- -
- 100%
- +
“You …”
“I’ll get this cleaned up. I am so sorry.”
“You stupid fat pig.”
Amber froze.
“You clumsy, ugly little troll,” Brandon said. “You did that on purpose.”
“I didn’t, I swear—”
“You dumped it over me on purpose.”
“It was an accident.”
Sally hurried over, mop already in hand. “It’s okay, no big deal, we’ll get this—”
Brandon jabbed a finger at Amber. “She did it on purpose.”
Sally laughed. “I’m sure it was just—”
“I want her fired.”
Sally stopped mopping, and her laugh turned to a bemused smile. “She’s not going to be fired for dropping a tray, all right? It happens all the time. How about this? Your meal is on the house.”
“Our meal is on the floor,” Brandon said. “Where’s the manager? I want to speak to the manager. I want this fat pig fired.”
Sally’s face turned to stone. “Get out,” she said. “Both of you. Out. You’re not welcome here.”
Dan held up his hands in mock-innocence. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I was just sitting here. What did I do wrong?”
“You picked the wrong friend,” said Sally. “Go on. Out.”
Brandon kept his gaze fixed on Amber. His face had gone pale and rigid, like he was about to dive at her. Dan had to practically drag him to the door.
Sally stood there with her hands on her hips. “Wow,” she said when they had gone. “What a couple of tools. You okay, honey?”
“I’m fine.”
Sally patted her shoulder. “They’re morons. Don’t listen to a word they say.”
Sally helped Amber clean up the mess. The two businessmen sneaked glances whenever they could, and Amber couldn’t blame them. Even mopping the floor, Sally was pretty. She didn’t get red-faced with the exertion like Amber did, and her hair didn’t fall out of its ponytail, like Amber’s did. She even looked good in the Firebird T-shirt.
Amber tried her very best not to look at her own reflection in the mirrors, though. She was in a bad enough mood already.
The rest of her shift dragged by. When it ended, she pulled on a fresh T-shirt and shorts that weren’t yellow, said goodbye to the cook and to Sally, and stepped out on to the sidewalk. It was already getting dark, but the heat was waiting for her, and her forehead prickled with sweat as her lungs filled with warm air. She’d spent her whole life in Florida, been born and raised in Orlando, and she still reacted to the heat like a tourist. It was why, despite having a big, two-storey house to call home, her bedroom was on the first floor, where the air was fractionally cooler, especially on a day like today, when the clouds were gathering. Rain was on its way. Lightning, too, most likely.
Amber had a fifteen-minute walk home. Other kids would probably have been able to call Mom or Dad for a ride, but Bill and Betty had very firm ideas about what independence meant. Amber was used to it by now. If she was lucky, she’d get to the front door before she got drenched.
She crossed the street and slipped down the narrow lane that led to the dance studio she had hated as a child. Too uncoordinated, that was her problem. That and the fact that the dance teacher had hated her with startling venom. Amber was never going to be as pretty as the pretty girls or as graceful as the graceful girls, and she had come to terms with that, even as a kid. Her dance teacher, however, seemed to take issue with it.
Amber got to the badly painted sign of the ballerina and the curiously eighties hip-hop dancer, and Dan and Brandon turned the corner in front of her.
They were talking about something – Dan was chiding Brandon and Brandon was looking pissed off – but when they saw Amber they went quiet. Amber stood there, her legs stiff and suddenly uncooperative, and another headache started somewhere behind her eyes.
Brandon grinned. There was nothing friendly in it.
Amber forced her legs to work again, and she took the lane to her left. They walked after her. She quickened her pace through the growing gloom.
“Oink, oink, little piggy,” Brandon said from behind her.
Amber broke into a run.
They laughed, and gave chase.
She plunged out of the lane and cut across the road, slipping between the back of a laundromat and an attorney’s office. Immediately, Amber realised this was a mistake. She should have headed towards the pizzeria where there would have been people, and light, and noise. Instead, she was running across an empty lot and finding herself out of breath. A hand closed around her jacket and she cried out, twisted, got tangled in Dan’s legs, and they both went down.
She landed heavily, painfully, with Dan sprawling over her.
“Oww,” he laughed, rolling over. “Owww, that hurt.”
Amber got up and backed off, rubbing her hands where she had skinned them as she fell. The headache was a thunder cloud inside her skull. Goosebumps rippled. Her stomach churned.
Dan stood, panting, and Brandon jogged up to them, taking his time.
“This isn’t funny,” Amber said.
“It’s not meant to be,” said Brandon.
“Why’d you run?” Dan chuckled. “We wouldn’t have run if you hadn’t run. Why’d you run?”
“Let me go,” said Amber.
Dan swept his arm wide. “We’re not stopping you from going anywhere. Go right ahead.”
Amber hesitated, then stepped between them. They loomed over her on either side. She took another step, started walking away, but the moment her back was turned Dan was right behind her, on her heels.
She spun, her vision blurring for a moment. “Stop following me.”
“You can’t tell me where to go and where not to go,” Dan said, suddenly angry. “This is America. Land of the free. Don’t you know that?”
She could taste copper in the back of her mouth. “Leave me alone,” she said dully.
“We’re not doing anything!” Dan yelled, right in her face. She flinched away from him.
“Admit what you did, little piggy,” said Brandon, circling her. “Admit that you spilled that milkshake on me on purpose.”
“I swear, it was an accident.”
“If you admit that you did it on purpose,” said Dan, the reasonable one once again, “then we’ll go away.”
He was right in front of her as he spoke, but he sounded a hundred miles away. She had to end this now, at once, before the blackness at the edge of her vision overpowered her and she collapsed.
“Okay,” Amber said, “okay, I did it on purpose.”
They nodded, like they had known all along. But they didn’t leave.
“You made me look like a liar,” said Brandon.
Amber tried focusing on Dan. “You said you’d go away.”
“Jesus,” he said, making a face. “Don’t be so frikkin’ rude.”
“Okay,” she said, “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. It was stupid. I’m very sorry. Please let me go home.”
“For the last time,” said Dan, “we’re not stopping you. We’re not stopping you from doing anything. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Are you really that dumb? Are you really that stupid? Stop treating us like we’re the bad guys here, okay? You’re the one who threw that milkshake on my friend. You’re the one who got us kicked out. You’re the one who ran. You’re the one who made me fall over. My knee is bleeding, did you know that? But am I complaining about it? Am I making a fuss? No, I am not. But you? You won’t stop turning this whole thing into some big frikkin’ drama.”
“I don’t …”
“What? What was that?”
“I don’t feel well.”
Her knees started to buckle and she reached out to steady herself, grabbing the front of Dan’s shirt. He grimaced and pushed her hand away and she stumbled, and then Brandon was there, grabbing her, straightening her up—
—and then he hit her.
The pain was nothing compared to the violent storm in her head, but his fist rocked her, sharpened her, and she saw him look at his own knuckles, like he was surprised that he had done it, and then everything was moving very quickly and when she felt a hand on her face she bit down hard and heard a howl.
Her vision cleared. Brandon’s horrified face swam into view. She hit him back, as hard as she could, and his jaw came apart around her fist.
A moment stretched to eternity.
She watched her fist.
It was weird – in this gloom, her skin almost looked red.
A deeper red than the blood, though, the blood that exploded in glorious slow motion from the wreckage that had been Brandon’s face. Was she doing this? Was this happening? In that moment, that luxurious moment, Amber found the time to wonder if she was imagining this part. Surely this was some sort of bizarre hallucination, brought about by adrenaline and those increasingly painful headaches.
There was no headache now, though. There was no pain of any sort. Instead, she felt … wonderful. She felt free. She felt …
Powerful.
Time started to speed up again. Blood splattered her T-shirt and Brandon hit the ground and, now that she could perceive normal sound once more, Amber registered his gargled screaming. Both hands were at his face and he was crawling frantically away, leaving a trail of blood as he went. Dan backed off, staring at her, his face white and his eyes wide and utterly, utterly terrified.
She had done that. The blood and the screaming and the shattered bones. It had been no hallucination. She had done that.
She raised her blood-speckled hand. Normal skin again. That was good. Normal was good.
Something in her mouth. Something that tasted of copper. She spat. Brandon’s finger hit the ground.
Amber turned and ran.
THERE WAS BLOOD ON HER HANDS.
Not in a metaphorical, figurative sense, although of course there was that, too, but in an actual, physical sense, there was actual blood on her actual hands, and it was proving surprisingly difficult to wash off. Amber scrubbed furiously, looked at the result, and then scrubbed again. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that her hands were quite small. If the rest of her body could have been in proportion with her hands, then maybe she wouldn’t have been such a target. These were the thoughts that occurred to her as she was scrubbing the blood away.
“Amber?” came her mother’s voice from beyond the bathroom door.
Amber looked up at herself in the mirror above the sink – wild-eyed and panicked. “Yes?” she called, keeping her voice as steady as possible.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Amber said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Amber listened to her mother hesitate, then walk away down the hall.
She turned off the faucet and examined her hands. For one ridiculous moment, she thought they were still bloodstained, but then she closed her eyes and shook her head. The frantic scrubbing had turned them both red-raw, that’s all it was. No need for her imagination to be going into overdrive on this one. There was enough to freak out about as it was.
She put the toilet seat down and sat, taking deep breaths, and examined the facts. Yes, she had seriously injured that guy, but she had been acting in self-defence and she had been outnumbered. She really couldn’t see how the cops wouldn’t be on her side about this – if only she hadn’t injured him quite so dramatically.
Amber frowned. What was his name? The name of the guy whose face she’d destroyed?
Brandon, that was it. She was glad she remembered it. For some reason, it felt important that she remember his name after what she’d done to him.
She hadn’t meant to do it, and she hadn’t a clue how it had happened. She’d heard stories about adrenaline, about what it could do to the human body. Mothers lifting cars off toddlers and stuff. It was, she supposed, possible that adrenaline had granted her the sheer strength to shatter bones on contact, and anyway how much strength would it really take to bite through a finger?
The very thought made her want to throw up again.
She stood, and examined herself in the mirror. Her skin was pale and blotchy and her hair was a tangled, frizzy mess. Her eyes – hazel, with flecks of gold, and the only part of herself she didn’t hate – were red-rimmed from crying.
She went to her room, changed her blood-splattered T-shirt for a top that the lady in the store had said would flatter her figure. Amber wasn’t so sure she believed her, but it was a nice top, even if it didn’t look especially good on her. She realised her hands were trembling.
She sat on the edge of the bed. Of course they were trembling. She was in shock. She needed help. Advice. Comfort.
For the first time since she was a kid, she needed her parents.
“Ah hell,” she muttered. It was worth a try.
She heard them in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to dinner. Amber crossed the hall, walking with heavy, leaden feet. The house was filled with the aroma of duck, cooked to perfection, and usually this would have her belly rumbling. But the only thing her belly was doing now was housing a whole load of fluttering butterflies. She tried to remember the last time she’d talked to her parents about anything important. Or the last time she’d talked to them about anything.
She couldn’t.
Her mouth dry, she stepped into the kitchen. Bill was checking the duck in the oven. No sign of Betty. Amber could feel her courage begin to falter. She needed both of them in the room at the same time. She couldn’t do this with only one. Could she? Or was this a condition she was setting for herself purely to have an excuse to back out?
And, just like that, her courage deserted her.
Relief sapped the rigidity from her joints and she sagged, stepped backwards without Bill even realising she’d been standing there. She walked back to her room. Maybe she could bring it up over dinner, provided there was a lull in the conversation. The two-way conversation, of course, as Amber was only rarely asked to contribute an opinion. There probably wouldn’t be a lull, though, but even if there was this was hardly an appropriate topic. After dinner, then, or later tonight, or—
Amber stepped into her room but Betty was already in here, the blood-splattered T-shirt in her hands.
“Whose blood is this?” her mother asked.
Amber searched for an answer that wouldn’t come.
Betty dropped the T-shirt on the bed, crossed over to her, and took hold of Amber’s arms. “Are you hurt?” she asked. “Did someone hurt you?”
Amber shook her head.
“What happened?” Betty asked. “Tell me, Amber.”
“I’m fine,” Amber managed to say.
Her mother looked deep into her eyes, like she’d find the truth locked away in there.
“It’s not my blood,” said Amber quietly.
“Whose is it?”
“At the Firebird. Some guys.”
Betty let go of her and stepped back. “How many?”
“Two. They followed me. They attacked me.”
Betty had a funny look on her face. “Amber, sweetheart, what did you do?”
“I did nothing,” Amber said, her words suddenly rushing out. “I defended myself. I did nothing wrong. They were abusive customers. We asked them to leave. I saw them when I was walking home and they chased me. They attacked me, Betty. Two against one.”
“You defended yourself? Are you okay?”
“I’m … I’m fine. Really.”
“And how are they?”
Now Amber squirmed. “Um, I don’t … I don’t know. One of them, I … I think I broke his jaw. And bit his finger off.”
“You bit his finger?”
“I bit his finger off.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Betty said, taking Amber into her arms. Amber stiffened. She didn’t know when her mother’s arms had last embraced her. “And you’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“I’m sure. The adrenaline just … I’m fine.”
“Has this happened before? This surge of strength?”
“No,” Amber said, wondering how long she had to stay like this. “First time.”
“How are you apart from that? How are you feeling? Headaches? Nausea?”
“A … a little. How did you know?”
Betty broke off the hug, and looked at her daughter with actual tears in her eyes.
“Betty?” Amber said. “Mom? Are you feeling all right?”
Betty laughed, a nervous laugh that she cut off sharply. “I’m fine, Amber. I’m just … You’ve been through a traumatic experience and I’m … I’m relieved you’re okay.”
“Are you going to tell Bill?”
“Of course.” Betty smiled, then, the most beautiful smile Amber had ever seen her wear. “Don’t you worry. He’s going to want to hear about this. So are the rest of them.”
Amber frowned. “The others? Betty, no, please, I don’t want anyone to—”
“Nonsense,” said Betty, waving Amber’s objections away with one hand while the other took her phone from her pocket. Her slim fingers danced lightly over the keys and in mere moments a group text had been sent.
They sat on the bed while they waited for the others to arrive. Betty asked Amber about school, about her friends, about her job at the Firebird, and she listened as Amber spoke. It was a new sensation for Amber, talking about these things to her own mother. For the first time since Amber could recall, Betty seemed actually interested in her and the life she was leading. She nodded and smiled, probed deeper where needed, and, when they heard the first car pull into the driveway, Betty came forward and kissed the top of her head.
“You make me so proud,” she said softly.
Tears came to Amber’s eyes, unbidden, like a burglar breaking into her home, and proved just as shocking.
“You let the others in,” said Betty. “I’ll help Bill with dinner. Good thing we chose a big duck.”
Amber waited until Betty had left before rubbing her eyes. Her knuckles came away wet. There was a curious tightness in her chest that made her breathe funny. She stood up, took a moment to calm herself. She couldn’t be sure, but she suspected that this was what it meant to have a loving parent. It was proving to be an unsettling experience.
The doorbell rang and she answered it. Two of her parents’ closest friends, Grant and Kirsty Van der Valk, lived only five minutes away, so she wasn’t surprised to see them arrive first. What did surprise her was the smile that Grant wore, which was as broad as his chest.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, giving Amber a hug. He’d never called her kiddo before. Never hugged her before, either. He smelled of expensive aftershave, applied with restraint.
He stepped back, still smiling. He had hair that had always reminded Amber of Elvis Presley’s in his later years – though the sideburns were not quite as ridiculous. “How’d it go with that principal of yours today? Your dad told me you spared her job. You’re a better person than me, you know that?”
“That was never in any doubt,” said Kirsty, taking her turn for a hug. If Grant was Elvis, then Kirsty was Pricilla – beautiful, red-headed and so wonderfully vivacious. Today that vivaciousness was directed solely at Amber. “How are you?” Kirsty asked softly, like this was a conversation just between them. “Are you feeling okay? How long have you been having the headaches?”
“Not too long,” Amber mumbled, starting to get a little freaked out by all this. Did she have a brain tumour that everyone knew about but her?
Then Kirsty’s eyes widened. “Good God, that smells amazing. Did you help them cook?”
Amber tried a smile. “They don’t let me near the oven,” she said, and led them into the living room, where they were soon joined by Bill. As they chatted, he stood by Amber’s side with his arm round her shoulder like the proud parents she’d seen on TV.
Then the doorbell rang again, and Amber excused herself. Neither of her parents had any family, so this tight group of friends had long since become a substitute. She supposed, in a way, they were her aunts and uncles, though they treated her with the same cool detachment she’d grown used to.
She opened the door and was immediately swept off her feet.
“Hello, beautiful!” growled Alastair.
Amber didn’t know how to react to this. Her feet dangled.
Alastair laughed and set her back on the ground. Like her parents and the Van der Valks, Alastair Modine was older than he looked. He had an easy, smiling face behind all those bristles, and was more casual than the others, preferring jeans to suits and rolled-up shirtsleeves to a collar and tie.
“Heard you got in trouble at school,” he said, whispering it as though it was a secret. “I knew you were a troublemaker from the first moment I saw you. You were only a few hours old, but I knew. I knew.” He took a moment to look at her. “You look more and more like your mom every day.”
Amber smiled politely, even though she knew this was an outright lie. Betty was beautiful. Amber was plain. Betty was statuesque. Amber was not. These things she knew.
A third and final car pulled up in the driveway. “The others are in the living room,” she said.
Alastair glanced back at the car, then gave Amber another smile and went to join his friends.
Amber stood in the doorway, watching Imelda walk up as the rain started to fall. Her blonde hair was styled and immaculate. Her clothes were perfectly coordinated. Her make-up was flawless. This was all to be expected. Imelda Montgomery was a living, breathing example of a woman who had every box ticked. All except for the smile. Imelda had a pretty face that begged to smile – and yet Amber had never seen her genuinely happy. Not even when she’d been married to Alastair.
“Amber,” Imelda said as she stepped inside.
“Hi,” Amber said, and that was the extent of their conversation. It was all Amber expected. Imelda made even her parents look affectionate.
They moved into the dining room, and Amber ate dinner with her parents and their friends. They drank wine and she drank Coke. The last time she’d eaten with them had been three months earlier, on her sixteenth birthday. Until tonight, she’d never seen them in such a good mood. Well, apart from Imelda who, in fact, had looked even grumpier than usual. But that was Imelda. She was a special case.
Amber hadn’t invited any of her friends to her birthday. Her true friends, her real friends, were all online anyway, on fansite messageboards and forums. She didn’t need to meet any of them in the flesh. Online, she could pretend to be popular and funny and interesting, and she didn’t have to worry about disappointing anyone when her smile didn’t light up the room. Online, nobody cared about the wattage.
She endured questions about the possibility of boyfriends and the casual drudgery of school and she was just beginning to enjoy herself when she remembered the taste of that boy’s blood in her mouth. Her appetite vanished abruptly, and she pushed the food around on her plate while the others talked on. Despite what Betty had said earlier, they didn’t discuss the burst of violence that had darkened Amber’s day. She was grateful for this.
“You look tired,” Betty said, leaning across to her.
Amber nodded. “I think I’m going to have an early night, if that’s okay.”
“Of course it is,” said Bill. “Leave your plate – we’ll clean up. You get to bed – you’ve had a big day.”
“The biggest,” said Grant.
The others nodded and smiled their understanding – only Imelda appeared annoyed. More than annoyed, actually. Practically agitated.
Amber was too tired to care about that now. She stood, noticing for the first time that no one else had even touched their dinner, and smiled and said, “Goodnight.”
She got a hearty chorus in response, and she went to her room, closing the door behind her.
Rain pelted the window like machine-gun bullets. Outside it was hot and wet, but here it was air-conditioned cool, just the way she liked it. She wanted to go straight to bed, even though it was just after ten, but she also needed to talk about what had happened to her today. She logged on to the In The Dark Places messageboard.