three ~ becoming a pawn
Saturday, October 31, 2005
Theresa
Sometimes, Theresa wished she could be as detailed and efficient as her mother. She could attempt it. She could join clubs, or start them for other people to join. Then be in charge of everything she joined or started. But in all actuality, Jennie was wound up a bit too tight. Theresa had never been the tidy, planned and orderly type. And she wasn't about to conform now. To begin with, she couldn't be bothered to put in such effort for most people and to ask her to take responsibility for them was out of the question. She barely managed to take care of herself most days. Then again, her apathy was just a side affect of something much bigger.
"Did you take your medicine?" Jennifer Black questioned after forcing the girl to awaken.
Theresa stared at her mother, confused for one hazy moment, and she allowed herself to wonder what Jennie saw when she looked at her. Theresa would wager it was something different, yet the same.
Something tinged in pain.
Theresa finally shook her head, gathering the correct bearings before sitting in an upright position on the mattress. "I just woke up, Mom." She leaned back against the wooden headboard and fumbled with the braid she hastily tied the night before. "I'll take them after I brush my teeth."
"Take them now," She tersely demanded and walked over to the vanity desk at the corner of her room, surveying the neatly stacked textbooks and assignments that sat in front of Theresa's mirror. "You have a track record of not doing things you should."
Yeah, like taking those pills.
"Fine," Theresa muttered darkly. She took the medication her mother handed to her, noticing an extra red one. Ibuprofen. Well, she had been complaining of headaches the past week. She popped all four of the tablets into her mouth and swallowed them dry.
With her hands clasped behind her back, Jennie began strolling around Theresa's room, her gaze flickering over her daughter's belongings—just a sleek, native and middle-aged Nancy Drew sniffing for any secrets she didn't yet know.
Too bad she wouldn't find anything.
"Did you have a nightmare last night?"
A flash of terrifyingly beautiful, human-like creatures with glimmering crystal skin and dreadful bloodred eyes bursted into her mind, barely giving her time to put up a front, spin it in a way where her heart palpitations weren't going into overdrive. Jennie probably heard Theresa hyperventilating after she shot upright with a shriek. "Nope."
Her mother paused before the lavender painted walls littered with photos all around the vanity desk, her eyes trained on one in particular—a two-year-old candid photograph of Jake and Theresa at a typical bonfire, with the younger boy brightly grinning, his long hair tightly weaved into two braids that hung past his ribs and next to him on the same log, she sat, staring at the camera with a wry lift to her brow, her lips stretched into a knowing smirk. Jennie tilted her head uneasily at the photo, slightly frowning. "Your father left for Vancouver earlier this morning. Something about a business trip. You've got the keys to his apartment, so after you girls visit Rachel, you make sure to go straight there, alright?"
Theresa had to commend Lionel's perfect timing. This extended her days of revelry and freedom before inevitably getting shipped off to a nuthouse of some sort. She was all too eager to spend some time with her peoples, especially her cousin who went to the university in Seattle. It was a win-win considering Rachel was the perfect cover story for the rager they were all attending later on and not only that, but she could drink herself stupid without having to stress over the repercussions.
She was pretty sure her mother wouldn't be letting her do this if Leah wasn't coming with—the darling A plus role model student. Theresa rolled her eyes. "Yeah. We've been over this already."
Jennie turned up an eyebrow at that. Theresa knew she was about to get an earful for her 'attitude', something that happened nearly every day at the crack of dawn. Before she could do just that, though, the landline rang downstairs. Saved by the bell.
Jennie huffed, giving her daughter one more stern look before she turned and left the room.
As Theresa was brushing her teeth in the bathroom, she tried to compare her few delusions she'd been having recently to the ones five years ago. Those terrifying hallucinations had been so vivid, leaving her temporarily blinded to the world around her. At twelve years old, she'd barely made it through the month at the time, flat out trying to ignore the visions, training herself to act as if nothing was amiss.
She was certain that people had noticed either way. Theresa had been underneath a scope, wary and attentive eyes expecting and prepared to aid a grieving young girl, tight embraces just waiting for her to jump into. Everyone in the community, and she meant everyone, was watching her. Theresa Kincaid was not once ever alone during those days, seeing as that was the same year of her sister's untimely death, and while she learned to appreciate it now, back then it just felt stifling.
In one of those delusions, she'd seen an ocean filled with blood, mixing in with the dark blues, creating a dreadful violet hue. Stiff bodies that bore ashen skin and unseeing eyes floated around within it, leaving her to wonder what had happened to those people and sort of feeling like this had somehow been her fault. Where the sea met the earth, fleeing rodents and snakes had roiled over the dirt and sand, until the ground looked like it was rippling.
In another, she wasn't in any place she recognized. That specific hallucination took place in what looked to be the arctic tundra. Theresa was placed in a frozen wasteland, shivering with just a nightgown on, scampering in different directions as if someone held her strings and was pulling her this way and that. Her feet burned in a way that felt like pins and needles were jabbing themselves into the skin underneath her feet, with a numbing sensation overcoming the feeling of her toes. What Theresa remembered the most about that nightmare was the thirst. The excruciating dryness of her throat and her tongue, her lips cracking as she made the motion to scream. No sound would ever come out of her mouth, though.
She'd already prepared herself for this possibility, already knew how to put up a front should these symptoms arise again. That didn't make it any less horrific, though.
Theresa had barely finished packing her costume when her mother barged back into her room, dressed in a crisp, navy-blue pantsuit with a purse draped over her shoulder. "Did you ever finish writing the notes for Jake?" Jennie asked.
No, she hadn't. "Yeah, why?"
"Drop 'em off before you leave," her mother ordered, "and make sure to study while you're over there, too. Your advisor over at the school in the city called and said that were struggling with the trigonometry class."
Theresa bit back an especially nasty comment about the infuriating course. It wasn't like she'd need anything she learned from the class and apply it in real life situations. If it were entirely up to her, she'd drop the damn thing and try to forget about the throbbing headaches it regularly gave her.
"I'll be at work if anything happens," Jennie continued, seemingly unaware of how coldly her daughter glowered at her duffle bag that sat on the bed, "call me when you get to Seattle. And don't do anything that I wouldn't."
"Sure."
When she heard the groaning of Jennie's engine she sighed to herself. Fucking finally.
It wasn't that Theresa had a bad relationship with her mother or anything truly drastic, but Jennie could just be too much of a hard-ass when she was in a particular mood. It wore down on a normal person.
To be fair, it hadn't always been like this.
In her peak, when she'd gone by Jennifer Kincaid and a little later when she'd divorced Lionel, she had been a firecracker. The epitome of resilience. A force of nature. She was a woman who knew how to hold her own in a room full of rowdy men. She'd stride into council meetings with an air of gusto and a broad smile. Command everyone's attention—not just because she was beautiful, but because she was warm and attentive, and intelligent, too.
Jennie wore loose dresses and grinned with all her teeth and drank cups of whiskey in one swig just to prove a point.
But she also took care of people, did community work, and loved her children dearly.
All firecrackers go out, eventually.
Irene died, and Jennie stopped taking calls. Stopped going to events. She faded and faded until her days were spent in bed. She wouldn't even look at Theresa most days, for fear of seeing her preferred child who was no longer alive. It was only thanks to Jennie's family and La Push's community who backed her that she didn't completely lose herself. Of this, Theresa was extremely grateful. But the damage was already done. When Irene had gone, she'd taken parts of their parents along with her, with no hope of ever retrieving them back.
Literally shaking herself from those bleak thoughts, she stood and grabbed her cell to call Leah, let her know she was picking her up in a couple of hours, before getting started on the notes her cousin so desperately needed. When she was finished, she grabbed her duffle bag packed with clothes, and made sure everything in the house was in order before departing.
Billy Black greeted her when she walked into the little red house, a fond smile stretching his lips as he stared up at Theresa from where he was sitting. "Well, if it isn't my favorite niece."
She smirked and reached out to squeeze his outstretched hand. "Don't you ever forget it."
A noise of loud chatter had erupted behind Billy, followed by the sound of boyish laughter, subsequently turning into a heated discussion as Theresa took off her sneakers. "You've been out in the chill for too long," Billy said, and she tore her eyes from where the noises were coming from to look at him, "what do you say I heat up some tea for you, niece?"
The heated discussion that was going on behind her uncle and in the living room—Theresa now recognized the voices of Jake and his two best friends—erupted again into bouts of laughter. She barely managed to refrain from rolling her eyes.
Quil Ateara and Embry Call. There was a time when she resented them, believe it or not. Considered the two boys to be sketchy, even. But only because Jake was her first best friend—and he would always be her friend—but at the time, she'd thought of their camaraderie with her cousin as an intrusion, thinking they'd latched on to Jake and enticed him into their idiotic little group when he could be away with her chasing moths or building sandcastles at the beach or prancing around in the rain. Then, somehow, probably due to how much she quarreled with them, she'd put aside her prejudices and grew close with the two boys, seeing the appeal of Quil's reckless nerve and Embry's humor and never ending kindness. The fact that they'd been close was saying a lot, since she'd never been one for building easy rapport with the typical human male. But hanging out with the trio had been all too fun, she could hardly even think about her problems when they were all off being thoughtless little kids. And before she knew it, the four were practically joined at the hip. That was until she turned twelve. Now? With the exception of Jake, Quil and Embry were practically strangers.
"Theresa?"
She turned to find that Billy had already started wheeling toward the kitchen.
"Sure, uncle," Theresa said. She looked back out over into the living room. "Tea sounds great."
A couple of minutes after she passed Jake his notes, she sat crisscrossed on the sofa, rubbing the bridge of her nose with one hand as she stared uncomprehendingly at her trigonometry assignment and shook a bag of trail mix, which her uncle had graciously tossed over to her, with her other hand. She'd barely even touched the homework and it was due Monday. Some of it could be blamed on how frayed her nerves currently were, but mostly, it was three boys who lounged around the coffee table, unknowingly making for great entertainment for the Kincaid girl.
"This homework is fucking ridiculous," Jake groaned, letting his earth science textbook fall off his lap.
Theresa snorted, staring at the triangles and fractions and the letters with a level of contempt she ordinarily reserved for anything at all to do with math. "Please. It's not as bad as you might think."
"How would you know?" Quil retorted, "It's not like you actually do any of the work."
"I so do! Ugh, I don't even know why I bother with you losers." Theresa jammed her assignment back into the folder and crossed her arms, "Jake, pass the remote."
"Tess, for once in your life, stop being such a lazy-ass," Jake pointed out, gesturing at the handheld control which was sitting barely two feet away from the girl. Still, he passed it over to her from where he was sitting beside the coffee table and shook his head in mock pity, taking another chance to needle at her, "as out of it as you are, I honestly don't know how you make it through every day life."
Theresa sniffed with an air of superiority, changing the channel from the news station in favor of a cartoon. "It's called conserving energy, you little worm."
Jake guffawed. It was a short sound of glee coming from someone who did it often. "Tell you what—I'll conserve some energy right now and just blow off doing the chores."
"No seriously," Quil added, being the wiseass he was, "I just might conserve energy and call it quits with my daily reading."
Theresa chucked a peanut at Quil's head. "Yeah? Right now I'm really conserving the urge to bash your stupid face in."
Embry, who'd been silent most of the time, shot her a meaningful look, tilting his head in the direction of the kitchen where Billy was brewing tea. "Careful."
Quil, amused, spread out on the floor with his hands behind his head and his feet carelessly laid atop the coffee table, The Catcher in the Rye flopping against his chest, seeming as though he didn't have a care in the world. "Telling Tess to be more careful is like trying to catch smoke."
"Nice simile." Theresa shot him a look of long suffering, "don't make any more ever again."
Embry chortled and she met his gaze with the raise of an eyebrow. "Good one."
The Kincaid girl smirked. She knew he had always been her favorite out of the bunch. The lankier boy was easily the funniest when it came down to it and he wasn't as much of an asshat as his own friends were.
"Does anyone have Shelly Tate's number?" Quil asked suddenly.
'I do," Embry answered at the same time Theresa ordered, "Stop stalking her."
"She gave it to me last summer, during the Quileute Days' celebration," Embry continued.
Theresa rolled her eyes. "Wow Embry! You're so cool," She said sarcastically, and turned to Quil in disgust, "Why are you so creepy?"
"I was just asking, jeez." Quil raised his hands up and waved them toward his friend, "Why can't you be more like Embry? He's like, so down to earth."
Before she could tell the boy to just go on ahead and marry Embry, Jake had leaned in to stage whisper, "Theresa's got no chill—she's just pissed because we blackballed her last week."
With surprisingly accurate aim, she hit Jake's eye with a raisin. "Ow! Fuck, stop doing that!"
"Tess, you're blacklisted from our club for two more weeks," Quil declared solemnly, "For your inappropriate breach of conduct."
Her eyes went wide with wonder. "Quil, I didn't know you knew how to put more than five syllables together in a sentence. And, by the way, the day I give a damn about your lame club is the day snowballs chance in hell."
Billy wheeled back into the living room with a steaming mug he favored in his hand, and judging by the unimpressed frown on his face, he'd heard enough of the conversation the teenagers were having amongst themselves. "Jen tells me that you've been struggling with that fancy math course you're taking."
"Trig," Theresa grumbled, setting aside her pack of trail mix and taking the cup from her uncle. It stung her fingers at first but felt much better to hold a second later, "I'm not sweating it."
"Embry's good with that stuff," Jacob helpfully supplied when he saw the sullen expression that crossed his cousin's face.
The boy in question shrugged at this, seeming slightly abashed. "It's nothing," he insisted.
Theresa's gaze zeroed in on Embry with laser sharp focus. "Are you now?" She whipped out the paper from her folder with her free hand and passed over her assignment before he could even answer. "Well? Put those excellent skills to use."
He assessed the homework, deliberating with a look of concentration as she waited. She was sort of expecting him to shake his head in disappointment and explain how this was way out of his depth, but instead, he pushed aside his own assignments and grabbed his pencil, and began to write some notes. Theresa belatedly realized that he was basically doing the problem for her, typing into the calculator beside him and drawing arrows underneath the paper, writing down how he'd gotten the answer. Jake shot her a satisfied look, the sort that was usually reserved for someone who usually prided their best friend over something as simple as just swatting a fly. Quil just gave Theresa's assignment one look over before staring at her with pity. "No wonder you hate this shit—I mean—stuff, so badly," the Ateara said, before a sour looking Billy could berate him, "you know that Em's a genius at math? He's so good at it that they're moving him up to calculus."
"Seriously?" Theresa really couldn't help her incredulous tone. Since the way that math went at the tribal school had started at algebra, geometry, pre-calc, and then calculus, with each grade taking the respective courses in that order, to hear that Embry was that much of a whiz to where he'd been bumped up not one grade, but two, blew a huge hit to her ego. Especially considering that the reason she herself moved up a grade was only due to her underhanded methods. "when?"
Embry passed the paper back over to Theresa, furtively avoiding the sudden onslaught of curious eyes that bore into him, "just next semester," he said, quietly, "but it really is nothing. It's not like it's amazing or anything—"
"Don't underrate yourself kiddo," Billy cut in with a stern glare. "There are some who'd kill to be that talented in the subject."
Yeah. Like Theresa.
Peeved, she looked over the messily scrawled writing, scowling as she stared at how he'd even gotten the answer to the headache-inducing question. "No kidding."
Okay, that came out more bitter than she'd intended. All too aware of the stares that probed at her, the Kincaid girl smoothed over her expression and interlaced her hands, propping her chin atop them. "I'm starting a study group with Leah, in case you guys wanted to know." By the way her cousin's eyes widened and the way Quil had blanched, suddenly looking apprehensive as hell, she knew they weren't going to go along with her proposal. Embry perked up a little bit though, so maybe not all hope was lost, "you're more than welcome to join."
Quil and Jake spoke simultaneously.
"My schedule's busy enough as it is, y'know?—"
"I think I'll just have to pass—"
"It's a great idea," Billy interjected from where he was sitting beside Theresa, "I think you kids would benefit greatly from this. And Jake, you're not looking so hot in World History."
"Dad, Leah's already been tutoring me," he said with his best 'woe is me' look, "and I got a C in the last exam. The rabbit needs some more fixing up to do—and I'm already backed enough as it is. I'll study some more though, for sure."
"You're plenty adept with cars, boy," Billy said with a gravelly voice, turning his wheels toward the kitchen, ready to take off, "what you need to focus on is your schoolwork."
Embry's voice had risen, interrupting what Theresa was sure to be a reluctant agreement from her cousin. "I'll do it. Just let me know when we could all meet up."
Theresa covered up her smug smirk with a hopeful smile, pretending as though she wasn't going to milk the boy's evident affinity for math for all it was worth. "Sure. Just shoot one of us a call."
Embry had always been a bit of a sucker. She found that she couldn't feel too bad since it already went without question that she'd scratch his back if he scratched hers. What she was really wondering was when he'd outgrow that overly giving habit of his. At the moment, though, she wasn't mad at it. This could be a potential solution to at least one of the many problems she'd been facing.
As her cousin, Quil and Embry had finished their schoolwork, they sprawled around the television, silently looking to be enraptured by the chatterbox sponge, the grouchy squid, the greedy crab and the dull star that made for great television. Theresa herself hung back to watch it, with Jake leaning back against the small sofa she was laying horizontally on, and on the longer couch, sat Quil who was elbowing Embry whenever the sponge and the star made illogical decisions, hunting jellyfish. It was then when Billy had announced that he'd made a late lunch. He corralled the teens into sitting around the four seated circular table, the main course being sandwiches with a side of chips and store bought cookies for dessert.
After everyone had taken their place at the table, it was a disorganized, chaotic affair. Embry, mostly quiet, whose gaze never left his food, Jake, who seemed rather distracted, as he always was these days, snapping at an evilly grinning Quil every time he probed Jacob about some girl from Forks, with Billy sternly telling them to behave, and Theresa, for once since her sickness had erupted, who'd taken her mind off of the turmoil that was in her mind, who was unbelievably relaxed. There was a lively atmosphere in the air, and she was reminded of her childhood memories since before Irene, the laughter and the carelessness. She couldn't help but feel nostalgic. Up until Billy mentioned something about Rachel.
"You'll tell her to come visit soon, okay?" Theresa's uncle said just as she was leaving the house, "just to wind down a couple of days?"
She reached down to give Billy a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I'll personally see to it." She couldn't guarantee that her cousin would be in the rez long enough to wait for a greeting without booking it, seeing as it seemed Sarah was everywhere in the house—even now, she could spot an oil painting hanging on the wall beside Billy. "Don't sweat it, uncle."
Theresa walked to her car, looking back once more to peer through the front window which curtains hung over, but had been open enough to see Billy hitting Quil atop his head with the younger boy's own book. Jacob could be seen slapping his forehead with a palm, and Embry—he was looking right at her. She blinked, startled, and gave a nod. He blanched and looked away.
Well. There was no denying that he'd always been strange. She rolled her eyes and climbed into the car, making a bee-line for the Clearwater household which was just down the hill. Theresa wished she could've known that this was the last time she was going to feel as normal as someone like her could be. She wished she hadn't taken this for granted, since any chance of normalcy was all but gone after today.
Sunday, November 1, 2005
Leah
Leah Clearwater slammed the shot glass down on the table. The poison stopped burning on its way down her esophagus two swallows ago, and she beckoned the attractive woman standing behind the counter for another round.
She was on her seventh shot...or maybe her thirteenth. Leah didn't know—she'd been at this for two hours.
She blinked, and the room tilted. She tried to cling to the latest shock of euphoria that flooded through her system. Vodka topped off with orange juice was a marvelous invention.
She didn't wipe the sour look that stole onto her face in time before her friends glimpsed it.
"You alright?" Theresa asked.
Leah couldn't help but snort at the irony. Usually, she was the one looking after Theresa when they were engaging in this particular kind of festivity.
"I think we should just bounce," Rachel slurred. She stood up, insistent, only to stumble and fall back against her barstool.
Theresa scoffed into the martini she had been sipping alongside the shots. "Lightweight."
Leah couldn't help but agree, but said nothing. Rachel was only drinking so much tonight to indulge her. Rachel Black was one of her oldest friends and sister from another mister. The hyperactive brainiac who always looked before she leapt, greatly contrasting from the wild-child who was her sister, Rebecca. The twins and Leah went way back and actually used to be as thick as thieves—until they high-tailed it out of the reservation and talked to one another less and less until it was lucky to even get a birthday card out of one of them. For the sake of trying to remedy her own hurt feelings, Leah tried to cut them some slack. After all, Rachel and Rebecca had been in the talks to completely leave the village behind since the day Sarah Black passed, and only solidified their plans after Irene Kincaid's funeral.
Either way, Leah couldn't have missed Rachel more.
On Theresa's insistence, they had come to the shadiest club that Leah had ever been in. Still, she couldn't find it in herself to complain too much.
If it ever mattered enough to Leah, she'd start to feel horribly underdressed. Both of her friends were adorned in skimpy outfits, with Theresa in some sort of provocative red riding hood ensemble, and Rachel, who was wearing a skintight leather Catwoman getup. But even the pleas from the girls she considered sisters wouldn't make Leah get caught dead in a costume. She just borrowed one of Theresa's cocktail dresses. It was a pretty, black piece of fabric that hugged tightly against Leah's body, revealing more of her than she was comfortable with—but it was the compromise she'd made. It still wasn't all that clear how Theresa managed to convince Rachel's square ass to come, considering she usually had her head stuck in a book these days and was drowning in exams, but then again, Theresa could make an effective point when she wanted to. Although the free booze, curtesy of the owner, might've had something to do with it.
Hands held glasses full of champagne, whiskey bottles, and tall crystal shot glasses. Hazy blue lights flickered to red, then switched over to bright pink and neon green. Leah could tell that whoever owned the club was one for theatrics and dramatic lighting.
"I am so ready for midterms to be over with," Rachel Black griped, miserably letting her head fall forward against the bar, "you'll see, after you graduate this year, Lee. The amount of cramming and the time it takes to do it." Rachel groaned. "That shit is absolutely ungodly."
"Oh please, I don't think it's that hard." Leah scoffed, running her thumb over the shot glass.
"Yeah, you'd think so," Rachel sourly muttered, "ah, and that reminds me—any school in mind?" She asked, pointedly staring at Leah.
"U-Dub, probably." She shrugged, even though she'd been itching to put as much distance between herself and the reservation she called home for awhile, "at least you have another year before you can really start stressing, Tess."
"Aww, my baby cousin thinks she's all grown up now!" Rachel cooed, drunkenly throwing her arm around Theresa, who was in the midst of throwing back another shot. She in turn shrugged off Rachel's arm and rolled her eyes.
"I know I didn't bring you two with me to talk school." Theresa deadpanned. At the girl's expression, Leah had to let out another snort. She ran her eyes over her friend, taking in the glossy hair and satiny skin, then thought back on when the Kincaid cheated on the last calculus test they had near the beginning of the semester. The general public ordinarily considered Theresa to be beautiful, but Leah figured her learning difficulties balanced everything out. She had heard jackass kids in the rez say it kept her 'humble' and all that. Whatever the hell that meant.
After beckoning the bartender for a refill on her martini, Theresa spoke again. "Rach, it's been forever since we last spoke—"
"We literally talk on the phone like, every other week."
"—and I wanna' know what you've been up to."
Rachel shrugged. "I dunno', the usual. Work, school—"
"Not that. We wanna' hear the juicy stuff, Rach," Leah interrupted, eyes mischievously bright, "Who've you been screwing?"
Theresa hid her grin and played along. "And don't act like you haven't seen any action."
Rachel scoffed, but the flush underneath her russet skin and the accusatory finger pointed in their faces gave her away. "I don't like what you two are implying! And anyway, what the hell would you know about any of that stuff, Tess? Don't tell me you cashed in your v-card already."
"You're such an unhelpful prude," Theresa groused as the bartender returned with a freshly refilled martini, "and who cares whether I have or not? I think I'm allowed the right to take an interest in my cousin's life. So spill."
"Absolutely not."
"C'mon," taunted Leah, "everyone knows that you don't get the full college experience without at least one steamy, dorm room hookup."
"Don't leave anything out," Theresa cheerfully added, "not even the dirtiest of details."
Rachel, whose skin was a mottled pink and her jaw clenched so tightly, looked as though she were seconds away from spontaneously combusting. Leah met Theresa's eyes and it took all of her strength to not burst from laughter right then and there.
She barely managed to get one swear out and Leah bet that Rachel had a string colorful profanity in her reserves, just ready to let loose. But some guy—who was supposed to be a vampire, judging by his long black cloak, slicked hair and fangs—approached the trio, interrupting what Leah was sure to be an amusing combination of obscenities, with a group of college-aged boys and an overly friendly grin plastered on his bright red lips—Leah was guessing it was fake blood. "Hey there, Tess. How you enjoying the party?"
The crowd of males behind the rando in the vampire getup erupted into a cacophony of wolf whistles until the girls all swung around to face them, disdainfully staring them down until the men started to look uncomfortable and glance away.
Theresa was in the middle of sipping from her martini glass but somehow, it didn't at all hinder her ability to scowl. "It's not too bad."
"You turn in that project in communications, yet?" Vampire guy asked, gaze never straying from Theresa's face.
She just shrugged, though her eyes flickered with recognition. "Not yet. You?"
"It was light work," said the young man, who brightened up a little. "So, Theresa, I was wondering if—"
She gasped in delight, interrupting the guy. "Stop! This is my shit!" Leah could hear a Beyoncé track blaring through the speakers, "Put that thought on hold, Bradley. I've got to get out on the floor."
"…my name's Xavier."
Theresa slapped her hand against her forehead, seeming genuinely dismayed. "Oh fuck."
"No I get it, you're probably just tired and—" At this point, he was looking a bit desperate.
"No," she snapped, and rolled her eyes, "I spilled my martini."
One of the boys who'd accompanied—Xavier—grimaced. "Damn."
The poor guy suddenly found somewhere else to be, looking mortified as he and his group moved on to hit on someone else. Theresa turned her back to them as she dabbed at her lap with a napkin.
"He was cute," Rachel said, smirking, "why'd you blow him off?"
"Didn't really do it for me."
Despite only being a few years younger than them both, Theresa was like a different species of girls. She was a couple of inches shorter than Leah, and while Leah was intimidating in a prickly, 'do-not-engage' way, Theresa welcomed the attack, only so she could crush you down even harder with her maroon leather high heels and matching lipstick. Which should've been concerning for someone her age, but then again, she was chugging back shots like a parched man in the middle of a desert.
"All that shakedown about me getting laid, what about you guys?" Rachel slowly smiled, "well, no—I guess you're out for the count, Tess. Lee?"
Leah didn't rise to the bait. She shook her head. "Don't even go there."
"Oh, gimme' a break. I mean, after all that bullshit with Sam—ow!"
A piping hot fury doused Leah at the mere mention of the name. "Come again?"
Rachel shot Theresa a sharp glower as she rubbed on her shin, then huffed a troubled sigh. "Look, all I'm saying is—is that bastard really worth all the pain and struggle, Lee? You've been holding yourself back for awhile now and eventually, you gotta' get back out—"
"I think you've had enough to drink, Rach," Theresa interrupted, giving the other girl a significant look.
Rachel had a point though. Was he worth all the trouble? Was he worth all the heartache? Only, it just wasn't that simple for Leah. She'd spent the better half of three years thinking that Sam Uley was the one, spent many years loving him, and it wasn't much of an assumption to think that he was the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. He'd been one of her best friends. And she'd lost two people who she held dear in the blink of an eye.
"I don't think I've had enough," Leah muttered, "and, by the way, I'm totally over it. So stop your nagging."
Rachel, who looked like she had a great deal to say about this matter but thought better of it when she glimpsed Leah's stony look, just gave an unconvincing chuckle. "You know I can't help it, Lee."
Theresa carefully placed her martini back on to the bar. "Whatever, ladies. I've got some dancin' to do. Didn't bring out my good heels for nothing."
"Same," Rachel reluctantly said, when Theresa elbowed her. She adjusted the neckline of her leather leotard before following Theresa out to the dance floor, "Stay where I can see you!" She called over her shoulder. Leah forced a laugh as she lifted up her shot glass in a belated gesture, and drank the concoction in one fluid motion.
It was no surprise when ten minutes after her friends had departed to the dance floor, she could feel her head starting to get all hazy. Leah decided she liked it. Her hand reached up to tangle in her hair and she ran her fingers through it. Despite the fact that she was swaying in her seat, the woman behind the bar continued to pour liquor into her glass. Leah absentmindedly started to think about how badly she needed a cigarette. She patted down her jacket for the pack of smokes she knew she must've brought, and was gratified when she felt the square pack.
She was about to stand up so that she could make her way outside when a laughing Rachel emerged from the crowd and grabbed her hand. She all but dragged Leah out to the middle of the floor.
Leah blindly stumbled after the dancing girl. She never let go of Rachel though. She decided, fuck it, and followed suit, trying to emulate her friend's sensual movements. Leah got the distinct impression that she looked really stupid. After a while Rachel let go of her and she twirled through the crowd. Leah tried to look through the mass of people to find her, but couldn't seem to get close enough to grab her friend. Rachel was lost to the world once she found the dance floor. As her eyes ran through the throng of people, she tried to search for her friends, but to no avail. For some illogical reason, her brain got the idea that who she was searching for was somewhere above her. Maybe she thought it was Theresa, but once she looked it seemed like there was no going back.
Leah was on fire, and she didn't know why.
"Careful," she heard what sounded like Rachel's amused voice slide into her ear. "You're drooling."
That snapped Leah out of it, and she tore her eyes away from the balcony. The room fell back into focus and her ears registered the music over the pounding of her blood and it was like she'd been yanked back into reality.
"What?"
Rachel raised her eyebrows, grinning with satisfaction. She handed Leah a tall shot glass, and sipped at her own. She blinked at her friend confusedly, till realization dawned when she followed Rachel's eyes to the balcony, which he was leaning against. Staring right at her. Her head was spinning and she couldn't help but stare back.
Theresa reappeared, draping an arm across Rachel's shoulder and pulling her in. "What're we all looking at? Did a fight break out again?"
But Leah was too preoccupied to reply, so Rachel gripped Theresa's chin and directed her head toward the couple of people loitering on the railing. He was in a conversation with a scrawny boy who looked to be of Asian descent, of which whose smile just screamed the word 'trouble', and the unfamiliar man who'd set Leah aflame turned back to stare at her.
His mid-length hair was tousled, like he'd just gotten out from bed and didn't bother to comb it. His fingers started to thread through it but they fell back in place. Dark, molten eyes stared at her curiously, and Leah couldn't help her shiver. Long eyelashes kissed his high cheekbones every time he blinked, and she was sure the cut of his brown jaw could grate cheese. The sleeves of his slim-fit dark red shirt were rolled up to his elbows, exposing a tattoo along his forearm she couldn't quite make out, and his shirt stretched around his profusely toned chest as his elbows rested on the railing in front of him.
"Oh," Theresa said, and Leah whipped her head around to see that her friend was peering at them with dry annoyance, "That skinny dude's Reggie. The guy next to him is Santiago."
"You know them?" Rachel asked.
"Reggie owns the club," Theresa just said.
Leah shook her head, not knowing what her own deal was, but not too keen on trying to figure it out. Maybe she just needed to get laid or something. "Needa' smoke. I'll be outside if you guys need anything."
Theresa nodded, staring up at the railing with narrowed eyes. "Use the back door. It's more low-key."
As Leah navigated through maze-like hallways, striding over red carpets and cherry wood floors, she found that the sensations from earlier had never really diminished. Just what had that foreign and somewhat congesting feeling been, and why did she get the feeling that she knew that guy—Santiago—from somewhere? There was something nagging at the corner of her mind but it disappeared every time Leah took a step on the wooden floors. It kind of felt like she'd stepped into a dream but she didn't know if it was a good or bad one. Nevertheless, it was very irksome.
'Leaving so soon?" A rich, deep voice drawled from her left, and she whirled around with both fists raised, poised to take aim.
The man—Santiago—cocked an eyebrow, looking way too amused for his own good.
"Sorry." The slight condescending smile on his face made it clear that he was in fact, not that apologetic. He pushed off the wall and walked toward where she stood in the middle of the hallway leading toward the back door. "Didn't mean to scare you."
The look on Leah's expression could have soured milk. "That'd be much more believable if you didn't just appear out of a dark corner to sneak up on me."
"You caught me. I was fulfilling my lifelong goal to scare the shit out of a random stranger in a shady club."
Despite her not exactly being on her A-game, Leah wasn't the type to take shit without dishing some of it out. The corner of her lip twitched. "Well, congratulations. Word to the wise—you probably shouldn't sneak up on 'random people in shady clubs'. I imagine it won't go this lightly next time."
"'Next time'?"
She primly smiled. "Just seems like you've got a habit of being a public nuisance is all."
"And it seems like you really got some aggression issues you need to work out."
She raised her eyebrows. "Who me?"
Santiago cocked his head to the side. "Talk's cheap. What can you really do?"
She leaned back. "What can I really do? I won't do anything to threaten or cause bodily harm to a strange guy in the dark corner of a club no matter how much he irritates me. That would be just stupidly hazardous to my health."
For a moment they stood there looking at each other.
"Well," Santiago sardonically said, breaking the silence, "I'm glad we could talk and stare lovingly into each other's eyes. Real fun. You have such beautiful eyes, you know. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"Yes," Leah said dryly, before swinging the door open. To her utter dismay, he followed after her. No one had greeted them at the door except for one towering, behemoth of a man, who Leah supposed was the security but they could still hear music pulsing. Bodies stood around the the building, outside for the same purpose as Leah, and drunken conversations scattered around in the narrow alleyway. The bite of the wind had her clutching her jacket in order to keep warm, and she rubbed her hands together before she brought out a cigarette from her pack.
"Fuck," she muttered, patting down her pockets, uselessly looking for the lighter. At once, Leah knew she must've forgot it in the cab taken to get here.
"Here," Santiago said, producing a silver lighter from his pocket. Leah begrudgingly shifted toward him.
His jacket swept against her side, and he felt all too close as her hand steadied the cancer stick. She could smell his subtle cologne—something spicy—and she hadn't realized how small the back entrance was until for a small, hardly existing moment, their two fingers touched, and she quickly backed away. While he lit the cigarette with the silver lighter, she could feel his eyes on her.
She tried to seem preoccupied with staring at the brick wall before them to not look into his gaze. But her eyes moved and they made eye contact. Leah was really starting to get annoyed with this whole eye thing.
"What?" She snapped.
His expression didn't change. "Nothing," he answered. "You just seem…shy."
"I'm not shy at all."
"If you say so." He shrugged, then assessed her in that same unnerving way, and as if perplexed, he asked, "what is your name?"
Leah didn't answer. She just took a long drag from her cigarette. On any other day, she might've been up for this sport of charm and word play and coquetry but not now, and certainly not with him. Not when she felt out of balance around him and not when he made her so uneasy.
"Okay then," Santiago muttered, not once taking his gaze from her, "Let me rephrase my question: what are you?"
Her eyebrows raised, not really understanding the question asked and not really liking the sharp stare he leveled on to her. "Well, right now, I'm starting to get annoyed that some rando won't let me smoke in peace. You wanna' fuck off?"
"You're a real teddy bear, y'know that?"
Leah tapped the butt of her cigarette to get rid of the ash. "I try."
"I'm liking this progress we're making," Santiago dryly remarked, "it's been real great. A little word of advice though? Try to steer clear of the Kincaid girl for a little while."
"Why?" Normally she would've wrote this suggestion off and ignored him. Dubbed the guy, no matter how attractive he was, as a whack job. Who was he to tell her who she could or couldn't hang around anyway? Leah just blamed the alcohol. It made her lips slightly looser than usual. Maybe that was why people preferred her when she was under the influence.
The seriousness of his gaze elicited a shiver from her, but he didn't reply. As he turned back to head into the club, the heavy sounds of footfalls and the sight of party-goers running like hell from the club stopped him in his tracks. The door opened and it was only then that Leah could hear screaming going on from inside of the establishment. Leah dropped her cigarette and stood at attention, sharing a bewildered look with Santiago. Without a word, they dove into the crowd of wide-eyed and bleeding people.
Sunday, November 1, 2005
Theresa
"What the hell do you want, Reggie," Theresa tiredly said, staring at the skinny teenager with a look filled with inebriated weariness when he slid in front of her on the dance floor.
Reginald Cho looked somewhat offended. "Some attitude for someone who nearly drunk me out of my club. And for free, too!"
"Well, I wouldn't expect anything less after the crap you put me through last week," Theresa snipped, "and I seem to recall you said that you were rich. 'Rich as fuck'. Go ahead and dry your tears with that paper, Reginald."
The look he shot her was a startled one. "What did I put you through?"
"Organizing chairs? Wiping down the bar? Playing at being a janitor in this place?" She stated in a 'duh' tone.
Reggie's expression was unreadable. "How could I forget? Do you remember anything else from that day?"
Theresa rolled her eyes, disregarding this question at once. She might've been drunk, but she did have a sharp memory, and all she could really conjure up from that day was cleaning up and decorating the club. Theresa just turned her back to him and resumed dancing along to the music.
"Tess." Reggie slid back into her vision, his demeanor unusually somber, "have you been feeling weird, lately?"
She scoffed. "What do you care? Wait—why? You didn't lace my weed or anything did you?"
That would explain the vivid nightmare she'd had the night before—plus whatever the hell that message was on her mirror. And the hallucinations, too. Maybe Theresa wasn't having a mental breakdown, maybe her recent dive into lunacy all happened because of this asshole's drugs. The glower of suspicion she leveled on her drug dealer was deadly. "If what I'm thinking is true, Reginald, the police themselves won't even be able to get me off you."
"What? No!" Reggie genuinely seemed appalled and distressed, "you just seem…different. That's all."
"Uh-huh." She still wasn't sure if she believed him or not.
"Look, your birthday's next week," Reggie said, looking nervous for the first time Theresa had met him, "and if there's any changes in your…well-being, then you know where to find me."
"Now why in the hell would I do that? You got some kinda' PhD hidden under your belt or something?"
"Maybe it's because I'm one of the few people who won't think you're crazy."
Theresa paused at that loaded statement, her eyes boring into Reggie's face, the realization belatedly dawning upon on her. He knew. Somehow, someway, he knew what had been going on these past couple of days. Just like he'd known that she broke into the professor's office to get the test answers, just like he'd known she had a weed problem and offered himself up as a dealer, just like he'd known when her birthday was, despite Theresa never disclosing any of these details with him.
Maybe Reggie's proclamation was supposed to comfort her or something, but it did anything but.
It filled her with inexplicable rage.
Everything was so sudden, that Theresa would've thought she'd imagined the whole thing. Maybe she could've just went through another few days pretending that she was human, but crazy. If only it weren't for the icy wrath that exploded through her body like a hailstorm, and this foreign sensation that felt like water rushing up from underneath her feet.
Every single one of the lights exploded, leaving sparks and shards of glass in its wake. She vaguely registered the screaming of the clamoring people, but surprisingly enough, that wasn't her biggest concern.
Theresa felt like she was on cloud nine, with nothing but pure ecstasy and dangerous strength rushing throughout her entire body. She saw people with glass wedged into their skin, their faces. Some of them even had blood coming out of their ears and noses, but, for now, she literally couldn't care less. Not with this euphoria that had her body swaying, that had her stupidly grinning. Was this what sex felt like?
The rational part of her was asking, what was happening? She couldn't even try to puzzle it together because of the screams that were rankling her ears, the upheaval of the party-goers that were shoving past her, trying to find safety. And part of it could be due to this giddy feeling that was diffusing throughout her veins. It was like a high, the one she got whenever she smoked a couple of joints—except a hell of a lot more intense. She almost keeled over because of this forceful enrapturing sensation that rammed into her body, but Reggie caught her arm before she could fall.
In her more than inebriated mind, she wrapped her arms around Reggie's neck, sloppily smiling up at him. "Hey."
His eyes were wide with shock as he momentarily watched the shrieking and wounded people who pushed past them. Reggie grabbed her wrists from his neck, his mouth tightening. "Snap out of it, Tess. Your craft manifesting is the only reason you're feeling this way."
She cocked her head to the side, affronted. "You saying you don't wanna' hook up with me?" Theresa closed the distance between them, and brushed her lips against his, "what do you say, Reginald? We'd make a good team, wouldn't we?"
Reggie's form stiffened and with great reluctance, he pushed her away. "Look, if you weren't going through a side-effect from the magic—then I'd be all in. You can trust me on that one." The way he was more aware than Theresa at the moment was almost laughable, "but you're not yourself. You need to wake up."
Theresa scoffed darkly, the foreign and sinister feeling within her expanding. "Does it look like I'm sleeping, dipshit? You should probably come up with better excuses." Her lip curled and her eyes were bright with power, "You don't seem like much of a good fuck, anyway."
Reggie's severe expression didn't really change. Instead, he said with a guttural and a strange inflection into his voice, "Wake up."
At the sound of his clear and unyielding voice, that powerful and vicious intensity had subsided, leaving only shame and confusion in its midst. It took a second for her to gather her bearings and realize what had just occurred. And once she did, she scurried away from him, eyes wide with fright and shock. "Reginald, what the hell is going on?"
He tiredly sighed, looking over the panicking people. "You're coming into your abilities."
Someone with a shard of glass imbedded into their chest crashed past Theresa, screaming all the while. She stared at his retreating back, her jaw dropping. "What do you mean 'abilities'? Reggie, what the fuck did I do?" She yelled.
Reggie probably would've answered if it weren't for the railing above them sharply creaking, forcefully tugging into their direction. He stared at Theresa, astonished, as if he thought she was the perpetrator behind this strange…phenomenon. She herself took a couple of appalled steps back, once the bright red emergency lights flickered on.
Suddenly, this cramped space was all too much for her, and she fled away from her drug dealer, in search of her companions. She found her cousin throwing up in a vacant corner, somehow unharmed from the…phenomena, and grabbed her hand to pull her in tow to search for Leah. It was a lucky thing it didn't take much finding. There were still a few stragglers running out of the club, and almost immediately, she found her friend who was jogging in her direction with Santiago hot on her heels.
"What the fuck happened?" Leah asked over the commotion.
"It's time to go," Theresa said, ignoring Santiago's look of unnerving suspicion.
Leah probably would've been a lot more inquisitive if it weren't for Rachel who belched and moaned. The Clearwater wrapped an arm around Rachel's waist, grabbing ahold of her limp arm with her free hand and Theresa did the same to her other side. With that, they all stumbled outside. When Theresa looked back, she saw that Reggie had taken to Santiago's side, and both pairs of eyes bore into her. She didn't really take in the brevity of the situation until she'd saw the terror on the fleeing crowd's faces, saw real blood on her classmate—Xavier—dripping down his face as he was hauled out of the building with his other injured friends.
As they were outside, Rachel started muttering swears under her breath. "…sketchy ass club…knew I shouldn't have gone out."
But Theresa wasn't listening. All she could really focus on was that foreign sensation that never really left her body. She was still cold, but not from the weather. The feeling only persisted when they finally arrived at Lionel's apartment. Leah kept on probing her with concerned questions, but she found that she couldn't really answer her, because she didn't even know the answer. Her friend eventually just gave up but kept shooting worried looks which persisted even after she washed up.
She'd done that. Someway or somehow Theresa had caused those lights to explode, had hurt people. This had to be some sort of a cosmic joke. Theresa didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
After making sure everything was in order for Leah and Rachel, who both had immediately collapsed forward on her bed after the tiring night, she went on the landline and dialed for her father, knowing full well couldn't withhold this information from him any longer.
Lionel answered on the seventh ring. "Hello? Theresa?"
"Yeah, Dad, it's me. We need to talk."
"What's up? And please make this short, Theresa, I need to get back to my patient."
Before the rushing of the words even left her mouth, the cooling sensation came back at full force, and the feeling of water rushing from underneath her almost immediately overwhelmed her.
But none of those feelings compared to seeing her sister, in live time.
There, stood in the living room, a willowy figure clad in a flowy light pink dress. Her long mane of chestnut brown hair looked as fluffy as it had been five years ago, and her ochre skin seemed radiant, her rosy cheeks indicating that she wasn't dead, not really. Her lips which were a dark pink, quirked up into a rueful smile and her eyes, similar in color Theresa's, were sparkling and gray.
She looked like as she'd been, five years ago. No matter how much time had passed, she would always recognize Irene Kincaid, as unreal as this was.
Everything and everyone fell away. Only two sisters remained. One of them dead. One of them alive.
Bile rose from her stomach, seeping into her mouth and threatening to spill over into the floor. She wanted to stand and run out, but found that her knees weren't going to cooperate any time soon. The thundering beating of her heart was the only thing she could hear. That, and a shrill ringing sound that was rankling her ears and it only seemed to get louder the more she watched her sister just stand there. Irene made no move, just stood with her lovely smile and voluminous hair and tilted her head, seeming somehow reproachful.
A twisted conglomeration horror and pain and elation crashed into Theresa, who in turn became so overwhelmed, that she started to retch right where she was standing.
Irene blinked, somewhat concerned. It was such a human-like action that it snapped Theresa out of her vomit-induced trance. She finally registered Lionel calling her name and she straightened, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and locking her eyes on to Irene's wavering figure.
"Theresa, what the hell is going on?" Her father was frantically asking, alarm lacing through his tone.
"Nothing," her voice sounded hollow to her own ears, "I got lightheaded and I threw up, sorry."
Lionel let out a weary sigh. "You feeling alright? You haven't been drinking, have you?"
Theresa didn't even blink, because she didn't want this to just be a substance induced hallucination. Irene was real. She was right before her very eyes. And Theresa would be damned if she let herself think that this was a figment of her imagination. "…yeah."
"When I get back to the states, you and I are going to have a long talk, God help us all," Lionel went on his spiel, his tone chastising,"you may think that you know what the deal is, because you're turning seventeen, but things like this can trigger a number of responses in your brain. Engaging in such dangerous behaviors can have long term consequences, Reese. I didn't think I needed to be the one to tell you this. Now, what was it that you wanted to talk about?"
"Just that…" Irene raised her eyebrows at Theresa and the next words out of her mouth surprised even her, "that I've brought some friends over. And that they're spending the night."
"That's all?" Lionel said disbelievingly, "Your mother already filled me in. I'm not sure what's so urgent about that—but just make sure you get back to the reservation before Monday. Jen just sent your transcripts and you could do with some improvements in calculus."
"Yeah, will do."
Once she hung up on her father, she imploringly stared at Irene. Her sister in turn, smirked at her. "I always knew you were Dad's favorite."
Irene's voice brought forth memories of her childhood. It was the same, yet not. It was still raspy and soft, but now it was more like coffee, with a just a tinge of bitterness.
"What's going on?"
"I'm not alive or anything," Irene rushed to clear the air, never one to beat around the bush, just as it was five years ago, "I'm a spirit, Reese's. You may be wondering why exactly this is happening. How you can see me."
The nickname made her slump against the wall and she couldn't help her tears. "I think I may have an idea."
"It's as simple as this: you're a witch. And you won't live to see past eighteen."
