The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (29 page)

She noticed she could see
a little. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the refracted light
within the building. She saw she was standing in a library. Books
and shelving surrounded them in all directions. Tables and chairs,
with small desk lamps as well. She could make out color of
Ricardo’s flannel shirt. It was mostly dark blue, but had
crisscrossed stripes of black and green on it, her cheek still
resting upon the soft material. She could see he was wearing black
jeans and black high top sneakers.

A strange thought suddenly
flittered about her consciousness.

Had Ricardo grown since
she had seen him last?

This made her go stiff in
the boy’s embrace. She pulled back abruptly, expecting to see the
dark, broad features of the boy she had left behind in Arizona and
was stunned to find nothing of the sort!

The boy in front of her
was at least six inches taller than Ricardo. He was lanky and long
limbed. His face much narrower, his hair was dark and short. His
eyes matched those of her lost boyfriend, because he was Hispanic
in heritage, but still, he looked nothing like Ricardo.

“
Who…who
are you?”
she mumbled, taking a half-step
back. Her left hand had somehow remained clasped within
his.

He smiled knowingly at
her, as if he had known she would ask that question and was being
patient, waiting for her to get over her discomfort, her
confusion.

“
Who are
you?”
she asked again with a little more
force.
“Have I met you
before?”

He said nothing, but shook
his head in the negative.

She thought for a moment,
forgotten the fact she still held onto his hand, lost in
befuddlement. She let the silence stretch, her mind racing over the
possibilities. One actuality stood out more than all the
rest.

I feel like I should know
him, as if I do already, and yet… I’m sure I’ve never laid eyes
upon him before.

He gave her hand a quick
shake, prying her from her thoughts. Her eyes peered into his,
seeing he was pointing behind her with his chin, toward the door.
She turned at once, fear suddenly blossoming.

Both of the doors were
open. No, they’ been thrown asunder with incredible force. They
were splintered and cracked imbedded into the walls on either side
of the threshold. She hadn’t heard a sound.

She saw it, a face of
roiling cloud, its eyes glowing red, eyes she’d seen before, months
ago, high in the sky, dominating the heavens for a second, before
it had vanished.

It was here. It was
staring at her, boring into her, with unadulterated
malice!

From behind her, he spoke
for the first time.

The boy she’d thought was
Ricardo, but wasn’t.

“
It is time to wake,
Marianna.”

Marianna woke, the moment
his lips touched the back of the hand, her hand. He still held it
in his grasp…

*****

She opened her eyes and
looked up at the ceiling of her bedroom, her mind flying a mile a
minute, wondering. Who was this guy that kept her fear at
bay?

She knew she should’ve
awakened with a start. She should’ve, since her bed sheets were
drenched with sweat, the comforter she’d place over hours earlier,
was now twisted and crumpled between her bare legs, her nightgown
tangled about her waist. It too was damp with her perspiration.
Yet, she hadn’t cried out. She hadn’t been scared out of her mind
as she had at the beginning of the dream. Somehow, he had helper
her, reassured her, brought her under control with a single hug.
For her, that was amazing. She was instantly grateful, because
something was coming. She could feel it as solidly as the bed she
was laying upon, something was about to change.

It.

She lay there, akimbo, not
bothering to fix her bed or her nightgown, lost in thought. She
pondered over the boy and the ever-deepening sense of dread. The
two were a sort of counter-balance between peace and calm, fear and
anxiety. Disturbed a mere dream had shaken her so thoroughly, her
mind bounced back and forth, like a rubber ball in a tight space,
stuck in fugue between the urge to succumb to sleep and the desire
to get up and shout with fright. She had seen the horrid, cloudy
face of evil before. She recognized it the moment she’d seen it in
her dream. She cringed at the thought, because it did
not
feel like a thing
conjured up by an exhausted brain. It felt too foreign and unclean,
a separate thought, an outside notion penetrating her subconscious
and planting itself there, as if it belonged. It wasn’t of her
making. No, this was something else.

It.

The boy, on the other
hand, she didn’t know, hadn’t even met and yet there was this
nagging sensation in the back of her skull. She should’ve known
him, she’d felt secure in his embrace, at home wrapped in his arms,
as if it all had been pre-ordained, written…

She didn’t know why. But,
there was no denying it. It was more than a little surprising the
finality of the thought didn’t really bother her either.

It was written.

Him.

She turned on her side,
uncaring that she’d become more tangled in her bedding than before,
feeling the cold air beginning to dry the perspiration on her
exposed calves and thighs.
Whatever
, she thought. Her mind was
far, far away. It was cleaved in twain between the warring sides in
her brain:

It... Him.

It was a long, long time
before she slept again.

It.

Him.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

A Better Choice

Monday, November
22
^nd
,
7:16 am…

Kimberly knew she’d done
the right thing, possibly the only thing left for her to do when it
came to her now ex-boyfriend. After his latest descent into the
twisted, surreal world of crystal meth, she couldn’t - no,
she
wouldn’t -
allow herself to go down that path with him again. The last
time had been too harrowing, too barbaric with an escape far too
narrow in her opinion. She wouldn’t endure the verbal abuse, the
physical assaults and
never
again would be risk the violence done to her
person as she had those months ago.

Never! He would have to
kill me first!

It was for the better, she
thought as she looked at herself in the mirror. Having already
showered and dressed, she was now putting on the thick, black
make-up she wore like a badge, every day, to the outside world. It
dramatically increasing the size of her eyes and eyelashes. She
matched them with equally black lipstick, which she knew to be a
physical display of her overall mood on most occasions. Today,
though, her choice in make-up didn’t. She was putting it on out of
habit more than anything else. She liked to look this way. It was
familiar to her.

You never know, the day
was still young
, she thought. With
Kimberly, sometimes all it took was crossing paths with some dumb
ass cheerleader and her whole day could spiral down –
fast.

After Sonny had left her
stranded and that psycho Rottweiler had shown up, she had stayed
inside the Boy’s gym long enough for the tall basketball playing
boy, who’d scared Sonny off, to notice her. He gave her a quizzical
look at first. Most likely, because she’d brushed him off earlier.
She’d done so politely, but it had still been tantamount to the
same type of treatment.

He had played on for a
while longer, going through the offensive plays his coach was
having them memorize. It was some type of motion offense she could
barely follow. At a quarter of an hour, he glanced at her again.
His face showed interest more than any other emotion she could
sense. Although, his face was a myriad of expression by the time
they shared a second look.

The loose locks of his
brown hair framed either side his visage, making him appear
younger.

She returned his stare
making certain he got the point, she was here to see him and not
present out of coincidence or happenstance.

He smirked then, returning
his attention back to the practice in nick of time. There’d been a
rebuke forming on the lips of his coach, who swallowed his words,
frowning. The tall teenager played on as if nothing was
amiss.

The practice had ended
around 4:30 pm, the daylight had visibly waned as she sat there,
watching. The fluorescent lights inside the gym provided an
ever-growing amount of illumination as time passed. Once the coach
called on end to the days’ session, the team hit the locker room
and the showers.

Still, Kimberly had
waited, not wanting to be alone.

He came out about twenty
minutes later and made a bee-line to where she sat in the
bleachers, an unsure grin appearing and falling from his face with
every other step. She could tell it was the effect of conflicting
thoughts crossing his mind. They were those troublesome notions,
each ending with a different outcome - sometimes good, sometimes
not – more bothersome than helpful. He wore his expressions on his
sleeve, plain to see. Kimberly had no issue discerning the source
of his discomfiture. She knew he was frantically trying to figure
out why she was here, in the gym.

He was dressed in the
team’s practice sweats, which weren’t the same ones she’d seen him
wearing before. His sneakers, on the other hand, were the same,
squeaking loudly with every step he took. After seeing him in only
a tank top and shorts, she already knew he was strong, but in a
long, strung out sort of manner. He had the typical broad shoulders
of a basketball player with well-defined muscles on his legs, made
all the more impressive, because of his height. Kimberly guessed he
stood well over six-foot-four, quite tall indeed for a high school
kid. He was light skinned covered with freckles, splotching on his
cheeks and as much of the rest of him that she could see. He had
light-brown eyes and a long narrow nose, ending somewhat bulbously.
It was bright red, having just come out of the shower. His
medium-length hair was combed back, out of his face, damp as well,
made darker from the moisture.

A few steps from her, he
said as casually as he could manage, though it still came out
stilted, rehearsed: “So, um, I guess you needed help after
all.”

Kimberly looked up at him.
He towered over her, though she was sitting on a third step from
the bottom. Her face smoothed out, draining of emotion. “I’m not
sure I would call it help,” she began, her voice sounding haughty,
even to her own ears.
Come on, Kim, stop
acting like a bitch!
“Maybe, it’s more
like an insurance policy.”

He’d frowned at her and
moved the last of way toward the bleachers. He placed one of his
feet atop the lowest bench, resting his arms, at the elbow, across
his elevated knee. “What is that supposed to mean,” he’d asked,
looking straight into her eyes, not backing down from the cold
exterior exuding from her.

She’d sighed heavily,
crossing her arms across the textbook in her lap. She didn’t know
him well enough to tell him the truth. He might think her crazy if
she told him she’d been attacked by a ferocious dog from hell. No,
she wouldn’t mention that.

“
I guess you don’t do this
all that much,” he had concluded, letting some feeling creep back
into his face. He wasn’t as intimidating when he let some of his
true self shine forth.

“
And
what exactly am I doing?” demanded Kimberly, her face cold and
distant.
Ok, ok, I’m sorry! What the hell
did you expect? I can’t change in a fucking
afternoon!

“
Asking for help or an
insurance policy, whatever the heck you wanna call it. It all looks
the same to me, sounds the same too,” he had replied. He stared
into her eyes every time she got the courage to look back at
him.

Already, she could feel
the embarrassment rushing to her face, the heat of her blush
warming her cheeks. “Well, it’s just that…, I’m not sure if my…
boyfriend might, you know… come back,” she murmured, but with the
acoustics in the gym she knew he’d heard her.
Stay away from talking about the dog, Kim, and you’ll be just
fine.