Elysium's Love Triangle (15 page)

This is the kind of news that would definitely bring on her ‘anxiety’.

That is the last thing
I want.

Another thing I don’t want is for her to be disappointed in me.

“Please don’t call her,” I say.  “I promise I’ll work harder.”

Th
e Principal
is ignoring me.  He picks up the phone.

I realise that I will have to sink very low right now.

I am ashamed of myself before I even begin my charade.

Completely fake tears emerge from my eyes, “You can’t suspend me.  I love it here!”

“Now, Katy, we’ll have none of that,” he says while dialling the number.  “Compose yourself.”

I can’t believe it.

The tears didn’t work.

I am going to have to sink even lower.

“I’m sorry, I’m just so upset . . . You see I was so looking forward to trying out for the cheerleading te
am tomorrow,” I manage
to sound duly upset.  “If you suspend me I’ll never get the chance . . .”

He hesitates to dial the next number and studies me.  There is a definite renewed interest in his eyes.

I am in disbelief. 

It’s actually working.

I produce new tears, “I’ve
always
wanted to be a cheerleade
r.  Now my chance is gone . . .
”

I sigh heavily.

Amazingly he puts down the phone.

He clears his throat.

He has decided to give me a second chance on account of my interest in pursuing ‘extra-curricular’ activities. 

I could end up being a real asset to the school, after all.

He will only give me this one chance.  If I don’t take my schoolwork more seriously he will have no choice but to take drastic action.

He does not want to hear of me breaking another school rule.

I am extremely lucky to be getting this chance, he tells me.

I promise him, solemnly, that I will be on my best behaviour.  Then I thank him before leaving his office.

I practically jump for joy after I close the door behind me.  It is not every-day that you get a second chance after all.

There is one unfortunate thing to come out of this though.  I shall have to join the cheerleading squad.

I tell Daniel this.

He is sitting outside the Principal’s office awaiting his turn.  He was caught outside last night as well.  We were the last two leaving the gym and it really worked against us. 

He grins at my predicament, “I think you’ll fit right in as a cheerleader.  You have the blonde hair and everything!”

I smile back, “Yes, but do I look ‘peppy’ to you?”

He laughs as I sit down beside him.

I think back on his complimenting of my human eyes last night.

I find myself really wishing that I looked like human-me again.

Daniel begins telling me a story about a mishap he just had in science class.

Mid-way he turns to look at me and stops dead.

He looks astounded suddenly.

“What?”  I ask, paranoid.

“This isn’t possible,” he remarks, amazed.  “Katy, don’t panic, but I think, eh . . . Katy, you look like you again!”

At first I think he is joking.

Then I glance at my hair.

It is chestnut brown.

“How did this happen?”  I question Daniel.

He doesn’t know, he tells me. 

It is not possible that I am a Mimicker.  They
never
have our blue eyes.  Rather they look human from the time of their change.

No one has ever changed their blue eyes once they have gotten them either.

Daniel
looks somewhere between worried and fascinated.

I did just wish for this to happen.

What if I
made
it happen?

I wonder where these powers are coming from.  They don’t seem to be normal.

I begin to wonder what’s wrong with me.

Daniel runs his hand through my hair.  He seems calm now.

He takes out his camera.  I smile as he takes the picture of the two of us.

On the back of the photo he writes a message.  It tells me not to worry.  I look beautiful, it says.

It is so sweet.  On
c
e again I am left wishing
that
I could think of something beautiful to say.

In the end I decide to kiss him instead.  Unfortunately
the Principal
interrupts
this
.

Daniel’s turn to see him has come.

My boyfriend trudges into the office, glancing back at me once or twice.

He mouths at me to ‘wait there’. 

The boy is taking this protecting me business very seriously.

The Principal
asks me, confused, who I am.

He obviously doesn’t recognise me.

“Katy Dark
wood,” I smile at him sweetly.

Now he looks even more puzzled, “Weren’t you just in with me a second ago?”

“Yes,” I answer, as if everything’s perfectly normal.

He scrutinizes me again, obviously coming to the conclusion that he is losing his marbles.

He mumbles something about giving up ‘the whiskey’ before shutting the door to his office.

I bolt away quickly.

I need to find out what is happening with me.

*

Rejon is upset with me.

He is so upset, in fact, that he left me a note.

Dear Katy (AKA Weakling
Number 110)

Why do you run away? You remind me of a deer in headlights.

I just wanted you to join me.

I would’ve thought
that
you would see it as an honour.

Apparently not.

You have hurt my feelings.

Regards

Rejon

P.S. We will see each other soon.

The last line makes me freeze with fear.

The creepier
thing is that the message is written on
the back of a photo of me.  It was taken a long time ago, on my first day of middle school.

I have no idea how Rejon got this.

There is only one way.  He must have snuck into my home.

I gasp.

I take my
new
phone out of my pocket.

I dial my Mom’s number as fast as I can.

He wanted me to know he was there.  That was why he wrote
the
note on the back of this photo.

Suddenly nowhere seems safe.

Mom answers the phone and greets me.

I am beyond relieved to hear her voice.

The emotion hits me in a burst and I almost cry.

There is no way I could deal with losing her too.

I sit down on my bed.

“Hi Mom,” I say, my voice sounding weak.

“Are you okay?”  She knows there is something wrong straight away.

I can’t say anything.

I’m afraid that
I’ll blurt out everything about the Arac
h
ne
s
and Rejon
, if I say anything at all
.

I wish I could tell her about it all. 

I could always tell her everything before.  It hurts that I can’t share anything now, especially when I’m this scared.

“Is this about me and Riley?”  She sounds concerned, her voice goes so sad, “Katy, I meant to tell you face to face. . . No-one will replace your father, you know that . . .  I know I don’t talk about him a lot, but that’s because it hurts, not because I don’t care . . . Maybe I should’ve talked about him more.”

I try to hold back the tears.  My voice cracks a little, “I love you, Mom.  I want you to know that.”

If Rejon gets me I may not get to speak to her again.  I try to ignore this thought but it keeps coming.

Her voice is deep with emotion, “I love you too
,
Katy.”

She composes herself before she speaks to me again.  Unfortunately she asks how school is going.

I tell her everything it just fine.  I must sound convincing because she doesn’t sense my lie.

A bit of cheer comes into her voice suddenly.

Riley’s home, she says.  She tells him that I’m on the phone.

He sounds upbeat too.  For some reason he wants to talk to me.

“Hey Katy!”  His joy is almost infectious, “Guess what?”

“What?”  I am somewhat intrigued, despite myself.

“My work is bringing me up
a
round your school this evening,” he tells me happily. 

Riley works for a courier company.  He’s on the road most days delivering stuff across our State. 

“Awesome!  Will you get to visit?”  I ask, rather excited despite myself.

I would like to see family right now.

“I was planning on it,” he says.  “I’ll see you soon.”

He gives the phone back to Mom
.

She begins asking me about boys.  Who was that boy she heard the other night?

Daniel, she thought I called him.

I inform her that Daniel is not a person I know.  She is imagining things.

This only makes her twice as suspicious.

She is in the middle of grilling me further when she laughs.

Riley is staring at a spider like it’s his dinner
,
she says.  She tells him to get rid of the thing.

I hear him laugh.  It’s so happy there on the wall, he argues.  Why disturb the pretty little thing? 

She doesn’t find it pretty, apparently.  He is to have the thing out of the house by the time she’s off the phone.

Riley sounds fascinated with the spider. 

I smile.  You would almost think that he was an Arachne.

This is the horrible moment when everything comes together in my head.

The horror completely fills me.

Riley.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.

Chari
smatic.  Someone people love.  Someone people will follow.  That’s what Andrew said about Rejon.

Riley has been showing those characteristics since he was in high school.

He also showed the cruelty.

This is why he wanted me to join him.  Why he didn’t want to kill me.

We’re family
.

I hear him saying that
he
will get rid of the spider.

My shock doesn’t abate.

He just told me he’d see me soon.

That’s pretty much exactly what the photograph said.

Rejon didn’t need
to break into my house
.  He
lives
there.

I am abo
ut to warn my Mom when the line
goes, quite mysteriously, dead.

I don’t know what to do.

I need to warn my Mom somehow.

I need to find Angelica . . . Nate . . . Daniel.  Any one of them will do.  I need to tell my group who he is.

I try redialling Mom’s number.  My phone, inexplicably, cracks in half.

I swallow, afraid for her safety. 

He made this happen to my phone.

Somehow he knows I
’ve
figured it out.  His powers are that immense.

I run out of my room.  I need to find a phone somewhere.

Waiting at the end of the hall are two people I don’t exactly want to see.

Tanya and Cairo.

I begin to back away and run.

It is too late.

Tanya puts her hand on my shoulder.

Her smile is filled with malice.  “Goodnight sweetie, Sleep now.”

*

I wake up in a moving car.

The first thing I notice is the rope tied around my body.  It is extremely tight and uncomfortable.

It is chaffing the skin on my arm.

I can’t move too
much.

All I can do is squirm.  Whoever tied this knew what they were doing.

It isn’t hard to figure out who done it.   There are only two suspects.

Tanya is driving.  Cairo is in the front seat chatting happily to her.