Fire And Ash (11 page)

“Get out. Now!” I growl at him.
 

 
Did Derek just sort of hit on me?! And tell me I was cute?! Hell must be freezing over somewhere.

He winks at me then turns to leave.

I gape after him as he swaggers out of the room. I wait a full thirty seconds after I hear the door shut behind him to go downstairs and lock up.

The remainder of the summer comes and goes. It is uneventful. No more news stories break of abductions and subsequent bodies turning up in Red Creek nearly burned beyond recognition.
 

Mid way through August, there is a story about how local officials will continue the search for the individual behind the heinous crimes and will not rest until he is caught, but they will never find him For one: him was really a them, and for two: Derek has already taken care of the phoenix responsible. Eventually the cases will be filed under unsolved crimes and everybody except the victims’ families will move on. It will take them considerable more time.

It is what happened with my mom. We had to call the police even though we knew there was not a thing they could do about it. They searched in vain for leads and after a month or so of not a single one, her case was dropped. The killer was a phoenix. Dad with the help of Granddad followed more real leads of their own, but they never led to discovering who had killed Mom either. Eventually, life moved on and so did we.

My family is thankful for no more abductions but they are all pretty pissed that the phoenix responsible seem to be alluding them. I am grateful that the abductions have stopped too, but I am also sad that at no signs of them beginning again Aunt Farrah returns to Europe.
 

I spend most of my time with Cassie, hanging around her pool and running whatever random girl Derek brings over from time to time off.
 
We think it is hilarious. He does not. He eventually wises up and stops bringing them over.

Since the night he dropped my car off to me he has also wised up to a new way of antagonizing me. He mentions seeing me in my underwear
all
the time. And when he isn’t mentioning that, he is dropping innuendos at me left and right, some thinly veiled and some completely overt. I am completely mortified and left sputtering every time, which is exactly the reaction he is looking for and the only reason that he does it. I know he doesn’t like me and he knows I don’t like him. It is just his creative way to get under my skin and make me want to stab him without his mom and Cass berating him. When I call him on it he laughs and says his mom and Cass can’t badger him to be nice if he is being charming instead of a jerk now.
 

Ha! Derek isn’t charming. A toad is more charming than he is. A pain in my ass is what he really is.

******

To my complete and utter horror Becca calls me the week before school starts and tells me she isn’t coming back.
 

“I love New York too much to leave it. And I met a boy,” She says.
 

I gape at the phone.
She met a boy! Becca has never been serious about anyone before. She calls everybody she dates her boy toys.

“Don’t be mad at me Ash,” she says when I don’t respond. I’m still busy trying to wrap my mind around the ludicrousness of what she just said. “You’re still my BFF and I promise to come visit for Christmas and Spring Break and over the summer. But big city living is so much better than small town living. Are you mad?” She asks hesitantly.

I finally find my voice. “No, Becca I’m not mad. As long as you’re happy. But I do want to hear all about this
boy
that you’ve obviously been having more than just fun with.”

We stay on the phone for a while longer as she tells me all about Aaron. He sounds nice enough, but I still hate him. He’s the reason my best friend isn’t coming back now that the summer is ending.

******

It feels weird not walking into school alongside Becca on the first day. It is what we have done since we started Pre-K. As I walk through the halls in search of
 
Locker 222, the one that I have been assigned this year, an unfamiliar panic seizes me. I know the faces around me. I have even had casual conversations with a lot of them in passing, but I do not
know, know
any of the people I go to school with. It was always just me, Becca and Miranda, and then just me and Becca. I never bothered to actually make friends with anybody else. The panic turns into a sinking feeling. The year is going to completely suck without Becca.

“Ash!” Cassie calls out from across the hall.
 

My mood automatically brightens when I see her.

“Hey! How’s your first day so far?” I ask going to stand beside her.
 

She frowns. “A little overwhelming. I am looking for Locker 229 and can’t find it and all of the books are heavy.” She switches her book bag from one shoulder to the other.

“I’m looking for 222. They must have assigned them in alphabetical order this year.”

“Oh, yay, we will be right by each other. Come on,” she says hooking her arm in mine, “let’s go find them.”

We find the lockers as well as Derek standing in front of what I assume to be his. There is also a crowd of girls around him introducing themselves, asking him his name, and offering to show him around and help him find his classes.

Cassie and I look at each other and roll our eyes.

“Excuse me,” she says none too politely to one of them. “But you’re standing in front of my locker.”

The girl’s name is Camille and she’s a senior. She’s blonde and petite like Cassie but short and not nearly as pretty. The girl looks put off for a second but then Derek says something to Samantha, a junior in our class, and Camille’s attention turns to them. She inserts herself back into the conversation so she isn’t forgotten about.
 

My locker is enough spaces down that it is thankfully clear of Derek’s quickly forming fan club.
 

“Hey Derek.” Miranda walks up to him like she’s known him for forever. She only does it for the benefit of everybody who is watching.
 

She reaches out and runs her hand down his arm like she has every right to touch him. “I had fun over the summer. We should definitely do
it
again.”
 

Some mouths around her gape open in shock and others gape in envy. Everyone picks up on what she insinuated.
 

“She is pathetic,” Cassie says coming to stand beside me. “And you used to be friends with her? I don’t see how you two ever got alone. You’re like night and day.”

“She used to be a much better person,” I tell her.
 

In that respect Becca was right. Miranda didn’t dump us but once we let our friendship drift apart and she got in with the in crowd she turned into a total bitch. That wonderful change in her personality was no fault of ours. It was a choice she made all on her own.

“
Ashley,”
 
Miranda says passing me with her two main minions, Stacey and Krystal, in tow.
 

“Agnes,”
I call after her because something has made me feel particularly snarly where she is concerned.
 

Miranda goes chalk white at the sound of her first name. She hates it. It is what everybody in her family calls her and what she has worked years to get everybody at school to forget.
 

******

My first period is A.P. Literature. English is my favorite subject and Mrs. Peters who teaches the class is my favorite teacher. I am thinking how nice it will be to start off my school days with a class and a teacher I actually like when Derek walks into the room and Mrs. Peters directs him to sit in the seat beside me.
Why oh why does she have to sit us in alphabetical order?
 

“Nice outfit,” he leans over and whispers to me.

I look at him like he’s the bad kind of special. I literally have on ripped jeans and a graphic tee with boxing gloves decorating the front. The words “I Hit Like a Girl,” are printed beneath them.

“But your legs look better in the boy shorts than the jeans.”

I sharply turn my attention to the front of the room where Mrs. Peters is going over our syllabus for the year. My cheeks flush like they do every time he mentions seeing me in my underwear.
 

“I hate you,” I mutter under my breath.
 

I see his mouth curve into a half smile out of the corner of my eye.

To my chagrin Derek is in my second period physics class too. And of course Mr. Dotson pairs us up into lab partners by our last name.

Gah! Why me?
By the end of it I swear the universe is playing a particularly nasty trick on me.
 

Third period is blessedly free of Derek and for that very reason I don’t mind sitting through forty five minutes of Hamilton as much as I have in the past.

“You were right. He is a hardass,” Cassie says to me as we leave class and walk towards the cafeteria for lunch. She walked into the room literally a second after the bell rang because she got lost trying to find her way to his class. He gave her his famous
first impressions are the only impressions
line
,
and told her he would see her in detention after school if she showed up late again.
 

Derek falls into step with us a few feet away from the cafeteria’s entrance. “How’s your day going?” He asks Cass.

“Good,” she responds. “How is yours?”

“It’s been interesting. Especially this morning.” He looks at me when he says it and I glower back.

Something needs to be done about his new hobby. I cannot live my life like this the entire year. It was tolerable over the summer because the option to haul off and beat him senseless was always there. But in school I really have to be on my best behavior. Grandma will skin me alive if I get suspended for trying to break his nose, or worse expelled for trying to stab him.

A horrible idea forms in my mind, and it is so horrible it just might work. The next time Derek pulls some shit with me, he is going to be in for a big surprise. It is sometimes best to fight fire with fire.

The head of every single girl turns to look at Derek when he enters the cafeteria, which means they look at Cass and me too by default. The looks she gets are impassive. Everyone has figured out by now that they are related, therefore she doesn’t pose a threat. The looks I receive run the gamut from jealous to incredulous. Some of them say how is
she
of all people be talking with
him?
 

I ignore them all. The opinions of people I go to school with have never really mattered to me.
 

The three of us get food in the lunch line and sit down at an empty round table not too far from it.

Matt, our school’s quarterback and the football team’s captain, comes up to our table. He is as all-american as a guy can get. He is tall, stocky but athletic so he does not look overweight, and he has short blonde hair with baby blue eyes and a down home smile. If that’s not enough he drives a Ford dually truck and has a Texas twang that he brought with him when he moved to Laurel Springs in the sixth grade.
 

“Derek right?”
 

“Yeah. Who are you?” Derek’s tone isn’t at all friendly. It is clipped, guarded and a little threatening.
 

“I’m Matt. I saw that you have a nice throwing arm and run a pretty fast mile in gym. Did you play football at your last school?”

“No,” Derek snorts more than a little condescendingly. It’s nice to see first hand that I’m not the only one he is a complete ass to when first meeting. Big boobs and an empty head must be a requirement for him to be nice.

“Well you should think about playing for Laurel. Try outs for new students are next week. I can tell you right now you’ll have a spot on the team. We need a new running back. One of our two starters graduated last year.”

“No thanks,” Derek doesn’t even pretend to be polite enough to consider it or to act like the idea mildly appeals to him.

“Well think about it anyway. In the mean time do you want to sit with us? Maybe it will change your mind before next week.”

The space between Derek’s brows wrinkle in the way it does when he is particularly annoyed. He is about to tell him to fuck off when Cass speaks up for him.

“ Yes, he does. And we’ll come too,” she rushes the words out before Derek can object. “I mean if it’s an open invitation,” she adds bashfully.
 

When I see the hint of pink coloring her cheeks I know exactly the reason she is pushing Derek to go sit with Matt and his football buddies. She thinks he’s cute.

Miranda shoots me a stormy glare from the other end of the long rectangular table when Cassie, Derek and I sit down with Matt. I smile sweetly back at her.

To my surprise Derek actually ends up allowing himself to be pulled into the conversation Matt and his friends are having about cars. By the end of it I figure out whose idea the Mustang GT that Derek and Cass share was. Derek is apparently a car enthusiast. I also find out that what he really wants is a Shelby but they cost about fifty grand on the low end and his mom says if he wants one, he’ll be waiting until he can buy one himself. At that Matt laughed and said moms never understand. That’s what his said about his doully truck. Luckily, she and his dad have been trying to one up each other since they got divorced and
 
his dad bought it for him just because she said no.

As Cass and I approach the Mustang in the student parking lot we see that Derek is already in it. He is revving the engine as Matt and a few of his friends oh and ah in the way guys do over stupid things like cars.

I watch Cass as she watches Matt. Her eyes take on a dreamy quality.

“You like him don’t you?”

Cassie turns a bright red. “What? No?! How can I like him? I don’t even know him.”

“I don’t mean
like him
, like him, but you think he’s hot. And you’re looking at him like you want to get to know him.”