Falling (22 page)

It was a dormitory style room with ten bunk beds lined down each wall of the long thin room. The door was at one end, a tall uncovered window at the other. A few girls were lounging on beds when we walked in and they sat up and looked on in interest as the secretary led me to a bed near the far end.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. As much as I wanted to think they were probably a lot like me, the despair and anger rolling off them said they weren’t. The bed I was shown to had a rusted metal frame and thin wool blanket. I sat down, wondering who would be the first to approach me.

Finally a thin girl with short, mousy hair came to sit on the bed next to me. “You new?” she asked.

I nodded.

“No, I mean you new here or new to juvie.”

“Oh, um, both,” I replied quietly.

She looked at me with clear eyes for a moment then said, “It’s hell. But you’ll get used to it after a while.”

“How bad?” I asked, noticing some of the other girls getting up.

She looked me over. “You’re pretty, so probably pretty bad at first.”

I counted four girls coming over to me and so did the girl I was talking to. “You’ll be okay,” she said, and skittered back over to her own bed.

The four girls came and just stood around my bed, not saying anything. I didn’t say anything either, I just waited for whatever was to come.

Finally the one closest to me jeered, “You probably think you’re better than us, huh?”

“I don’t,” I said quietly.

“Yeah you do, look how much makeup you got on, look at your hair. I bet you think you’re some sort of beauty queen, huh?”

Once again, I cursed Jordan and his world for changing how I looked. All it did was bring negative attention to me. And no matter what I said to these girls, it wouldn’t appease them.

“Well, we all know that beauty’s really on the inside, right girls?”

The ugly girls behind her all nodded savagely.

“What do you say we find out what she looks like on the inside?” she asked with a nasty little grin.

One of the other girls, a blonde one, pulled a pair of long scissors out from behind her back and that finally bolted me off the bed.

“Get off!” I shrieked as three of them jumped on top of me. They only laughed, jabbing knees and elbows into every soft spot I had. I fought back, trying vainly to get out from under them. The claustrophobia was overwhelming. Every move I made they just tightened down harder, limiting the range of motion of each of my limbs degree by degree. They finally had me flat on the bed and the ring leader, the evil redhead, stood over me with the scissors.

She didn’t say anything, just leaned over my face with grim determination. I held my breath and moved only my eyes to watch her, praying she wouldn’t lower the scissors to my face.

She didn’t. With one hand she pulled out my glossy hair and with the other, snipped. She went over my whole head, only inches from m scalp as I lay paralyzed by the weight of the other girls.

Finally she leaned back, cocked her head and observed her handy work. “Yup,” she finally said. “Just as ugly as I thought.” And with that she walked away. The other girls jumped up and followed her. I watched them go back over to their group of beds and pick up their magazines and nail polish like they hadn’t just jumped me and cut off all my hair.

Carefully I swept up my long, copper tresses and folded them into a bun. The first girl to talk to me came back over. “It grows out pretty quick,” she said wistfully, fingering her own sloppy pixie cut.

“Is this for real?” I finally choked out.

She shrugged. “I told you this place was hell.”

“No,” I replied. “It’s revenge for a broken heart.”

She looked at me curiously but didn’t ask. “I’m Minnie,” she offered.

“Bixby,” I whispered.

“That’s kind of a funny name,” she said apologetically.

I looked at her pointedly. “I know, I know. It’s just that the girls with kind of funny names get picked on more. So how come you’re here?”

Her ability to carry on a normal conversation after watching someone get assaulted was incredible. “I honestly don’t even know. My grandma was sick and heard something outside and I know someone was messing with us but …” I didn’t know how to continue. Rather than let my bitterness and anger overwhelm me, I kept the conversation with the friendly girl going. “Why are you here?”

She shrugged and I noticed her shoulders seemed to stay permanently hunched. “My dad wasn’t a good guy. So when I finally had enough I set the house on fire and hoped he wouldn’t get out.”

“Are you serious?” I gasped. “That’s terrible.”

Minnie shrugged. “He lived so I only have to stay in here until I’m eighteen.” She gave a wicked grin. “And they’re making him pay for it.”

I shook my head, horrified and amused at the same time.

“So what really happened to get you in here?” she asked softly.

I looked into her eyes and knew I could trust her. “I fell for the wrong guy. He hurt my brother, he hurt me and now he’s hurt my Grandma. He’s ruined my life.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find my brother and beg his forgiveness and find my grandma and get her out of that nursing home.” I squared my shoulders with resolve. “And then I’m going to find Jordan and kill him.”

Minnie shook her head. “Oh, no. It’s not worth it, look at me. You can’t just go around trying to kill a person because they hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” I said under my breath. “He’s not a person.”

AMBER LIVES AND WORKS IN a beautiful little town right on Lake Michigan with her husband and three children.

Falling
(Book 1 of the Hemlock Bay Series)

Look for the sequel,
Winter’s Dream
, due out October 2012.

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