Lex Thomas - Quaranteen

He couldn’t wait to get back to Lucy.

Something cracked hard across his back of his head. He dropped to the ground in an instant. His head struck the floor.

Hands grabbed at him. Fingernails dug into his skin. He could smell fruit and flowers. Fabric rustled above him. He struggled, but there were at least four figures tugging him around. They flipped him to his back and pinned him to the ground.

Freaks, David thought. This was it. Oh, God. They were going to kill him.

David strained his eyes to see into the dark. Feet shuffled all around him. The closet unit he’d built was open, and clothes spilled out of it onto the floor. That was where they must have been hiding. Why wasn’t he paying attention?

Someone slapped his face then clutched his head. He felt his hands being crushed. He wanted to scream, but someone crammed a rolled-up athletic sock in his mouth.

“Daaa-vid,” a singsongy voice whispered, “pay attention, you piece of Loner trash.”

David widened his eyes to focus on his attackers. He saw six elegant silhouettes in the dim light. They were Pretty Ones.

Their legs were like silken columns towering over David. Two stood on his hands. Two held down his legs. Another pressed her palms down on his forehead with all of her weight, keeping his skull planted on the floor. One girl sashayed from side to side lazily like she was listening to a song that no one else could hear. As she moved, her skirt would flit open, and he could see all the way up. David wrenched his arms and legs around, but he couldn’t overcome their combined grip. They stared back at him blankly, with plastic smirks like evil dolls.

The girls pried David’s legs apart, and Hilary stepped into view. She lowered herself down to her knees and began to crawl on top of him. Her hair hung in front of her face. He felt her leg against his. She was shaking.

“Mmm, hot,” one of the Pretty Ones said. The others snickered quietly.

David’s heart pounded as Hilary made her way up him. It may have taken only seconds, but they were torturously long.

Hilary pulled her body up and straddled David’s rib cage.

Her weight squeezed air out of his lungs. The light cutting through the curtain entrance caught Hilary’s face as she turned. Her face was slack, and her right eye was purple and swollen. It looked inflated.

She leaned her lithe body forward. Down her dress, he saw the weight of her breast. David pressed his tongue against the sock in his mouth, and it moved a bit. He kept his eyes locked on hers, breathing hard through his nose.

“David,” Hilary said, “what happened the other night… was a mistake. I was weak, and you took advantage of that.” Her voice was flat, distant.

She ground down on her words. “It’s your fault this is happening now. You need to learn your place.” She looked off into the darkness as her voice failed her. “All you Scraps need to learn your place.” Barely a whisper now.

“This school belongs to Varsity.”

David worked his tongue against the sock in his mouth. His whole gang was just on the other side of that curtain, only a few stairs away. He screamed, but it was too muffled for them to hear. David kicked and thrashed his legs, but the Pretty Ones held fast.

Hilary held out a shaky hand, and one of her girls placed a slender ivory comb in it. She turned it in her fingers to reveal that the handle had been whittled into a sharp dagger.

Hilary looked out to the darkness again and shivered.

“Do it,” said a whisper from the dark.

Oh, God… Sam. He was here.

Hilary clamped her eyes shut.

David shook his head violently at her. The Pretty One above him held tight to his head. He pushed and pushed with his tongue, edging the sock out.

“Do it, baby,” said the whisperer from the dark.

A drop of water fell on his face. Then another. They were tears, dropping from Hilary’s chin.

Hilary lifted the dagger high, and her beautiful face twisted into something tormented and ugly. David screamed, and some of his voice escaped.

Someone threw aside the curtains and burst into the room.

Light from the stairwell spilled in. David’s heart soared.

It was Will.

He had a look on his face. It was pure rage. He must have heard the scream. He looked ready to fight, but then he froze, dumbfounded by the scene.

For just a second, David and Will locked eyes. Then Will had a seizure. He dropped on his stomach, his shuddering face landing inches from David’s. David could hear the sputter of his gurgling throat. David looked back to Hilary.

She jammed her dagger into his eye.

Agony. It was all David knew for an eternity. Pain knifed through his eye, it twisted and scraped inside his skull so relentlessly that it felt like Hilary was still over him, rattling her ivory shank in his eye socket. David swung in the dark to knock her away, but it never changed anything.

Pain permeated his dreams too, making it impossible to know for sure when he was awake and when he wasn’t. He could sense that people were trying to help him. He heard words of consolation, but they were unintelligible through the throbbing haze.

In time, pain didn’t consume him anymore. He slept more restfully. He’d only awaken for moments before fading to sleep again.

“You had a fever from an infection,” Lucy said softly, holding his hand, “You’re doing well now, David.” She returned to reading a book aloud. It was rhythmic and soothing. There was talk of picnics and sunshine. Her voice faded away.

He came to later. Lucy’s voice came from a different direction.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “You’re not going to believe this, but I was really jealous of Dorothy. All those gifts she gave you? I actually tried to draw a picture of you one night. You should have seen it, it was horrible. Wow, I hope you’re not listening to any of this.”

He was, sort of, but he drifted away again.

“If your jaw hurts, it’s ’cause I had to knock you out, you were thrashing and yelling so bad,” Gonzalo said, chuckling.

“You almost took that Nerd’s head off when he was operating on you. Jeezus, it was crazy.”

David tried to laugh, but he fell asleep instead.

She took my eye. That’s all David could think.

He was conscious again. He reached up and dared to feel his right eye for the first time. His fingers grazed the crusty gauze.

She took my eye, David thought again. We were a couple. My mom made her dinner twice a week. I loved her once. And she took my eye out!

He gnashed his teeth together. He was angry now. No matter how many times he thought it, it never seemed acceptable. She could have killed him if she wanted to, but no, she wanted to shame him. Scar him. Make him look weak.

Sam made her. Sam wanted all of those things, and he scared Hilary into doing it. He made her feel like she had no choice.

But she did have a choice.

David had asked her to join the Loners, leave the Pretty Ones behind. He would have protected her. She wouldn’t do it.

She wouldn’t let go of the power. David knew then that Hilary never loved him.

No one would ever mutilate someone they loved.

The rage within David felt good. It dampened the fire in his eye. He turned revenge scenarios over in his head, lying on his side, staring at his room with his one good eye. Dull light seeped through the curtain.

His room had been rearranged. A first-aid kit, bottles of water, rags, and a pile of books sat on the floor, next to his bed. A pillow lay scrunched into the corner. That was where Lucy sat when she read to him and kept him company.

She’d talked about episodes from her childhood, things about her family, random thoughts about life. One time, he remembered her singing softly to him. Some kind of folk song or something. He couldn’t remember the chorus, but her voice had been so sweet and lulling.