Title: Throwing Pebbles
Author: Andie/AEJ325
Rating: pg-16+
Summary: Rena lost everything eight years ago at summer camp. Now somehow it's all caught up to her and someone is going to get hurt. Unfortunately she's got the feeling it will be her.
Warning: Harsh language and mention of rape.
Fic Type: One-Shot? Maybe? Want more?
Disclaimer: The Iverson family is mine as is the plot, all else from The Covenant is not moi's!
NOTE:
Italics = Flashback
Regular = Now
*** = Line Break
Throwing Pebbles
One-Shot
***
Sweat pored down her body in rivulets, dampening her cutoff sport T-shirt and jogging shorts. Her Asics shoes pounded the concrete in time with the sappy Taylor Swift song her iPod earphones emitted. She didn't want to think about love. It brought up exactly what she was trying to forget.
Reid.
Goddamn him.
She didn't have to close her eyes for the flashbacks to start.
***
"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine… Thirty! Ready or not, here I come! Reeeeeeeeeena… Reeeeeeeeeid!"
Rena Iverson giggled into her hand as she hid inside the tree trunk. Ryan would never find her! Reid would be the one found first this time for sure!
Her giggles quieted as the brush around the tree swished in movement. In fear of being caught Rena covered her eyes, held her breath, and slid down as far as she could.
She didn't see, but felt the small eleven-year-old hand rest on her head. Startled a tiny "eep" escaped Rena's mouth and she peeked through her fingers.
A blonde head led down to the hand resting on her head. "Reid?"
"Awe, Reeee-na! I was gunna hide here!" The pout he did so well formed on his face.
Her baby teeth, along with two Big-Girl front teeth, bit into her bottom lip, "But I found it first!"
"I'm bigger. I say I get it."
Her own pout settled on her face, "Nuh-uh! I call dibs first. You snooze you loose Reid."
"Fine," His blonde brows bunched and his lips pursed, "I'll just get in with you!"
"Reeeeeid! There isn' enough room for you. You're too big!"
"No I'm not."
"Yes, you are!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yes so."
Ryan's calls came ever closer, "Just scoot over Rena, or he'll catch us both."
Puffing out her chubby freckle sprinkled cheeks Rena moved as far as she could to the side, "Fine. But if he finds us, you have to be it. Not me."
"Whatever."
As Reid settled in next to her, the screams started.
"Reeeeeeeena! Reeeeeeeeeeeena! Rena!"
Rena gasped out her little brothers name, "R-Ryan? Ryan?" Her emerald eyes were wide like a deer in headlights, "What's happening Reid?"
His own eyes had widened at his friend's frightening screams. Ryan didn't sound like he was playing anymore. Rena's name echoed through the forest again and again, Ryan pleading for the help of his sister.
Beside him, Rena couldn't stop shivering.
"What's wrong with Ryan? Reid? What's wrong with him?" Her voice cracked as she started to hyperventilate, "Ryan! Where is he! RYAN!"
"Please! Rena help me! Reid, help! Please, make him stop! Rena, Rena, Rena!" The eight-year-old cries for help would stick in the minds of the two children for the rest of their lives.
Reid wrapped his arms around Rena's sobbing body. His gut burned, he knew what was happening. After all, how many times had it happened to him?
***
The burning at the back of her throat only made her push her legs harder. She needed to let it go. It had been over eight years, there was nothing she could do to bring back Ryan.
Nothing.
Rena's throat tightened and she dug her teeth into her bottom lip just as she had all those years ago. She didn't want to remember. She didn't want to think. Running was supposed to solve that. Running was supposed to keep the nightmares at bay.
***
"… found crying in … arms. Carried her … campsite … called 911… Yes …. tree trunk, playing … seek." The mumbles from outside the hospital room scared Rena. What were they talking about? Where was Reid? Where was Ryan?
Rena felt her breath coming faster, her chest tightening. Panic settled over her like a thick fog. Where were they? Where was she? Why was everything white? Squeezing her eyes shut tight Rena screamed for Reid.
"Reid! Reid!" Sobs wracked her tiny body, "Reeeeid!"
"What's the matter with her? Jerold? What's wrong with my baby?"
Squeezing his wife's shoulder Jerold Iverson murmured comforting words to his wife. As Allison continued in her hysteria Jerold looked to the doctor and ran a hand through his slowly graying hair, "Doctor?"
Rena's body shivered as the doctor checked her vitals, "It seams as though your daughter has gone into anaphylactic shock. She hasn't uttered a word since she and the boy were located, correct?"
"Reeeid! Ryannnn!"
Jerold's grip tightened on his wife's shoulder as her own body shook, "Why," He cleared his throat, "Why does she keep doing that?" Again his oldest daughter opened her mouth in a silent cry and Jerold's teeth grounded in frustration.
Rena had been doing the exact thing since she had been placed in the hospital, three hours before.
"It seams as if the shock of whatever happened in those woods has caused a part of her brain to shutdown. We've been monitoring her, but so far the only time she's spoken has been in her dreams. It may be that she will talk in an hour or she may never speak again."
At the doctor's words Allison's sobs became more pronounced as she threw her body over her daughter, "Ohh, my precious little girl. My little girl!"
***
Her tears mixed with her sweat that pored off her face. She hadn't been her mother's precious little girl long after they'd learned that Ryan had been in the woods with them. Rena had been a wicked little brat then.
Allison Iverson had blamed Rena since that day. It was rightly so Rena knew. She had left Ryan alone after all.
She had just sat in that tree as her baby brother screamed her name. Rena had let Ryan be taken advantage of by those bigger than him. She and Reid hid while her eight-year-old had been sexually assaulted.
She'd never blame Reid though. Not after what she'd learned had happened to him while they were at camp.
That damn camp.
***
"You have to send her somewhere. Before Jerold finds that she's been home. I will not have that… that little monster in my home. It's dreadful enough that she's here at all!"
From her place on the stairs Rena knew that her mother was working her was into one of her "fits".
"Ma'am you need to calm down. Why don't you take a seat –"
"I will NOT take a seat. I want that abomination out of my house this instance."
"Ma'am…"
"Get. Her. Out."
"Right away Ma'am."
How Rena wished she had sparkly ruby slippers so that she could wish to be home. Because, as the maid grabbed her arm and pulled her up the stairs, eleven-year-old Rena knew that the Iverson Manor would never be home again.
***
It had destroyed everything.
That stupid fucking camp. Anger ran through her veins fueling the fire that was her energy as she pushed harder. Flicking to her iTouch's playlist section she clicked "FukkTheWorld" and let the first song blast into her ears.
She'd lost everything that summer when she was ten.
Her was brother dead.
Her best friend stopped being a friend completely.
Her mother despised her.
Her father ignored her.
And the voice that had once made her one of the youngest "pop divas" was gone.
She hadn't spoken a word since that night, at least she hadn't spoken when awake. It was like her vocal cords had been damaged or broken. Yet of course they hadn't been. Sometimes when she was with others, Rena would be shaken awake. Always told she had been screaming someone's name.
She hadn't been broken in any way, only scarred. It was her brother who had been broken.
The many shrinks said that it was emotional scarring.
That she was punishing herself by hiding her voice because it had been such a gift to her. By losing her brother, and feeling partly responsible her shrinks stated that she in turn deep down felt that by never using her voice she could somehow make things right.
A fat lot they new.
No matter how long she remained mute it wouldn't fix anything.
Her brother would still be dead.
Her best friend still wasn't part of her life.
Her mother still couldn't stand to be in the same room with her.
Her father still forgot about her.
And she still wouldn't ever sing again – no matter how good she used to be.
***
Firelight flickered, illuminating Marblehead's shore, "Yo, female newbie! You're the Provost's Godchild, right?"
"Reid! God you're embarrassing," By the 'thwack!' sound, Rena deduced that Speaker Number Two had just hit Speaker Number One upside the head, "Hi, I'm Sarah Wenham. This is…"
Rena looked up from the hypnotizing flames of the bonfire and blinked in shock. The light had to be playing tricks on her because there was absolutely no way she was seeing him standing two feet in front of her.
"Ree? Holy shit."
Staring up at the boy she and Ryan had befriended at summer camp a lifetime ago left her in more than a bit of a shock.
"What are you doing here?"
Their question was asked simultaneously, though her's was only with her eyes and his with his voice. Bringing back the memories of all the times they'd finished each other's sentences in camp. Of course, that had been before they had killed Ryan.
***
Mouthing the words to an Underoath song Rena Iverson paused in her run at the red light. The ruff music did nothing for her anger. Feeling a car roll to a stop next to her, Rena gave it a short glance.
In that time she saw the driver and passenger.
Reid and Tyler.
Her throat tightened. Like she wanted to say something. This had been happening all the time now, more specifically it happened when she was around Reid.
She shook her head determined, she would not look to the side again. She could see out of her peripheral vision though that Tyler was pointing at her and Reid was now looking at her.
Then the cross walk's light turned green and she took off again.
Only she didn't get far.
Because of her music sounding in her ears she didn't hear the scream of brakes nor the shouts of on lookers.
It was slow motion when she felt the car hit her from the side, her music came to a calm point and it felt as though something right out of a movie. Like at the start of Fly Away Home or in Raise Your Voice.
Somehow her body twisted and she was flying though the air face first into Tyler's car.
The one thing that really stood out to her before darkness fell?
Both Reid and Tyler's eyes had been engulfed by fire.
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