Sticks and Stones (3 page)

When the bell rang, Sandra hurriedly gathered up her books and left the class as fast as possible, sidestepping the foot that was set out to trip her up.

The hallway was loud and her head swam. The lights moved in a blur, colors rushing past as shirts and pants and backpacks swirled, voices rising on a wave. Sandra tucked her head down and moved rapidly through the flow, heading in the opposite direction of her next class.

The next hallway was quieter and Sandra kept going, angling for the shop class hallway, which would be deserted until after lunch. She held her backpack tight, trying to mask the shaking of her hands.

Her throat hurt.

Three blurred shapes stood at the end of the hallway next to the closed classroom door and Sandra stilled, heart thudding fast. Blinking, she thought one was blond and relief made her stand taller, but then he was whispering something harsh, slamming past the other two and through the doors at the end.

“Hey,” one dark shadows said, nudging the other, “isn’t that Strange Sandra?”

They moved closer and Sandra shuffled back half a step, able to make out enough features to recognize Rick Nielson and Jorey Hendrickson, one year older and most likely in some of Jack’s classes.

They’d leave her alone, she thought.
They’d know better
. She hoped so.

The wall was gritty under her palm and she couldn’t let go, couldn’t walk away. She didn’t think her legs would hold her up.

“Don’t you have class?” Jorey asked, and Sandra had always thought he was nicer than Rick. He never started anything. He never stopped anything either, but then, no one did.

“I think she’s ditching,” Rick said.

“Aren’t you?” she mumbled, and a smile flashed over Jorey’s face.

Rick pulled himself up, and he wasn’t much taller than her, but he was definitely meaner and Sandra shifted away again, legs like jello.

“You’re that new kid’s friend, aren’t you?”

Sandra thought it was stupid to call Jack the “new kid”. He’d been here almost half a year and everyone knew his name. Hell, everyone had known his name that very first day.

“I guess you freaks stick together, huh?” Jorey rolled his eyes at Rick and stepped sideways, like he just wanted to move around her and go on his way. “I don’t like him much,” Rick added and Sandra wanted to roll her eyes too, because that much was evident.

“Fuck, just come on,” Jorey said, all impatience, but he didn’t physically stop Rick when he stepped into Sandra’s space, he just turned his back and glared at the wall.

The world swayed, and then Rick grabbed Sandra’s shoulder and everything faded away.

Her bones were shattering. She was on the ground, in the dirt, cool night on her skin and she was being dragged, feeling her shirt riding up and back going raw. Her eyes were closed and her heart was slow and she wasn’t really awake at all. She was gone, asleep, in a better place, and the grip was strong on her wrists, pulling,
pulling
, rocks scraping along and it didn’t hurt yet but it would. A tug, a pop, and the world rushed around. Her eyes were open now. She saw the ropes on her wrists, on her ankles, holding her firm. Her chest was bigger. And her shirt was covered in dust and something darker, drying brown on boldly colored fabric. The lighting was dim, murky, and someone moved down at the far end. Cardboard boxes were all around, piled perilously high except for where she lay, cement underneath her, knees bleeding through her jeans and blood dripping from her head and her hands and her wrists and her nose; her shoes were missing.

Then she was someone else, chest smaller and wearing a cotton skirt and her thighs burned. Someone else and her brown sweater was torn, no pants at all and she struggled to breathe. Red sucking gasps flew through her chest and her lungs clenched shut. Not smoke, but something wet and deathly cold. The world turned and she was on her side, skirt again, watching the knife come closer, terror in her veins; she was in the jeans and the knife pressed at her neck; in the sweater and the knife was pushing deep and grating across bone. At least it was going to be
quick and
no, no, oh god-

“Oh God.” She came to with her head lolling on Jack’s shoulder, held up by his arms. She shivered and he kept his body wrapped around her, as though it would help keep her together through sheer will alone. They were on the floor, cold tile seeping the last warmth from her bones, and her head hurt. Rick and Jorey stared down at them, riveted – a little like how one stared at a car crash.

“Oh
God
,” she whispered.

“What the hell are you looking at?” Jack snarled, and Rick turned on his heel, blood on his nose and shirt torn as he took off down the hall.

Jorey braved Jack’s ire a moment more, asking, “Should I get someone?”

“Just get outta here!” Jack’s voice was a deadly hiss, and Jorey ran without a backward glance. Jorey’s voice had shook and Sandra wondered just how bad she looked for those two boys to be so scared. She knew they weren’t terrified by Jack alone. At least she knew she hadn’t screamed. No teachers had come running.

Jack swept fingers over her neck. He pressed lightly and shushed her when she tried to turn her head. “You just rest right there.” He was taking her pulse, and it must have satisfied him, because he settled back with a sigh. She was cradled in his arms and didn’t think he was going to let her go anytime soon. She was so glad.

“
God,
Jack.”

“Shhh, San.”

She breathed, timed her breaths to Jack’s and listened to his heart under her ear. His fingers swept against her back, on the hard knobs of her spine where her shirt had ridden up, and that just made her remember, shivering all over again.

His low voice hummed in his throat, tuneless.

“Okay?” he finally asked when she stopped shaking and whispering horrors beneath her breath. “You alright?”

“We should move,” Sandra told him, but made no actual move to get up and Jack’s grip grew fiercer.

“What’d you see?”

Her throat still felt raw, like she’d been screaming in her head and it had somehow crossed over into reality. “Don’t ask,” she pleaded, voice hoarse and whispering, becoming the first girl, and the second, and the last girl that had taken the worst of all. “
Jesus,
Jack…”

Jack made a chuffing sound, like he didn’t want to hear it, and finally helped her to stand. She wobbled a bit, but he held on until she was steady, and even then he kept his hands on her waist, fingers on her skin, before he pulled back and smoothed down her shirt.

“Someone’s going to get killed real bad,” she said and it seemed like Jack was struggling to keep from tugging her right back out the side door. He looked like he regretted letting those two boys go, like he needed to hit something to feel better.

“Was it one of them?” he asked, and Sandra shook her head.

“Someone bigger. The shape was bigger.”

He stood unsure. “You want to go home?”

“I have a test after lunch.”

“Fuck the test,” Jack said, but he led her back down the hall anyway, further into the school, with his warm hand surrounding hers. They were a little sweaty and he kept looking at her, like he was making sure she was still there.

“I’m okay now,” she breathed.

Another look and he shook his head.

“I am,” she insisted, despite feeling those fragile edges inside, the terror that made her want to sit down and cry forever because those girls had just been
so
lost and afraid.

“No.” Jack pulled her into a closed doorway, empty classroom on the other side, and tucked one finger under her chin and raised it toward his face. Sandra could feel her cheeks go hot and wished she’d stop blushing every time one of those boys touched her. “Don’t lie,” he said. “You’re not fine.” He let go of her, and then said, all firm, like he was going to make her promise if it was the last thing he did, “You tell me right away if anyone gives you trouble over this.”

“Why?” she whispered. She’d dealt with far worse long before he’d ever come along.

“Because,” he said. “You’re one of us. You’re ours now.”

And that seemed to say it all.

Then, he led her back into the hall, waited with her until her next class and, when she sat down at her desk, she tried to think about nothing except variables and diagrams and formulas as their math teacher passed out the tests.

~

Jack met her at her locker after the last bell rang and Sandra was glad because the whole school seemed to be stealing looks and whispering behind their hands. He made her walk all the way back to his locker and wait as he filled his backpack, moving much slower than usual until she fidgeted in place, leaning on the lockers next to his, sending him hairy eyeballs and finally feeling more like herself.

“You starting to like school or something?” she asked.

He snorted, flashing the first smile she’d seen all day, and finished faster. “Jay-sus,” he said, “I’m done. I’m done! Just wait until you start next year. Your homework now is going to seem like a cakewalk.”

Sandra preferred not to. Next year Jack would be gone and she’d be the odd and lonely girl again. It didn’t matter that the high school was just across the street. It may as well have been across town with how little good it would do her.

Bumping her shoulder, Jack shut his locker, flinging his jacket at her – she had the bad habit of never bringing hers (but she liked theirs better and she thought they knew that too). It wasn’t as big as Daniel’s but it still swallowed her whole, and Sandra buried her nose in the canvas collar. It smelled like them, the Sloan family, with a hint of Jack’s shampoo.

The yard was nearly empty by the time they made it outside. There were a few cars left across the street, a straggler here and there. Their one and only school bus had already come and gone. It was Lem’s early week and the black truck was waiting for them. Sandra hurried forward. Usually he didn’t like waiting so much. He’d be tired and want to get home.

But Daniel wasn’t leaning against the truck door, waiting for them. And, looking around, Sandra caught sight of Rick Nielson darting from the side of the junior high, nose bloodied again and eyes already swelling shut. Daniel sauntered after him, heading their way, and Sandra stood stock still, eyes wide.

“What-?” she started, but Jack bumped her shoulder again, pushing her to the truck.

He made her crawl in first, next to Lem, different from their usual arrangement that had her stuck between the boys. Lem gave her a kind look and tucked her under his arm, pulling her close so Jack and Daniel could climb in beside her.

His hand caught once in her hair, an almost pat, and then they were moving away and Sandra was still stuttering with silence. Daniel looked satisfied, knuckles a little red and Jack couldn’t stop grinning, something dark and feral in the glint of his teeth as he looked his brother over.
Victors of battle
– and Daniel’s lips twitched back as Jack’s grin grew worse, his words replaying in Sandra’s head.
You’re ours
now
.

Wolf-pack
, she thought, and she rested against Lem’s arm, Jack’s hand catching hers and Daniel still holding his secret grin as Jack set about arguing with his brother, all the while holding fast.

Chapter Three

Sometimes
Sandra
dreamed of them – those girls – how they cried and bled. How they filled up with terror and their lives were snuffed out with bloodied fingers and a knife. But, most nights, her dreams were just dreams and not premonitions. After a while, the details even faded away. The girls faded away. Sandra could finally fall asleep without the guilt of being unable to save them.

It was a guilt she was used to.

Half a year passed by, and there were no missing girls.

Daniel and Jack did their best to distract her. They’d hole her up in their house – which was getting a little bit more furnished by the day – and make her laugh and blush, have contests on who could make her the reddest. Jack always won.

Sometimes Daniel would give her tips on her homework and Jack would fall asleep snoring over his, crumbs from the snacks they’d been eating littering his work. Then Daniel would try to stick something up his little brother’s nose and the day would end in a fistfight, Sandra hightailing it home before Lem came back and found their only kitchen table missing a leg.

Sandra didn’t know what happened after that, but Jack wouldn’t stop grinning for days and Daniel rolled his eyes every time his little brother walked by.

That’s how, days later, Sandra found herself back in Daniel’s bedroom, spread out on the carpet with Daniel’s stolen pillow stuffed under her head as they both hid from Jack, leaving him pouting in his bedroom and probably doing things Sandra was best not thinking about.

“You know you have a test tomorrow,” she said out of the blue, certain Daniel hadn’t touched his texts once all evening.

He rolled over on the bed, chin nearly hanging off the edge as he stared down at her.

“It’s supposed to be a surprise.” Sandra picked at a hole in her shirt right in the middle of her stomach, slowly working it bigger, pinkie wiggling all the way in.

Daniel’s eyebrow rose high. “Huh,” he said and flipped back over.

Sandra didn’t know what it was about his ceiling. It wasn’t very interesting. Maybe it was so they didn’t have to stare at each other.

“Not all my visions hurt.”

He hummed in agreement.

“You want me to tell you what it’s about, Daniel?”

He was quiet a long minute, and then he was twisting around again, rolling upright with his legs crossed. “You don’t call me Danny.”

“You’ve never asked me to.”

“Didn’t know I had to.”

Humming low in her throat to conceal her frown, Sandra sat up off the pillow and crawled over to his backpack to sort through his books until she pulled his math text free. She liked that she never had to worry about finding something embarrassing in Daniel’s things. Or maybe he was just better at hiding them.

She swiped through the pages, not understanding much of the math except what she’d seen in her head. She let smooth paper slide through her fingers and kept her face down, hair falling low over her shoulder. Finally, she motioned him over. “I think I found it, Danny.”

Daniel climbed down onto the floor beside her. And he grinned.

~

When it happened, Sandra thought she should have seen it coming.

Her parents had spent years ignoring her. She never expected them to sit up and take notice. And maybe they wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for the Sloans.

Lem and the boys had left her folks alone for months and months, ever since they’d moved in. Even after she’d let slip how little they cared for her, and how loud they got when they were shouting. She’d asked them to
leave
it
and they had.

And then they hadn’t anymore.

Lem had run across her dad at the store and had some words.

And Sandra knew how it was with the Sloans –
family was the most important thing
. But that wasn’t how it was with her family. That wasn’t her parents. And she didn’t know what Lem said to her dad, but it made it worse.

He came home drunk. And angry. He’d come home drunk before, but he’d never come home mean. He didn’t say a word, but he grabbed Sandra’s arm on her way past the living room from the front door. It was late and the television glowed blue and white, her mother on the chair facing sideways into the dark room. Sandra knew she could see them, but she didn’t move. Her father glared at her, breath foul, eyes narrowed, and fingers tight on her arm.

The air felt charged. Dangerous and dark. Her father had ignored Sandra for ten years. She really didn’t want his attention now. Not like this.

His nose flared, eyebrows drawn tight. He didn’t move for a long moment and Sandra stayed still as a rabbit. Her spine felt cold, shuddering like when she’d been on that step and saw Lem for the first time.

Her father had never, ever made her feel like that before.

“I never wanted you,” he finally said. His voice was low, growled and hissed, and he dropped her arm just as quickly, giving her a half-step shove away, and turning back to his chair. He threw himself down and the old springs squealed.

The television flicker-flicked. Her mother didn’t look her way.

Sandra considered walking out, walking away, going next door and never coming back. Instead she quietly went into her room, taking careful, measured steps, and, even though her eyes burned, she didn’t cry.

She would never cry for them again.

They hadn’t been her parents in a very long time.

Instead, she took her dresser and shoved it in front of her door. Then, she burrowed into the threadbare blankets on her bed and huddled there until she fell into a troubled sleep.

~

The next morning, Sandra left the house early, walking fast even though her parents were still in bed. School didn’t start for another hour and she knew the boys would be upset that she’d left before them, but her arm hurt and she wore a long-sleeved shirt even though it was warm and humid.

She needed to be alone.

She needed to clear her head and think.

Her father had never touched her in anger before.

He’d never touched her at all. Not since the moment it became clear that something wasn’t right with their daughter. She woke up screaming and had almost-seizures and embarrassed them in the grocery store. She talked about death and blood and accidents at four years old and explained things she couldn’t possibly know. She started them drinking and slowly the hugs and pats and
it’s all rights
went away.

They didn’t want to touch her.

They wanted nothing to do with her.

Sandra could count the number of times her parents had talked to her directly in the past three years. They fit on one hand. And the five she gave them may have been generous. She was sure her mother had been looking over her shoulder the year she had asked “chicken or rice?”

Huddling down into her shirt and pulling the sleeves over her hands even though sweat was trickling down her spine. Sandra studied the sidewalk disappearing fast under her shoes. She wondered what would happen if she just kept walking. All the way out of town. Out of the country. Off to the edge of the world.

She could walk until she just didn’t exist anymore.

No more visions. No more hands and feet and
voices-screams-pleas-secrets-lies
in her head. No more worries for anyone.

Those boys and their father were the only ones that would miss her.

She could run far away and change her hair and put contacts in her eyes, get piercings up her ears and whisper over a lace-covered table, staring into crystal balls and reading tarot cards, telling real truths and tragedies that only the believers would heed. She could be
real
and not-real all at once, someone else in the world with a different name and no background because that always drew the people in.

They didn’t want someone real.

They wanted illusions.

Sandra wanted an illusion.

She stared up at the junior high and slowly walked over to the side-section that would hide her from the arriving students but let her keep an eye on the road. The overhanging roof kept the rising sun out of her face and she slung her backpack off to the wall’s edge, pulled her legs in close, twined her arms around them and fitted her fingers tight. Her worn sneakers trailed over into the rustling grass, the blades curling up around the toes until the hole there was covered. The sky past the roof was light blue, white only here and there, and Sandra tried very hard not to touch her arm where the bruise was blooming up angry blue and purple.

She’d have to be careful.

She wasn’t used to hiding these things. She wouldn’t be like Jimmy Mason who continuously fingered the bruises under his shirt until everyone knew it couldn’t be anything else. Jack and Daniel couldn’t know. They could never find out.

She could only guess at what they’d do.

Several cars and trucks pulled to a stop in front of the high school across the street, a few junior-highers who had been lucky to bum rides from older siblings piling out. Most of them hurried inside where the air conditioner was working strong. A few headed to the opposite corner where they could smoke without the teachers knowing. The high school kids across the street didn’t even have to pretend, loitering by their cars and the sidewalk and the front yard. Sandra wasn’t sure if the junior high teachers would care either, if it wasn’t for appearance’s sake.

Some more cars, stopping and dropping kids off, students on foot, and then the bus rumbled up, dropped off its fifteen students before turning into the back parking lot where it stayed parked during school hours, next to the principal’s and the teachers’ slowly rusting cars.

Then, Lem’s black truck.

She couldn’t see his face. But Jack and Daniel didn’t look too thrilled when they climbed down. Daniel was already looking for her. Sandra didn’t get up. She saw them say something to Lem, and then to each other, and with another few looks around, Daniel crossed the street, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his blue jeans. His shirt was worn and faded green, molding to his shoulders and back.

Jack headed slowly for the front door, scowling more than usual, red shirt looking too bright and Sandra looked away. When she looked back, he was gone.

She waited for the first bell before going inside.

Sandra avoided her locker, stayed late in each class and ate her lunch in a different hallway than usual.

She just wanted to be alone. She didn’t see Jack until after school ended. And that was only because Daniel already stood by his lonesome at the curb when she got out the door, and Sandra couldn’t exactly just walk on by without him knowing something was wrong. The sun at her back pressed her on and it was hard to stop and stand still. The change in temperature between the air-conditioned chill inside and the hot-bright air outside was enough to dampen her back.

Not because of nerves, she told herself.

She had to play this cool.

“Hey,” Daniel said quietly, hand reaching for her and stopping halfway, falling back to his side with a tightening of cool gray eyes. Sandra quirked her lips, bottom one feeling chaffed from worrying it. She raised one brow as he stared at her hard.

He couldn’t know. He
couldn
’t
. It wasn’t possible.

It was hard to not let her brittle smile break.

“Danny?”

A small shake of his head, and then his eyes were perusing down, taking in her scuffed jeans, her ratty shoes … her too-long shirt.

He’s going to know
.

A hand grabbed her shoulder and Sandra sort of flinched before Jack spun her around, anger in every line of his body. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

Sandra noticed Lucy Myers over his shoulder, standing by the door and leering with her gossiping harpies.

Sandra pulled away, mouth a tight frown. “I was busy.” She shrugged and her lax attitude must have shut him up, because Jack’s teeth slammed shut.

“No,” Daniel said simply, those observant eyes of his knowing more.

“What?” Jack asked.

Daniel shook his head.

“No, what?” Jack intoned, heavy on the words. “Tell me.”

“Not here.” Daniel’s eyes made a careful sweep of the yard and Jack’s shoulders straightened the tiniest bit, warrior peeking through. Daniel tugged her shirtsleeve to get her walking.

“But—”

“Dad’s not coming today.”

They bracketed her all the way down the sidewalk and Sandra felt smaller than ever. Their gazes were sharp, cutting on the sidewalk at their feet, at the yards and roads and neighbors they passed. Panic crawled up her throat, and it took everything she had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, not letting her face show a thing.

The whole time, no one spoke.

About a block from home, Daniel stopped her, pulling her before she could turn onto the street that would let her run into her room and shut everything else out. Knowing the boys, they would jimmy open her window and crawl in over the dead thorns of the wild rose bushes so that they could follow her inside.

They were still on the sidewalk and out in the open and Sandra crinkled her forehead at Daniel.

“If I’m right,” he said, “I don’t know if I can trust myself so close to home.”

Sandra inhaled sharp, looked away, feeling her cheeks burn and said, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Danny.”

His eyes shifted subtly. “We know our dad had some words with yours.”

Sandra fought to keep her face still. She stared at a patch of yellow in the yard beside them. Everything else was green.

“He told us this morning when you went missing.”

“I got an early start,” she said.

“You didn’t show all day.” Jack glared down at his feet. “I was worried,” he admitted and Sandra’s throat clicked dry, feeling even guiltier.

“So what?” she forced out. It felt like there was something stuck just behind her tongue “I just had a busy day, is all.” She jutted her jaw, but she didn’t think she was fooling any of them. Daniel looked ready to call her on her lies. “It’s my
dad
,” she said. “You guys know he doesn’t care.”

“He seemed to care plenty when our dad was through talking,” Jack said, a low sort of growl in his voice. “Dad would’ve checked on you yesterday, but he didn’t want to make things worse.”