A raven flies in through the open, starlit window and lands on my chest. He digs razor-sharp claws into my breasts, unfurling a pair of massive wings so wide that I can't see past them. They send gale-force gusts of wind at me that pin me down and threaten to burst my inflated lungs. Try as I might to resist, the only reward I get for my efforts is complete and utter exhaustion. When I throw my head back against my pillow, the raven folds up his monstrous wings, cocks his head to one side, and peers at me with a solitary, whiskey-colored eye.
"Did you do this, Miss Price?" says Principal Wells's voice.
"No," I say, catching my breath. "I swear, I had nothing to do with it."
"But those are your cigarettes, aren't they, Miss Price?"
The raven points its beak at a spot just beyond my left shoulder where an open pack of cigarettes lies on the floor. A single lit cigarette sends off an orange flame that snakes its way in fucked up circles across the room and then back out of sight at the foot of my mattress where Rachel is standing.
"They told me I'm an angel on loan from heaven," she says. "I have to go back now. Will you come with me, Chloe? Come spend the night with me in heaven?"
"You have been expelled, Miss Price," booms the raven. "You are hereby expelled from heaven for the rest of your eternal life. Your sentence…" The raven starts growing, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. He gets to be so big that the crown of his glossy black head smashes a bowl-shaped dent into the ceiling. "Your sentence is to be alone for all eternity."
The raven puts his beak right up against my nose. His breath smells of rum and vomit.
"May Maxine Caulfield have mercy on your soul."
He pins my neck in place with a giant triplet of talons and fire hose pukes a stream of Polaroid photographs into my face. They bounce off harmlessly. I put my hands against my cheeks—plastic.
"Sweet dreams," says the raven.
He raises the points of his parted beak so high up in the air and so far back that it looks like the base of his skull is touching his spine. I'm still screaming when he slams his beak-knives straight into my eyeballs.
My white sleeveless shirt is completely soaked with sweat. I whip it off over my head and take off my bra—the clasp is a knife in my spine. I spend a minute just catching my breath, looking around in the pitch black darkness for any sign of movement.
Nothing. No fire, no ravens, no Rachel.
I turn on my glowy bear lamp and grab my cigarettes from their blue plastic tray. I inhale the first one down to the filter in two puffs, exhaling clouds of smoke that put the output of a volcanic eruption to shame. I open the window and take a seat on the slanted roof above the garage. The night breeze feels good against my bare skin.
I call up Rachel, not really expecting her to answer since we haven't talked in three weeks. To my surprise, she picks up on the second ring.
"What's up?" she says. Same old sugary voice.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry."
"See? That was easy. You were just freaking out."
"Yeah, I know. I feel like an ass."
"You should. You were a complete ass."
"Wow, thanks. And thanks for picking up."
"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
I'm halfway into my third cigarette, telling Rachel all about my fucked up dream when the garage door hums into action. I take my phone from my ear: twenty to ten.
"I'm just going to sit here and watch step-douche pull out of his man cave. Think he'll spot me?"
"Maybe. Put me on speaker phone in case he wants to have a chat."
Instead of a car, David strolls out onto the pavement adjusting his hat over his lawn-mower buzz cut. Naturally, when he triggers the motion sensors and the front lights turn on, he immediately suspects that someone or something other than his own dumb ass must have done it. He takes the flashlight from his hip and waves it across the front yard. Eventually, he finds me.
"Yo," I say.
David immediately puts his arm over his eyes to shield himself from the sight of my body in its natural state.
"Put a shirt on, would you?"
He turns away and looks down the lamplit street.
"I got all sweaty and needed some air," I say. "I was having nightmares."
"I hear you. I have them myself sometimes. Usually related to combat patrols. Your father?"
"What do you care?"
"None of my business, I suppose. You know, a sniper would be able to pinpoint your position using the glow of your cigarette as a beacon."
"This is a residential neighborhood. And the only person I know of who would do shit like that is gone."
"He's learned to talk and move his head. Still wish I could have talked some sense into him."
"I'm trying to forget my nightmares. Aren't your shifts still rotating the way your head was just now?"
"I'm covering for a co-worker tonight. His wife just had a baby. I'll be pulling a one-and-a-half into mid-morning, just like your mother's been doing at the diner."
I take a drag off my cigarette.
"I see you around campus more often than I should," he says. "What I mean to say is: you're not in class when I see you. Your progress report came in on Friday. You couldn't be bothered to open it, so your mother did it for you. She was not happy with what she saw."
"I don't care."
"I know you don't. That's the problem. I talked to Mr. Wells about your status. You know what he told me?"
"Miss Price, you have been expelled."
"That's where we're headed."
I flick my cigarette filter onto the asphalt below. David bends over and picks up the butt, pinching it between his fingers. I light up another one.
"I've talked with your mother," he says. "This is as good a time as any to have this talk."
"By which you mean the worst possible time."
David pulls his sleeve back and looks at his watch.
"As of right now, you're on probation. No drugs, no alcohol, no unauthorized stimulants, no staying out past curfew. You'll be working in the diner this summer, forty hours a week, all pay directly deposited into your mother's bank account. Your mother will give you two cigarettes per break period. You smoke them immediately or forfeit them. Outside of that, no nicotine use."
"Work? Yeah, right. And even if I did, how would you expect me to bust my ass all day with no fucking buzz?"
"You can drink as much coffee as you want as long as it doesn't interfere with your duties."
"Fuck coffee. You know I'm not a fucking soldier, right?"
"The alternative will give you a soldier's focus and discipline: summer school in Corvallis. Military-style regimentation, student housing, activities scheduled from sunup to sundown, Monday through Sunday. Exercise will clear your lungs, strengthen your circulation, and improve your physical and mental health. Most importantly, it will eliminate the need for nicotine."
"I'm talking to Mom. There's no way she's cool with this."
"Your mother signed off on it as soon as she saw your progress report. The writing is on the wall. She expects me to call her with your answer before she goes to sleep tonight. The cigarettes and the lighter or a summer road trip."
"You're serious."
He looks up at me without shielding his eyes.
"I know you're smart, Chloe. Too smart to steal cigarettes and end up at the station. Too smart to run away with Rachel again and put yourself on Mr. Amber's radar. I talk with him on a daily basis. He's made it clear to me that if you two get up to anything, there will be consequences."
Rachel clears her throat on the other end. I imagine her on stage, a dispossessed noblewoman delivering a soliloquy up the rear end of a jilted king who took her land when she wouldn't marry him.
"For all this talk about telling the truth and wanting me to trust you," I say, "it doesn't matter what I say or do. You barge on ahead down whatever path you've already laid out for yourself. Remember when you said you were going to take me at my word? Yeah, neither do I. That lasted all of, what, a month before you were ransacking my room again? One month after you tried to get me to bond with you over a picture of your dead army buddy. Maybe I should show you a picture of Eliot and commiserate over how if only you had been there to talk some sense into him I'd be laid up in the hospital right now, high as balls and deep-throating a root beer popsicle just waiting for Eliot to stroll into my room with a little Hawt Dawg Man balloon and a You Are Now My Girlfriend get-well card and the latest issue of Stalker Monthly for him to pass the time with when I fall into my nightly coma."
Rachel applauds. I toss the cigarettes and the lighter to the pavement.
"Why don't you just tell Wells you found evidence that I sabotaged the scoreboard?" I say. "Blackwell could pin it on an outcast and you'd get yourself that promotion you've been chasing."
"Because I'm a man of integrity. I follow orders even when my commanding officer doesn't maintain the same standards that I do. Just because one person doesn't do their job the way they're supposed to doesn't mean everyone else is off the hook. Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody's looking."
"What do you call doing the wrong thing while everyone's looking and nobody does anything about it?"
David adjusts the brim of his hat and looks straight at me.
"What I just did for you, I'll be doing for Blackwell, even if it costs me my job."
"I hope you're successful."
"I'll be there for you," says Rachel.
"So that's what the grandstanding was about," says David. "You had an audience. For what it's worth, I hope you're successful as well. That entails not getting yourself fired from the diner."
"If I planned on getting fired from the diner, I'd set fire to the diner."
"Don't joke about things like that," he says. "Your mother deserves better."
David's man-chariot grumbles a low farting noise that increases in flatulence as he cruises off down the street.
You're damn right she deserves better.