Escaping Fate

Memory: Part 1

I can’t believe this is happening,” I cried aloud as a low hanging branch scrapped across my face. I felt the sticky warmth of fresh blood trickle down my cheek from the abrasion left there by the branch’s thorny bark. I ran down the game trail, feebly attempting to avoid the rocks and fissures that marred the earth.

I glanced over my shoulder to see if I was still being pursued; the brief moment of distraction stripped my balance and sent me tumbling down a steep embankment. I sobbed as my fall was broken by a grove of closely planted cedar trees. My ankle throbbed and my chest burned with each ragged breath.

Hidden in the boughs of the evergreens I paused in my frantic race to catch my breath. I inhaled deeply, trying to slow the pounding of my heart.

How had this happened to me?

How had my perfectly average life turned into a horror movie?

I walked through the doors of Swain County high school half way through the first semester of my freshman year. My positive attitude and determination made me an instant hit among the teachers. Despite my shy and underwhelming personality my chestnut brown hair and emerald green eyes always caught the attention of other students, particularly the boys; that along with my natural athleticism quickly ascended my popularity.

By the time I walked through those same doors on the first day of my senior year I was captain of the varsity cheerleaders and valedictorian. Though, despite my popularity I hadn’t had a boyfriend and was only close to really four people, my best friends. I was perfectly content with my boring and uneventful life, but that all changed the day he walked into my first period English class and changed my life forever.

As the pain in my likely broken ankle grew stronger the edges of my vision began to fade into the abyss of memory filled unconsciousness.

** * **

“Cat!” The sound of my best friend’s voice sounded excitedly behind me. Madison LeFaigh was the picture of perkiness. She was the first person that spoke to me on my first day at my new school and we became fast friends. Her dark coffee bean brown eyes were a stark contrast against her fair skin and strawberry blonde hair.

When I first arrived at Swain County High School, she convinced me to join the cheerleading team and helped me navigate through the maze of halls to all my classes. She was a social butterfly and was bound and determined to use her uncanny social skills and blatant noisiness to become the country’s leading journalist and bring real news reporting back to the media.

Her expression as she giggled and clapped her hand down on my shoulder said it all, there was big news circling the rumor mill and she just had to tell someone. Her beaming smile that lit up her freckle dusted face paralyzed me as it always did. I never could bring myself to tell her that I really didn’t care about who was dating whom or who was flunking which class.

“Oh, m gee… Have you seen the new guy?”

Typical…

Madison was always up to date on the latest gossip and more than happy to share. I laughed at her enthusiasm. I just knew she was looking forward to trying her flirtatious charms on another unsuspecting victim, and teased her, “Is he ‘the one’”.

She pretended to sulk, crossing her arms and jutting out her bottom lip, “No,” she whined before taking on a note of seriousness, which was rare for her. “He’s a bit too…” she paused, “I don’t know, homicidal for my taste”.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, my curiosity peaked. Madison had a colorful way of describing just about every one. I blamed her love of classic mystery novels, but never had she used “homicidal” as an adjective, not even to describ the creepy janitor with the weird spider tattoo on his hand that everyone swore was in witness protection.

“You’ll see’” she sang and danced away to her desk which sat directly in front of mine.

As I took my seat her description became all too clear.

A tall, imposing boy walked into the classroom. His broad, masculine frame filled the doorway and gave the appearance that he was far more man than boy. Had it not been for the binder in his hand anyone would have assumed he was a substitute teacher.

His hair was the color of onyx and was cut into jagged layers that fell into his eyes and framed his angular jaw, the back grazing the collar of his shirt. Black designs were inked into his skin, trailing up from both wrists to disappear beneath the fabric of his bicep hugging tee. Cobalt blue athletic fabric was stretched over his toned chest and abdomen like a second skin accentuating the rippling valley of solid muscle. Acid washed jeans hugged his hips and were held in place by a chainmail belt. His beauty was almost angelic, yet an aura of darkness surrounded him like a shroud.

“If he’s an angel, he's the one that fell,” I thought to myself as my eyes locked with his.

They were a deep grey like I had never seen before. Anger swirled within them like a category five hurricane. Streaks of blue cut through the grey like lightning. It was like staring into the eyes of a predator.

I surveyed the room and to my horror realized that the only empty seat was next to me. He hovered awkwardly by the teacher’s desk as if the idea of sitting next to me was just as traumatizing to him as it was to me. For a moment I felt offended but then I remembered my utter lack of control of my facial expressions when I was deep in thought. There was no telling the looks I was giving him as I surveyed his physique. He raised a dark brow and I realized I was still staring at him. My face flushed with embarrassment and I quickly looked at the book I had already finished reading the night before.

The ever flamboyant Mr. Parkins sashayed to his desk with daintiness. His lavender blouse neatly tucked into white dress pants, his salt and pepper ponytail bouncing at the nape of his neck. He gave the new student a cautious glance, “Oh,” he mused, “we have a new student to welcome to our class,” as he took the schedule the new kid held in his calloused hand.

“Scorpio Volkov,” he read aloud, peering over his wide frame hipster glasses and taking inventory of the solitary desk that sat unoccupied.

Mr. Parkins smiled gleefully, “well lucky you. You’ll be sitting next to the class of 2016's valedictorian. You’ve missed the first six chapters of this semester’s novel but I’m sure kitty Cat will be happy to get you caught up. After all this novel is forty percent of your final semester grade.”

I cringed at the casual use of the childish nickname he had adorned me with. Mr. Parkins was a bubbly, very outed man that loved the subject he taught and took literature very seriously. Personality wise he was childish and playful at the best of times and you could always tell when he was fond of you. Every one of his favorite students had a nickname. Mine was a name that was far too easy, Catalina. My freshman year my classmates quickly took to calling me Cat, so it was no surprise when Mr. Parkins began calling me “kitty Cat”, though it was still embarrassing.

A smirk teased at the corner of Scorpio’s mouth but even the slightest hint of amusement was tinged with ferocity. The predatory fluidity of each step as he sauntered to the desk adjacent mine reminded me of a jaguar stalking its prey. The grace behind even the slightest of movement didn’t match his size or appearance. Embarrassed over being caught staring at him, I continued to pretend to read my book. He sat down beside me without a word.

“Kitty-Cat be a dear and share your book with our new student while we do our reading and review.” Mr. Parkins grinned and turned to the white board, writing the chapters we were supposed to read and the review questions.

As soon as the words left Mr. Parkins mouth my desk was jerked to the right with frightening ease. I looked up from the book I was pretending to read at the person that had moved me so easily. His face was void of emotion; his expression blank. He simply looked at the book I held in my hand.

“Do you always reread books from the middle,” his voice was monotone and deep, like rolling thunder. His accent was thick, yet he enunciated his words so clearly, they were understandable. It was as if he had once had speech training. “How do you know I’m rereading it?” I asked as I pulled out the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, that we were supposed to be reading for class and placed it in the middle of our now conjoined desks.

“People don’t normally store their markers in the back of their book” he purred slipping my Spellbound gold tassel bookmark from the final page of the romantic novel I had borrowed from the library.

It was awkward reading with him. I found myself so distracted that I could barely pay attention to the words on the page. I was surprised at the speed at which he read and found him relaxing with his head in his hand waiting on me to finish more than once.

It appeared that he took the spare moments to study me, as if I was some undiscovered creature that he was seeing for the first time. I had to repeatedly reread sentences and whole paragraphs. Never had I been so distracted. I actually liked this book; had I not wanted to be bored during class I would have already finished it at home and yet sitting next to him it was like learning how to read all over again.

We had just started the last assigned chapter and as I reread yet another paragraph and tried with futile effort to clear the fog from my mind, I heard Scorpio sigh. I was about to turn the page when his hot breath shifted the loose strands of my hair that had fallen free of my ponytail.

“Am I distracting you,” his rumbling, whispered voice reverberated in my ear with the faint echo of an accent I had only heard in movies. Russian, I believe, which would fit his last name. I attempted to turn my head to look at him but the slight movement I was able to make caused my cheek to brush against his full lips. I froze and felt him smile against my skin.

The candor of his voice was all I needed in order to imagine the look in his eyes. I pictured a house cat playing with a mouse that was lucky enough to wandered into the wrong kitchen.

I wanted to lie. I wanted to put a hole in his ego and not give him the satisfaction of knowing his presence clouded my mind. There was something about him, about his voice. He radiated intimidation and masculinity. I couldn’t lie.

“Yes,” my voice came out as an almost inaudible squeak.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t show any kind of emotion, he simply leaned back against the corner of his desk and began to answer all twenty of the review questions that were written on the board. He answered even questions that hadn’t yet been covered in what we had read. I looked at him in confusion and he smirked, “should I have mentioned I already read this book?”

** * **

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