Okay, another story! Except, bonus! I'm writing this story with my new beta BizzieLizzie! Excited, yes. We're gonna post this and see what your reaction is, and from there we will go. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Clique books, it all belongs to Lisi Harrison.
Harringotn Estate
Living Room
October 17th
9:55 p.m.
Derrick P.O.V
I sighed and sat up, staring blankly at the T.V. the football game I was watching, not really processing through my head that my team had just won. Ever since Alicia and I had gotten together, Cam - my best friend since the sixth grade - had been acting..odd to say the least. It was really starting to creep me out a bit, how he would just stare at us with this murderous look on his face. Jealousy, I could understand Alicia Rivera was BOCD's hottest girl any guy was lucky if he even got a glance from her, but this was a step above jealousy. One reason I was wary about being in the same room with him alone, but it was just a weird feeling nothing more Cam would get over it all.
The doorbell ringing broke me out of my thoughts, since my mother and father had gone out to New York for some business trip all the maids, butlers, and cooks had been let off duty, so I was all on my own. Slowly, I walked to the door not really in much of a hurry it was probably Cam since after Spanish, he had said that he had something important to tell me. There was no need for hurry, until he started pounding on the door like a madman, then I started picking up my pace. It must be something real important, usually he just walks in. I thought, curious to what was so important that he was being all formal, not just walking in.
When I opened the door, he marched in hiding something, it was blocked from my view purposely by his leather jacket. I looked at him curiously as he finally turned toward me. "What's up man? What was so important you had to come over tonight? And what's with the looks you have been giving me and Alicia? It's really starting to weird me out." I blurted out before, assessing the situation and how Cam would take it that he was caught. His reaction was the one that would've never crossed my mind, he pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. My eyes widened in shock, as I looked at the sleek, black, pistol in his hand (A/N: Picture of the pistol on my profile).
Cam let out a maddening laugh and fully glared at me. "Yes that's right, I'd be scared too, but then again I'm not at the receiving end am I Derrick pal? Like those old cartoons we used to watch, when we were baby-sitting my brother, I'm going to explain why I'm doing this just to see if you try to escape or not. I have to admit it's amusing to see, Derrick BOCD's favorite star soccer goalie, squirm in fear. You were right though, I have been giving you and Alicia weird looks, and for a reason too. Alicia should be with me, I'm better than you in so many more ways, while you just stand in goal flinging your body in the way of soccer balls trying to block them, I'm out there running like crazy actually trying to do something. Ever since I've met you I've been better grades, looks, anything you could possibly think of I've exceeded, while you've just passed. It just didn't make sense when Alicia picked you over me, when she was always giving me more than you'll probably get."
What the hell is he talking about, Alicia has never even spared him a glance. She always said and I quote "It's a toe-tal turn awf that he wears that fish smelling leather jacket, so he doesn't deserve my attention Derry." He's gone crazy or has been and is just now letting it show. I thought, scared that he wasn't just goofing off. My hand slowly slid behind me and into my back pocket, I fingered over it trying to find the little ridge, on the five button. Cam noticed, and turned the safety off, now seeming even more violent. "Give me the phone, Harrington."
Slowly, glaring at him, I pulled the phone out of my pocket and threw it at him, and of course he caught it with the gun not swaying at all. He threw it on the plush, living room carpet, cocked the gun, and shot it. The pieces of my cheap LC Incite - that my parents said would teach me some appreciation - went scattering everywhere, one even hit the glass entertainment center causing a small crack. Menacingly, he turned to me pointing the gun at me casually, as if it was an everyday thing for him to threaten to take a life - which by how things were going I wouldn't doubt it.
This is it, crap how is mom going to take this, my bloody remains just lying there when she opens the door. I hope they at least catch Cam, but then again it is easy to cover up a murder. This is it, I wonder what death is like. These thoughts flooded through my head, sweat beads starting to form at the top of my head. I looked to my left, trying to find some options that would distract him enough that I could run for it. I had forgotten that I had a remote in my hand, in a last attempt I threw it at him, and ran down the hallway and into the kitchen. Ten, suddenly, everything was gone, and replace with black nothingness.
Am I dead? I asked myself. No I'm not dead if I can still think. I must be unconscious, in a coma, Cam must have just hit me wrong. Doesn't that mean all I have to do is blink and it's over, I'm safe, and Cam goes to jail like the psychotic case he is.
I blinked once, twice, three times until everything came into focus, the image was clear as day. Cam was carrying a body up the stairs of my home, I silently watched not making a sound in case he would hear me. None of this made sense, how I ended up here when I should be in a hospital after what had just happened, oddly enough nothing hurt. Quietly, I walked up the stairs after him and entered my room, he turned toward me his eyes narrowing. Fear sank into me as I waited for another shot, it never came he walked past me and closed the door as if the nonexistent draft was bugging him. I didn't feel a thing, in fact I didn't nothing, not even the ground beneath my feet.
I looked down and was greeted by the sight of my feet floating in air, I tried - and failed - to float down and stand. What am I? I said out loud, but it just came out as a thought, only it hung in dead silence. What if this was all a dream? No it wasn't, I could feel the floor passing through me as I sank, it felt wrong like the feeling you get before you puke, something is there that's not supposed to be. Silently, I watched Cam, I watched him put a knife in the bullet wound and twist it enough to look like suicide, I watched him write on the walls I'm Sorry.. with my own blood, and most painful I watched as he escaped when he heard my parents limousine pull up.
"Derrick! We're home sweet-heart and we have the most wonderful surprise for you!" Amelia Harrington called from the entry way. I floated down thinking of deep and depressing thoughts, I looked straight at my mother and she met my gaze, well she would've if she could see me. A pang of pain raced through my body as my childhood memories enveloped me, thinking how I would never see that loving and caring gaze directed at me, knowingly, again. No comfort when I was scared and lonely, no more double fudge chocolate chip cookies, and no more sitting by the huge fireplace watching the game with Dad. Strange enough, I let the pain envelope me - cover me - not bothering to push it back, it hit me in truck loads. The feeling only intensified as I heard my mother walk upstairs and shriek at the sight before her, of course my father ran upstairs concern for the one he loved radiating from him.
I heard his astonished gasp as he took in the scene before him and then I decided to float back up and torture myself by watching them. Making myself experience their pain, I felt like I deserved it for crashing this onto them. Jonathan Harrington held his wife silently dying himself on the inside, they never even considered for a second that Derrick would do something like this he always seemed so happy and alive, and now they just find him dead. His only son dead, I felt all of this through him, as if being whatever I was now made me more empathetic. Dad! Help I'm stuck I don't know what's happening.. And I'm.. scared. I tried to tell him, but the words died in my thoughts. Amelia quickly composed herself and grabbed her cell phone, telling her husband that Derrick's funeral would be the next day and there was no time to waste.
The doorbell rang, curious I floated down to see who would be here at this hour, my mother answered and there stood the bastard himself. He faked concern as he looked at my mother asking her what was wrong, he faked a saddened look when Amelia explained the reason for her tears. I couldn't take it anymore, I ran/float-ran-in-air toward him, reeling back my hand - curled into a fist, and thrust it forward into hope that it would make contact and knock him back on his ass. No such luck, there was no ass falling, but his left shoulder that I targeted did slump down a little bit as if numbed. His eyes narrowed, you could barely see it, but they had narrowed slightly as if looking for Derrick among this madness that he had created.
Angry, sad, resentful, depressed, and disappoint I floated past Cam, past mom, and out through the door. I looked down at my feet, pushing energy through my body that would stabilize them enough that I could walk instead of just float. Once I was on the ground enough, I took off running towards the local Starbucks, and went right through the door. Saddened, I sat down in a booth that was uninhabited by anyone, and looked out the window. Blinking twice to make sure I wasn't just hallucinating, I saw so many people just like me walking through the streets, some actually looked at me and managed to give me a grimace of a smile their eyes filled with untold sadness and despair. One came in and actually squealed looking at me and started jumping around and then darted next to me.
She seemed to have dirty blond hair, her eyes were green, she was wearing a... pink hoodie, and blue jeans, at least that's what it looked like. It made it harder to see because of the same gray/green haze that surrounded them all. This girl, propped her head up with her hands, and just looked at me studying, she looked at least nineteen, two years older than me. Abruptly, she stopped looking at me and smiled, showing me what I assumed was pearly white teeth, the color altering made it hard to tell. "I'm Kristen! You must be........Derrick Harrington! I just heard about you an hour ago at the funeral home, you were reported by your mother, it sparked my attention that you committed suicide. Just like you I committed suicide, but I had a reason, you didn't I just wanted to hear your point of view before jumping to conclusions as per usual."
It surprised me that she was actually talking, instead of the voices in my head I would get when I tried to talk. She noticed my hesitancy and laughed understanding the reason why, and nudged for me to try and talk. "I didn't commit suicide, quite the opposite in fact." I told her timidly, seeing if my voice would come out or not. She nodded, encouraging me to continue on. "Well, Alicia Rivera and I got together, and my best friend started acting really jealous. A step worse than jealous, obsessed with our relationship in fact, he would send us these murderous looks. So tonight, I was home alone because my parents had to go on a business trip in New York. So Cam comes over - he told me he had something important to tell me earlier that morning - and I open the door expecting like some joke how I looked like crap or how slow I was. Instead, here he is with a gun, now I'm freaking out and he starts talking about why he's doing this he's jealous. After that, I throw a remote at him and run towards the kitchen, and next thing I know I'm this - whatever this is."
"Oh, I'm surprised you haven't already figured it out Derrick. From what I've heard about the famous goalie, around town, your not graduate at twelve material but your pretty smart!" Kristen exclaimed, looking at him with an amused look, her bell-like cackle filling his ears. "Okay, I'll just give this one to you, but be warned that I love to do the brain teasers they have in papers. Your a ghost Derrick! I mean I know it's not much better than death, but it's something. All it means is that your a ghost for a reason, there's something that the Big Guy has planned for you, but you have to discover it all on your own. For me, I've been here for a while and I'm enjoying it for right now. Yes I want to get past this milestone, but it's better than sulking about it. Just don't think that if your determined, that it will just magically come to you. And I'm so sorry, talking to other ghosts actually causes time to speed up, weird I know, but your funeral is starting right now. Oh and Derrick expect surprises soon! See ya later!"
With that Kristen floated out of Starbucks, and leaving me with too many unanswered questions, but I hurriedly floated out of Starbucks and to the Westchester Cemetery. The sign hanging above the entrance made me instantly hate this place, it just seemed wrong that there was happy colors for something so depressing and saddening for people. Shaking my head, I floated high enough to see where my burial was. Standing there was, all my friends - Chris, Kemp, Claire, Dylan, Josh, and of course my girlfriend Alicia. Although who she was clutching to and being comforted by made my stomach churn, it was Cam in all his fake glory. It obviously took him a huge effort, not to start laughing, so he distracted himself by trying to look down Alicia's shirt. She was of course oblivious to his pervertedness, holding in her tears, yes she was saddened, but she would most likely get over it in a week by the way things were going with Cam. Shaking my head, I realized something, no one would miss me except for Chris, Josh, Dylan, Claire, and my parents - it just seemed kind of sad for the supposed popular, star, soccer goalie.
I looked down to see that a Range Rover had joined the small parking lot, and two people - a man and a woman - were heading for my tiny funeral, their faces grim. My curiosity spike when they walked straight up to my parents and started to talk in hushed tones, I floated to the ground trying to get closer to hear what they could be saying. Of course, I didn't want to get to close because of what had happened to Cam when I had attempted to hit him. Floating just a few more feet forward, I could clearly see my body, the bullet wound was hidden by the cut that Cam had created. My face was relaxed, and I looked peaceful, when I was really the complete opposite. Timidly, I reached forward attempting to see what would happen if I touched my human self, Dylan's head snapped up almost as if she had seen the movement. She shook her head side to side, I couldn't decide whether she was just telling herself that she was crazy or if she actually could see me, so I pulled back my hand. Turning back to my parents, I saw that they had left and started walking back to their limousine, heads bent talking to the other couple as they walked.
By now my curiosity was taking the better of me, I floated up and managed to see the two men shake hands and exchange papers, while the women smiled at each other. The brown haired woman looked like she had her share of botox, but to a human eye she looked beautiful, the man was slightly balding at the top of his head but made it seem more sharp and handsome rather than old and slack. She gave a thumbs up to an unknown person in the Range Rover, most likely her four year old daughter by the excited smile plastered on her tight face. I heard a faint groan of annoyance come from the Range Rover, so maybe it wasn't a four year old, maybe eight year-old they did have attitudes thinking that they owned the world.
Quickly, I floated back to my old house wanting to see if they were selling my stuff to them, trying to get rid of the painful memories I guess. When I got there, I saw movers moving the couch and bed from my room, and many boxes outside the door, faintly I felt pain that they would want to forget me so much to sell my stuff to those strangers. Deflated, I floated down to the sidewalk that was by the gates of the estate, and just stood there looking at the movers, while they moved all the junk he had gathered over the years.
"It sucks doesn't it?" A girl with brown, thin, glossy hair beside him, asked. He floated up slightly startled, and looked at her sudden appearance curiously, so far the only person that bothered to talk to him - that was a ghost was Kristen. "Oh sorry, I forgot that you were new here. I'm Layne, Layne Abeley. You know Chris Abeley's sister, I died in a car crash about two years ago. It's nice to see you again Derrick, I just saw you here looking at all that, and decided maybe I could try and cheer you up."
I did remember her, I even went to her funeral - of course only because Chris asked me too. Insane-Layne was what some people would call her, I never really got to know her, and felt bad because of it now. "Yea, I remember you, you were Chris' little sister, went to OCD - now BOCD - until the accident happened. If you don't mind me asking what happened the night of the accident? I've heard things, but I rather hear from the source. That's leaves you and Travis, and he went to jail after charged for rape, so that narrows it down to just you."
Layne sighed and a small and reluctant smile on her lips, her eyes betrayed her though, she was thinking about something hard. An internal dilemma seemed to be going on in her, but she let out a final huff and turned towards me. "So Travis and I went to a party acting like everything was okay, when just an hour ago we had, had this huge....fight. Sorry I was thinking of a better word to describe it, but there wasn't one. He hit me so I grabbed my flimsy copy of City of Bones, and tried to defend myself.. So anyways, it took me an hour to get enough make-up on that no one could see the bruises. The party was great, surprisingly I had fun only because Travis was too busy getting drugs from his supplier that he wasn't there to control every word I said.
After the police came - and we narrowly escaped I might add - we went back to the car, he was flat out drugged and couldn't make a coherent sentence, he pushed me in the passenger seat, like literally pushed me into there and strapped me in telling me that he was driving. So, we were on the back roads - the two lane roads behind Wellington Creek - I have to admit he was doing pretty good in his state. Suddenly, without no warning, he starts yelling at me, at what a whore I am and how I'm ruining our relationship. Then the only car we see going the opposite way comes driving up, and he swerves real fast, and I get hit. I'm dead, he's free and can rape all the other girls and ruin other lives, I just wish that I could have stopped him before he darkened the rest of those girls minds."
I looked at her completely shocked, I knew Travis was a mental case but not in my imagination would I have thought that he would purposely kill Layne. When they first started dating, it was obvious they were in that puppy love stage, ignoring everyone else and their warnings only focusing on each other. Maybe that's what turned Travis, it was obvious he loved Layne he just had issues and problems and even she couldn't have fixed them. After a few minutes in silence I looked at her, really looked at her, and saw the sadness in her eyes - she would probably love Travis for most of the rest of her existence since she was stuck like that with these young feelings, holding onto them. "I'm sorry Layne, I honestly am. If it helps, I can sort of top that in a way I guess, sort of twisted. Cam - Cam Fisher - he murdered me, stuck a knife in my chest - to make it look like I committed suicide - and wrote on my wall, in my room with my blood I'm Sorry. It was sickening to watch and then he came to my house and made it seem all innocent, I tried to punch him but all it did was numb his arm for a minute or two."
"Yea, we can't really do anything to humans - unless your really gifted - other than numb their arm for not very long. If you are really gifted, which means you have a lot of spiritual energy, you can interact with humans, but it does take a lot of energy. Oh! The best thing about being a ghost, is that we can still eat food, I don't know where it goes, but we can still taste it." Layne informed me, her face breaking into such a huge grin, I couldn't help but smile back. "In fact, I have to admit I snooped around in your fridge thinking that you'd have something expensive and really good to eat, sorry about that pig you had in your fridge, it was good though. Anyways, you have fresh apples and a ham in there, quick the movers might eat it."
My nose wrinkled at the thought of the pig that my mom had always made me eat, claiming that it had many healthy nutrients, but it tasted like raw bacon that was soaked in it's own juice. "Okay I'll go check that out, should be interesting, can we talk again sometime or are you going to be mysterious and vague like Kristen was earlier. By the way, how long has it been since we've been talking? I can't get used to this time difference thing."
She laughed at me, fully understanding what I was talking about. "Well, it has been two days, it's weird eventually you can kind of sense how long it has been, but it'll take a while. Also, I'd hurry before those apples go bad, I can't remember the last time I looked in your fridge."
I nodded and floated forward, stopping before the gate to look back and wave, but Layne was to far gone by then. Slowly, I floated back up to the door of the huge estate noticing that there were no cars in the driveway or in the garage. Must be out I told myself brushing off the feeling that something had changed in the atmosphere. Floating into the kitchen, I turned on the faucet, and opened the fridge to get an apple. Carefully, I washed it, feeling a slight jab of pain of not once feeling the the water on my fingers. After I finished washing the apple, I slowly took a bite relishing the juice that came with each bite.
"Oh my god." I heard a female voice come from behind me, clearly it wasn't my mother, no she sounded a little younger than me. Slowly, I turned around, the apple dropped from my hand. Alicia couldn't even compare the the beauty this girl had, even if she did look a few years younger, she was gorgeous. Her brown hair cascaded gracefully down her shoulders and ended with a slight curl, she had a shapely body that any girl would die to get her hands on, her lips were full, tainted pink and were moist. She had a cute button nose that was scrunched up in confusion and her best feature was definitely her amber eyes that were widened with shock, staring at me even if she couldn't see me.
Okay well, I'm going to leave off there. Sorry about any spelling errors, just tell me if there are, because my spell check won't work...... So tell me what you think, personally I am in love with this story! Any questions, comments, or concerns just click that green and white button.