Ageless (2 page)

“I don’t know who that is,” Violet
said. She felt her hackles rise. Margo had a knack for being able
to get any guy she wanted, and for some reason Violet was seized by
the idea that Margo would snag this guy out from under Violet’s
nose. It was stupid and irrational, especially since she had just
exchanged a few words with him. But deep down inside, she knew she
was hoping she’d bump into him again.

Just then she heard a car honking
outside, and that seemed to pull Margo out of her trance. She
pulled her gaze away from the man and focused on Violet. “Mike’s
annoyed. C’mon. Let’s get out of here, but you are going to tell me
everything about that guy when we’re alone.”

Violet wondered for the thousandth
time why she had let Margo talk her into trekking over to Mike’s
house as she listened to the drunken party going on in the other
room. Violet had attempted to close herself away in the dining room
down the hall with her laptop and books, but every few minutes
someone would wander into the room to try to coerce her to come out
and party with them.

Violet generally liked all of
Margo’s other friends, even though she never completely felt at
ease around them. As she looked at all the family photos on the
walls around the expansive room where she had sequestered herself,
she felt a familiar longing and wished that she had come from the
same loving background that Mike likely took for
granted.

She felt petty for thinking that
way; her grandparents had given her nothing but the best since her
parents’ death, including paying for Bayerfield’s not insignificant
tuition. She didn’t understand why they had been so insistent; she
had attended public school when her parents were alive, but they
had insisted on private preparatory high schools.

Each year, though, they expressed
some displeasure with the curriculum, which meant Bayersfield was
Violet’s fourth high school in four years. Each one took her
further and further away from where her grandparents lived. She
wondered if that was intentional. She had never been close to them.
They were her father’s parents and she got the sense that something
had happened a long time ago between them and her father that she
was still paying for. But with no other living relatives, she
didn’t have any choice in the matter.

She sighed. Longing for what she
couldn’t have and what she couldn’t change wasn’t going to get her
term paper done. She leaned back over the book that she had
acquired from the library, and it reminded her of the man that she
literally ran into. He was mysterious and strange, and it was
driving her crazy that she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She
wondered what had brought him to the library when he was clearly
older than the student population. Maybe he was visiting a friend
on campus. She felt a knot in her stomach, wondering if that friend
could be female. She didn’t know anything about him, not even his
name, and she kicked herself for being so pathetic that a
thirty-second exchange had turned her into such a mess.

Shaking those thoughts from her
head, she studied the text again. The mystery man had been right in
one respect. Not many students would think to finish their high
school career writing a paper on the legends and folklore
surrounding the fountain of youth. But it was something that Violet
had become obsessed with a year ago when an irrational idea had
taken hold inside of her that if someone could stay young forever,
then they essentially found the ticket to immortality. There
wouldn’t be any more having to grieve for the loss of loved ones.
You would have all the time in the world to enjoy life and all of
its pleasures. There would be no more fear and depression and
stress around time. It was a utopian life that Violet found a piece
of her craved.

She knew that on the cusp of her
eighteenth birthday, she hardly should be worrying about things
like mortality, but that all had come to a screeching halt that day
four years ago when she lost her parents. Violet was spending the
weekend at a friend’s beach house, and her parents took the
opportunity to get away for a weekend by themselves. They were
coming home late, and the police said that they thought her father
fell asleep at the wheel. After drifting into the path of an
oncoming semi, they hadn’t stood a chance. Her parents were in
their mid-thirties; everyone said it was tragic that they died in
the prime of their lives. Violet learned that day that no matter
how old you are, life is still a cruel taskmaster. She couldn’t
count on living forever. No one could.

At that moment, Margo stumbled into
the room and pulled up a chair across from Violet. She had two red
plastic cups in her hand and she shoved one of them across the
table at Violet. “Here. At least have a little bit of fun.” Her
tone was peevish and grated on Violet’s nerves.

“Margo, I told you I needed to get
this done...” Violet started.

Margo’s hands came up and she waved
the rest of Violet’s words away. “You are forcing me to bring the
party to you. So drink up.” She raised her glass in the air and
brought it halfway across the table.

Hoping to appease her and get her
to leave, Violet reluctantly took the glass and raised it to meet
Margo’s. Then Margo brought the cup back down to her lips and
waited. Violet rolled my eyes and took a sip. The taste was bitter
and when she swallowed it she felt a warm flush immediately run
down the back of her throat. “What the hell is in it?” she choked.
Margo usually opted for fruity drinks with little
parasols.

Margo smiled slyly. “A new recipe
that Tesla whipped up. You like?” Tesla was Mike’s older sister,
and from what Violet had been able to gather, the supplier of the
party’s alcohol.

Violet took one more small sip and
then put the glass down. With the alcohol content in it, she knew
she’d be all caught up to Margo and crew by finishing it.
“It’s...different,” she said. “I honestly don’t have that much more
left, Margo. If you guys can give me just one hour of peace and
quiet, I promise I’m all yours.”

“So what was up with that guy at
the library?” Margo said, changing the subject.

Violet cringed. She had hoped that
Margo had forgotten about him. “He was just some guy that was
looking at the book I needed.” Violet pointed at the book in a lame
attempt to remind Margo what she was trying to do. It didn’t
work.

“So did you at least get his
name?”

“Lest you forgot, I had a raging
banshee waiting downstairs for me. So I grabbed the book and ran,”
Violet said.

Margo grinned. “Well all’s you had
to do was text me that there was a hottie in the stacks and I would
have given you an extra minute or two to get acquainted. It’s about
time you got yourself a boyfriend.”

There was the rub. Violet had been
expecting it sooner or later. Over the course of her high school
career, she had gone on a few random dates here and there. Over the
last six months the only ones she’d been on had been fix-ups by
Margo. None went beyond the first date because Violet hadn’t found
any of the guys interesting enough to want to see again. Margo
finally gave up, saying she was starting to feel sorry for the poor
schleps that she put in Violet’s way.

“I don’t need a boyfriend,” Violet
said, crossing her arms. “The guys around here aren’t interested in
the same things as I am.”

“Snore-worthy reading material and
late-night Saturday rendezvous in the library?” Margo
winked

“Thanks, Margo,” Violet said with a
huff. The words, although true, still hit a nerve. It wasn’t that
Violet didn’t want to be a normal teenager; it was just that her
normal didn’t seem to jive with everybody else’s idea of normal.
She didn’t think that was necessarily her fault.

Margo pointed at the cup next to
Violet’s laptop. “It won’t kill you to have a little fun and let
loose just a teensy tiny bit, Vi. You are too young to be acting so
damn old. You have the rest of your life to be serious. Trust me on
that one.” With that, she pushed up from the table and left the
room.

Her final words hung in the air.
Violet knew that Margo was right. Her singular focus on academics
and grades meant that she sacrificed a lot of other things, which
included hanging around other people her age. But Violet felt
uncomfortable in most of those regular teenager type situations,
which complicated a lot of things. She eyed the cup again and then
took another swallow. It burned going down, but she was feeling the
warm flush starting to radiate from her core.

She pulled the book closer and was
surprised to see the words floating, going in and out of focus.
“The hell?” she said out loud. The drink hadn’t been
that
strong. Then she
felt her head start to spin.

It didn’t occur to her until that
moment that there might be something else in the drink besides just
the alcohol. “Margo?” she tried to call out, but the name came out
as nothing more than a croak.

She tried to stand but her legs
felt like they were jelly. Then she heard noises coming from the
other room. Shrieks of laughter had given way to screams of pain.
It sounded like she may not be the only one in distress. As her
legs gave out and she slid to the floor, Violet couldn’t help but
wonder if her time left to enjoy a normal teenage life was
over.

Violet never fully lost
consciousness. She almost wished she had as she listened to the
screams continue for what seemed like hours. Even though they were
coming from the den, Violet felt like she was in the same room with
the others. The shrieks bounced off of the walls and invaded her
ears like shards of glass. She couldn’t move. Whatever drug she
consumed made it so that she could barely think. The only thing she
knew for certain was that something very bad was happening to them;
something that would probably happen to her as soon as she was
discovered.

The wails of pain abruptly stopped
and the absence of sound was almost more unsettling. Violet’s mind
slid in and out between phases of clarity and fuzziness. Her
paralysis lifted several minutes later. Although her limbs were
back within her control, her ability to think was still clouded and
fear shot through her. Was whatever happened to the others going to
happen to her now?

Violet didn’t move, but strained
her ears to see if she could determine if she was alone. There was
no sound that indicated anything was amiss, but she thought for
sure that there were intruders in the house. Whoever the silent
predator or predators were, though, they weren’t letting their
presence be known. She didn’t know what to do. She tried to think
where her cell phone was, but that part of her memory was eluding
her. She rarely used it, so there was a good chance that she hadn’t
even thrown it in her bag when she left the dorm.

A whimper escaped her lips and she
bit her bottom one to keep it from turning into a full-blown
scream. She didn’t think she had ever been so scared in her life.
After several moments with no one entering the room, she decided
that she had to move. Continuing to lie there on the dining room
floor would surely ensure that she was a sitting duck for whoever
was in the house. Violet had watched too many horror movies to
naively think that she would be lucky enough to escape whatever
fate had befallen the others.

She wondered if there was any
chance that Margo was unharmed. Although their friendship had been
brief, Margo had wormed her way into Violet's heart. Tears appeared
in the corners of Violet’s eyes as she thought of the screams and
shrieks of pain that still rang in her ears. Maybe Margo had gone
to the bathroom after she left Violet. Maybe she was hiding
somewhere in the house now like Violet was, waiting to make her
escape. Violet could only hope so.

She managed to get to her feet
using the chair to steady herself. Once fully upright, she realized
that she was still well under the effects of whatever her drink had
been spiked with, but her body was at least functional. She felt
drunk and slow. Her eyes swam in and out of focus. Still, she
reached into her bag and felt around for something helpful. Her
search didn’t find her phone, but she did come across a small can
of pepper spray that she had forgotten was there. It had been a
handout from a safety session at the school a few months ago. At
the time she had thought it was silly, but now she was grateful to
have something, anything, to defend herself.

Violet didn’t want to do what she
knew she needed to do next. She still couldn’t hear any movements
at all from the hallway or the room down the hall. No one had
presented themselves in the doorway to the dining room. As far as
she could tell, she was alone. As her mind went fuzzy again, Violet
cursed herself for being a coward. It was very possible someone
needed help, and she was standing like a gutless statue trying to
decide what to do. She had to find a phone. She had to get
help.

Her first step toward the door was
wobbly, but then her legs seemed to remember what they were
supposed to do; moments later her back was against the wall next to
the door. She tried to plan a strategy. She couldn’t just waltz
into the hallway without checking it first. As she congratulated
herself for not wetting herself in fear, her teeth started to
chatter. It wasn’t from the cold. She clenched her jaw to keep it
still, and then slowly moved her head to look into the
hallway.