Darkness of Light (8 page)

“Hey, Ember.” He smiled at me. “Where are you running off to?”

“I-I . . .” I floundered as I turned to look behind me. At the mention of my name, Eli’s head snapped up, whipping towards the door, his eyes staring into mine like lightning bolts. My head felt a little addled as fear rose through me, which made me defiantly hold his stare.
Don’t show fear
. The more fear I felt, the more stubborn I tended to get. Mark said I was headstrong and ornery, something I got from my mother. 

“Ember?” 

I turned back to face the teacher. “Sorry, Mr. Kemp, I was just going outside and wait for my ride.” I tried to move around him.

“Please call me Tim. It’s freezing out there. Just hang in here until then.” His hand already gently on my back, guiding me back into the room. I let him direct me to the tables, sitting in a chair closest to the door. I peered at Eli under my lashes. He stood there with his arms crossed, watching me with disdain.
Seriously, what was his problem with me?
Sam tugged at his hand, eventually getting him to turn away. I tried to ignore them both as I took out my sketchpad from my backpack. I flipped through the sheets to find a fresh page.

“You are really talented. May I?” Tim motioned to my sketchbook. I shrugged, as if I was okay; it wasn’t. Not too many artists like people looking at their sketchpad until they are ready to show it. It’s like reading someone’s diary. Sketching was release for me, and I drew things that were especially personal. However, I felt it rude to say no to him.

He commented frequently as he looked through the book, but he stopped on one page in particular. “Wow, this one is really interesting. I don’t know what it is about it. It has a haunting quality, as if you are looking into this person’s tortured soul.” 

Tim laid the drawing on the table. I froze. Of all the ones he could’ve picked out, it was the one of Eli’s eyes, the one I barely recalled drawing. At the time, I hadn’t known his name or anything about him, but I felt those eyes had burned a hole through my retina and my brain. I recalled how scared I’d been that night, the feeling of being watched, and especially with those eyes staring out from the shadows of the forest. 

The same eyes that are on me now.

I tried to grab the pad away from Tim when another hand from behind snatched it off the table and out of my grasp. It was like a car accident I couldn’t prevent or turn away from. I sat helplessly, as Eli took my sketchpad, his eyes slowly recognizing his own. I don’t remember breathing. It felt like time had stopped. 

I watched Eli’s reaction as he took in the drawing, his eyes wandering down to the corner of the page where I always put a date. His reaction was so minuscule I thought I imagined it; but for an instant his pupils thinned to a vertical slit. Or, at least, I thought they did. I blinked and his pupils were back to their passive, cold state. Medication here I come.

“It’s good, huh?” Tim looked over at Eli and motioned for Sam to look. As she approached, her body moved possessively close to Eli’s.

“It’s very good.” There was a trace of warning in her voice as her head cocked to the side, undoubtedly recognizing whose eyes were on the paper. 

Eli’s eyes slowly lifted from the sketchpad and caught mine. As we stared at each other over the ridge of the pad, it was as if we were having a silent conversation, although I didn’t seem to understand the language. Looking away from him felt like tearing magnets apart. Even as my head turned away, my eyes had stayed on his until the last second, with my mind screaming:  
Don’t ever take your eyes off the enemy
.

“Yeah,” Eli responded evenly and put the pad back down. 

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Mark saying he’d be there in five minutes. Relief washed over me. “Oh, I gotta go. My ride’s here. Bye.” 

I jumped up with joy. Getting away from this strange, awkward situation and Eli’s malice-laced stares was all I wanted. I grabbed my stuff and practically ran out the door. 

***

Mark and I talked about my day as we headed home. “It was a lot better than I thought,” I admitted. Nothing blew-up, which is always a plus, and there was a pleasant absence of nasty cheerleaders. I, of course, left out the part about my hallucinating in front of the entire class. Things like that would only upset Mark. He didn’t need to know. 

“There are some scary people there, but most seem like they’ve just had a tough go of things,” I told him. “If anything, it made me appreciate you even more.”

“Remember that when I wake you up tomorrow morning.”

“Not sure my appreciation will go that far.” 

“But I can’t afford to lose another hand in the morning trying to get you up early.” 

“You know, Mark, there is a bus going out there, which I could take instead. I might lose the cool factor of my daddy driving me, but I’m willing to sacrifice.”

“No. You can’t take the bus. We wouldn’t want to lose that cool factor,” he said. “I don’t ask anything from you, like trying to get an education, or good grades, or even having some fun. All I ask from you is to be cool for my sake.”

“I think you’ve taken all of the cool. None left for me.” I shrugged dramatically. No matter my mood, Mark could always make me feel so much lighter and happier, letting my day become a humorous memory, and not an irritation. 

“Won’t riding the bus take almost an hour more than if I drove you?” Mark asked. “I don’t like the idea of you coming home in the dark.”

“Mark, it’s staying lighter later every day. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You know I’m eighteen, I can legally . . .” I trailed off as I caught the warning in Mark’s expression. “Shutting up now.”

“Good choice.” 

Eleven

Wanting to hear every detail of my first day at Silverwood, Ryan and Kennedy planned to meet me later that evening at one of our favorite hangouts. It was a hipster-type café, which played cool music and local art covered the walls. Unfortunately, as of late, it seemed to be popular with the high school “in-crowd” as well. I assumed they went there to laugh at the funky outfits, the darkly twisted artwork, and the indie music. 

When I got there, I saw Kallie and her minions sitting at the front table by the window. I sighed deeply and kept my head up as I walked past her. There was no doubt she spotted me when I heard her say something and the entire table turned to look at me, laughing. 

Kennedy and Ryan sat at our usual table in the back. “Hey guys.” I pulled out a chair and plopped down.

Kennedy wordlessly pushed my already ordered vanilla latte to me.

“Thank you.”

Kennedy had this knack for knowing exactly what you were feeling and what you needed. It was kind of strange how in-tune she was with everything around her. She was the one who had approached me on my first day of school five years earlier. I remember watching this tiny, fragile-looking girl, who was all of ninety pounds, with long, silky, brown hair and brown eyes framed by glasses come up to me at the lunch table. While the other kids seemed to stay away from me, she wordlessly sat next to me at lunch, acting like this was something we did every day. Immediately, I felt comfortable around her, somehow sensing, that she, too, was different like me. Ryan had followed suit, and every day for a week they sat next to me without pressuring me to talk or join in with them. Eventually, I let my walls come down. We had been inseparable ever since.

“Sorry about the bitch infiltration.” Ryan nodded towards the front window. “They came in after we did.”

“Not your fault.” I shrugged.

I had just started to tell them about my first day at Silverwood when a shadow moved over the table.

“Oh, look who it is,” Kallie sneered. “The wicked witch and her flying monkeys. How is the school for the mentally disturbed?”

“Better than the wicked bitch academy I just left.”

“Why can’t you just melt away with water?”

“And why can’t you click your heels together and go back to Kansas?” Ryan shot at her.

She placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Is all this Dorothy-talk making you hot and bothered, Ryan? I’ll bet you have a pair of ruby slippers you wear to dance around the house with Toto here.” Kallie nodded towards Kennedy.

Just like at the dance, I could handle her going after me, but my friends were off limits. My anger sprouted to elevated levels. My jaw set into a stony expression. Something came over me, and I felt a dark ferocity consuming me. I needed to get out of here.

I stood up, knocking over my chair. “I would back off now.”

Ryan reached for my hand. “Em, don’t let her get to you. She’s not worth it.” 

“Shut-up, Purple Teletubby,” Kallie sneered at Ryan.

The lights in cafe flickered and buzzed over my head. A calm power oozed inside me. The lighting whined in protest as energy flooded through the wiring. A spark shot out from one of the lights, breaking the dam holding them back. Tiny balls of fire rained down on the customers below. 

Another burst of sparks exploded from the hanging lights. People screamed and scrambled to hide under the tables. I continued to stand there, a force building in me. I felt a connection to the bursts of electricity. It wasn’t the electricity I felt in my veins but the sparks of fire. Fire seared through my veins like it did in the wiring. One by one the lights blew, plunging the cafe into darkness. 

“She’s the one who’s doing this,” Kallie’s shrill voice shot through the room, breaking the shocked silence. “It’s her! She’s a freak!” 

It was dark with all the lights out, but I could sense dozens of eyes watching me, scared and suspicious. I did the only thing I could think of—I ran. It may not have been the wisest thing to do, but logic left me, and I reacted purely on instinct.

Within a few minutes, I was on the road in Mark’s truck, stewing in my shocked, scared, and angry thoughts. Kallie was right. I was doing it—first at the dance and now at the café. There was no denying it; I was a freak. It seemed I could cause things to explode when I got upset. That wasn’t normal or even possible, was it? So, what did that make me? Was I some hybrid X-man, or was it simpler than that? Something was wrong with me. You’d hear about these people who could make things happen and later you’d found out they had a tumor pressing on their brain. Whatever it was, I had the power to blow things up. I bit back the tears, alternating between mumbling to myself and screaming profanity as I drove down the road.

I turned down the dark, winding, country road that took me home. My phone buzzed relentlessly with calls from Ryan and Kennedy. I needed to come up with some explanation before I called them back—if there was one. In my state, I found it hard to concentrate on the curvy route. Rounding the corner right before my turn-off, the headlights reflected off something in front of me. I squinted as a flash of light assaulted my eyes. 

A polished Harley pulled onto the road, the metal of the bike reflecting back. Something gripped my stomach as I recognized both the person and the black bike. His bike was followed by six more pristine Harleys of various models. The rumble of the engines hummed in my chest as the riders revved them to gain speed. I knew it was the same group who had circled Mark and me a few nights earlier. My heart pounded faster at the thought of Eli being only yards away. They quickly picked up speed, leaving my truck in the dust. 

My road came and went, but I continued on. The impulse to follow Eli was too strong to deny. Why was he near my house? Was it a coincidence? Did he live out here, or was he watching me? There was no way he knew I was behind them and seeing where they went might give me a clue about who Eli was. I had to find out what was going on. I hit the gas, not wanting to lose them. The truck swerved and weaved through the twisty roads. I had just gotten their taillights in sight when red and blue lights flickered in my rearview mirror.

“Dammit!” I hit the steering wheel, pulling over to the side of the road. I watched through my side mirror as a cop got out of the car and headed towards me. I recognized the officer instantly. “Oh, you’ve GOT to be kidding me?” I exclaimed, leaning my head back on my headrest, before taking it forward and banging it on the steering wheel. I swore that man was hiding out in the bushes, just waiting for me to cross his path. Reluctantly, I rolled down the window.

“License and reg—” Sheriff Weiss trailed off as he looked inside the window.

I would have found Sheriff Weiss’ expression humorous, if it wasn’t for the fact his shock turned into complete and utter joy.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Ms. Brycin.” His eyes danced. “We just keep running into each other don’t we? You must really enjoy making my day.”

“I really do,” I retorted as sarcasm came flooding out.

“Do you know how fast you were going, Ms. Brycin?”

Keeping my head facing forward, I had a “let’s just get this over with” expression on my face. I didn’t trust myself not to say something snarky, but he remained silent, waiting for my answer. Finally, I sighed. “I’m sure you are about to tell me.”

“Sixty-five in a fifty mile-per-hour zone,” he stated.

“See, you didn’t need to ask me after all.”

His lips pinched together in a thin, white line as he stared at me. “Have you been drinking, Ms. Brycin?”

“Does a bottle of tequila laced with heroin count? I also had some battery fluid—was that not a good thing?” 

“Get out of the car.”

I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut. I sighed heavily, unsnapping my seatbelt. I opened the door and slid off the driver’s seat to the ground. My eyes widened as he unhooked the handcuffs from his belt.

“Aren’t you going to give me a breathalyzer test or something first?” I demanded. Even if I had been drinking, I knew I would have passed it. For some reason alcohol didn’t affect me the same way it affected others. My tolerance had always been extremely high, especially compared to others my age.

“You see, I only need to suspect that you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol to take you in.” His smug expression was just begging to be slapped off his face.