Miraculous: Tales of the Unknown (9 page)

It ends up being so much
better than I was hoping it would be. Quinn and I dance to almost
every slow song they play, which isn’t a lot. Thank goodness for
that, because it is also so strange to me and the last thing I want
is to seem even more awkward than I already feel.

Time seems to be flying
by. The DJ announces that the next song will be the last slow dance
of the night. Quinn takes me by the hand and leads me to the middle
of the dance floor. It is perfect and magical. At this moment,
everything feels right. I can feel his eyes on me and I know that
he is going to try and kiss me. I am okay with this. In fact, I
want him to kiss me.

He brushes the hair out of
my face and looks deeply into my eyes. At this moment it is like
the rest of the room doesn’t exist. Our lips meet and sparks shoot
through my body. When he pulls back from our kiss, it leaves me
utterly speechless and breathless.

My senses come rushing
back to me in an instant. The temperature in the gym suddenly drops
drastically. While it is less than romantic, the first words out of
my mouth are, “Why is it so cold in here?” My eyes flit around the
room. No one is moving. The music has stopped. Okay, what is going
on? “Um, Quinn, what’s happening? Is this part of the Halloween
festivities?” I don’t understand.

He just shakes his head
and looks around the room too. Panic fills his eyes.

“I need to find Victoria.
Maybe she’ll know what is going on. You can come with me if you
want. Or maybe you should try to find your friends. Someone has to
know what is going on here,” I whisper, hoping I am
right.

Quinn nods and walks
towards where we had left his friends. I head out into the hallway
to see if I can find Victoria. I call her name out, but get no
response. Maybe she’s in the bathroom? I head down the hallway and
push the door open. No one is inside. I hurry back towards the
gym.

I’m mere feet away from
the door when I hear a loud crash and then people screaming. I
full-out run the rest of the way back into the gym. There is a
large crowd standing in the center of the gym. I push my way
through and see Quinn laying there. One of the lights has fallen
and crushed him.

“Has someone called 911?”
I exclaim. “We need an ambulance right away!” No one is moving. As
the tears stream down my face, I pull out my cell phone and make
the call myself. Once the paramedics are on their way, I find
somewhere to sit down and I cry. How could this have happened?
Everything was going so perfectly.

I don’t know how long I
have been sitting here, but eventually Victoria finds me. She
doesn’t say anything, just puts her arm around me and holds
me.

Once the gym starts
clearing out, she tells me, “We should probably go. There’s no need
for you to sit here and relive the moment, over and over
again.”

I nod and get up. There is
nothing else to say. As we are heading out the door, one of Quinn’s
friends, Xavier Hackett, comes sprinting after us. “Do you guys
need a ride home? It’s been a long night and it’s getting cold
outside. I wouldn’t mind driving you home, if you want.”

I force myself to speak.
“Yes, please. I don’t think I can make it home on my
own.”

The word is all over the
school by Monday morning. Quinn died in the hospital soon after he
was admitted. I try to pretend that it isn’t real. None of this is
real. It is just a nightmare, a horrible nightmare. Soon I am going
to wake up and everything will go back to normal.

Over the course of the
next few weeks, Xavier is really kind to me. It is weird for me,
but it really helps. He is having a much harder time than I am. He
was Quinn’s best friend. He has no one else to turn to, though; no
one that will understand what he is going through. While I didn’t
really know Quinn all that well, I still feel the pain.

For a while, I completely
forget about the Koah dreams, but as normalcy has begun to set in
again, they have started haunting me again. This time they have
become more vivid, more intense. They scare me. He is very
possessive of me in my dreams. I belong to him. That’s what he says
almost every night. Those words are permanently etched into my
mind. I try to reassure myself that they mean nothing. They are
just silly dreams. They can’t mean anything. They just
can’t.

Every day, Xavier and I
seem to grow closer and closer. Victoria, Xavier, and I spend every
lunch hour together and hang out every day after school. I don’t
think that Xavier wants to be alone. I don’t blame him for that. It
does startle me a bit that he has latched onto me so tightly, but I
don’t let it get to me too much. He is a sweet guy and an extremely
talented artist.

One day at lunch, he asks
me if I will pose for a portrait for his art class. He is going to
have it displayed at the art festival before Christmas break. Who
am I to turn him down? It could be fun.

After school that day, he
drags me to the art room so we can get started. He explains
everything to me as he is setting up. Once he is done, he has me
sit down and he puts me into the pose that he wants. It ends up
being really awkward and boring having to sit still for such a long
period of time. I am anxious though, to see how the painting turns
out. I know it will be magnificent.

It takes days before the
painting is completed, but once he shows it to me, I know it has
been worth it. It is the most breathtaking painting I have ever
seen. I have to admit, I am slightly jealous of Xavier’s skills. He
tells me he can’t wait to show it to his art teacher after the
weekend. With that, we head back to my house to hang out and watch
movies. That is the typical thing we do on a Friday
night.

The weekend seems to go by
extremely fast, but they always do. The school days, those don’t
seem to go by nearly as fast, especially now that Christmas break
is drawing nearer.

Xavier wants to go show
his painting to his art teacher, Miss Wyrick right away. He says
he’ll be back before homeroom. I think nothing of it. I know how
excited and proud he is of his painting. I would have been
too.

He comes back a few
minutes later, tears streaming down his face.

“What’s wrong Xavier?” I
ask, full of concern. “Did she not like your painting?”

He shakes his head. “No,
that’s not it. My painting… It’s destroyed. Someone wrecked it,” he
chokes out between the tears.

“What!? How did that
happen? I don’t understand. We locked up when we left on Friday.
There’s no way anyone could have gotten in there.” I am completely
flabbergasted by what he is telling me. I put my arms around him.
“It’ll be okay. We can just do another one. I don’t mind posing
again,” I assure him, still holding him close.

“Thank you,” he whispers.
“You’re so good to me,” as he hugs me tightly.

That afternoon we walk
back towards the art room. I grab his hand and give it a squeeze.
He is still upset about what happened. I am too. I still can’t
understand how his painting had been destroyed.

He shows it to me once we
get to the art room. There is paint splattered all over it and it
looks as if it has been slashed with an x-acto knife. After he
shows it to me, he slides it into the trash can with a
sigh.

“Let’s just get this over
with,” he says flatly.

“Hey now, don’t talk like
that! This painting will be just as amazing as the first one. Maybe
even better!” I exclaim. I have more faith in him than he does. I
walk towards him and gave him a hug. “Don’t give up. You have so
much talent. Don’t let what happened get you down.”

“Thank you for believing
in me. And thank you for being here for me. Everything has just
been so hard lately. I don’t think I would have made it through it
without you and Victoria. You two are the best, but especially you.
You are so sweet and so compassionate,” he whispers to me, then
plants a kiss on my cheek.

I must admit I am blushing
a bit. I grin though, and say, “Knock ‘em dead tiger!”

He laughs at me and rolls
his eyes. But that is the effect I was going for.

It is like déjà vu. Every
day after school we spend a few hours in the art room working on
his new painting. It is turning out to be just as perfect as his
first one. It goes by just as the week before. This time, he
insists that I don’t have to wait around for him while he cleans
everything up. “You’ve spent far too many of your afternoons here,
helping me out. Go to Victoria’s. I’ll meet you there in a little
while,” he tells me.

I don’t want to, but there
is no use in arguing with him. With a sigh, I pack up my stuff and
head out the door. Calling after me, I say, “Try not to take too
long.”

I plop down on Victoria’s
bed and tell her about what happened with the painting. She really
doesn’t care, but I do, so she has to suck it up and listen. I
don’t think she is really listening to me though. After I am done
rambling, she insists that we go to the kitchen for snacks. I can’t
disagree with that idea. I am getting pretty hungry.

We wrangle up food and
head back to Victoria’s room. I glance at the clock. A lot of time
has passed since I left Xavier at the school. “He should be here by
now. It was almost an hour ago that I left him to finish cleaning
up. I think something’s happened to him,” I state.

Victoria rolls her eyes at
me. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he just started another painting
or something. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

I don’t like it, though.
Something just feels wrong, but Victoria isn’t having it. I pick up
my cell phone and send him a text. He never responds to it. He
never shows up that night, even for our usual movie and pizza
night. I try calling him, but it goes straight to voicemail. That
really isn’t like him.

I decide that if I haven’t
heard from him by morning that I will stop over at his house. His
parents are bound to know something.

Early Saturday morning, I
find myself on his front porch talking to his mother. “No, he isn’t
here. He never came home last night. I’m extremely worried about
him. He isn’t answering his cell phone. I don’t know where he could
be. It’s been so hard for him lately, after what happened to Quinn.
If you hear from him, please let me know.” She jots down her number
for me.

I start walking home,
plagued with fear. What could have happened to him? Where could he
be? Maybe he just needed some space. He could be at a friend’s
house. Though, he hasn’t really hung out with anyone other than
Victoria and me since the Halloween dance.

Instead of going home, I
go to Victoria’s instead. Once there, I insist that we go looking
for him. She makes a face at me, clearly not liking the idea of
spending her Saturday on what she calls a ‘wild goose chase.’ I
won’t take no for an answer. Eventually she gives in.

Victoria knows of a few
people that Xavier used to hang out with, so we start there. None
of them have heard from him since Quinn’s funeral.

“I think we should go to
the school,” I suggest.

“Why? I don’t want to go
to school on a Saturday,” Victoria grumbles.

“Because that’s the last
place he was. Maybe there’s a clue as to where he went or what
happened to him.” I put my foot down. “If you won’t go with me,
I’ll go alone.”

“Oh, fine. Let’s get this
over with. If he isn’t there, can we do something fun?” she
pleads.

“Yes, yes, we can go to
the mall or something after this, I promise.” That is good enough
for her.

When we get there, the
door to the art room is still open and the lights are on. That is
weird. He would have locked up after he was done. A part of me
doesn’t even want to walk into the room. Victoria has to shove me
in.

I stand horrified at the
scene that is laid out before me. Scrawled on the wall in red paint
are the words: ‘SHE BELONGS TO ME.’ That alone is enough to startle
me, but lying crumpled on the floor below the words, is the body of
Xavier. He is covered in blood and impaled by every single paint
brush in the art room.

That’s when I realize that
it isn’t paint that the words are written in… It is his
blood.

I can’t handle it. I break
down, fall to the floor next to Xavier’s body and cry and cry.
Victoria has to call the police. I just can’t bring myself to admit
that he is gone. It terrifies me.

I know the words on the
wall are about me. In the pit of my stomach, I know it. But who
could have done this? Who can possibly want me that much that they
will kill to get their hands on me? It doesn’t make any sense. I
don’t belong to anyone. I’ve only been here a few months. Nothing
makes sense anymore.

I do my best to explain
everything that has happened lately to the police. That isn’t an
easy task for me. I have had enough of the police after what
happened to Quinn. I never want to have to go through all that
again. Once is enough for one lifetime, and here I am, having to do
it twice within a few months.

Victoria drives me home
afterwards. I can’t stop the tears from falling. When she drops me
off at my house, I insist that I need to be alone. She is reluctant
to leave me by myself, but eventually gives up and leaves me here.
I am grateful for that.