Chapter Thirty-Nine

Havermouth, Five Years Before

The school yard was empty when they arrived, all the students in class. Heath walked swiftly to the locker bays and shoved his bag inside, taking only the books that he needed out. He glanced at his watch. “I have to go,” he said to her. “I can’t afford to fall behind in this class. At recess…”

“I know,” she muttered, scuffing her shoe through the leaf debris blown up against the lockers. “Don’t be late.”

“Hmm,” he lifted her chin with his index finger. (Behave… Just fucking behave for once…) “Kiss me, Aislen.”

“Why?” She demanded rebelliously. “There’s no one around to see.”

His face tightened and his eyes hardened. (Why could she not see what she was doing to them?) “Of course,” he sneered. “That would be how you would see it. Kiss me because I tell you to kiss me, then.”

She stood on tiptoes and brushed her lips over his, sulkily, because she didn’t have the energy to argue further and the vehemence behind his thoughts made it clear that refusing would just result in an argument. His emotion cut through in a flash of pain, hunger, and anger, and she dragged in a breath, meeting his eyes.

“Heath…” She said softly and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his chest. For a moment he was stiff against her, and then he relaxed, his free arm closing around her and his face lowering into her hair. He breathed in… (Maybe it’s not hopeless…) “Thank you for picking me up.”

He sighed. “Don’t be late at recess. I have to…”

“Go, I know. Go,” she released him.

She stood and watched him so, confused and aching, and uncertain if the feelings were her own or his, lingering in her head. She opened her locker and groaned, leaning her forehead against the cool metal. They hadn't found her school bag at the park. Walking the green grass searching for it had brought flashes of memory from the day before. Had she, in her intoxication, made what happened something which it hadn’t been? She closed her eyes and tried to picture it in her head.

She could remember the feel of the grass beneath her face and palms, and before it, Heath’s enraged face as he’d entered the room to find… Guy. That had been his name. Guy. And Rhett and Cameron in the doorway… Then the underpass and Rhett fucking her against the wall…

“I don’t know,” she whispered to herself. “I don’t know. Maybe it was my fault. I was drunk and stoned. Maybe…” Like with Guy. Maybe she’d been a dick tease and then regretted it… Maybe she’d been thinking no, and not saying it? It was all so confused inside her head.

“Oh god, she’s so weird. Is she making out with her locker, now?” A girl sniggered to her friend as they walked by the lockers and Aislen jumped guiltily, realizing that she did look weird standing with her forehead against the locker.

“Damn it,” she mumbled to herself. Just what she needed, more rumours.

She decided that it was too late to go to class, so she headed to the bathroom, planning to hide out until the bell went. As she entered the bathroom, she could hear someone vomiting in one of the stalls. She paused, torn between the instinct to remain invisible and that to help.

“Are you… okay?” She asked hesitantly.

“Do I sound okay?” The other girl asked.

Aislen grimaced. Of course, it had been a stupid question. “Not really,” she admitted. “Perhaps I should have asked – is there anything that I can do to help? Get you some water, wet some paper towel, call a parent?”

“No,” the other girl sighed. “It will go away soon.”

“You do this on a regular basis?” Aislen was surprised.

“Recently, yes.”

The toilet flushed and a girl made her way out of the stall, leaning heavily on the bench around the neat line of sinks. She grabbed a handful of paper hand towel and wet it, wiping over her face before rinsing and spitting into the sink a few times. Aislen recognized her from her art class, and the party the night before. Guy’s girlfriend… maybe? They had kissed, she remembered… Or was that part of the vivid dream?

“Got a mint?” The girl asked.

Aislen shook her head.

“Fuck,” the girl went to the rack near the showers and began to dig through the bags hanging there. Aislen suspected none of the bags belonged to her. The girl discovered a packet of mints and put one in her mouth before pocketing the package. “Want to go for a smoke?” The girl asked.

“Okay,” Aislen replied automatically.

“Got any?” The girl asked.

“No.”

“Not a problem, I know someone who keeps a stash in their locker. Come on,” the girl gestured with a jerk of her head. “I don’t normally smoke,” she said, as they left the bathroom and wound their way towards the locker bays. “But I’m trying to shift something that’s insisting on sticking.”

“I’ve heard that people smoke to lose weight,” Aislen commented warily.

“Are you saying I’m fat?” The girl demanded, as she put in the coded lock and dug into the locker. “Aha,” she took four cigarettes from the pack, handing Aislen one and stuffing the other three into her bra. She closed the locker and locked it. “Let’s go.”

They crossed the school towards the creek that passed through the rear of the oval. It was a favourite spot for students to hide and smoke, or just hang out in more “dangerous and rebellious” territory as the teachers actively discouraged them from spending time there.

It was also Mr. Graynor’s favourite position for smoking weed before afternoon classes.

Aislen slowed as she saw that Guy was sitting on the bank. He looked up and smiled, his grin a quick, charming flash through the scraggly strands of his hair. “Hey, Lucy,” he said. “And it’s the Triquetra’s whore,” he added with a side of hostility, his smile dropping. “Are they going to come throw their weight around because you’re here?”

“They’re in class,” Aislen muttered, uncertainly lingering between them.

“Like the good boys that they are,” he snorted. “Fucking arseholes.”

Lucy sat next to him. “Well?” She demanded curtly as she lit her cigarette. “Are you staying or going?”

“Staying, I guess,” Aislen sighed and sat beside her.

“Here,” Lucy cupped her hands around Aislen’s as she lit her cigarette. Aislen clearly saw Rohan, one of the footballers, as he ground and grunted over her, and knew that Lucy was pregnant with Rohan’s baby, which was the cause of the vomiting, but also that Guy had promised to drive Lucy across the state for an abortion if the home methods that they had been trying for the last two weeks didn’t work…

In a sudden, chilling, image, Aislen saw Lucy, her face grey and lifeless, her eyes staring blankly, as a puddle of blood spread around her.

She choked on the cigarette, coughing out the rawness. “Don’t do it,” she said.

“What?” Lucy demanded.

“The thing, this weekend… Tomorrow… With the knitting needles. You will die.”

“Oh fuck,” Guy was on his feet. “Did you tell her?” He accused Lucy.

“No,” she shook her head. “No, I fucking didn’t. Did you?” She returned the accusation. “Whilst you were trying to fuck her last night, before those psychos tore the place up?”

“No. Fucking hell, it’s hardly the sort of conversation that you have…” He gestured wildly in his distress.

"How else does she fucking know?” Lucy demanded.

They both looked at her, and the bubbles popped, flooding Aislen with their wildly chaotic thoughts. Luckily, they were far enough from the other classrooms, that it was only the two of them and a few stray students scattered over the oval whose thoughts intruded, and Aislen was able to breathe through it. “A guess,” she said slowly and carefully. “You come across a girl vomiting in the bathroom, then you sort of fill in the blanks…”

It was a lie, but still…

They calmed, reassuring themselves that she didn’t know anything, and she was gradually able to restore the bubbles.

“You should be careful,” Lucy complained. “Who you say that shit too. You come off super weird, you know that don’t you?”

“I guess,” Aislen’s shoulders hunched inwards.

“You should stay away from the Triquetra, you know,” Guy added. “That whole crowd really. They’re… fucked up, majorly. The things they do. I know that they look, like, clean cut and respectable or whatever, but they’re hiding beneath that.”

“And what they are under that,” Lucy stubbed her first cigarette out into the dirt. “Are animals.”

Of course, they were animals, Aislen thought. They were werewolves, after all. But, in the shadows of that thought, she considered for the first time what that actually meant. What were the differences between werewolves and humans?

Could that be… Could that be why what the Triquetra did to her seemed so incomprehensibly cruel? She just didn’t understand their culture?

She rose to her feet, tucking the cigarette into her bra. Maybe she needed to do better, she thought. Maybe she needed to do what Heath had told her… and behave.

“Where are you going?” Lucy wondered.

“It’s almost recess,” Aislen said. “And I don’t want to be late.”