Betraying Innocence (14 page)

Miss. Burke smiled warmly, giving Ana’s hand a squeeze then letting go. “It’s wonderful to have you. Why don’t you find a seat?”

Thanking her, Ana turned to the rest of the class, stomach dropping when she realized she was the only one still standing. She tried not to fidget as she hurried to the only empty seat in the room, praying she didn’t trip on her feet.

Algebra II turned out to be a fun subject with Miss. Burke teaching it. She was patient, sweet, and always ended her sentences with a little high note at the end, like she was about to giggle. Ana had never liked math, but she thought she could really learn to love it. But by the time the bell rang, Ana’s good mood deflated at the prospect of spending an hour at the mercy of Voronin. She plucked up her books, Rafe’s jacket and started for the Science Building.

She wasn’t late this time, Ana noticed with some relief. There was a steady row of students hurrying under the drizzle of rain towards the white building in the back. She joined them, using
Rafe’s jacket like an umbrella. At her class, she stopped in the doorway and observed the room. Mr. Voronin was nowhere in sight, but then, neither was Rafe. Her partner, Vinny, glanced up when she approached their table and took her seat. She draped Rafe’s jacket across her lap, hoping to give it to him when he arrived.

“Hey,” he said, tapping his pen on his open book. There were elaborate and complicated swirls stretching across the page, interlocking and weaving like a maze in all directions.

“Hey,” she said absentmindedly, studying his creation. “That’s really cool. Did you do that?”

The tips of his ears turned a bright red to match the flags on his cheeks. “Yeah, it’s kind of like a talent
, or something.”

“Do you take classes?”

He laughed. “No. I can’t really draw. This is pretty much the extent of my abilities.”

“It’s really neat,” she said honestly, leaning closer to have a better look. “What is it?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, studying the design as well. “I’m not sure. Once my pen touches paper, it kind of grows a mind of its own.”

Ana chuckled
. “Well, I think it’s awesome.”

Straight, white teeth flashed in a broad smile. “Thanks
.”

“Eyes forward!” Ana nearly fell out of her stool at the unexpected command. Mr.
Voronin stood at the front. His cold, brown eyes were on her, waiting.

Hurriedly, Ana faced forward, flipping her books open and pretending she was ready to learn. Mr.
Voronin didn’t seem impressed or overly convinced, but he turned away, and Ana exhaled the breath she’d been holding, ruffling her bangs. Beside her, Vinny chuckled quietly under his breath. Slyly, he pushed a scrap of paper across the space separating them. Ana took it, eyes fixed on Mr. Voronin’s back as she pulled it under the table to read.

“Kiss up.”

She felt her jaw drop in mock outrage.
“The guy is terrifying!”
she wrote back, shoving the paper in his direction.

He took it. Read it. Rolled his eyes and scribbled back,
“Chicken.”

She didn’t write back when the page made its way to her. Instead, she folded it up and tucked
it into her book, slanting him a glower which greatly contradicted the grin on her mouth.

No more notes were exchanged as they concentrated on scribbling down the information on the board. It wasn’t until the jacket across her lap began to slip that she even remembered still holding it
, or that she hadn’t even noticed if Rafe had come in. Her head turned over her shoulder and her gaze found Rafe’s instantly. But immediately wished she hadn’t.

His eyes were cold, hard, angry and staring straight at her. For a moment, Ana forgot where she was and was about to demand what his problem was when…

“Miss. French!”

Crap!

Ana turned slowly in her seat. “Yes, sir?” she murmured, hoping her voice didn’t convey the annoyance and dread coiling inside her.

Carefully, Mr.
Voronin set the piece of chalk down, dusted his hands and took three steps forward. His narrowed eyes never left hers. “Do you have some kind of disorder that prohibits you from focusing? Or is Mr. Ramirez so fascinating that you just can’t seem to control yourself?”

Ana con
sidered telling him she had ADD. It was a good enough excuse, but she was too mortified to speak. Part of her was tempted to just sink beneath the table and stay there until class was finished.

“Well?” he prompted, evidently wanting an answer.

Ana opened her mouth, mind terrifyingly blank, when a movement from the corner of her eye had her attention darting to the open door. For a second, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at or what had drawn her concentration, but then a figure moved into the doorway, and Ana stiffened.

It was a boy, seventeen at the most, with
a short cap of blond hair and skin so white, it could have been white paint. His blue eyes bore straight into hers, unblinking, transfixed and cold. He was dressed oddly in black trousers with a red sash around his middle, a white dress shirt and a long, black cape pouring down from his shoulders to the back of his polished, black shoes. He held no books in his hand, no bag, giving no indication at all that he was even a student at Darcy Clifton. But there he was, pale, silent and completely fixated on her.

Numbness crept through her veins. It settled in the pit of her stomach like a chunk of ice. The unease knotted her gut, wrenching it with cramps that nearly doubled her over. Cold sweat froze along the length of her spine and under her armpits. She tasted copper at the back of her throat.

“Miss. French!” Mr. Voronin’s cutting voice carved into her. A strangled gasp escaped as she was torn from the spell the boy was weaving on her and forced to turn to the man snarling at her from across the room. “Is there a problem?” he demanded.

She started to shake her head. She started to point out the boy. But then she turned her head to look again and the boy was gone, vanished from sight like he’d never been there. She opened her mouth, confusion making her dizzy.

“Miss. French, is wasting my time somehow amusing?”

“But…”

She glanced at Vinny to see if he’d at least seen the boy, because he must have; the door was right there, right in front of everyone’s table. Someone must have seen him. But it wasn’t Vinny leering back at her with eyes so black that they were empty voids of hell on a face contorted into a misshapen heap of mutilated and rotting flesh. Chunks of scalp, matted with blood and hair, hung from the side of its head. Fresh blood oozed from the hole on the right side of its face, dribbling onto the front of Vinny’s t-shirt. It opened its mouth, exposing chipped and blackened teeth, and a high, earsplitting sound shattered the silence. It took a moment for her to realize the sound was coming from her. That she was screaming. But once it hit her, she shot back as if struck in the chest by a mallet. The stool rocked violently with her weight. Its legs lifted off the laminate. She was falling before she could catch herself. Then there was a crunch and darkness engulfed her.

Rafe

The class was in an uproar. Chairs screamed against laminate as students jumped out of their seats to see what had happened. No one was listening to Mr.
Voronin anymore. The loud buzz of excited chatter swarmed the room, muffling the loud pounding of his heart running rampant in his chest as Rafe vaulted over the table and landed next to Ana. His hands were shaking as he scooped her up, cradling her limp body in his arms.

“Ana?” He pushed
blood soaked strands off her face. It ran down his hands and through his fingers from the angry gash slashing the side of her skull where it had struck his table. He swallowed back bile. “Baby, open your eyes.”

“Mr. Ramirez, please return to your seat!”

He ignored Voronin’s command. His fingers felt as icy as the cheek he touched. “Ana!”

“Let
her go.” Vinny was kneeling beside him, his hands outstretched. For a disorientating second, Rafe had no idea what the guy was saying. “You need to put her down,” Vinny said. “She could be seriously injured.”

He was right. Rafe knew he was right, but damn it. He couldn’t just leave her on the floor.

“You could hurt her worse,” Vinny said patiently.

Every muscle protesting against it, Rafe gently put her down. His blood stained hands fisted.
He stiffened when Vinny reached for her. He watched as the other boy pressed two fingers to her throat.

“She still has a pulse,” he confirmed, pulling his hand away.

Rafe released the breath he’d been holding hostage. He sagged back slightly on his haunches. He was still crouched down next to her when the paramedics barged into the classroom and strapped Ana to a stretcher with a neck brace. Rafe started to follow them, but was stopped.

“Family only, son,” one of the paramedics told him. “She’ll be at the hospital. You can see her there.”

The whole thing felt surreal, like he was in some kind of bad dream. Everything from her spine chilling screams to the sickening crack of bone striking wood rebounded off the walls of his skull like some Halloween soundtrack he couldn’t turn off. It replayed over and over again until he wanted to break something.

Class ended. Vinny set
Rafe’s jacket on his desk. He smiled at him sympathetically and Rafe wanted to punch him in the face.
She isn’t dead!
he wanted to snap. Instead he snatched up his things and stomped from the room.

The entire school was abuzz with the news. Everyone was talking about it, even the teachers. Rafe had a feeling that it would spread through the town soon.
There was no hiding something like this. He ignored most of the chatter as he dumped his things into his locker and wandered into the cafeteria. He had no appetite, but he knew if he left the school, he’d get into his car and camp outside the hospital and he was already getting flack from Dan because of his absences.

“You should have seen it. She seized up and went all
batshit. Just started twitching and then
wham
! She beans herself on the table. It was hilarious.”

Rafe looked up at the
storyteller. His eyes narrowed as the boy went on to demonstrate the entire event to his brain dead buddies. His fingers curled into fists at his side. Then he was moving, closing the space until he stood next to the guy.

“You think it’s funny?”
He cut the boy off mid-convulsion.

He turned, still laughing. “Uh
, yeah, I mean did you see her?” He broke off in another fit of laughter. The rest of the table, having noticed the black aura pulsing around Rafe, was smart enough not to join their friend.

“She could have died,” Rafe growled through his teeth.

The boy rolled his eyes. “But she didn’t. Whatever, man. What’s it to you anyway? She your girlfriend or something?” The last part was said with a mocking curl of his lips. “Bet you didn’t know she was an expert at the chicken dance.”

His fist flew into the boy’s mouth before either of them could see it coming. The gruesome crunch echoed like cannon fire through the cafeteria, bringing the entire place to a screeching halt. The boy went flying over his chair and landed in a heap across the aisle.
He howled as he clutched his bloody mouth.

Rafe bared his teeth. “
Next time I hear you talking about her, I’ll break your jaw, understand me?”

Without waiting for anyone to come to their senses and get a teacher, he turned on his heels and stormed from the cafeteria. He didn’t stop until he was in his car and driving like a maniac to the hospital.

Ana

“Hit her head…”

“N
o reason…”

“P
sychotic break…”

The buzzing was faint. The voices muffled as if spoken from the end of a very deep barrel. The smell of antiseptic, pine cleaner and muggy sickness poured through the recess
es of Ana’s dream, rippling the image of … what? What had she been dreaming? She vaguely recalled violet flowers and maybe … Rafe? She couldn’t be sure. It was all gone now and she surfaced through an ocean of milk.

In the distance, the voices were broken by the steady
bleep, bleep, bleep
of machines and the low, mechanic wheeze of voices over an intercom. The low hum of people in motion, walking, talking, pushing carts and shouting orders consumed her all at once as she was thrown from one plane of existence into another. Bright lights glowered down at her from a fluorescent bulb overhead. Ana groaned as the sharp spikes of light stabbed her sensitive eyes, drawing tears. She struggled to turn her head, only to feel as if her skull had been punctured by a spike. She cried out without thinking.

“Ana?” Her mom’s face appeared almost instantly above her, gray eyes wide and wet with tears. “Richard!”

Dad appeared at her mother’s side, ashen-faced. “Baby?”

Ana winced as their voices joined the marching band trampling around inside her skull.

“Don’t try to talk.” Dad placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I’m going to get the doctor. Just lie still.” He was gone before she could question him.

Ana tried to turn her head, to follow his retreat, but the effort had shards of pain slicing down the back of her skull and down her spine in ribbons of fire. She
laid perfectly still, stomach revolting.

“It’s going to be okay,” Mom said, taking Ana’s
fingers in her cold, clammy ones, careful not to dislodge the IV piercing the back of her hand.

“
Wha … wha…” God, why couldn’t she talk?

“It’s okay!” her mom said again, squeezing her fingers tight and looking on the verge of crying. “It’s okay.”

Stop saying that!
she wanted to scream. She closed her eyes instead, willing herself not to throw up.

“Ana?” The voice was unfamiliar, male, gruff, but gentle, the kind of voice that
was usually really good at delivering bad news.

Swallowing hard, Ana opened her eyes and blinked up at the man looming over her.

Well into his sixties, the man had a bald spot that gleamed under the lights and eyes that were tired, but still managed to smile somehow. They looked down at her now through the square glasses perched on his hooked nose. 

“I’m Dr.
Hibbitt. Do you know where you are?”

Maybe it was the situation. Maybe it was her mother’s anxious face, her father’s terrified lip nibbling or the doctor’s solemn frown, but she had an overpowering urge to say,
Disneyland?
Where else could she be that smelled of death and sickness? Where the main choice of attire consisted of a paper gown?

“
Hosp … Hosp … p…”

Dr.
Hibbitt put his hand up, stopping her stuttering. “Okay.”

“What’s wrong?” her father demanded at once.

The doctor ignored him. “Ana, do you know how old you are? Who these people are?”

She had to slick her lips, had to swallow the anxiety clawing up the back of her throat. “Seventeen?”
Right?
She wanted to ask. But the relief on everyone’s face was answer enough. A little more confident, she continued, “Mom and Dad.”

The doctor beamed. “Excellent! Now do you remember what happened?”

This took a little more effort. She had to squeeze her eyes closed and really focus. She remembered the rain, missing her bus, catching a ride with Rafe … something about Algebra?

“Just tell us what you remember,” the doctor said soothingly.

Again, she wet her lips, baffled by how dry they were. “School,” she whispered in a raspy voice. “It was raining. The bus…” She scrunched her brow, pushing hard against the barrier holding her back from the rest. “Did I have Algebra today?”

“Did you?” the doctor asked quietly.

The heels of her hands were like ice against her burning temples as she squeezed her head between them. “I think so … maybe…”

Dr.
Hibbitt hummed, moving to the foot of her bed. He unlatched the clipboard from its sleeve and quickly jotted something down. Then he came back around to her side and went through the motions of checking her temperature and blood pressure.

“What happened?” she asked when no one offered her the answer willingly.

“You had an accident,” the doctor said evenly. “Do you remember hitting your head?”

“My head?” Ana raised a hand and touched the top of her head, smoothing it back until she felt where the heat was coming off her skin.
The skin was puckered and she could feel the coarse lines of the stitches.

“It’s not too bad,” the doctor assured her. “Your mother refused to let us shave your head so we did our best. Only five stitches. I think you got off lucky.”

Lucky? She had stitches in her head. Somehow lucky wasn’t the word she would have used.

“What
happened?”

Images flashed of her sitting in Chemistry, of holding
Rafe’s jacket…

“Do you remember something?” the doctor asked.

Ana shook her head slowly, more in disbelief rather than denial. “I was in Chemistry … right?”

“You tell me.”

Frustration had her teeth grinding. “I don’t know! I…”

Vinny. No! Not Vinny
… someone … the boy … the boy … what boy? Blond … a cape?

“Demon!” The word blurted from her lips before she could stop it and with it, like a trigger, everything slammed into her all at once, forcing her back into the lumpy mattress. Images of drooping flesh, oozing blood, eyes
… black, unseeing eyes, windows into hell, leering back at her. The machines around her began to scream, violent cries of panic. “Demon! There was a demon—”

“Ana!”

“No! Listen to me, please! There was a demon in—”

“Ana, you need to calm down!”

She slapped away the hand the doctor placed on her arm. “Wait! There was—”

She fought off the hands
that grabbed her and held her. The machines around her bleeped wildly. Voices rose, a tempestuous crescendo of commotion. “I saw it! It was—”

The doctor was shouting for something, his hands scaly on her arms. Then her parents were gone and she was surrounded by distorted faces and hurtful hands
that grabbed, pinched and pushed.

“Wait—”

Then, very slowly the world melted into black as the drugs injected through her IV took claim of her.

Dr.
Hibbitt promised her no restraints or needles if she remembered to keep calm. He took the seat beside her, clipboard in hand. Her parents huddled in the doorway, holding each other, but he must have told them to stay back, because neither made an effort to move any closer.

“Hello, Ana,” he said in his calming voice. “Do you remember me?”

Ana looked at him, eyebrow raised. “I’m crazy, not stupid.”

Nothing reflected on his face to her comment. “Do you believe you’re crazy?”

“I saw … I
thought
I saw a demon, what do you think?”

Dr.
Hibbitt peeled off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and Ana wondered how long his shift had been. His face looked even more haggard than it had been the last time she’d seen him and he was still wearing the same mint green shirt. She instantly felt bad for her lip, but then she remembered he was the one who instructed the nurses to knock her out.

“I think,” he began slowly
, “that you’re dealing with a lot right now. Moving away from the place you’ve lived your whole life, leaving your friends behind and starting over … it’s a lot for anyone to deal with.”

So we’re working the stress angle again,
Ana thought.

He replaced his glasses and peered down the length of his nose at her. “Your father tells me you haven’t been sleeping. Is there a reason for that?”

Yeah, because something behind my walls likes to keep me awake.
“I’m just not tired,” she lied, twisting a piece of loose thread from the sheets around her finger.

Dr.
Hibbitt nodded slowly. “Is eating an issue?”

She shook her head. “I like food.”

He nodded. “Do you often find yourself restless? Stressed?”

Ana considered
that, then jerked a shoulder. “I don’t think so.”

He scratched her response on his clipboard. “What about school? Do you fear not fitting in?”

Again, her shoulder made an involuntary twitch. “I guess. Maybe. I mean at first, but…”

His head bobbed in understanding nods while he tapped his pen on the page in a way that
sent little fingers of dread creeping up Ana’s spine.

“Could
… could you not do that?” she whispered, pointing.

He adjusted his glasses higher on his nose and peered down at his pen and clipboard as if he’d forgotten all about them. “Does noise bother you?”

Good going!
She cleared her throat. “It’s distracting,” she said, thinking that was a good answer.

His thin lips drew into a small smile. “I apologize.” The tapping ceased. “Are you distracted easily?”

“No more than anyone else, I think,” she said.

He must have been satisfied by her response, because he said, “
Your parents inform me that you have made some friends since you arrived.” He folded his long fingers over his notes and observed her enquiringly. “Clearly making friends hasn’t been a problem for you?”

Ana nodded, not sure what kind of answer he wanted for that, because, although he placed everything he said as a question, it was impossible to determine if they actually required one.

“I guess not.”

“What about your friends from back home? Do you still keep in contact?”

Ana shook her head. “We’re kind of going our own ways.”

He made a note of
that. “What about boys? Did you have a boyfriend back home?”

Ana shook her head. “No.”

His eyes were intense when they rose up and pinned her. “And now? Is there a boy?”

Did he honestly believe she was seeing monsters because of some boy?

“I didn’t do this for attention,” she said hotly, temper snaking up the back of her neck. “I wouldn’t.”

Dr.
Hibbitt put his palm up. “No one is saying that, Ana. I am merely trying to help you.”
Then tell me why this is happening to me!
“Is there a boy?” he asked again calmly.

It took some effort not to fist her fingers or keep from shouting. “No.”

“Do you ever get … unhappy thoughts?”

Ana stared, certain he was joking. “What?”

He set his pen down and spread his hands open, palms up. “When you’re alone, do you ever think everything is just too much to bear? Like you want to give up—?”

“No!” she said at once, outraged by the question. “Yeah, my life sucks right now, but I would never—”

He smiled thinly again. “I apologize if these questions seem … callous, but they have to be asked. You understand.” It wasn’t a question for once.

“No,” she said quieter, because she did understand, even if she didn’t like it.

He nodded and wrote this down. He stayed that way for several minutes, head down, pen-wielding hand zipping across the page. Ana couldn’t make out a word he wrote. Everything looked like chicken scratches and she wondered if they taught that special brand of inscription in college.

Finally, he sat up, adjusted his glasses and peered at Ana. “As far as I can tell, the only problem you seem to be having is falling asleep
.”
And that little demon problem,
but Ana kept that to herself. “I don’t think we have really anything to be overly concerned about.” He rose to his feet and faced her parents. “Usually in a case like this, I would prescribe antidepressants, but I’m confident Ana isn’t depressed. I will however, prescribe her a mild sedative to help her rest at night. In the meantime, I’d like to keep her overnight, just for observation. She can head home tomorrow.”