“Ambulance service, is the patient breathing?”
“It’s my mama.”
“Is she breathing, darling?”
“I don’t know…”
“Where is she?”
“On the bed. She’s not moving.”
“Darling, are you still there?”
“There’s so much blood.”
“Sweetheart?”
“Come quick.”
When the ambulance crew arrived, they found her standing over her mother on the bed, skin like ash and pyjama bottoms sodden with blood. Looking around, they hadn’t witnessed a scene like this in their entire careers.
*
Erika listened as the embers crackled. Roach between her lips, smoke coursing across her tongue, her eyes stayed trained upon her reflection. Viewing her snow-white skin in the stained mirror, she sucked on the joint as her memories blurred and softened at the edges. Gripping the damp basin of the sink, she leaned her forehead against the cold surface of the mirror, easing some of the heat in her face. Sweat curled in the hair around her ears. With a shaky hand, she wiped her moist neck and brushed it down the front of her dress.
It wasn’t the type of clothing she would normally wear but tonight was her Fifth Year prom. There wasn’t a girl at this After Party who wasn’t wearing a splendid floor-length gown. Erika would have felt like the odd one out if she’d come in jeans and a T-shirt. Then again, she was familiar with feeling like a misfit at the prestigious mixed boarding school. Even with a team of friends and an attractive boyfriend, she could never truly be one of them. Not even a scholarship could change that fact.
At the sound of the toilet door opening, Erika straightened, feigning checking her makeup for whatever group of girls had entered. She’d been about to leave and return to the suffocating party, where the vibrations of the music rocked her very core, when she caught sight of the new arrival in the stained mirror.
“Alright, biatch.” Her best friend stumbled toward her, lipstick smeared across her usually flawlessly made-up face, which was as dishevelled as her golden hair and blood-red dress. Slamming her clutch bag down on the basin, Anna gave her an intoxicated grin. “Where’d you disappear to? They just started the Macarena.”
Erika gave her friend a dry sardonic look. She placed the joint back between her lips.
“You too good for the Macarena now?” Anna teased.
“No one’s too good for the Macarena,” Erika said, shooting her an impish wink.
“Jokes,” Anna chuckled. “You gonna have that all to yourself? Sam’s stash, ain’t it?” Without asking for permission, she took the joint from Erika’s fingers and drew several deep lungfuls. “Oh, man. This is exactly what I needed. Just had Dave lecturing me for like half an hour…”
Erika listened vacantly as she stared at her reflection once again; eyeliner and mascara halfway down her cheeks and her lipstick long gone. She pushed aside her backcombed midnight hair and leant down to the basin, splashing water onto her clammy cheeks. All the while, Anna went on, not caring whether her friend was listening or not.
Taking the joint back, Erika held it between her lips, which were sticky with alcohol residue. She ran a tongue about her dry mouth. She could dunk her head beneath the tap and take a couple of mouthfuls but it wasn’t water she craved.
She didn’t want to sober up. She didn’t want to think straight. Not tonight. Not ever.
Her memories haunted her. Her mind…that ticking insect inside her brain…Erika wanted to shut it off and forget it all.
Leaving Anna to chatter on and trail along behind her, she pushed her way out of the toilets and into the party. Given to the Fifth Years for their After Party, the expansive Sixth Form lounge and its atrium were crammed full of intoxicated sixteen-year-olds. Unfazed by the pounding music blasting out of the speakers, Erika weaved her way through the gyrating bodies to the refreshment table. She lost Anna somewhere along the way.
Glancing behind her, she spotted her best friend striking up an argument with her boyfriend. Over what, Erika didn’t care tonight. All she cared for was the concoction she could make out of leftover drinks strewn beside bottles of spirits and two spiked punch bowls.
Leaving the refreshments table behind, she staggered, as if in a daze, toward the steps down into the lower level, the atrium, where the thick of the party was in full swing. She wasn’t looking for a friend. She was looking for an escape. A way to break free of these torturous images.
Her father.
Her mother.
The man in black.
The blood.
So much blood.
She began to suffocate in the heat. Drown in the insufferable repetitive bassline vibrating across her skin. Choke under the weight of her memories.
She was stumbling toward the stairs when she saw him. He approached her slowly as if she were a wild animal; dirty-blond hair curly with sweat. His ocean eyes were fixated upon her, paralysing Erika where she stood until her boyfriend’s hands were upon her. On her face, in her hair, his lips brushing against hers. She sank against his firm, secure body, nails digging into the muscles of his upper arms. She hummed a moan as he navigated them away from the stairs and pressed her against the wall.
This was what she needed. This was something Sam Robinson always knew how to do. Take her away, medicate the pain and turn down the noise, if only for a little while.
“Let’s go,” she begged between kisses, running her tongue along his bottom lip as she clutched his face.
“Right now?” Sam grinned, nose nuzzling hers, his hand reaching beneath the skirts of her dress.
“Right now,” she demanded, grasping his hair and peering up into his eager eyes.
When he didn’t move, she tugged him closer, her mouth caressing his wet neck. She savoured the saltiness of his skin against her tongue, her bottom teeth dragging against his throat. Pulling at his hair, she was urgent to leave. She needed to be far away from this hot room and these intrusive thoughts.
“Now,” she commanded again and this time, he nodded.
He would never refuse Erika Waterstone.
Just as she was about to get the release she needed to breathe, to regain what sanity she had left, the couple were brought to a halt by someone Erika had been trying to avoid all night.
“Move out the way, Damien,” Sam ordered.
“Leaving? So soon? We haven’t even had a chance to rumble yet,” Damien sniggered, his eyes switching from an impatient Sam to a swaying Erika. “Little drunk to be sneaking off? Do you even remember your own name?” He moved toward her.
Instinctively, Sam shifted her behind him as the two boys squared off. It hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Whenever Sam and Damien came together it was an enthralling spectacle for everybody. Their hatred ran deep; their loathing for one another almost as old as their attendance at Hillside Academy.
Erika held Sam’s hand as her boyfriend edged toward Damien, who delighted in every second of their confrontations. Pressing Sam’s buttons, taunting Erika; daring to even breathe near her, Damien thrived off of it.
“No means no, Erika.” Damien grinned, steel-grey eyes burning with amusement. “Or perhaps you like it like that?”
“Fuck off, Ashcroft. You spineless piece of shit,” Sam hissed. “And while you’re at it, stay away.”
“Pardon?” Damien coughed as if surprised by the warning.
“You heard me. Stay away from me and E. Stay away from all of us. Especially her.” Sam released Erika’s hand as he stepped up to meet his opponent, their heaving chests inches apart.
Same height, same power vibrating through their veins. Except Sam was stronger – physically. He could crush Damien.
Mentally? Damien would always win.
“Her?” His grin twitched as he contained his laughter.
Meanwhile, Sam grew more and more infuriated. Erika watched her boyfriend and the man she hated the most at this school come to blows again. It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last.
Before she could stop him, Sam threw the first punch, sending Damien flying backwards into his friends.
It was all an act. This was a game to Damien and them, his puppets. No matter what they did, they could never wriggle their way out of his ultimate goal. Another reason why Erika stayed motionless as Sam was tugged back by their friends. Why she didn’t bother to speak when Damien’s eyes danced from her to Anna.
“Who was on that list again, Sam? I appear to have forgotten,” Damien jeered, spitting a mouthful of blood to the floor and brushing away his friends’ attempts to help him to his feet. He didn’t need any assistance as he swaggered back to Sam.
“You know who I mean, you arsehole! I warned you last year that if you laid another hand on her, I’d destroy you. Do you understand, Ashcroft?” Sam roared, spit flying through his gritted teeth and onto Damien’s face.
He simply wiped it away with the sleeve of his expensive shirt. “Perfectly.”
In an instant, his hand wrapped around Sam’s neck, squeezing tightly enough to make Sam yelp for breath; turning his face purple in seconds. He dragged his nails down Damien’s forearms as he leaned forwards; their lips a breath away as Damien spoke.
“But you should know that one day you won’t be around to protect her. And on that day, I will destroy her and then, I’ll destroy you.” Grip compressing Sam’s windpipe, he appeared to relish in his opponent’s chokes for air. “Then you will understand what happens when you cross me, Robinson.” He released his grip with a flick of his hand, allowing Sam to fall to his knees at his feet. Damien loomed over him, smirking smugly. “You will never win.”
That Erika understood, more so than Sam ever could. Against people like Damien…against the serpent, you never won. And he was just one of the demons in her world. Never mind the ones that crawled at the iron gates of Hillside Academy, demanding entry.
Never mind the ones inside her mind, screaming to be heard.
It was a battle every day to fight back the darkness that threatened to consume her. One day, Erika would lose. It was only a matter of time. How much longer did she have?
It was now or later. Erika had always preferred later. Then again, she’d never had a choice in her life.
So let it be now.
Let it fucking pour.
Hillside Academy Copyright © 2023 Jodie May Mullen