Chosen (16 page)

None of them noticed me when I came in.  I shut the door behind me. 

“What happened in here?” I asked.  At once, five faces turned toward me.  There was Madison and Zoe, Eve and Ann, and Jo.  All the girls but Eve wore a look of pure terror on their faces, but even the tattooed girl looked quite distraught.

“Oh my god, Tracy, I’m so glad you’re here!” Madison exclaimed, grabbing my hand.  I yelped as she pulled me toward the others with such force that my arm nearly came out of its socket.  Then I saw what she was so eager to show me.

Past the row of girls, slumped over against the far wall, lay Liz.  She was unconscious, and looked as ragged as a beat-up scarecrow.  Her cheeks were hollow.  The color had drained from her face.  Even her beautiful, perfectly sleeked hair was disheveled and splayed out of position.  I could see her chest rising and falling, thankfully, but even that looked weak.

“What happened to her?”

“She had too much to drink,” Eve told me coolly.  “I warned her to watch her liquor, but she never listens to me.”

“Is that all?” I asked, uncomprehending.  At the small parties I’d gone to back home, I had seen some kids pass out from drinking too much.  But Liz looked like she was on death row.  This was no ordinary binge.  “Did anything else happen?”

“No,” Madison said, her blonde hair waving as she shook her head vigorously. 

“What about the light?” I asked.  From the blank stares I received, I might as well have been asking if they’d ever been to the moon.

“What light?” Madison asked with a frown.

“Never mind,” I said.  From the moment I saw Liz so helpless on the floor, my main concern shifted to helping her.  From what little I knew about alcohol poisoning, I knew that getting Liz to a doctor as soon as possible was the top priority.   “We need to get her to the clinic!”

“No!” Madison gasped, her eyes going wide.  “If anyone finds out what happened to her, we won’t be able to host anymore parties!”

“Besides, it’s her own fault,” Eve said swiftly.  “We told her she should slow down.”

Zoe, the girl with hair the color of my own, looked the most frightened.  “Tracy’s right,” she said in a tiny voice, “Liz needs to get some proper attention.”

“She wouldn’t want that,” Eve put in, frowning at Zoe.  “They’d stop funding the student council right away if they found out what happened.”

“Are you really so vain as to care more about some stupid parties than your friend’s life?” I exploded.  Their reactions weren’t making any sense.  I couldn’t believe these girls actually thought that leaving Liz like this was the right thing to do.

The girls all seemed shocked by my outburst, but Eve was the first to recover.  “You don’t even
know
her,” she said disparagingly. “How can you tell us what she’d want?” Her short black hair made her look more intimidating than she really was. 

“I doubt she’d want to be passed out on the dirty floor!” I countered.  Suddenly, a realization occurred to me.  What were all these girls doing in here, away from the main party, anyway?  The only answer I could see was that they wanted to hide what they were doing… which just made Liz’s situation more critical.

“What else did she take?” I demanded of Zoe, who was the only one who seemed to agree with me.  “There must have been something more!”  Liz coughed weakly, and her entire thin frame shook disproportionately.

“Nothing,” Eve said with a glare.  “Do you think we’d hide it if she had?”

“I don’t know!  But this—” I motioned to Liz’s unconscious body, “—is not normal!  Zoe, tell me: Did any of you use any drugs?”

All five of the girls looked absolutely scandalized at the suggestion.  “No!” Zoe exclaimed, and Eve stared at me challengingly.

“Then why were you in here?”

“Liz called us in,” Madison offered.  “She wanted to tell us something, I think.”

“Which was…?”

“I don’t know!  When I got here, she was already on the floor, drifting in and out of consciousness.”

“Was that when you brought me here?” I asked.

Madison nodded.  “Yeah.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.  I must have gotten here a good ten, fifteen minutes ago.  If Liz was in bad condition then, how much worse was she now?  And, even more importantly, how was it that none of these girls considered getting her to a doctor?  At the back of my mind, something told me that I should press them about the light.  The uniform blank stares were suspicious.  But, for the moment, my priority was helping Liz.

“Madison, come help me with her,” I said, kneeling down beside Liz.  I put a hand on her forehead, and instantly ripped it away.  Her skin felt hot enough to scald me. 

“What are you going to do?” Madison asked, not moving from her spot.

“Oh, for crying out loud!  Zoe, come help.”

Zoe looked around at the others, wordlessly working her mouth.  Then, as if spurred onward by a sudden burst of confidence, ran to my side.  Together, we hefted Liz’s arms onto our shoulders, and stood her up between us.  She groaned weakly, and her head fell forward. 

Together Zoe and I took a step toward the door.  It was awkward, because Zoe was a good inch or two shorter.  This meant I had to slouch to keep Liz level.  The other girls moved to the sides, whispering amongst themselves.  Every once in a while, I saw one of them shoot me a baleful glare, but I ignored it.  Getting Liz the proper attention was all that mattered.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Eve warned as I walked past her.  The flickering light cast shadows on her face, making her look particularly menacing.  I brushed her warning off.  Just what kind of people
were
these girls, when they wouldn’t help their friend when she so obviously needed it?

“Madison,” I asked, “can you at least help with the door?”

The blonde girl looked like she was ready to have a fit from indecision, but at last nodded and ran up to open the door for us.  Zoe and I walked Liz forward.  Just as we crossed the threshold, something small and glass-like fell from Liz’s clenched fist.  I looked back, but Eve snatched it from the floor before I could get a second look. 

“There’s another door up ahead,” I told Madison, who shot a remorseful look behind her before coming over and helping us carry Liz.  We inched forward slowly.  I took one more look behind me.  The last thing I saw was Eve conferring with the others before the view of the open doorway was swallowed up by the crowd.

Chapter Eleven – A Watcher

He watched from his usual spot as the first guests arrived.  The lights were already low.  There was music playing through the speakers.  Soon, the lighting effects would come on, perfectly synchronized to the beat of the song, and the real party would start.  It would be a spectacular show to start the year.  That was simply to be expected. 

Tonight, he had eyes for only one person: the new girl.  She was the key, the final playing piece to set everything in motion.  He had waited many years to find one suitable for the job – no, the
honor
– that he and his father would bestow upon her.  It was their expectation that she would cooperate.  If not? Well, if not, he knew his father had ways of getting people to do what was needed.

Who could reject the offer?  He was prepared to offer her near limitless power over anyone and anything she desired.  Everyone except him, that is.  She would answer to him, and he, in turn, to his father.  That would be the hierarchy, with all the vermin of the world far below them.  Who could reject such a precious gift?

He noticed someone approach, dangerously close to him, and froze.  There was a special nook in the wall where the light fell just so, and prevented anyone from seeing him.  Unless they actually felt out with their hands, they would not find him.  Still, he did not want to take any chances.

The person turned away, beckoned by her friends, and the danger passed.  She was a pretty little thing, he thought, the same age as him and already possessing a luscious shape.  But, he had learned to push aside temptations of the flesh in recent years.  He had a much higher calling, the potential of which sang out to him clearly.  Once his plans materialized, he could have anyone his heart desired.  That was what he really lusted for: the freedom, the power, and the self-satisfaction of knowing he was superior to all his peers.

In that way, he felt much older than the guests at the party.  He had been rejected his whole life, and was always the odd one out socially.  No girls looked at him, much less spoke to him.  The guys who spoke only did so as they bullied him.  But that didn’t matter anymore.  He had long since learned to shut all that out, to attune himself to the bigger picture.  He watched a group of girls enter, far on the other side of the room, and quickly start dancing to the song.  He sneered.  All the people before him were sheep, nothing more, simply following whatever was popular at the moment.  How sad it was to think their behavior was so predictable. 

But there was more to it than that.  Spurred on by being the outcast, he developed an insatiable greed for
control
.  That was what he really wanted, he thought: knowing that he could pull all the strings and make anybody dance.  Soon, the scope of his control would reach momentous levels.

In a way, these get-togethers were his first taste of control.  Known by all around him as a pathetic loner, who could possibly suspect him to be the one actually hosting these magnificent parties?  The label he had been given without asking was a perfect cover.  It was his first exposure to the art of deception.  And to power.  Many of the people he now spied upon had culled him at one time or another.  He held the penultimate decision of who would be welcome here every time he played host.    It was an odd kind of justice, a strange game he played while waiting to be dealt his real hand.  Now that he had, the wait was over.  Very soon, his life, and the lives of everyone around him, would change irreversibly.

He trembled with anticipation.  When his plans finally came to fruition, it would make up for a lifetime of inadequacy.  He had felt that way from the moment his mother had abandoned him and his father when he was but a small child.  She had run away with another man.  From that moment on, he swore he would make her pay for the damage she had done to him, her own son, and to her husband, his beloved father. 

Oh father, but you rejected me too.
  His father was a strong man, proud and determined.  However, he had never shared his son’s anger at his wife.  He, too, had that ingrained displeasure of being anything less than great.  How it must have irked him to subject himself to all the juvenile, petty politics of his profession.  How many years had he endured the tedious colleagues, the mindless students?  Here was a man destined for greatness—no.  He had already tasted greatness, but backed away to pursue an even greater power.  The boy considered that thought.  He was a man much like his father.

Not a man yet, though
, he thought bitterly.  Not in his father’s eyes.  But, as soon as the current plan came to fruition, all that would change rapidly.  His innate yearning for acceptance would be satisfied.  

He caught sight of Liz, the new president of the student council.  Seeing her made him smile.  How naïve they all were, thinking that this mansion had been gifted to them by the alumni.  And that said nothing for the bottles of liquor that were always placed out in the open, freely available to any who so chose.  Nobody knew who actually hosted these events.  Nobody but him.  It suited him well. 

Recently, he had started thinking of himself as a chameleon, able to adapt to any situation.  No.  A
spider
, weaving his web in the dark and ensnaring his unsuspecting victims.  Yes, that was a better description.  And already the web was taut with all those he had caught.  Most had no idea they were trapped.

Where was the new girl?  He had made sure the invitation was slipped under her door.  Perhaps she hadn’t gotten it in time?  Or perhaps she didn’t appreciate the prestige of being invited to one of these parties yet.  No matter! She would, soon, once she found her groundings in the social life on campus.  That would make her putty in his hands.

He sneered once again.  All the petty games his peers played socially here paled in comparison to the one he was playing.  It was the great game, the likes of which the world had never seen before.  It started when an ancient secret was uncovered, a discovery made, and the potential of it all finally understood.  He stood at the helm.  Entire nations would tremble before him, one day soon.  The whole world will be within his grasp.  It would be a shocking life journey for someone deemed insignificant many times before.

The island, and the school here, were key.  This was where the secret had been laid to rest.   And it was here where it was uncovered again, and its potential finally revealed.  It had been his father’s life work for the better part of the last decade.  It was nearly time to reap the rewards.

There were… complications, of course.  But they were insignificant and could be overcome. 
Would
be overcome.  Failure was not an acceptable outcome, neither for him or his father. 

He touched the small pendant around his neck.  It was the first discovery
he
had made, all on his own.  It contributed greatly to his father’s cause.  Of course, his father had dismissed it as a mere toy.  He was blind to the true utility of it.  It could
detect
the aura of the precious—