maybe in the distance there’s a certain hot boy in board shorts kissing a certain brown girl in a bikini.” She licked her lips in a way I didn’t need to see.

“Are you ever going to grow out of the boy-crazy phase?” I teased her.

“Don’t be jealous,” she said. “Kissing’s no crime. You should try it again sometime. You know, like therapy. And I know someone who would be happy to help with the treatment.”

“Alana, give it a rest, for, like, a day,” I said, finally pulling away from the WWF armlock she had on me. Plus, who would want to kiss me anyway? My Social Point Average had taken an even deeper nosedive after the shooting.

“Just sayin’.” She continued through the crowd to the center of the room, where I was beginning to suspect a trap. “Anyway, some guys think it’s cool that you know how to use a gun. It’s very Bond girl.”

I stopped. Suspicion confirmed. “Is that Liam over there, also admiring your work?” It was a rhetorical question—Liam was hard to miss. He was like a man among boys, at least in stature. His face was different, though—somehow fresh, innocent, clear. Like all the extra light in the room found its way to him, and to his light-brown, sun-bleached hair hanging over those big, bright eyes.

Regardless of the light, I didn’t like entrapment. I felt my fuse ignite—my highly flammable, dangerously short fuse.

“What? He likes good art.” She stopped to face me with puppy-dog eyes and a guilty conscience. “Rue! He likes you, all right? He asked me to set this up. He feels like you’re unapproachable. Sort of the story of your life!” She reached out to grab me by the shoulders, and I quickly deflected both hands. She knew better. After all, that’s how we met. In fourth grade, when she moved to Huntington Beach from Hawaii, I found her in the corner crying while a couple of fifth-grade girls made fun of her tattered shorts and old flip-flops. I couldn’t help myself—I had to tell the girls where to go. And when one girl tried to push me into the corner with Alana, I broke the girl’s nose. Alana and I had been best friends from then on, and she’d seen my quick reflexes get me in trouble a few times since.

“I’m kind of going through something right now, OK?” I said under my breath so half the student body didn’t witness the public confrontation. Extra would just love to interview Big-Mouth Taylor over there, who never stopped staring at the bleeding, withering Ruby Rose, now having a tiff with her best friend. Oh, how Taylor loved competing for the limelight and gaining the upper hand. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was behind the whole LeMarq incident just to ruin me. “I’m begging you, Alana, I just need some space right now.”

“Liam wants to be your friend, Rubik’s Cube. It’s not like he’s asking you to marry him,” she argued, not under her breath. I could feel the crowd start to take notice. Deep down I knew she was only trying to help me. Under different circumstances I wouldn’t have minded her matchmaking efforts.

“I don’t need any more friends right now,” I countered. “Not ones that don’t understand boundaries, anyway.” I clenched my jaw and stormed off.

Alana never stopped. It wasn’t that I didn’t still feel wildly drawn to Liam. It was that there was no room in my life for distractions.

“If you’re not careful, you might not have any friends left !” she yelled after me as I disappeared behind a papier-mâché bust of a deformed alien. I almost reached out and punched that stupid warped head for staring at me like I was the weird one.

I wandered aimlessly until I found myself in the least populated corner of the cafeteria and slumped against the wall. The sticky linoleum floor was full of dust bunnies, long-lost Cheetos fragments, and other unsanitary droppings I tried to block out.

I concentrated on my shoes instead—a useful strategy I busted out from time to time. Oh, how I loved the strappy, black-leather Calvin Klein wedge heels hugging my feet. Classics. Always loyal, always kind. These little beauties would never surprise-attack me in the middle of school, would never care more about their careers than my happiness, would never die and abandon me to a life full of more questions than answers. Wait. A scuff ?

“Damn it,” I mumbled. I tried to wipe it clean with my thumb and a little spit. But it did no good. I’d have to wait until I got home and found my Kicks Kleaner.

Just great. Here I was, stuck in the proverbial corner of life—and not just because of the ever-sticky linoleum I was sitting on. Now I didn’t even have anywhere to focus my disruptive thoughts. What, exactly, was I supposed to do? Stew in my guilt for snapping at the one person who still wanted me as her best friend? I wished I could distract myself by searching online for a new pair of shoes, but if I was caught on my cell phone I’d have more problems than I needed today. Cell phones weren’t allowed during school hours.

Taking my chances of making eye contact with someone, I looked straight ahead. I still had to find another piece of art that “appealed” to me so I could finish my assignment. But I didn’t want to get up.

I hoped I could see something worth looking at from here. Something that wouldn’t inspire thoughts of death, betrayal, or scuffed shoes.

About twenty feet away I noticed a black-and-white charcoal drawing. It was a sketch of a young girl with long, straight hair parted down the middle. It was really well done. Perhaps a little too well done for this bush-league art fair. I stood and wiped stray guck off my red skinny jeans and made a beeline for it.

This had to be some kind of egotistical-Freudian-thought-processing-dysfunction, because as I got nearer, that girl in the sketch started to look a hell of a lot like me. Slightly upturned nose. Dimple in the left cheek. Long neck. What the H?

Who put this here?

In the bottom right corner of the picture, old-fashioned, scrolly letters read:

Love, D. S.

Who was that?

And now that I was up close, there was something very disturbing about this sketch. It wasn’t just her face, it was the tattoo on her arm. A winged demon screeching at me, threatening to tear me apart. I’d seen that exact tattoo before on Charlie LeMarq.

Oh no. The world suddenly went fuzzy and dark, like I was seeing things through stained glass. I scanned the room for the nearest escape to fresh air, and instead of finding a clearly marked exit, I found another face that took the last of my breath away. Across the crowd, stood a man with a goatee who looked a lot like Detective Martinez.

A falling sensation rushed over me, and a sickening crack echoed through my skull.

“Ruby, can you hear me?” A raspy male voice lingered above.