The next day was school. Layla and Maxene had their bags packed and they had a plan to escape. To avoid causing too much suspicion they decided to go to school for at least a couple periods and leave during lunch. Seeing that Jack drove them to school, it would appear to him as though everything was normal as well as give them a few hours head start and food for the road. If all went according to plan, they should be far away from Jack by the time school got out.
But when does a perfect plan ever go, well, according to plan?
Throughout the day the girls went to their classes feeling anxious. Maxene had been feeling paranoid since she tried to protect Layla by giving herself to Jack. It was all that she could think of. The fear, the pain she had felt, the overwhelming sense of everything inside of her dying. It all put her on edge and she tried her best to hide it.
Layla was feeling it too. Though she tried not to believe it, she was terrified that Jack would find them no matter where they went, terrified that this was all going to be for nothing.
Then the voices started.
They came during lunch. Students crowded the cafeteria finding their friends and waiting to get food. Maxene and Layla sat together at a table away from most of their peers, their bags at their feet and their minds set on leaving.
Together they ate their last meal they'd have before setting out to go find something better. The girls were quiet as they ate until suddenly there was a voice that sounded very close-by.
"... so hot, I just wish he'd notice me..." Layla looked behind her confused and trying to pinpoint the source of the voice.
"...fucking bombed this test. Stupid teacher bitch..." Layla's head snapped back around. That was a different voice and it sounded close. Who...?
"... food is shit..."
"Max do you hear that?" Layla asked casually.
"... Gad damn kids. Our future is fucked..."
"Hear what?" Maxene asked confused.
"... that slut..."
"Hear what? I can barely hear myself think," Layla said louder, hardly able to hear herself.
"... said she'd be here..."
Lunch was coming to an end and students were filing out of the cafeteria but more and more voices continued to filter through Layla's head. They were getting louder and louder until it sounded like the whole school was screaming in her ear.
Layla covered her ears, trying her best to drown out the noise but to no avail. The voices just kept getting louder leaving Layla holding her head in agony. She looked around furiously, desperately trying to find the source of all this noise. All this fucking noise!
She could feel Maxene's hand on her arm and looked panicked at her sister. Maxene was saying something but Layla couldn't hear her over the maddening noise in her head. Tears began to stream down her face as Layla started shaking her head violently, trying her best to shake the voices out.
"Get out," she said. The voices were still there.
"Get out!" she said louder. Still there.
"Get out!" she screamed, falling from her chair to the floor. Everyone who hadn't left the cafeteria turned and stared at Layla, on the floor with tears streaming endlessly down her cheeks. Maxene was at her side immediately trying to calm her down and teachers were making their way over to them.
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Layla screamed as all around her tables and chairs began to move away from her as if being pushed. Lights began to flicker, doors began to bang open and closed, windows cracked and the teachers were pushed back by some invisible force.
Layla let out a terrified scream and the windows shattered. The light bulbs exploded sending the cafeteria into darkness. Tables and chairs flew from the floor and hit the walls. Teachers were thrown back and students ran screaming from the cafeteria.
As she held her sister in her arms Maxene's hand went to her mouth in silent shock. With that last scream Layla fainted and suddenly everything stopped. The tables and chairs fell to the ground and the teachers, though disoriented, got up from where they had been thrown.
"Layla?" Maxene said, her voice shaky. Her little sister didn't respond and Maxene shook her gently in an attempt to wake her.
"Layla wake up," she said, trying to sound brave. Despite what she had just seen, despite the impossibly insane thing she had just seen she had to stay strong. It's just what big sisters did. She had to stay strong and when Layla woke up, she had to be there for her.
But Layla wasn't waking up.
"Help me!" Maxene screamed frantically at the teachers who had been standing in place in a stunned silence. They looked at one another before cautiously walking over to Maxene and her unconscious sister.
***
An ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were tending to Layla while police were getting statements. Maxene hadn't moved from where she was and while she watched Layla get checked by the paramedics, Maxene's mind went into panic mode.
What the hell had just happened? Layla had seemed normal all day until luch. Did she have a nervous breakdown or something? No. No it couldn't have been. Since when did nervous breakdowns cause the entire cafeteria to look like a scene in Poltergeist?
And since when did a scene from Poltergeist happen because of a fifteen year old girl screaming for something to get out of her head?
Maxene shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. She knew how crazy it sounded but... was Layla herself the cause of what had just happened?
The paramedics strapped Layla to a gurney. Judging from their faces Maxene gathered that none of them knew what was wrong with her. They wheeled Layla out to the ambulance and loaded her in. Maxene got up to go with her but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.
Maxene turned to find herself staring at her rapist adopted father. His face looked concerned but his eyes told a different story. He was angry and glancing down at his free hand, Maxene saw why.
He had their backpacks.
He knew what they had planned to do.
"Let's go honey," he said in a tone that radiated anger. "Let the paramedics do their jobs and let's go home."
He grabbed her arm and led her out to the car and Maxene saw the ambulance pull out of the school parking lot. Jack shoved her into the car and drove in the opposite direction of the ambulance, locking the doors.
As Maxene looked back at the ambulance rapidly disappearing and heard Jack's zipper come undone - preparing to give her his sick form of punishment - Maxene hopelessly realized that she couldn't leave. Not without Layla.
Shit.