Blue Sacrifice (Blue Davison) (13 page)

When Abby began to speak, Lacey swung her backpack
menacingly at her teacher.

“I will tear you apart, Abby. I don’t care who you
are and what relationship you had with her mom. You stood by and let Rhiannon
die, but I won’t do that with Blue.”

Lacey pulled me towards the door, but Abby wasn’t
finished.

“Mrs. Felix is in jail after she hit her neighbor
with a car. They were having an argument about a damn tree and she went nuts because
of the town. She’s a good woman, but this town destroyed her life. Not just the
town, but Blue for being too weak to do her job.”

Lacey flipped off Abby then pulled me into the
hall and slammed the door.

“Screw the bitch.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I know, but you’re shaking,” I said, hugging her
and trying to settle her temper.

“She’s so selfish to tell you to die. You think if
she could save the town by dying that Abby would just kill herself? No way.”

Taking Lacey’s face in my hands, I smiled. “You
threatened a teacher. Look at how badass you are.”

Lacey grudgingly smiled and tossed her dark hair
over her shoulder. “I am the biggest badass in Lily Falls, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I am not sitting in class with that evil bitch,”
Lacey spat as the first bell rang. “I’ll hang in my car.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Cool. You can tell me about how disappointing the
sex was with Flynn. Feel free to weep at how quickly he finished.”

“Har har.”

Lacey and I pushed past the crowds and walked back
to the parking lot where most of the trouble had settled down once the police
arrived. We were almost to Lacey’s car when Flynn appeared.

“You can start crying now,” Lacey said to me.

Grinning at her, I waited for Flynn to push past
the still grumpy factions who were now mostly whining, rather than throwing
punches. Arriving in front of me, he locked his lips on mine then essentially
dry humped me while Lacey rolled her eyes so hard she likely hurt herself.

“What are we up to?” he asked once his lips were
available for speaking.

“None of your beeswax, outsider,” Lacey said,
opening her car door for me. “Go to class like a good boy.”

Flynn frowned then looked to me. “Are you coming
back?”

“We’re just hanging out here for a while, but
we’ll see you at lunch.”

“I’ll hang with you. Anything is better than the
dull crap they call education here.”

“First of all, Lily Falls has good schools, fool,”
Lacey said, snapping her fingers in his face. “Second of all, we don’t want the
company. Third of all, Blue told me all about how disappointing you were in bed
and all I can say is for shame.”

Flynn laughed. “Now I know you’re teasing because
no way did my girl complain.”

“Stop calling her yours. She’s mine and maybe my
brother’s. At the very least, she’s mine.”

Laughing at her alpha moves, I tugged Lacey’s hair
then kissed Flynn goodbye. “We need girl time. I’ll see you at lunch.”

Reluctantly Flynn told me goodbye after another
breath stealing kiss. I watched him go and smiled at the many delicious
memories of our weekend together.

Lacey wasn’t interested in any of the details about
my naked time with Flynn which was weird. She usually loved the smutty parts,
but this time she just acted like I was lying to protect Flynn’s precious
feelings. Even after we drove to the donut shop and filled ourselves with jelly
stuffed monstrosities, Lacey couldn’t get on board with Flynn being anything
more than a loser.

Lunch was awkward. Whenever Flynn and I would kiss
or even smile at each other, Lacey would clear her throat and fake like she was
phlegmy. Back and forth, I moved around the lunch table. At Lacey’s side, I goofed
around with her. Then I was back at Flynn’s side, giggling while he slyly felt
me up. All of the moving around gave me indigestion, but I gave them both solid
doses of attention. Of course I suspected Lacey wouldn’t be nearly as cranky if
the town wasn’t cranky.

After school as I rode home, I was nearly run over
by a woman who then slammed on her breaks, got out of her car, flipped me off,
then sped away like almost killing me had made her late. Leaning with my bike,
I let my heart stop pounding as I realized how close I came to being roadkill.
Since I was old enough to ride my bike, I had traveled these roads safely. Not
even the summer of Assad’s mass murder had the town felt so dangerous.

Upon entering my house, I heard gunshots and
instinctively hit the ground. The cats lay nearby, barely glancing at me as I
crawled towards the front windows.

Peering outside, I saw nothing, yet more shots
echoed from maybe a block over. Remaining on the ground, I waited for police
sirens and soon I could hear nothing else. Even if the danger was over, I still
crawled to my room where my mother waited with the disemboweled twins.

“I think that man’s dead wife wishes you had killed
yourself already. I know I do.”

Usually my mother merely tormented me with reenactments
of her death. The demons were also good about showing me the multiple ways the
human body could be torn apart. Yet never before had my mother been so hostile.

“There’s a sharp knife in the kitchen. You should
take it and save the next wife who doesn’t have her husband’s dinner ready in
time. Or will you let her die too?”

“I can’t cut myself.”

“Won’t is what the coward means,” Mom said to one
of the twins who flipped me off.

“I can’t look at the blood.”

“Won’t again.”

“I don’t want to die.”

My mother opened her mouth and the sound erupting
from within wasn’t human and the power of it sent me to my knees. As if every
person who ever died in Lily Falls screamed as one, the sound shook the house
and my body until the pain in my head caused me to black out.

When I awoke on the floor, the sun was gone and my
mother stood over me.

“The knife is in the kitchen. Finish this and I’ll
let you hug me when you die. Don’t do it now and you won’t like how mad Mommy
can get.”

Kneeling down before me, my mother looked her most
beautiful and I felt hot tears in my eyes. I missed her so much and I wanted to
hold her, but she wouldn’t let me. She wanted me to die. Abby did too. Maybe a part
of Lacey did too because she had to worry about her family. A lot of people
resented the power and money the Zandis wielded. Out of all those angry people
in Lily Falls, some of them were bound to have their targets set on the Zandi
family.

“I’m not sure I can cut myself,” I told her as I
stood up.

“My little girl,” she said with a soft smile. “Why
do you want me to punish you?”

“Did they torture you before you died too? I thought
the sacrifice had to be our choice.”

“It is your choice, but you’re making the wrong
one. Now be a good girl and go into the kitchen.”

Following me to the knives, my mother hummed a
song she often shared with me when I was scared. I took the knife she pointed
out then walked to the bathroom. She continued to hum until I was sitting in
the bathtub with the blade.

Running her cold hands down my hair, she smiled
like an angel. “You’re a good girl and I will let you hug me when you’re cold.”

Then she was gone. Left alone in the bathtub, I
stared at the knife then took about a million deep breaths to calm myself.
Placing the blade over my wrist, I planned to keep my eyes on everything except
the blood. People were hurting and the town was edging closer to chaos and I
couldn’t let a little blood stop me from doing what I was created to do.

The first two attempts I didn’t cut deep enough to
draw blood. The third time blood quickly bubbled past the pink line, down my
arm, and into my lap.

I told myself I wouldn’t look. I refused to think
about my mom dying this exact way and how much I had wanted to save her. Mostly
I would not let myself think about how long it took Mom to bleed out.

My mom wasn’t around now. None of the demons were
and the silence was deafening after a day long scream-a-thon. Tired, I refused
to think of Flynn, Lacey, Tyson, or anyone else missing me. I just imagined
them all living long happy lives.

A transformer exploded somewhere startling me out
of my happy thoughts. I knew it was a transformer only because the lights in
the house flickered before going dark. The darkness was all it took to break
the spell of my confidence. Terrified now, I wrapped my arm in a towel and
tried to stop the bleeding. The minute I did the voices surged forward,
screaming at me for being a coward.

Running back into my bedroom, I crawled under the
covers and waited for something to happen. Either for the world to end or for me
to die. Instead the demons used me and the bed as a trampoline until the lights
returned an hour later.

By then the bleeding had lessoned, after soaking
through the towel. I found gauze in the First Aid kit in the kitchen and
wrapped my wrist tightly. Grabbing my phone, I dialed Lacey who answered
quickly.

“We lost power,” I said like this explained why I
was still breathing.

“Yeah, we heard. Are you okay?” she asked,
sounding strange.

“I tried, but I… I need a ride to the hospital for
stitches.”

“Be there in ten.”

Thanking her, I hung up and returned to my room
where madness awaited me. The demons were in a rage at my inaction, but I
walked past the horrors they showed me and found clothes. Once bundled up, I
returned to the living room where the cats and my mother waited for me.

“The clock was so loud the night the darkness
awoke,” she said, staring at me from a chair in the corner. “Normally you can’t
hear the Main Street clock chime unless you’re a few blocks away, but that
night we heard it from our house. I remember holding you so tightly as I waited
for the world to end. It didn’t for you and me. Only for the twenty people Assad
murdered. Who do you think will die when you hear the clock chime?”

“The explosion was a sign,” I said, despite my
plan to ignore her.

“The explosion was a sign of the darkness
awakening. Do you think the man who drove his car into the electrical pole always
gets so drunk by eight at night? Oh no, he is a good man, driven to drink so he
can quiet the darkness.”

Thinking of the blood spilling from me, I frowned
darkly. “I’m not bleeding out like you did. I won’t die like that.”

“Coward,” she hissed, her normally blue eyes black
now. “I brought a sniffling little bitch into the world. I should have killed
you when I learned I was pregnant. Trust me I thought about it. I said I didn’t
want to create a child, knowing she would one day sacrifice herself. In reality,
I just didn’t want the burden of wasting my last years on a brat. If I had
killed you, I would have enjoyed the last part of my life instead of watching
you suck the joy out of me.” My mother jumped up from the chair and ran at me,
her cold breath on my face. “Death was a relief from being your mother!”

Crying, I refused to look at her. Staring outside,
I ignored all of the demons playing their games in the front lawn. I just
waited for Lacey who was alive and warm and still capable of love. Ignoring the
monsters, I didn’t regret not spending the next few hours bleeding out. Or
cutting my throat like the voices suggested I should so I might die more
quickly.

Lacey’s car screeched to a stop in front of the
house and I bolted from the house like I was being chased. My mother did follow,
laughing at my fear. Diving through the door Lacey opened for me, I slammed it
shut before my mother reached me.

“Just go,” I whimpered and Lacey hit the gas.

“Stay at my house tonight.”

“They follow me everywhere.”

“At least you won’t be alone.”

Still crying, I smiled at Lacey. “Thank you.”

“It’s my job. We’re BFFs, remember?”

Nodding gratefully, I soothed my tears and the
shaking. By the time we reached the hospital, I was nearly calm. Even though the
emergency room was full, Lacey used her last name to get us front of the line
status. Looking at the wound, the doctor showed no concern. I suspected many of
the people they saw lately were suicidal. When violence spiked in Lily Falls, some of it was self directed.

The doctor worked quickly and I wondered how much extra
Lacey paid to get us in and out so fast. We left less than thirty minutes after
arriving and were soon on our way to the Zandi mansion.

Unsure how Lacey’s dad Yousef would react to my
presence, I was suddenly nervous. Older male figures tended to make me anxious which
I assumed came from having no father of my own.

Entering the house through the extensive garage, I
followed Lacey who was in a sullen mood. I knew the back and forth was driving
her crazy and she might be hoping I would just die so the waiting game would be
over.