Chapter 55

Rowena

“Well, well. Looks like your fifteen minutes of fame is finally coming to an end.”

Heather’s shrill voice sounded even more grating on my ears than normal. I turned, still holding the cool metal of the water bottle to my neck, to see her standing behind me. She was dressed in her cheerleading uniform as usual, her blonde hair pulled up into a high ponytail. From where she stood over me, she looked almost giant.

“What do you want, Heather?” I asked, not caring to hide the disdain in my voice for once. “If you’re here for another confrontation, I’m not interested. I just want to be left alone.”

Heather scoffed and stormed over to me. She came to sit beside me, clearly not paying any mind to my earlier request for personal space as our shoulders brushed against one another.

“I heard about your little date with Adrian on Friday night, you know.”

“I’m sure you did hear all about it. Is that important to bring up right now?”

Heather glared at me for a few long moments before she responded, checking her nails in a pointedly nonchalant way. “Of course it’s important. I warned you that he was going to break your poor little heart, and you went out with him anyway.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but then closed it again. No, it was pointless. She was just trying to rile me up, to make me react negatively. For all I knew, her little friends were probably recording this entire conversation to post online.

“Just leave me alone, Heather.”

But of course she didn’t do that. She just leaned closer, those cold gray eyes of hers dripping with a malice that made me shiver—or maybe it was the strange fever I had contracted that was giving me the chills.

“I know you’re hurting,” she said. “Getting your heart broken is no laughing matter. But—and I’m saying this with the utmost sincerity—I did warn you.”

“Sure, Heather,” I responded. “You did warn me, and I didn’t listen. Are you happy now?”

Heather’s thin lips curled up into the tiniest smirk at my words. It was clear that she was enjoying this—enjoying my agony. “I’m getting happier by the moment,” she declared. “But I’m afraid your name is still on the ballot. And we can’t have that.”

“You still think I’m going to pull out of the race after this?” I couldn’t help but scoff at the absurdity of it all. “I’m not letting you bully me out of the championship, Heather. You can throw all of the tantrums and have your daddy hire all of the renowned physicians you want. The truth of the matter is, I worked for this. And even if what you said about Adrian is true and connected to this at all, I’d never let my feelings over some guy get in the way of my dreams.”

For a few moments, Heather just stared at me. I could see the surprise flicker through her features, but it was so short-lived that by the time it was gone, I was left wondering if I had ever seen it at all.

Finally, she stood and walked down a couple stairs, turning to face me with her hands on her hips again.

“If you thought it hurt when Adrian stood you up, I can make it so, so much worse,” she growled, her voice so low that even I could barely hear her.

“I’m fine, Heather. It didn’t affect me as much as you seem to think it did.” I stood, clenching my fist; I just wanted to get out of here.

But as I did so, I felt my vision begin to darken again. I wavered in my spot, my hand instinctively wrapping around the railing to steady myself. Breathing in through my nose, I rotated the cool water bottle and pressed a new spot to the back of my neck to help ground myself again.

Heather’s smirk slowly turned into a grin. “Oh, it didn’t affect you that much, did it?” she teased, taking a step closer. “Is that why you were talking to yourself in the library, doodling in class, and now stumbling all over the place? What are you, high?”

“I’m not high,” I said through grit teeth. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Mhm, sure,” she retorted. “So I suppose you’ll be able to dodge this.”

With a swift movement, Heather lunged forward and smacked the water bottle out of my hand before I had the chance to react. The water bottle went flying, landing on the steps with another loud metallic clang before it proceeded to roll down the stairs, one-by-one, until it reached the bottom.

“What was that for?” I hissed, taking a step down to go and retrieve it.”

Heather shrugged and stepped in my way before I could get past her, her slender shoulder bumping into me again. “I’m just proving my point,” she said. “You don’t seem ‘fine’. Maybe I should tell the dean that you’re taking drugs on campus. We’ll see then if you make it to the championship; or if you graduate at all.”

“You’re full of it.”

“Oh, but I’m not,” Heather said, tilting her head to the side so that her blonde ponytail fell over her shoulder. “I mean, it was really so easy to convince Adrian to stand you up; all it took was a little foreplay in the utility closet that you call your ‘office’, and he was all mine. The dean has always looked at me in a lustful way, so…”

I felt my chest clench at her poisonous words. “You and Adrian… in my office?” I hissed. I didn’t want to believe it, but at this point, I didn’t even know what was real and what was fake anymore.

Heather chuckled. “Of course. He was so into me, too; always mentioning how he couldn’t wait to get away from you, the wolfless nerd who’ll never amount to anything. Hell, when he slipped himself inside of me right on your desk—”

“Go fuck yourself.”

With a growl rumbling in the back of my throat and a profound sense of rage taking over my sense of self control, I did what I never thought I would do; I lunged at Heather with my hands outstretched, reaching for her throat.

But I was slow and clumsy—or maybe my higher senses realized what I was about to do and made me fail. Either way, before I could reach Heather, she lithely stepped out of the way.

The next thing I knew, the world was tilting and whirling around me as I tumbled down the stairs. Heather’s shocked face burned itself into my memory, followed by her beautifully white sneakers turning and running away.

Then, before I reached the bottom, I felt a sharp, searing pain in the back of my head. I felt a familiar name on my lips: “Eric…”

And then there was darkness… or at least, that’s all there was at first. But it wasn’t long before snippets of images flitted through my unconscious mind, filling the void. I saw white snow dotted with crimson blood, I heard the sound of arrows whizzing past and men shouting.

But most importantly, above all else, I saw a little boy’s face. He had blue eyes and bright blond hair, and blood dripping from a wound on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry… I’ve got you…”